Is Alpesh Thakor the reason Bihari and UP migrants are being made to flee Gujarat?
While India can claim several regions to have become open-defecation free, we are still far from declaring any community or region as rape-free. Men continue to rape women and girls across the country. The backlash faced by the Bihari community in Gujarat over the rape of a 14-month-old baby is thus clearly a crime directed more at people from a certain region than rape per se. People from Uttar Pradesh working in Gujarat too came under attack from those targeting Biharis.
Thousands of people are leaving Gujarat heading back to their home states after targeted attacks allegedly fanned by Congress MLA Alpesh Thakor and men from Gujarat Kshatriya Thakor Sena (GKTS), an organisation Thakor heads.
How it started
On September 28, a 14-month-old girl was allegedly raped by a migrant worker. The accused, a migrant worker, was arrested. The rape and subsequent messages on social media triggered violence and mass exodus of migrants to UP, Bihar and MP.
Thakor had raked up the issue of non-Gujaratis while demanding justice for the rape victim.
Meanwhile, the mother of the accused man in the case has urged Gujaratis to punish her son if he is guilty, but not target other Biharis, who are earning their livelihood there.
Gujarat DGP Shivanand Jha, on his part, has attributed the flight to an annual phenomenon around festival season. Jha said: “If people are leaving for home for a festival, it should not be seen otherwise. I have told my officers to visit residential areas, and if required, visit bus stands and railway stations and if people are found leaving due to fear, (then to) persuade them to come back.”
Several news organisations have, meanwhile, reported accounts of people who fear for their lives in Gujarat and have thus decided to leave.
The political slugfest
In keeping with the tradition of how parties react to crises that can have even the slightest impact on vote bank, the BJP and Congress are busy blaming each other over the disturbing developments.
Accusing Gujarat Congress leaders of instigating the violence, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra asked Congress president Rahul Gandhi to expel Thakor for his “venomous” speeches that allegedly incited local residents to attack outsiders.
The Congress shot back asking Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani to observe his “raj dharma (duty)”. The party also sought an apology from Rupani’s Uttar Pradesh counterpart Yogi Adityanath for giving a “clean chit to the Gujarat government”. Adityanath, on his part, said that those attacking the Gujarat government for the recent attacks on Biharis as jealous of the development work done in the state.
There is zero accountability on how a community is being forced to flee from a part of India in complete violation of its constitutional rights. This when Thakor has accepted that people involved in the attacks could have been GKTS members. Interestingly, Thakor has also announced that he will sit on an indefinite ‘sadbhavna fast’ from the 11th of October demanding the withdrawal of ‘false cases’ against the members of GKTS following the instances of violence in the state.
The fate of Biharis
Hailing from a state which is called a Bimaru state for the lack of development or even a promising development roadmap, many people from the state step out in search of work.
What they encounter across the length and breadth of India is a mindset that assumes all Biharis are illiterate, corrupt, law-breakers; they are the ones who have taken their jobs, their lands, their seats in colleges; they are menial workers.
While in a globalised world, we are increasingly discussing how Indians are being treated abroad, no concern is being shown to the discrimination that is taking place within the country itself. The discrimination that is making Biharis run for cover in a country that belongs as much to them as anyone else.
From India’s last village of Turtuk in Ladakh to the country’s financial capital Mumbai, Biharis are helping build and shape India. But India seems to be failing them.
When the Delhi gang rape happened in 2012, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray blamed Biharis for rapes, in 2018, Thakor seems to have taken a leaf from the MNS chief.
Raj Thackeray wasn’t punished for his hate speech targeting Biharis, in all likelihood Tahkor would go scot-free too. There is little hope that Biharis will be given their due dignity anytime soon.