Anand Teltumbde: Why after 80 years, ‘polluting’ touch of a Dalit still needs ‘purifying’

Eighty years into a constitutional order that abolished untouchability with euphoria, a Hindutva outfit carried out a “purification” ritual on a public ground in Haldwani where Congress president and Leader of the Opposition Mallikarjun Kharge had addressed a rally shortly before before Independence Day.

On August 10, two days after Kharge’s rally at the Ramlila Ground, members of the Shri Ram Sena held a “shuddhikaran”, a “purification” havan, on the very stage from which Kharge, a Dalit, had spoken.

Kharge raised the matter in Parliament, visibly shaken, asking with the characteristic parliamentary decency befitting its stature as a senior-most member: “Is this the way in a democracy? How are you protecting the Constitution?” Leader of the House and Union minister JP Nadda, with the same, sterile parliamentary decency, condemned the incident, said the BJP did not support such activities, and assured Kharge the matter would be investigated.

Underneath this theatre of denial and condemnation – the expression of “regret,” the promise of an inquiry, the predictable back-and-forth of blame – is a fact that should stop the republic in its tracks: a man is “purified” out of a public ground for the offence of having stood on it while Dalit. He is no labourer or an ordinary person...

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