In Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly town, a symbol of Dalit identity ‘bulldozed’

The rising practice of installation of statues of B.R. Ambedkar by Dalit communities in U.P. have met with forceful administrative action, apart from vandalism and defacement from other opponents

In the Sahookara neighbourhood of Sirauli town, on the margins of Bareilly district in Uttar Pradesh, a small tempo-truck arrived on the night of November 6, carrying a freshly painted, five-feet-tall statue, made in Meerut with money crowdfunded over eight-12 months. The platform on which the statue was to stand was ready, work on which had been on for weeks now. There was excitement in the neighbourhood of Jatav families. The statue was installed that very night. 

While the face of the statue did not bear a very good resemblance, the blue suit, red tie and dark-rimmed spectacles, with one arm raised and the other carrying the Constitution of India, made it unmistakable. The community’s idol, B.R. Ambedkar, now stood in their town square. 

But 24 hours later, a harsh police crackdown followed. Battered locals stood around, some bleeding, others bruised, and all they could see was the work of a bulldozer that had reduced the statue to a rubble of brick and mortar. 

The Sirauli police and the district administration have maintained that the statue was installed “illegally” on public land and that when they asked the locals to remove it, they were met with stone-pelting, as a result of which “light force” was used to disperse the crowd and remove the statue “respectfully”.

However, the residents who now remain in Sahookara said that personnel from five police stations arrived in their town, some of whom had climbed atop the roofs of their homes, from where they fired tear gas shells, while others “came into our homes to beat us up brutally while using casteist slurs”. They added that the statue was eventually removed by the authorities with the help of a bulldozer.

Amid political parties engaging in “competitive statue-building” — from that of Sardar Patel and Netaji to that of Ambedkar and Periyar, the practice of Dalit communities in northern India installing statues of Ambedkar as a way of asserting their identity has witnessed a rise in recent years. This comes even as defacing or vandalising these symbols has increasingly become a way for upper caste Hindus to counter-assert their identity, say activists working in the area.  

In the last one year or so, more than half-a-dozen cases have been reported in Uttar Pradesh of statues of Ambedkar either being vandalised or defaced by what the police called “miscreants”, which have from time to time triggered protests from organisations like the Bhim Army. As many similar incidents have also been reported in States such as Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.