IT was in 2015, in the tiny village of Chhutmalpur, in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur district, that Chandrashekhar Azad ‘Ravan’ first unveiled his might.
Dalit boys, studying at the local AHP Inter College, knocked on his doors to complain about getting assaulted by Thakur students. The Thakurs forcefully made them clean classrooms, they claimed.
“They would abuse Scheduled Caste (SC) students and assault us when they saw us sitting on benches or drinking water from common sources,” recalls Ankit Kumar, a former student of the college. “That’s when Dalit students decided to approach Chandrashekhar.”
A college alumnus, Chandrashekhar Azad was gaining a reputation as a local lawyer and Dalit leader.
A dominant caste in western Uttar Pradesh, the Thakurs, (Rajputs) owned the college and despite attempts at dialogue, college authorities and upper caste students remained hostile towards the Dalits.
“In those days, he had gathered a small group of followers and had started wearing his blue sash,” Kumar said. “The Bhim Army he used to lead, helped us with muscle power.” After the Bhim Army’s intervention, locals claimed that such caste atrocities stopped in the college. The ‘Ravan’ had revealed himself.
Thus began the cult of Chandrashekhar Azad, cofounder of the ‘rebel’ band Bhim Army. Azad eventually consolidated his growing cadre into a political outfit, the Azad Samaj Party (ASP). In 2024, he has just been elected as a Member of Parliament after running an impressive independent campaign for the Nagina seat, winning against heftier opponents, including the Samajwadi Party (SP), Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) by a significant margin.
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