New Delhi: Barely a month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced in his Independence Day speech that the government would park the 200th birth anniversary of social reformer Jyotiba Phule, a central government organisation has asked as many as 24 universities to plan activities around Phule’s life, legacy and values, reported The Telegraph.

The move, ahead of the crucial Bihar assembly elections, is significant also because the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its ideological fountainhead, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), have not been quite known for backing the reformist ideals of either Jyotiba Phule or his educationist wife Savitribai Phule.

This past September 17, the BJP government in Rajasthan was criticised for dropping from the Rajasthan University’s political science syllabus a chapter on Jyotiba Phule.

As per The Telegraph, Dr Ambedkar Foundation, a central government organisation that works on issues of social justice and promotion of ideals of Bhim Rao Ambedkar, has asked the universities to plan the activities around Phule.

The news report underlined that it has been “decried by critics as an attempt by the BJP to appropriate the Bahujan icon and woo the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) for political gains.”

B.D. Borkar, secretary-general of the Peoples Party of India (Democratic), questioned the government’s sincerity own the matter, citing to The Telegraph the protests by right-wing groups against the film “Phule” in which the upper-caste people were shown throwing cow dung at Savitribai Phule headed for a school to teach Dalits and untouchables.

Borkar said, “Because of the protests by right-wing groups, the Central Board of Film Certification removed several scenes from the film, even though they were factually correct. What the government is doing is politics. The RSS and BJP never honoured Ambedkar and Phule.”

This past April, Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi had slammed the BJP-RSS over the delay in releasing the film due to the cuts wanted by the censor board, alleging that “they want to erase Dalit-Bahujan history at every step so that the real truth of caste discrimination and injustice does not come to the fore.”

Borkar told The Telegraph, “We have taken Phule all around the country. Phule has been accepted as an icon by Dalits and Bahujans. The Phule-Ambedkarite movement is a challenge to the BJP and the RSS. That is why this is being done to woo the OBC and Dalits who are followers of Phule and Ambedkar. This is appropriation of a Bahujan icon for vote bank.”

About 70% of the country’s population comprise of OBCs and Scheduled Castes (SCs), a constituency that the BJP has been aiming to woo to win elections.

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