Kavitha Iyer - At Bhima Koregaon, a search for answers without the anger. Hundreds of thousands gather at memorial
They came from across
the country, boys from a hip-hop crew wearing low-slung jeans and their hair in
dramatic cuts, colours and braids; first-timer senior citizens camping around a
bonfire; a barefoot Bhante, or Buddhist monk, who walked 48 days to get here;
flag-waving activists.
In the minutes leading
up to midnight at the Jaystambh memorialising the battle of Bhima Koregaon,
it was a sombre Dalit chant, not sloganeering, that stirred the gathering. On
the 201st anniversary to mark the victory of a British regiment including Mahar
soldiers over a Peshwa army, the nearly 5,000 people who spent the night of
December 31 around the memorial spoke of their search for solutions to caste
stigma that see beyond aggression.
On January 1, 2019, a
year after one person was killed and several injured in clashes and rioting,
over three lakh people visited the memorial under a heavy security cover. Laxmi
Wamanrao Kamble, 68, of Hingoli district was among the 300 who joined Bhante
Gyan Jyoti from the Ramdegi Buddhist temple in Chandrapur on a 48-day padyatra
to Bhima Koregaon. She has never been here before. “I feel pure joy to be
here,” said the grandmother who is on a journey to various Ambedkarite sites.
“Last year’s violence was an exception — the message to us here is idealism.
There’s no heaven or hell, we just have to make our own heaven here,” she said.
Her group walked 700 km, carrying blankets and warm clothes, and surviving on
meals contributed by villagers along the way.
Activists of various Dalit organisations
that erected pandals for those spending the night on the 4-acre plot of land
said this year saw many first-timers, including from outside Maharashtra. The
violence last January 1 and the subsequent spotlight on Bhima Koregaon led many
to add it to their annual pilgrimages. “We go to Deekshabhoomi in Nagpur and
Chaityabhoomi in Mumbai every year, but Babasaheb (B R Ambedkar) himself called
this Shauryabhoomi,” said Padmin Khandare of Akola... read more:
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/bhima-koregaon-bhim-army-chandrashekhar-azad-dalits-jaystambh-5519194/
