Dear Mr Tikait,You have been described by many asa great leader of the farmers. Leaders,great or not, we believe, must set thestandards of civilised conduct, notviolate them. Unfortunately, your re-cent public behaviour not only showsthat you do not have basic manners;you are also a coward. You do noteven have the courage to accept amistake and apologise sincerely for it.From a public forum, where presum-ably hundreds, if not thousands musthave heard you, you openly made acasteist remark against Mayawati,the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh.This was a show of utter disrespectand contempt to the chair of theChief Minister thatshe occupies, be-cause by popularvote, people havechosen her to leadthe state govern-ment, you should have shownrespect to the office she holds un-der the Constitution of India.Then when you realised that the lawyou had broken, would be actually en-forced against you, you tried to coverit up with the explanation that it wasa mere slip of the tongue. You saidthat you only used language that eve-rybody uses commonly in the villages.We have always known that such lan-guage is used commonly against Dal-its who are treated as if they deserveno dignity. Thank you for puttingthat on record, that people abuseDalits in your villages, commonly andthere is nothing unusual about it.But you Mr Tikait, should askyour followers to stop using de-rogatory language, show respectto all human beings, to show peo-ple that the only way to win anargument is to use reason andlogic, not hurl abuses at people? Wethink you failed on that count.When it became clear that you wouldbe arrested and your supporters sur-rounded the village, Sisauli, did youask them to not use violence or allowthe police to come and arrest you?Gangsters, Mr Tikait, are expected tobehave in this fashion, openly defyingthe law. You, Mr Tikait have disre-garded the law and law enforcers. Wefound you failing on this count too.When it became clear that the statewould not bow to any pressure,you changed tactics. In a statementprojected as your belated apologyyou said, that you are sorry if youhurt someone’s sentiments. In thiscountry Mr Tikait, even logic andreason sometimes hurt people’ssentiments. Mayawati had not saidthat you should apologise becauseyou hurt her ‘sentiment’. That is notthe charge against you. This is not amatter of sentiment but of display-ing contempt for a particular sectionof people, that you have yourself saidis quite common in your villages.Mr Tikait, come on, own up yourmistake. Wasn’t it your intentionto insult and humiliate the Chief Minister because she is a woman,and she belongs to the Dalit com-munity? You have not expressedany remorse, regret or feeling of shame for your intention. You havenot examined your conscience.It is obvious that you think throw-ing her caste origins on her face isnot criminal, derogatory or evenuncivilised. Why would one whoclaims to be a leader, abuse anotherleader, who with sheer hard work,grit and determination has achievedthe confidence of the people andrisen to hold powerful positions inthe polity of the nation? The onlyexplanation, which we get, is that youare caste-biased and gender-biased.The fact, that a woman, and thattoo a Dalit woman is holding a highposition, did not go down well withyour casteist and patriarchal outlook.Your supporters have said in yourdefence, that Mayawati too used theslogan ‘tilak tarazu aur talwar, sabkomaro jute chaar’, and that is equallyderogatory. Allow us to point outMr. Tikait, that the slogan was nottargeted against any person. It alsodid not name any community or Con-stitutional office. “Tilak, Tarazu andTalwar,” are symbols of a hierarchicalsystem in which castes are ascribedcertain duties. Mayawati was notabusing any person with that slogan;she was seeking the demolition of anabhorrent system. The slogan wasa voice seeking justice, againstcaste oppression.You have beencalled a greatleader Mr Tikait.We think this greatness has been mis-takenly thrust upon you. In fact eventhe term ‘leader’ is a misnomer in yourcase for you are just the head of anarrow-minded caste Panchayat, nota leader with a wide appeal cuttingacross all castes and sections, whichis what a great leader is and shouldbe. You are the head of just a castePanchayat Mr Tikait. That is why youhave not been able to break the tradi-tional mould of hurling caste abusesand open display of total insensitiv-ity to the sense of dignity of people.We demand an unqualified apol-ogy from you for your uncon-stitutional, unlawful behaviourand above all, for lacking a con-science and sensitivity towardsthe excluded section of society.Sd/-
Anjali DespandeDr. Ajita Rao
An open letter to Tikait
3
April 2008 Sparks
Leave a Comment