By Sushil Kutty
The grim truth holds that everybody Indian belongs to some or the other caste. Even Muslims and Christians. Prime Minister Narendra Modi identifies with an OBC. A Chief Minister has a caste. Criminals also have caste. Caste equations play important political roles. There was the ‘MY’ before the ‘PDA’. Riding the PDA, Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party beat Yogi Adityanath’s BJP to second place.
It rankles. The second-place. The BJP is now amenable to Rahul Gandhi’s demand for a Caste Census. Caste politics creeps in no matter what, how and when. And caste politics has taken on a frenetic pace in the run-up to the 10 bypolls in Uttar Pradesh. Both BJP and Samajwadi Party are keeping caste politics by raking up caste in whatever transpires in the state.
Encounter-killings, for instance. With Yogi Adityanath at the helm, there is no way crime will be brushed under the carpet. The Yogi’s election plank is fighting crime with both bulldozer and encounter-killings. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath never tires of “mitti mei mila dunga” rhetoric. Gangster-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed and his brother were shot dead in police custody.
Custodial killings are part of crime-control tactics. The Yogi Adityanath regime practices encounter-killings with uncommon gusto. Uttar Pradesh seems to like them, second only to bulldozer action though the Supreme Court put a spoke in the bulldozer’s wheel much to the relief of the Samajwadi Party’s cycle!
Today, encounter-killings are the flavour of the election season. Most recently not one but there were two encounter-killings in quick succession with the caste of the “victims” finding prominence. Police killed a Yadav and former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav accused Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of target-killing members of the Yadav caste.
What happens next is the police killing of a criminal belonging to Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s ‘Thakur’ caste. If that doesn’t “balance out”, what will? Shouldn’t killings of criminals in police custody be counted as murders? Besides, it is not just custodial killings in Uttar Pradesh alone.
The latest Uttar Pradesh encounter killing was that of a Thakur, Anuj Pratap Singh. His father laments that his “old age insurance” has been snatched away for good! His sister says Akhilesh Yadav must be happy now that a Thakur has been killed in exchange. The only conclusion is, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav, both play the caste game with the finesse of no-holds barred politicians.
The Maharashtra encounter killing was that of the Badlapur child molester, who allegedly snatched the revolver of a policeman and shot at the police escorting him. In the melee, two cops were wounded and Akshay Shinde was declared dead fighting bullet wounds.
What stood out was the surge in the ‘Shinde’ surname. Sexual molester Akshay Shinde shot dead by Inspector Sanjay Shinde, much to the satisfaction of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde. But if the Uttar Pradesh encounter-killings have taken on casteist undertones, then that of Maharashtra comes embroiled in accusations of a staged killing.
People’s anger against the molestation of two 4-year-old KG students had to be addressed immediately. The Maharashtra Assembly elections are just days away and the Chief Minister Eknath Shinde-led Mahayuti Alliance wasn’t going great guns. Therefore, making political capital out of calls for capital punishment for Akshay Shinde couldn’t have culminated with greater timing.
The UP encounter killing of Anuj Pratap Singh followed that of Mangesh Yadav on September 5. Mangesh and Anuj Pratap were accomplices in a jewelry store robbery. Mangesh Yadav’s encounter-killing was spoken of as a targeted caste encounter but that of Anuj Pratap Singh was prim-and-proper just desserts. When politics meets caste, the rules of the game go haywire.
Akshay Shinde and Anuj Pratap Singh were killed in alleged staged killings more than 1000 kilometres apart. Neither police of the two states spared the bullet to spoil their image. Encounter-killings cannot be trusted. And they’re happening more often than ever before.
For Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, one more criminal shot dead shored up his tough-against-crime image, while for Akhilesh Yadav, the slain criminal’s caste made all the political difference. Anuj Pratap Singh is now the Thakur poster-boy while Akhilesh Yadav took to heart the encounter-killing of Mangesh Yadav because Mangesh was “Yadav.”
With Uttar Pradesh set for 10 bypolls, the Samajwadi Party-led Opposition and the Yogi Adityanath government are blaming each other for inflaming casteist politics. And nothing works better when casteist-politics comes laced in criminal acts. Who can forget Phoolan Devi and how her caste made her a much sought after politician?
The August 28 Sultanpur jewellery store robbery is fully politically charged with caste and crime combined, leaving nothing to the imagination. Both Mangesh Yadav and Anuj Pratap Singh have acquired heroic-halos with elections round the corner in UP. Akhilesh Yadav is on record that Mangesh Yadav was killed because he was ‘Yadav’ and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has been accused of using his “Special Thakur Force” to carry out “caste-based encounters.” (IPA
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