It is unfortunate that more than half a dozen lives were lost in the violent, nationwide protests organised by Scheduled Caste groups on Monday, and the blame must lie squarely with the leaders of the agitation as well as those who may have instigated and backed them in escalating the agitation into a grave law and order issue.
It is easy to pass the buck on state agencies, saying that it was for the police to ensure peace and calm during democratic protests. But agitating groups cannot indulge in mayhem and uncontrolled violence, rampaging all over and damaging public property without being adequately challenged by the law and order machinery.
The misfortune is that often, in such situations, even innocent people become victims. The manner in which the protests were held and the political message that was sought to be sent across made it evident that the idea was to target the Modi Government and firm up a perception that the Centre was anti-Scheduled Castes, and thereafter milk the issue for electoral gains. It is this which makes one suspect the role of various opposition political parties or their leaders, either in direct or indirect ways. We have seen how such groups came together during the Gujarat Assembly election and buoyed perhaps by the limited success they got, they have decided to up the ante on a national scale. The immediate trigger, or the excuse, for their behaviour was a recent Supreme Court ruling on the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Since they could not condemn the apex court in as many words, they decided to flay the BJP Government, saying that it had not put forth a robust defence before the judiciary to prevent the ruling. The fact is that the Centre did announce its decision to challenge the court’s verdict — even though later than it perhaps should have. But let none be in doubt that the agitation would have happened even if the Government had acted promptly in this regard because the anti-Modi brigade would not have let go of the opportunity.
In any case, what was the protest about? The apex court did not strike down the law which dealt with slurs or atrocities against members of the Scheduled Castes. All it did was to add some safeguards so that the Act could not be misused. The judges made the changes based on material which indicated that the law was being exploited to fix rivals on flimsy pretexts. True, the Scheduled Caste community is upset over various other issues, such as low conviction rates and the general plight of the community vis-a-vis socio-economic matters, but that these should be reasons for unleashing violence, is unacceptable.
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