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Shekhawat's Sinister Soliloquy
Kavita Srivastava in Jaipur profiles Hindutva veteran Bhairon SinghShekhawat and discovers that he might pose to be secular and clean,but come what may, a leopard does not change his spotsHe might be adored by the Hindutva forces, but for large sections ofprogressive and liberal forces in largely feudal Rajasthan, BhaironSingh Shekhawat, with his ardent RSS and BJP lineage, was an anti-democratic, anti-poor, anti-women, anti-minorities and anti-Dalitchief minister. It comes as no surprise in the manner in which heand his crafty colleagues in the Sangh Parivar have crafted thecampaign of demonising UPA presidential candidate Pratibha Patil,while painting himself as a `secular' saint and a man of highintegrity and impeccable honesty.Bhairon Singh was chief minister in Rajasthan thrice since the1970s. Between 1977-80 after Emergency, during 1990-92, in thebackdrop of the build-up to the demolition of the Babri Masjid inAyodhya, and after the BJP came back to power again (December 1993to December 1998). His career since the mid-1940s, when he was apoliceman in the erstwhile Sikar state, was smeared with allegationsof corruption. It is widely known that his allegiance during thefreedom movement was rather dubious, and even later, in the `land tothe tiller' movement, he aligned with the jagirs. As a politicianand chief minister, he has a proven track record of being anti-Dalit, anti-women and anti-minority.Let us begin with one of his worst atrocities committed during theend of his tenure as chief minister in 1998, which consisted ofrepeated misuse of state power and violation of civil liberties.Anti-women and civil liberties: More than eight cases were filedagainst Alice Garg, her daughters, her son-in-law and her fellowworkers -- a total of 23 people -- in 1998 in the aftermath of thestruggle led by women's groups on the question of violence againstwomen. The campaign led by these groups, along with some otherfactors, had already resulted in the political debacle of the BJP inthe parliamentary elections. Therefore, it had become imperative todestroy the morale of the campaign. Hence Alice Garg, who was one ofthe core members of the campaign, was made a target and all kinds ofcases including misappropriation of funds and collusion in `rape' ofworkers of the Bal Rashmi Society (that seemed to have taken placefive/six years ago) were filed against her. So heavy was the hand ofthe State on Alice that they effectively destroyed her years ofdedicated work as a social worker for the last 30 years in Jaipur.Her organisation, the Bal Rashmi Society, and her self respect andconfidence, was systematically run down.According to one senior police officer who finally looked into thesecases after the Congress government took over, the art of makingfalse cases should perhaps be learnt from Bhairon Singh who in histenure as a sub inspector in the late 1940s for the Sikar state wasallegedly known for harassing his opponents by using a web of falsecases.Bhairon Singh's stand against social activist Bhanwari Devi, whenshe raised the issue of her gang-rape, is well known in Rajasthan.Bhanwari Devi was raped and brutally assaulted because she, asa `saathin', campaigned against child marriage. Instead ofsupporting someone who had broken the typically stereotyped `femalesilence' on rape, he, instead, reportedly called her one day andsaid that he had enough `police acumen' to distinguish an honestperson from a liar and that she was basically lying. He alsoapparently said that he knew how truth can be converted into liesand lies into truth.With such prejudiced presumption of the highest authority of thegovernment, how could the police machinery ever have investigatedanything in the matter? It was thus a long battle of getting thecase transferred to the CBI that led to the case leading to achargesheet. All through the case, the local police never supportedBhanwari when she was ostracised and harassed in the village by thedominant community. And finally, after the acquittal of the accusedin 1995 November, Bhairon Singh allowed the infamous anti-BhanwariDevi rally in Jaipur by BJP MLAs with public slogans and speechesabusing Bhanwari; she was openly called a prostitute and it was alsoannounced that she should be tied to a stake and burnt alive. Whensenior citizens of Rajasthan and women's groups met the chiefminister and appealed to him that he should book the people whopublicly spoke like this, his answer was categorical: this is ademocracy and everybody has the right to speak the way they wished.From May 1996 to 1998, when women's groups campaigned hard to exposecases of atrocities against women in the state, the response of thechief minister was always either so ambiguous or dubious thatfinally it became a kind of complicity with the accused. Whether itwas the hostel rape case or rape by a certain Jain muni in Bhinmal,the responses seemed identical. In the latter case, the chiefminister suspended the superintendent of police who recommended thearrest of the Jain muni; in the hostel rape case, had it not beenfor public pressure, none of the accused would have been arrested.The entire campaign showed that incidents of rape had increased morethan seven times since 1990 in Rajasthan. Instead of responding tothe issue of women's security or the setting up of a women'scommission or a human rights commission, Bhairon Singh set upthe `first commission' for the
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