Kanchi Ram, who heads a new political party fighting for the untouchables, said recently: “There are two identical countries in the world where a minority rules over the majority. One is South Africa, and the other is India. The difference is that in India it is not color. It is caste. This case of Dhanraj and the poor widow is a usual thing here, a routine case involving only one death.”
But this time there was a difference. There was a political element, and earlier this month the Dhanraj incident exploded into a scandal that has rocked the fragile government of Prime Minister VP Singh.
For one thing, Dhanraj was burned to death in the heart of Singh’s home district, allegedly at the instigation of a feudal lord named Arjun Singh who, like the prime minister, is of the Thakur caste. He was V.P Singh’s local agent in the 1989 election.
Even so, the incident would have gone generally unreported had it not been for Krishna Rawit, a firebrand “harijan” woman in the Congress I party of former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, the party that forms Singh’s principal Opposition. At her insistence, the Congress I have made a cause celebrate of the Dhanraj incident.
Moreover, the tragedy took place against the backdrop of Kanchi Ram’s campaign on behalf of the “harijans” without which it probably would not have come to Rawit’s attention.
Article extracted from this publication >> June 15, 1990
