Ajaz Ashraf’s Account is a ‘Museum of Memories’ for the Dispossessed

“A powerful account that reminds us that all-powerful States possess the power to silence dissenters, normalise fear in society, and criminalise opinions of free-thinking individuals and dreamers of equality, and rely on institutional memory to settle scores with dissenters at the time of its choosing.“

Book Review: Bhima Koregaon Challenging Caste

Author: Ajaz Ashraf

Pages: 472

Publisher: Paranjoy

Gowhar Geelani*

While reading journalist-author Ajaz Ashraf’s latest book “Bhima Koregaon Challenging Caste”, I was instantaneously reminded of Lavrentiy Beria, the longest-serving secret police chief in Joseph Stalin’s reign of oppression in Russia and Eastern Europe. Beria had earned notoriety for establishing criminal conduct on any dissenter—even the pacifists and innocents. Beria’s villainous boast “Show me the man and I’ll show you the crime” is now an inseparable part of world history.

Unlike Samuel P. Huntington, the author does not deal with The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. Instead, Ashraf narrates an important story involving violence on 1 January 2018 at Bhima Koregaon, a village about 30 kilometres from Pune in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, as a conflict between two worldviews over the standards of organising the society.

In his analysis, one ideological strand is engaged in a just struggle to knock down India’s social hierarchy while the other front is busy defending the indefensible and also firm in its resolve to perpetuate caste-based discrimination. With deftness, the author establishes how the harmless desire to smash class and caste hierarchies entails a huge cost and how every expression for justice and equality is not only disallowed but also crushed and criminalised in India, especially since 2014.

‘Kafkaesque World’

Ashraf paints a ‘Kafkaesque’ world by narrating the well-researched real-life events and individual stories of India’s eminent civil rights defenders, academics, scholars, intellectuals, poets, writers, Dalit and Adivasi activists in a no-nonsense manner.

The author goes back and forth to narrate the history of the 1818 battle (the Battle of Bhima Koregaon) with utmost care. He sheds light on the efforts of tens of thousands of Dalits (the erstwhile Untouchables), who had marched to pay homage at the Vijay Stambh or Victory Pillar then. At the time, at least half of the British troops comprised Mahars. And twenty-two (22) of them laid down their lives fighting a 25,000-strong army of Peshwa Baji Rao II.

It is another matter that Dalits continue to endure inequality and injustice and suffer due to Brahminism’s wrath to date. Nothing seems to have changed for the marginalised Adivasis and Dalits. Worse, those offering solidarity or chronicling their suffering also suffer in the process.

Silencing Dissenters

Ashraf’s lucidly written account reminds us that all-powerful States possess the power to silence dissenters, normalise fear in society, and criminalise opinions of free-thinking individuals and dreamers of equality. The State seldom forgives defiance or rebellion and relies on institutional memory to settle scores with dissenters at the time of its choosing.

So, what else does the author intend to telegraph through his latest work?

Let me add a caveat: Reading Bhima Koregaon Challenging Caste can be emotionally distressing for the book contains expertly told tragic stories of the conscious thinkers, their struggles of courage and restraint, speaking up, paying a cost, sometimes succumbing to fear, other times refusing to be silenced, and also the unimaginable ordeal faced by close members of their families.

One encounters a different set of emotions while processing Ashraf’s unputdownable account. At times, one feels inspired by the courage and conviction of dreamers of equality. Other times, the ordeal faced by dissenters makes one feel helpless and hopeless as the onus of proving innocence is often put on the accused and framed individuals.

Aged and Caged

One of the many strengths of the book is its reliance on exhaustive research, detailed interviews, and meticulous analyses to highlight how democratic dissent and struggles for justice and equality involve an unthinkable cost for activists, poets, and intellectuals. Additionally, it offers the perspectives of the families of the aged and caged activists.

As a compassionate storyteller, the author narrates heartbreaking stories of Dalit and Adivasi activists accused in the Bhima Koregaon case, how maliciously and effortlessly many rights defenders and scholars are dubbed ‘Maoist sympathisers’ or ‘Urban Naxals’, and draconian laws invoked against them to imprison them, often far away from their near and dear ones to create deterrence of sorts. The dubious role played by the Goebbelsian media is also exposed.

Ashraf tells us how empathetic lawyers offering pro bono legal aid to the underprivileged and fearless writers (qalam ke sipahi) and sensitive poets, reflecting the pain and agony of the sufferers in their body of work, are crushed. The heart-wrenching stories of late Stan Swamy, Sudha Bharadwaj, Arun Ferreira, Shoma Sen, Surendra Gadling, Sudhir Dhawale, Mahesh Raut, Rona Wilson, Gautam Navlakha and his partner Sahba Husain, Jyoti Jagtap, Sagar Gorkhe, Ramesh Gaichor, Hany Babu and Anusaya Teltumbde are told professionally.

As a dispassionate chronicler, Ashraf’s attention to detail is commendable. He understands the importance of preserving memory for posterity. In more ways than one, his riveting account is a moral chargesheet against the State, powerful elite, excessive bureaucracy, discriminatory caste system, prejudiced and pliant media, and also the defenders of casteism, who suffer from superiority complexes.

The book comprises three sections: The Elgar Parishad, Bhima Koregaon, and Suffering. All seventeen chapters in a 472-page book are highly readable. The third section (Suffering) stands out, as we get to read harrowing accounts of incarcerated activists and intellectuals in great detail.

Some of Ashraf’s previously published columns in mid-day, Scroll.in and NewsClick are also part of the book. These have been reproduced with minor tweaks for stylistic reasons, though.

‘Manufacturing Evidence’

In the book’s second section (Bhima Koregaon), the author demonstrates how in some cases the evidence can also be manufactured and planted on electronic devices of the accused, their laptops and computers injected with malware Win32: Trojan Gen and NetWire, a remote access Trojan.

Through such malware, the author notes, the attackers can edit existing files and insert documents into the computer without the prior knowledge of the owner of the device. It was done in the cases of Stan Swamy, Rona Wilson and Surendra Gadling.

The book claims the accused were not given the hash value for any of the electronic devices seized from them. Under Section 207 of the Code of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), the magistrate is under an imperative duty to furnish to the accused, free of cost, copies of statements made to the police, and the police is duty bound to hand over clone copies of electronic devices to the accused. If the police fail to provide a hash value before seizing the electronic devices, the author says, these are referred to as ‘unsecured’.

Quoting reports by Arsenal Consulting, the book draws attention to how the computers of the accused were cloned and compromised and documents planted and stored in ‘hidden folders’ under various names without their knowledge.

Subsequently, a request was made to the American Bar Association through Rona Wilson’s legal team to explore the possibility of organising a forensic analysis of the clone copy of Wilson’s seized electronic device. For that reason, the American Bar Association contacted and retained Mark Spencer, president of Arsenal Consulting, to look into the matter. Commissioning Arsenal, one of the world’s top digital forensic experts, was a step in the right direction in confirming foul play and how the activists and scholars were framed.

The first section (The Elgar Parishad) is also rich. In particular, chapter six named The Guru of Hate is gripping. It contains the story of one Manohar Anant Kulkarni who uses nom de plume Sambhaji Vinayak Bhide. He is a popular Hindutva icon known or notorious for spreading anti-Muslim propaganda. In his speeches, he often castigates Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, often in decisively abusive language, according to the book. Bhide’s story is narrated from the perspective of one of his former disciples, Vijay Vilasrao Patil. Seeing through Bhide’s façade, Patil, a farmer by profession, eventually convinces his fellow villagers that “For India’s good, they too must sever their links with Bhide.”

In this section the author also deep dives into the poems, plays, songs, and skits performed at the Elgar Parishad. Majority of these artistic endeavours critiqued Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The author credits Justice (Retired) B. G. Kolse Patil for providing the definition and meaning of the “Elgar Parishad”. According to this definition, Elgar Parishad means ‘Loud Appeal’.

Museum of Memories

There are many lines in the book that stay with you. Consider this: “The State looks askance at anyone whose heart beats for Adivasis.” Ashraf writes this while narrating a story of love and pain of Tushar Bhattacharya, Shoma Sen, and their child, Koel. “On such a family the State has inflicted untold misery,” the author notes in chapter 16 titled Profiles in Courage and Forbearance. This chapter is very moving.

We learn how Surendra Gadling was seen handcuffed to the bedpost, after undergoing angiography after experiencing chest pain in jail. Treated harshly, Gadling wasn’t even allowed to attend the final death ritual of his mother, Manjula. “The prosecution accused Gadling of enacting a drama.” To say that the narrative is dystopian would be an understatement.

Moreover, Ashraf brilliantly captures writer Sahba Hussain’s struggle to “keep the flame of love and resistance burning” during the period of captivity of her partner Gautam Navlakha. He was arrested on 28 August 2018 as an accused in the Bhima Koregaon case. Navlakha is out now. At the time of her partner’s captivity, Sahba Hussain would sign off her letters with the three familiar words: “I love you.” The author poignantly adds, “Take it from Sahba: Love is defiance.”

Importantly, the book tears into pieces the Maoist conspiracy theory and Urban Naxal narrative with solid evidence. As an aside, the book cover is fascinatingly revealing. The cover has four pots arranged on top of one another, representing the hierarchical four-fold ‘varna’ system.

Apart from some avoidable repetitions and explanations, Ashraf’s book should be read by every individual, who believes in the idea of justice and equality. The author appropriately dedicates his book to Kimman Balakrishnan, “who didn’t survive the writing of this book.” Quite fittingly, the book ends with a pithy quote by Varavara Rao, or VV, as narrated to the author by Hemalatha, the wife of VV, “revolution is a battle between justice and injustice.”

*Gowhar Geelani is a journalist and author of “Kashmir: Rage and Reason” (Rupa Publications, 2019).

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