Huge turnout at protest against Dalit atrocities catapults the group to national stage

Last week when Bhim Army founder Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan, while being underground, called for a massive protest at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi against Dalit atrocities, many of the workers and leaders of the group were not sure if they would actually be able to mobilise crowds from their essentially rural support base in western Uttar Pradesh, to the national capital more than 100 km away.

‘Turnout an eye-opener’

“But the turnout was an eye-opener and gave us confidence that the Bhim Army had evolved and matured into a social movement,” said Satpal Tanwar, a leader in Saharanpur.

The crowd at Jantar Mantar on Sunday, according to the Delhi Police, was about 10,000. Bhim Army leaders and workers, however, disagreed and said the crowd was more than 20,000.

Many told The Hindu that the caste clashes in Saharanpur and the “subsequent success of its Jantar Mantar protest has catapulted the Dalit group to the national stage and led to discussion about its possible role in Dalit politics and activism.”

The Bhim Army Ekta Mission is the full name of the group, which was established in July 2015 by Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan with the sole aim of empowering Dalits through education.However, the group, which has been silently working among Dalits and now runs almost 300 schools in Saharanpur and districts in its vicinity, shot to national prominence due to its protests against the atrocities in Saharanpur.

“We are aware that the Bhim Army has become a point of discussion in the mainstream discourse about Dalit politics but at this point we are still a social organisation and our complete focus is on Dalit empowerment through education,” said Mr. Tanwar. Mr. Azad Ravan and most of the other Bhim Army leaders remain inaccessible on phone due to police crackdown on them.

Mr. Tanwar said that if the demand for justice to Dalits at the Jantar Manatr protest did not reach the Yogi Adityanath government then the next venue would be the Ramleela Maidan.

Many workers of the outfit told The Hindu that the immediate priority is getting justice and compensation for the affected Dalits in Shabbirpur.

(In an earlier version of this article, "Bhim" was misspelled as "Bheem")