Cops offload 45 Gujarat Dalits at Jhansi rly station for taking 125-kg soap to protest UP CM's "anti-Dalit" behaviour

Cops surround Dalits at Jhansi railway station

By A Representative

About 45 Gujarat Dalits, carrying 125 kg soap, with imprint of Gautam Budhha on it, have been offloaded at Jhanshi railway station. Travelling by Sabarmati Express, which they boarded with the soap on Saturday evening, the Dalits had planned to take the soap and deliver it to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, telling him to “clean up” his views on Dalits.
“The yellow coloured soap is a replica of the type used by ordinary Dalits in Gujarat to take their bath. We had planned to deliver it to Adityanath in protest against his government’s despicable behaviour of giving soap and shampoo to Dalits, asking them to come clean before he met them at Kushanagar in UP this May”, said one of the Dalits on board with the soap.

A cop taking photo of 125 kg soap for Yogi

“The cops were following us ever since we boarded Sabarmati Express in Ahmedabad on Saturday evening. They first checked each one’s identity card and then took is to boarded us to sit in separate compartments. At Jhansi, we found, there was a big police contingent waiting for us. It forcibly asked to get down from the train along with the soap”, the participant added.
Soon after the Dalits were offloaded, they first sat on dharna, refusing to go with the cops. However, after an hour, they were all taken outside the railway station to a government guest house in Jhansi, where the police officials told them that there was a “threat” of a possible attack on them, hence they were asked to get down from the train.

Outside Jhansi Railway Police station

Well-known social activist Martin Macwan, founder of Gujarat’s biggest Dalit rights NGO, Navsarjan Trust, displayed the 125 kg soap in Ahmedabad on June 8, saying, “We want to tell Adityanath that he has insulted Dalits. It is an insult to the memory of Gautam Buddha, too, who 2500 years ago accepted a manual scavenger, Sumit, as his follower, thus becoming the first person in India to reject untouchability.”
“And it is an insult to Kushanagar, where the Buddha acquired Nirvana”, Macwan, who is winner of the prestigious Robert F Kennedy Human Rights Award in 2000 for his fight for Dalit rights in Gujarat, had further said.

Huge police contingent at Jhansi to stop 25 Gujarat Dalits

Two academics, Pravin Mishra and Suman Kaur, engraved Gautam Buddha’s image on the soap as a reminder to Yogi that he needs to cleanse himself from within instead of asking Dalits to “come clean” to meet him. The soap’s weight equals the 125th birth anniversary of Dalit icon Dr BR Ambedkar, who fought untouchability all his life.

A second soap taken to be delivered to the UP chief minister was a smaller one with Gautam Buddha engraved on it by Ramesh Sarvaiya, one of the four young Dalits who was severely flogged by hand of cow vigilantes in Una on July 11 last year on suspicion of cow slaughter, though they were skinning a dead cow, a hereditary occupation.
The soap was being taken to Lucknow under the banner of Dr Ambedkar Vechan Pratibandh Samiti, or Stop Selling Dr Ambedkar Committee, which ran a fortnight-long programme across Gujarat towns in June demonstrating against elected Dalit representatives of BJP and Congress, seeking answer on what they had done for their welfare.

Comments

Gujarat Information Commission issues warning against misinterpretation of RTI orders

By A Representative The Gujarat Information Commission (GIC) has issued a press note clarifying that its orders limiting the number of Right to Information (RTI) applications for certain individuals apply only to those specific applicants. The GIC has warned that it will take disciplinary action against any public officials who misinterpret these orders to deny information to other citizens. The press note, signed by GIC Secretary Jaideep Dwivedi, states that the Right to Information Act, 2005, is a powerful tool for promoting transparency and accountability in public administration. However, the commission has observed that some applicants are misusing the act by filing an excessive number of applications, which disproportionately consumes the time and resources of Public Information Officers (PIOs), First Appellate Authorities (FAAs), and the commission itself. This misuse can cause delays for genuine applicants seeking justice. In response to this issue, and in acc...

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

Uttarakhand tunnel disaster: 'Question mark' on rescue plan, appraisal, construction

By Bhim Singh Rawat* As many as 40 workers were trapped inside Barkot-Silkyara tunnel in Uttarkashi after a portion of the 4.5 km long, supposedly completed portion of the tunnel, collapsed early morning on Sunday, Nov 12, 2023. The incident has once again raised several questions over negligence in planning, appraisal and construction, absence of emergency rescue plan, violations of labour laws and environmental norms resulting in this avoidable accident.

'MGNREGA crisis deepening': NSM demands fair wages and end to digital exclusions

By A Representative The NREGA Sangharsh Morcha (NSM), a coalition of independent unions of MGNREGA workers, has warned that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is facing a “severe crisis” due to persistent neglect and restrictive measures imposed by the Union Government.

Job opportunities decreasing, wages remain low: Delhi construction workers' plight

By Bharat Dogra* It was about 32 years back that a hut colony in posh Prashant Vihar area of Delhi was demolished. It was after a great struggle that the people evicted from here could get alternative plots that were not too far away from their earlier colony. Nirmana, an organization of construction workers, played an important role in helping the evicted people to get this alternative land. At that time it was a big relief to get this alternative land, even though the plots given to them were very small ones of 10X8 feet size. The people worked hard to construct new houses, often constructing two floors so that the family could be accommodated in the small plots. However a recent visit revealed that people are rather disheartened now by a number of adverse factors. They have not been given the proper allotment papers yet. There is still no sewer system here. They have to use public toilets constructed some distance away which can sometimes be quite messy. There is still no...

Rally in Patna: Non-farmer bodies to highlight plight of agriculture in Eastern India ahead of march to Parliament

P Sainath By A Representative Ahead of the march to Parliament on November 29-30, 2018, organized by over 210 farmer and agricultural worker organisations of the country demanding a 21-day special session of Parliament to deliberate on remedial measures for safeguarding the interest of farm, farmers and agricultural workers, a mass rally been organized for November 23, Gandhi Sangrahalaya (Gandhi Museum), Gandhi Maidan, Patna. Say the organizers, the Eastern region merits special attention, because, while crisis of farmers and agricultural workers in Western, Southern and Northern India has received some attention in the media and central legislature, the plight of those in the Eastern region of the country (Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Orissa, Chhattisgarh and Eastern UP) has remained on the margins. To be addressed by P Sainath, founder of People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI), a statement issued ahead of the rally says, the Eastern India was the most prosperous regi...

India's health workers have no legal right for their protection, regrets NGO network

Counterview Desk In a letter to Union labour and employment minister Santosh Gangwar, the civil rights group Occupational and Environmental Health Network of India (OEHNI), writing against the backdrop of strike by Bhabha hospital heath care workers, has insisted that they should be given “clear legal right for their protection”.

As 2024 draws nearer, threatening signs appear of more destructive wars

By Bharat Dogra The four years from 2020 to 2023 have been very difficult and high risk years for humanity. In the first two years there was a pandemic and such severe disruption of social and economic life that countless people have not yet recovered from its many-sided adverse impacts. In the next two years there were outbreaks of two very high-risk wars which have worldwide implications including escalation into much wider conflicts. In addition there were highly threatening signs of increasing possibility of other very destructive wars. As the year 2023 appears to be headed for ending on a very grim note, there are apprehensions about what the next year 2024 may bring, and there are several kinds of fears. However to come back to the year 2020 first, the pandemic harmed and threatened a very large number of people. No less harmful was the fear epidemic, the epidemic of increasing mental stress and the cruel disruption of the life and livelihoods particularly among the weaker s...

Targeted eviction of Bengali-speaking Muslims across Assam districts alleged

By A Representative A delegation led by prominent academic and civil rights leader Sandeep Pandey visited three districts in Assam—Goalpara, Dhubri, and Lakhimpur—between 2 and 4 September 2025 to meet families affected by recent demolitions and evictions. The delegation reported widespread displacement of Bengali-speaking Muslim communities, many of whom possess valid citizenship documents including Aadhaar, voter ID, ration cards, PAN cards, and NRC certification.

Counterview

Search This Blog