Dalit activist suicide led Gujarat in strife against state and detainment of Jignesh Mevani.

Abhilasha Bhrambhatt
Feb 18, 2018
3 min read

Protest in Gujarat over activist suicide

Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Patan are strangled in the strife on the highways of Northern Gujarat on Sunday. Peaceful protesters blocked roads but some unidentified people torched vehicles over the Dalit activist Bhanubhai Vanakar self-immolation against the "Administration ignorance".

MLA Jignesh Mevani detained by State police.

The protest got fueled in violent strife after MLA Jignesh Mevani was detained in Ahmedabad, with crime branch officials saying the Dalit leader misbehaved with police. While viral videos on internet show a very opposite interpretation.

https://youtu.be/y96v1RsimyM

A total of 70 people were detained on Sunday.

Dalit activist set himself ablaze over "Administration ignorance"

The picture of strife picked its first dot on Thursday afternoon when Gujarat Dalit community lost his 60 years old Dalit activist, Babubhai Venkar to” Administration ignorance”.

Dalit activist Bhanubhai Vankar was continuously visiting concerned administrations for the regularization of a piece of land allotted to a Dalit family living in Dudkha village, Patan district.

A landless Dalit labour, Hemaben Vankar alleged that the authorities are refusing to regularize the piece of land sanctioned to landless Dalit farmer, despite collecting 22,236 RS/- for the transfer.

As the Patan district administration was delaying the regularization from the date of sanction, number of Dalit activist and family members of allotted were continuously writing to the legislation and administration of the state to the matter and implement.

A week ago the incident, Hemaben Vankar and late Bhanubhai Vankar had submitted memorandum clearly stating about the self-immolation if the case was further delayed to the collector.

But the administration of Patan district didn’t take the memorandum seriously and remained unfertile on the expectations of Dalit community.

Thwarted with the behavior of administration, number of Dalit activists stormed in the office of collector, but were off by police, only Late Bhanubhai Vankar managed to enter the Collector Office premises by jumping over the barricade. There Bhanubhai vankar drenched himself ans set ablaze his body to protest against the delay in regularizing the delay.

His self-immolation left him only 5% unburnt, when police saved him, he was 95% burned. The protestor was moved from collector’s office to nearest local hospital, then to Apollo for treatment.

Bhanubhai suicide attempt for the benefit of community members agitated and united the Dalit community against administrations and BJP.

People assembled out of the Gandhinagar Civil Hospital where Late Bhanubhai body was brought for post mortem, booed away BJP legislator and Dalit community leader Karsan Solanki, who were there to meet family members of Bhanubhai.

On the other hand MLA Jignesh Mevani and Alpesh were present with Hardik patel.

State concern over strife and stress in Gujarat

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani assured that chief secretary J.N. Singh would conduct an inquiry and that appropriate action would be taken. Earlier, Chief Minister even took the charge of complete expense to be spent on Bhanubhai’s treatment.

The stress within community and state government is spreading wide. Thousands of people has turned on road and are blocking highways.

As precaution to the strife State authorities cancelled dozens of buses on several routes.

The measurements from governments are late and raising the curb high. Stating “This is not suicide, this is murder. This government forces Dalits to take the extreme step,”

Mr. Mevani has demanded suspension of the Collector and Superintendent of Police holding them responsible for driving the community members to take extreme steps to press for their rights.

Bhanubhai family has refused too from taking the body after postmortem till demands of land allotment, suspension of ignorant officials and constitution of SIT to probe Dalit Activist death.

Organisation, Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch, has given a call for Patan Bandh on February 16 to protest against the “administration negligence” in the transfer of lands to Dalit, “forcing activist to go extreme”(self-immolation) to show cause the distress caused by the delay.

The pre-decided peaceful protest was about to happen at Ambedkar statue in Sarangpur, Ahmedabad. The protest was organized by Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch to meet the demands of deceased Bhanuji (sic) family.

Following which, Sunday morning, Gujarat police detained MLA Jignesh Mevani from his way to the protest in support of the cause for which activist Late Bhanubhai Varnakar did self-immolation.

Videos of MLA Jignesh Mevani getting detained are going viral on social media. Video show MLA Jignesh Mevani getting pulled out in uncivilized manner, his car keys were broken.