UP: Compromise struck, but Dalit wedding divides Kasganj

KASGANJ: A day after a compromise was struck between Dalits and Thakurs with the intervention of the district administration and police, there is an eerie silence in Nizampur village of the district. As the 28-year-old Dalit groom Sanjay Jatav begins finalizing the guest list for his April 20 wedding that might have in attendance MPs, MLAs and DMs, fissures seem to have only become deeper.
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Thakurs alleged that the “changing atmosphere” in the state -- what with a string of the BJP's Dalit MPs protesting to the prime minister about discrimination and large-scale violence following the Bharat Bandh called by Dalit groups -- had got the administration and the police to "force their hands", getting them to agree to Jatav's wedding party to pass through Thakur areas.This will be first time since Independence that a Dalit baraat will take this particular route.
Local girl Sheetal, who is set to marry Jatav, a block-level panchayat member from Basai Bawas village of Hathras, said, “Though there is a sense of victory, there will always be fear of repercussion as upper caste men here may harm my family. This will be for the first time in the memory of anyone alive in the village that a Dalit’s baraat will march through the entire village.”
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Sheetal added: “My school friends, most of them from the Thakur community, have stopped talking to us after we took up this fight. But it was a struggle for our self respect which was worth all the sacrifice.”
Her uncle Hari Singh said, “In the past four decades, the Dalit community in Nizampur was attacked thrice by upper caste men whenever they tried to take out a march in the village.”
Jatav's wedding may see the BJP’s Bahraich MP Savitribai Phule, former energy minister and BSP leader Ramveer Upadhyay from Hathras, RLD chief Ajit Singh, Aligarh divisional commissioner and some other bureaucrats come in to bless the new couple, but Thakurs are set to give it a miss.
Shankar Singh, one of the Thakurs, said, “We were forced and threatened by the administration to give a unanimous consent for the Dalit procession. Things will never be the same here.”
Another Thakur, Satyaveer Singh, said, “Though none of the Thakur community men or women will create any hindrance in the wedding, we won’t extend any help to Dalits from now on. They have insulted us.”
Kasganj superintendent of police Piyush Srivastava, however, said, “Majority of the upper caste men gave their unanimous consent and even offered help for the wedding. We will provide security cover to the family and a heavy police force will be stationed to ensure nothing goes wrong."