New Delhi: Modi administration is planning to celebrate grandly the 200th birth anniversary of social reformer Jyotiba Phule in what the critics termed as an attempt to ‘appropriate the Bahujan icon’, The Telegraph reported.
As part of this move, the central government organization—Dr Ambedkar Foundation—has directed the Ambedkar chairs in 24 universities to plan activities on Phule’s life, legacy and values.
It is reported that the BJP’s ideological mentor the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is not a fan of Jyotiba Phule’s ideals nor his educationist wife Savitribai Phule’s either.
Just as the crucial Bihar assembly elections are around the corner, the Centre’s move gathers importance with critics alleging that it is part of wooing ‘the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) for political gains’.
Only a few days ago on September17 the BJP’s Rajasthan government faced criticism for dropping a chapter on Jyotiba Phule from the Rajasthan University’s political science syllabus.
Questioning the Centre’s sincerity, secretary-general of the Peoples Party of India (Democratic), B.D. Borkar cited how right-wing groups protested against the movie ‘Phule’ for showing the upper-caste people throwing cow-dug at Savitribai Phule going to teach teach Dalits and untouchables at a school.
‘Because of the protests by right-wing groups, the Central Board of Film Certification removed several scenes from the film, even though they were factually correct. What the government is doing is politics. The RSS and BJP never honoured Ambedkar and Phule,’ Borkar was quoted as saying.
Earlier, Rahul Gandhi criticized the delay in releasing the movie alleging that ‘they want to erase Dalit-Bahujan history at every step so that the real truth of caste discrimination and injustice does not come to the fore’.