When Akhilesh Yadav assumed office of the chief minister of Uttar-Pradesh, many of us had felt that it was a wise decision by the SP chief Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav in the interest of the state. In his initial press conferences, the incumbent chief minister actually refused to be drawn in the controversy of parks. But Mulayam Singh and his son Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav were deeply disappointed the people like us. We thought that Akhilesh singh would come out of the coterie of his party which not only had criminal background but socially most of them had been working against the interests of the DALIT. But situation is completely reversed , SP leaders and their cadres were instigating violence against Dalits in the urban and rural areas. Most of the leaders of the party have a history with anti dalit agendas. Many of them had actually threatened to withdraw ‘Prevention of Atrocities Act’ in Uttar-Pradesh.
The Samajwadi party leadership in the state has targeted Dalits in such a way as if they alone have been the beneficiary of all the government programmes. The recent orders of changing the names of various schemes as well as disbanding some of them reflect the mindset of the political leadership in the state. Mayawati might be political rival of Samajwadi Party but she has also initiated many schemes which were very innovative and helped the most marginalized people in the state. It is shocking to see that the state government has decided to close Ambedkar Gram Vikas Yojna which was the most important project of the BSP government. This actually brought various schemes of the government in the villages like Primary Health Centre, connecting road, primary schools etc to make it a comprehensive developmental package for the most marginalized villages with substantial Dalit population. One does not know what exactly will be the nature of the schemes but it has been disbanded and now a new scheme for village development has been initiated as Lohia Gram Vikas Yojna. The state government is also targeting various new districts developed by Ms Mayawati.
None can deny the facts that Dalits have not got due share for their contribution in India. The revolutionaries of the Dalit Bahujan movements in India never found space in the central locations or mainstream political discourse which was reserved for the high caste Hindus. Uttar-Pradesh which has so many important Buddhist destinations did not even recognize them before Mayawati initiated the process of renovating them and restoring them to their historical root. In fact, despite all her short comings and distances with people, Mayawati should be credited to restore the Buddhist heritage of India. That contribution of her needs to be acknowledged and respected. India as land of Buddha has unfortunately never adopted as his ideas threatened the status quo of the brahmanical elite in the country.
but it should desist in targeting the parks or memorials as they are symbols of the rich legacy of the Dalit Bahujan movement in India. They were the people who we can proudly say propagated humanism in India. The Samajwadi government has no authority to undo a historical monument just because it wants to placate the upper caste votes. It would not serve any purpose as it might face wide ranging protest from its own people.
It is unfortunate that the Uttar-Pradesh government is not working with a positive agenda. The Samajwadi Party came to power with a number of promises to youths and farmers. It promised to pay unemployment allowance to youths and distribution of laptop to every student who has passed his intermediate exams. Now, after coming to power, they seems to have realized that all these promises are difficult to fulfill hence unearthing everything that Mayawati did during her tenures and blaming her for ever failure of the government.
Akhilesh and his advisers must known that Ram Manohar Lohia was a great admirer of Baba Saheb Ambedkar and he should need to read Jyoti Ba Phule, Shahuji Maharaj, EV Ramasamy Naicar Periyar apart from Baba Saheb Ambedkar who worked for Dalit and OBC.
It would be better if Akhilesh focuses on governance and development and not on creating caste animosities among various segments of the society. At the end of the day, his government will have to deliver otherwise people of the state will not wait for too long.
