Recently parts of Maharashtra were rocked with caste violence, as a result of the 200th celebrations of British victory over Peshwas, which is spun by ‘alternate historians’ as a victory of Dalits over Brahmins.
The 200th celebratory event in Bhima Koregaon, Maharashtra, which contained invitees like controversial Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani and anti-national sloganeer Umar Khalid, was marred with violence, in which at-least 75 cars were battered and one person died.
The violence which was initially confined to regions in Pune district, soon spilled over to Mumbai, with protesters damaging many buses and disrupting road, rail traffic. In the resulting action by the administration, at least 100 protesters were detained in the Maharashtra capital.
It was alleged that Jignesh Mevani was also involved in this whole affair, after Republic TV aired a clip which showed him inciting people. As reported, he was saying that the discussion should be held in state assemblies as well as in Parliament, but the battle will be on the streets.
Now in order to quell such caste based conflicts, the RSS has come up with a draft action plan to contain caste fault lines.
This plan was brought forth after a series of meetings, where the top Sangh brass brainstormed upon ways to combat the growing unrest among Dalits. RSS as a result will be reaching out to the Dalits and stop the caste fault lines from widening. RSS during this process has also held meetings with Dalit representatives to drive home the point about Hindu unity.
In order to achieve that, the RSS would be distributing old speeches of erstwhile Sangh leaders, which will refer to their calls for ending caste based discrimination. The RSS has been blaming communists and ultra-left sympathisers for stoking caste clashes.
The BJP too has reportedly been asked to counter these caste fault lines by aggressively pushing the “development for all” agenda.
It remains to be seen how effective this plan turns out to be, and whether we can witness further caste homogeneity in the coming years.