Degree Prasad Chouhan
In a diverse country and society like India, where people of the some superior class and caste have been living at the highest peak for thousands of years – in a country like that, post independence and the adoption of the Constitution, it is extremely difficult to get the principles of social justice and equality accepted in practical terms by the interest group of that so-called superior class. Therefore, during this period of Brahminical hegemony, their dominance and privileges are prevalent everywhere even without any constitutional reservation. In many progressive institutions, local indigenous leadership is sidelined and rejected outright by calling it ‘identity politics’. One such incident has emerged in the state convention of the Chhattisgarh unit of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL), which works for civil rights in the country, held in Raipur on 06 and 07 November 2024.
Sudha Bhardwaj, the longest serving General Secretary of Chhattisgarh PUCL, settled in Delhi in 2017 and even then she was the General Secretary of Chhattisgarh PUCL. In 2018, when leadership change in Chhattisgarh PUCL was inevitable, Sudha Bhardwaj was arrested in the Shaniwarwada case, which has been widely publicized as the Bhima Koregaon case. Sudha Bhardwaj sent a message while in jail that in her absence, Shalini Gera should be nominated as General Secretary for the upcoming term. Meanwhile, the national convention of PUCL was held in Allahabad, where the representatives of Chhattisgarh PUCL condemned Sudha Bhardwaj’s attempt to impose her successor in this manner. There was a change of leadership in Chhattisgarh PUCL and Sudha Bhardwaj’s intention to nominate a successor failed. However, the new state committee, expressing solidarity with Sudha Bhardwaj against state repression, still nominated her as the General Secretary of PUCL.
After this, the faction exclusively supporting Sudha Bhardwaj in Chhattisgarh PUCL started targeting the new leadership. The activities of the newly formed executive, the issues identified by them, their actions and writing style started being specifically targeted. Rejecting their leadership, one by one all the supporters of Sudha Bhardwaj started withdrawing from the organizational work and started defaming and trolling the Dalit-Tribal leadership on social media like WhatsApp and Facebook. Those who stayed, adopted a stance of non-cooperation towards the Dalit-tribal leadership in Chhattisgarh. An attempt was made to raise the issue of identity politics by writing a fabricated letter by the former organization secretary. As a result, PUCL National General Secretary V. Suresh, Mihir Desai and Himanshu Kumar had to come to Raipur and efforts were made to reconcile. In 2021, the state convention of PUCL again selected this Dalit-Tribal leadership team for the upcoming term. And after this it seems natural that this upper caste savarna group of social activists became restless. They were left with only one way, to use Sudha Bhardwaj’s work in Chhattisgarh and people’s emotional attachment towards her as a tool. They did exactly that, in various renowned civil society groups and conferences of the country, this false narrative was spread that Sudha Bhardwaj has been expelled from Chhattisgarh PUCL. Whereas the reality was the opposite, the reality is that Sudha Bhardwaj remained the General Secretary for the longest period by remaining the General Secretary continuously till 2024.
It is clear that the leadership of Sudha Bhardwaj in Chhattisgarh PUCL has been nurturing the adhoc and collegium system in its organizational working style. Gradually makes inroads among the mass movements and prepares a common platform by uniting small groups according to a plan and then suddenly becomes the self-proclaimed representative of all of them and imposes their agenda. In this way it succeeds in establishing its imported agenda among the innocent local communities. As a civil rights activist, the mysterious silence of this group towards hierarchical inequality, undemocratic tradition and culture, status quoism and barbaric village system is shocking.
It is not that the National PUCL has not been informed from time to time in this regard. Exactly three years ago today, the state unit of Chhattisgarh PUCL had written to the national PUCL that “it seems that since Chhattisgarh PUCL has moved from being individual-centric and a collection of many organizations to becoming people-centric, or attempts have been made to adopt local Dalit-Tribal leadership and democratic processes, since then a factional-like environment has developed within PUCL. And these internal influencing factors have continuously hindered the working leadership from working. Their emphasis is on manners and etiquette of conversation, spreading false rumors and disinformation on social media, conducting separate and parallel activities, etc. It has also come to light that some officials of the national leadership are targeting some officials of the state and using traditional methods of economic barricade against them. At a time when state repression is at its peak, the traditional dominant forces in Indian society are also working with all their might against civil rights. Their spread and prevalence is everywhere, for a time these forces were working very liberally and with restraint, but now circumstances have been created for direct conflict with them, unfortunately, Chhattisgarh PUCL has also not remained untouched by this.”
In fact, non-provincial and Brahminist forces are trying to make PUCL in Chhattisgarh a laboratory for the oppression of the mainstream versus the outcasts. Sudha Bhardwaj faction, through Durg Bhilai centered Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha and Bilaspur centered Gurughasidas Sevadar Sangh, exerted pressure to include non-PUCL members in the state convention contrary to the rules and contrary to PUCL rules, the executive was selected arbitrarily without the attendance ratio of one-third of the members. During the elections, such a scene was also seen that the presidential candidate himself refused to contest the election but he was suppressed which was ignored by the National Observer, when the voting took place, there also the candidate voted for his nearest rival. But in this entire process, Kavita Srivastava, who was present there as a national observer, did not make any objection and allowed it to happen. In a repeat of the situation in which the State convention was postponed citing the attendance ratio rules of the members in the convention held in March last year, the National Observer showed favoritism by adopting a dual policy. On the complaint of parallel activities by the outgoing executive in the name of PUCL, She said that “National General Secretary and former President Prabhakar Sinha was consulted in this regard, on which they expressed extreme surprise by objecting to the use of the word non-organizational activities.”
It is a fact that in this state convention, a press conference was proposed to be organized in Raipur on the issue of Balodabazar fire incident and state repression by arresting hundreds of Dalits and keeping them in jail for a long time. GSS has opposed this proposal in PUCL. This group of upper caste social activists and representatives of creamy layer communities among Dalit-tribals is specifically targeting the organizational, working committee and tribal-dalit leadership of PUCL Chhattisgarh to humiliate them, this group was eagerly waiting for an environment conducive to creating hindrances in its work and deliberate non-cooperation, so this group seized this opportunity. The alliance of Mukti Morcha and GSS (Both these organizations are upper caste oriented in their practical character and are not beyond party political ambitions) has been done as a well thought out strategy by the upper caste social activists sitting in the metropolitan city to marginalize the local Dalit, tribal and women leadership of Chhattisgarh. Now Chhattisgarh PUCL has become just a colony of other organizations.
Needless to say, reactionaries have infiltrated into the mass movements in the guise of social workers. A direct example of this is reflected in the decrees banning non-Hindu religions in tribal areas and incidents of dead and buried bodies of tribal Christians being taken out of graveyards and thrown outside the traditional boundaries of the village. We saw how in the Chhattisgarh Assembly elections of 2018, how these forces were making efforts for a particular political party to make the issues of mass movements and mass struggles the manifesto of that particular party. Their special emphasis and objective is only to unite and organize people’s struggles against the oppression of state power. Although I do not think that there is any constitutional problem in this, questions do arise on their intentions and mysterious silence on majority religion-power, caste-power and patriarchy.
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Degree Prasad Chouhan is active in the anti-caste movement in Chhattisgarh and is the outgoing president of PUCL Chhattisgarh.
