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Guns 'N' Roses
Digvijay
Singh's decision to offer arms licences to Dalits raises uneasy questions
about his underlying political motives. India Today's Special Correspondent
Neeraj Mishra reports.
Digvijay
Singh's frequent trips to Uttar Pradesh to campaign for the Congress as
a key partyman has taught him a few lessons for the benefit of his own
state. For one, it has strengthened his resolve to keep the BSP out and
not let the Congress' Dalit votebank disintegrate like it has in Uttar
Pradesh. In an all-out move to woo the Dalits, he has announced a series
of sops. Among them is his latest move to give them gun licenses on a
preferential basis.
Significantly, the decision comes close on the heels of a report recently
released by the National Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Commission,
headed by Dilip Singh Bhuria, which ranked Madhya Pradesh in the third
slot—after Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan—as far as crimes against
SCs are concerned. The report said an average of 5,000 cases of all kinds
of crimes under the Harijan Act are committed in the state every year.
This being the case, Digvijay justified his move in giving the Dalits
arms licences. "We have now decided to give preference to the Dalits
if they apply for these licences,'' said the chief minister, who has reportedly
decided to call a national seminar of Dalit intellectuals in Bhopal in
January. Among the issues that will apparently be raised at the meet is
the general perception that social odds are weighed heavily against the
Dalits in at least a dozen districts in the state. These districts include
the Chambal belt as well as Chatarpur-Panna-Khajuraho-Sagar region where
the caste system still exists in its worst forms. Most crimes under the
Harijan Act are committed in these regions, were dacoity is also rampant.
Politically speaking, these areas are the strongholds
Samajwadi Party. And that is what is of greater concern to Digvijay. By
wooing the Dalits in a novel way, the chief minister is hoping to make
a dent in the two parties' caste base. Besides offering the Dalits gun
licences, he has been particularly considerate in dealing with those who
have been victims Dalits of various atrocities.
The Dalits constitute nearly 15 per cent of the state's population of
7 crore. For an average of 2,000 offences committed against the Dalits
every year which require financial compensation, the treasury doles out
Rs 4.5 crore. In other words, the compensation offered to a Dalit victim
works out to over Rs 2 lakh a case.
This apart, frequent circulars are issued by the Home Department which
remind bank officials that any creditor trying to extract money from a
debtor Dalit through abetment or molestation (pratadna) can be punished
under sections of the IPC or the Harijan Act. Each district of the state
has a harijan thana which also explains why reported cases of atrocities
against the Harijans are so high. "In the Chambal region, the division
in society along caste lines is so stark that Harjans have to have their
own gangs to counter upper caste atrocities,'' says Rajendra Chaturvedi,
ADG, who has served in the valley for years.
In such a scenario, opinion over the propreity of offering guns to Dalits
is divided. The questions being raised are whether it will serve as an
effective deterrent or whether it would bring about a spurt in crime.
"The decision is shortsighted. Guns have never solved any problem,"
says BJP spokesman Prabhat Jha. "From government records, it is clear
that crimes against Harijans account for less than 3 per cent of the total
crimes in the state."
Home Minister Mahendra Baudh has his own logic though. "There are
more than one lakh licensed gun holders in the state and the percentage
of Dalits among them is also less than three. How do we justify this?''
he asks. At the same time, however, the minister must ask himself whether
balancing the distributio
ty with the state or developing schemes which reduce friction between
them? Clearly, the Digvijay Government knows elections are won on fanning
sentiments.
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