Was Bahadur Sonkar victim of Mayawati's caste-talibanisation?

Rise of Mayawati in UP has been phenomenon. Though it is not for the first time for a regional leader to gain power in a state. Lalu had done same and ruled Bihar for almost 15 years. There was apparently no opposition to him but his charisma soon vanished and now he is fighting for his survival in the politics. Now Mayawati is on her peak and she has sparked the imagination of the weaker society in the caste-driven society in UP.

Being from dalit family, she has natural advantage of getting the votes of the dalits. She plays this trick of 'dalit ki beti' again and again by shouting her lungs out. But she has understood that she can be in power unless she gets support from other section of the society. Realising this she has not only dropped her party slogan (Tilak, tarazu and talbar, inko maro jute chaar) but also increased the representation of the 'upper' caste in her party leadership. She has a very large number of brahmin and thakur MLAs in her party and now she has again chosen to give tickets to people from same 'upper' caste for parliament election. Many of them will win not because they have been chosen by Mayawati but because they are the powerful mafia or rich on those localities.

In this game of power hunger she has already forgotten the real cause of existence of her party, social and economical upliftment of the dalits. In spite of initiating any project that might have helped the dalits in real life, she has chosen to play with their sentiment by having Ambedkar's statues everywhere in the state and converting the name of every other park to 'Ambedkar park'. She gets support for these initiatives at the moment but it is not sustainable and people will eventually realise that she is not doing anything for them. She has not built any new primary schools for the dalits and neither she has invited any industry for generation of jobs.

No doubt the youth of the dalit families want equal right to live in the society. They want to be considered as any other person in the society. Rise of Mayawati has given them voice or arrogance to some extent. They know that the police and other administration is with them they go beyond their right and threat other people. But after a while they realise that they do need employment and this is something not being addressed by this government.

Bahadur Sonkar was such young man who had understood that the dalits are being exploited for votes and get nothing in return. He was working for the social upliftment for the dalits in his area. He also decided to enter the election foray thinking that his hard and good work will be appreciated by the people. That is what should matter in a democracy. Perhaps he did not realised that he was not in a democracy but a state run by Taliban. A state where Mayawati is playing the game of caste-talibanisation and public hanging of an activist is considered the best way to send message in the masses that anyone opposing the supremacy of the Mayawati will be executed.

Well, police report has claimed it was case of suicide but there are enough sign to suggest it otherwise. There is demand for CBI enquiry in the case but everyone knows that CBI is of not much use. It is just a political machinery to threaten the opposition.

It is not the first case anyone opposing the Mayawati rule has been executed. Few months back there was an engineer met the same fate for refusing to pay for her birthday celebration.

Does it not tell that UP is already under caste-taliban? Taliban is a philosophy. If we can say Hindu Taliban then it is even narrower version of Taliban. Indian public is intelligent enough to understand, though slow, these attempts and throw away such leaders.