PaRCha - JNU - AISA material - 2012 ID-29681
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It was this united settlement of dalit and Muslim rural poor households that witnessed the macabre dance of death on July 11, 1996. Massive protests ensued in Bihar following the massacre. One would have expected LaluPrasad, the self-styled champion of the poor, the backward castes and Muslims in particular, to swing into action. But it took weeks of hunger strike by Comrade Rameshwar Prasad and the octogenarian CPI(ML) leader Comrade Taqi Rahim to make Lalu Prasad order a mere transfer of the DM of Bhojpur for his failure in stopping a massacre of this magnitude that went on for hours, with a police station being present at a distance of just two kilometres, and three police camps between 100 metres to 1kilometres from the massacre site, without a single bullet being fired by the police. The Ranvir Sena was banned on paper but nobody was arrested and the list of massacres got longer with every passing year. In one of his most revealing political statements, Lalu Prasad announced in a public meeting in Bhojpur that to combat the CPI(ML) he was ready to unite with the devil! No wonder Bathani Tola was soon followed by Laxmanpur Bathe. At the end of 1997when the whole country was celebrating the eve of the New Year, the Ranveer Sena gunned down sixty-odd people in cold blood in Laxmanpur Bathe village of Jahanabad district. Bathani and Bathe, two obscure hamlets on two sides of the River Sone became prominent names in national news. KR Narayanan, the then President of India described the Bathe massacre as an act of national shame. Lalu Prasad was forced to set up a one-man Commission led by Justice Amir Das to probe the political and administrative patronage behind the Ranveer Sena. The commission however kept complaining that it was starved of necessary staff, powers and resources. Meanwhile, the Ranveer Sena got increasingly isolated and in 2002, the Sena supremo Brahmeswar Singh surrendered to the state. In November 2005 Bihar witnessed a change of guard and Nitish Kumar became thechief minister with the BJPs support. One of the first steps the government took was to disband the Amir Das Commission. The BJP-JDU leaders and even a few leaders of the RJD and the Congress who had all been summoned by the Commission to depose before it heaved a huge sigh of relief. As the second term began, Brahmeswar Singh was granted bail. And now the High Court has acquitted the Bathani convicts while the fate of Bathe hangs in the balance. Nitish Kumar of course waxes eloquent about development with justice and Bihar witnessing waves of revolutionary change in his tenure. Bihar has surely changed. From the Jagannath Mishras and Bindeshwari Dubeys of yesteryear, power has passed on to the likes of Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar. Yet Bathani-I and Bathani-II clearly tells us that this power remains as feudal as ever. NitishKumar is in an explicit alliance with the BJP, the most organised representative of the feudal-communal lobby in Bihar. Even Lalu Prasad for all his rhetoric against upper-caste domination always went out of his way to appease the feudal forces especially vis-à-vis the rural poor and the CPI(ML). It is not an aberration that the report of the Land Reform commission gets dumped. That the Amir Das Commission gets disbanded before .
.
PaRCha - JNU - AISA material - 2012 ID-29681
.
It was this united settlement of dalit and Muslim rural poor households that witnessed the macabre dance of death on July 11, 1996. Massive protests ensued in Bihar following the massacre. One would have expected LaluPrasad, the self-styled champion of the poor, the backward castes and Muslims in particular, to swing into action. But it took weeks of hunger strike by Comrade Rameshwar Prasad and the octogenarian CPI(ML) leader Comrade Taqi Rahim to make Lalu Prasad order a mere transfer of the DM of Bhojpur for his failure in stopping a massacre of this magnitude that went on for hours, with a police station being present at a distance of just two kilometres, and three police camps between 100 metres to 1kilometres from the massacre site, without a single bullet being fired by the police. The Ranvir Sena was banned on paper but nobody was arrested and the list of massacres got longer with every passing year. In one of his most revealing political statements, Lalu Prasad announced in a public meeting in Bhojpur that to combat the CPI(ML) he was ready to unite with the devil! No wonder Bathani Tola was soon followed by Laxmanpur Bathe. At the end of 1997when the whole country was celebrating the eve of the New Year, the Ranveer Sena gunned down sixty-odd people in cold blood in Laxmanpur Bathe village of Jahanabad district. Bathani and Bathe, two obscure hamlets on two sides of the River Sone became prominent names in national news. KR Narayanan, the then President of India described the Bathe massacre as an act of national shame. Lalu Prasad was forced to set up a one-man Commission led by Justice Amir Das to probe the political and administrative patronage behind the Ranveer Sena. The commission however kept complaining that it was starved of necessary staff, powers and resources. Meanwhile, the Ranveer Sena got increasingly isolated and in 2002, the Sena supremo Brahmeswar Singh surrendered to the state. In November 2005 Bihar witnessed a change of guard and Nitish Kumar became thechief minister with the BJPs support. One of the first steps the government took was to disband the Amir Das Commission. The BJP-JDU leaders and even a few leaders of the RJD and the Congress who had all been summoned by the Commission to depose before it heaved a huge sigh of relief. As the second term began, Brahmeswar Singh was granted bail. And now the High Court has acquitted the Bathani convicts while the fate of Bathe hangs in the balance. Nitish Kumar of course waxes eloquent about development with justice and Bihar witnessing waves of revolutionary change in his tenure. Bihar has surely changed. From the Jagannath Mishras and Bindeshwari Dubeys of yesteryear, power has passed on to the likes of Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar. Yet Bathani-I and Bathani-II clearly tells us that this power remains as feudal as ever. NitishKumar is in an explicit alliance with the BJP, the most organised representative of the feudal-communal lobby in Bihar. Even Lalu Prasad for all his rhetoric against upper-caste domination always went out of his way to appease the feudal forces especially vis-à-vis the rural poor and the CPI(ML). It is not an aberration that the report of the Land Reform commission gets dumped. That the Amir Das Commission gets disbanded before .
.