Bhima Koregaon

The last battle of the Anglo-Maratha war (1818) which established the firm hold of the British Empire in India was fought at Koregaon village on the banks of Bhima river near Pune. The British erected an obelisk at the battle ground in the memory of those who died for the Empire. Of the 49 names on the monument, 22 were those of soldiers belonging to the Mahar community leading to their leaders taking great credit from it for their gallantry. The British however, stopped recruitment from Mahars to their Army in 1893, after a reassessment of “martial races” in India, said to be following the Indian uprising of 1857. Ramji Ambedkar, father of B R Ambedkar was one among the Maha leaders who requested the British to continue recruitment of Mahars to no avail.

B R Ambedkar is said to have created a socio-political myth painting the Battle of Bhima Koregaon as a battle of Mahar soldiers against their caste oppression in Peshwa rule, very much like the Communists in Kerala painted their Punnapra-Vayalar “Revolution” as a violent struggle against the Travancore State against its intention to carve a country out of the Union of India! In the fertile land for identity-politics after decades of a “soft state” created by Congress rule, the myth created by Mahar leaders solidified into a quasi-history in latter years, bringing many Dalit organisations with obvious fundamentalist Muslim and Maoist help to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Bhima Koregaon battle as a campaign to launch an attack on an imaginary Hegemon, which they paint as the new Peshwai, the rising “Brahmanic” rule of the Hindutva forces! The charade culminated in into an Elgar Parishad (conference) at the Shaniwarwada at Pune on December 31, 2017. Prakash Ambedkar, grandson of B. R. Ambedkar and President of an outfit called Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi floated by the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul-Muslimeen of Asaduddin Owaisi, has tried to give a larger dimension to Elgaar Parishad theorising that it is formed to bridge the growing divide between Marathas, OBCs and SC/STs.

Interestingly many critics of the “Hindu Nationalist party, BJP” seem to ignore that the narrative around the war memorial at Bhima Koregaon is at variance with the national history of war! It was a clash between the British and the resistance to their rule. The regiment that defeated the Peshwa army 200 years ago had members of all castes. It was the final blow to an imperial Indian resistance to the British and the solidification of their Raj. Obviously the British cunningly manipulated the inimical caste equations to bring down the indigenous Maratha empire. Besides, the entire narrate in along the lines of Brahmins and Dalits, the Maratha empire and caste discrimination is historically wrong.

Come to think of it: every year, on 1 January, lakhs of Dalits across Maharashtra gather at the war memorial of Bhima Koregaon, 40 kilometres from Pune to commemorates the victory of the British Army, over the Peshwas! The motive of the battle was not to strengthen Dalits, but to dethrone the Peshwas as perhaps the last barrier to establishing British rule in India. I fail to understand why the Mahars and now other Dalit communities too, celebrate the victory of British army which looted, raped and murdered our people, using our own people? If their purpose is to “make a statement”, I am worried about that statement because it cuts at the root of our national sentiment, the pride of having defeated the British colonial rule in a long-drawn non-violent battle of sacrifices; the unity of India amidst its diversity! A contingent of well-equipped of local mercenaries defeating their Kings army for the British who later ignored them, took them out of the recruitment policy altogether! I wonder whether the British were rejecting subjects who could easily change loyalties!