On Saturday morning, people entering Pune’s Ganesh Kala Krida auditorium were greeted by dozens of police officials at every gate, multiple...
On Saturday morning, people entering Pune’s Ganesh Kala Krida auditorium were greeted by dozens of police officials at every gate, multiple security checkpoints with metal detectors, repeated bag-checks and body pat-downs, and police sniffer dogs roaming around the compound.
The intense police scrutiny was on account of the event held at the auditorium: Elgar Parishad 2021, the defiant second edition of an event that became controversial after the Maharashtra police accused its organisers – a coalition of 250 anti-caste and human organisations – of instigating caste-based violence in Pune’s Bhima Koregaon area on January 1, 2018.
The first Elgar Parishad was held in Pune’s Shaniwar Wada on December 31, 2017, a day before lakhs of Dalits from across India gathered at the village of Koregaon Bhima to commemorate the 200th anniversary of a battle in which a Dalit contingent of the British army defeated the region’s Peshwa Brahmins. To mark the occasion, speakers at the Elgar event highlighted the rise of “new Peshwas” in the form of right-wing Hindutva forces across the country.
Since June 2018, 16 activists and intellectuals have been arrested and denied bail for allegedly provoking the Bhima Koregaon violence, operating as “urban Naxals” with Maoist connections and carrying out “anti-national” activities. They...
