Kasganj: A lot has changed in Kasganj since last year’s Republic Day when 22-year-old Chandan Gupta was shot dead here.
In communal clashes following an apparently provocative ‘Tiranga Yatra’ that he was a part of last R-Day, dozens of people were injured and scores of houses and shops were vandalised over three days despite heavy police presence and enforcement of curfew.
A year later, the first change one observes is that the entire town, from the street leading to Gupta’s home to those leading to Muslim-dominated areas, from the local bus depot to the local temple, is covered with huge hoardings bearing Gupta’s face hailing him a martyr.
Photos of two other persons — Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath — also adorn the hoardings.
A family member says the nearly two dozen such hoardings were put up by them across the town in the last two-three days. “The town wanted to remember him. It was on this day, exactly a year ago, when he gave his life for the nation, so why shouldn’t we do it?” asks his uncle Sanjay Gupta.
Above the family residence, the national flag flies high. Over 30 feet high. It was unfurled by Chandan’s parents on Saturday morning in the presence of half a dozen police constables that continue to guard their house throughout the day.
The 30-feet high flag after being hoisted by Chandan's parents at his house on Saturday.
The family wanted to take out a ‘Tiranga Yatra’ in Chandan’s memory on Saturday but were denied permission by the authorities.
Nevertheless, Kasganj is getting a memorial commemorating Chandan’s ‘martyrdom’.
On Saturday, Chandan’s family was invited to a public event to mark Republic Day where UP’s minister of state for housing and urban planning, Suresh Pasi, was also present. Pasi publicly declared that a square in the town will be named after Chandan.
“A committee will be constituted to decide which existing public square in Kasganj will be named after Chandan. There is no proposal to construct his statue there as yet. That will be taken up by the higher authorities,” says the local district magistrate RP Singh.
This committee is likely submit its report within three weeks and ‘Chandan Square’ is likely to come up in Kasganj within a month from now. Or a month before the Lok Sabha elections, depending which way one chooses to look at the timing of this declaration.
Over a dozen police officers keeping guard outside Chandan's house as his parents hoisted the national flag.
If there were doubts about Chandan’s supposed ‘martyrdom’ turning into a political event, the presence of Sadhvi Prachi, an ultra right hate-spewing Hindutva figure and a prominent member of VHP, at Chandan’s house on Saturday dispelled all of that.
She was accompanied by several of her followers and took out a ‘Tiranga Yatra’ for a few hundred metres near Chandan’s house, despite imposition of Section 144 and presence of over 1,000 police personnel in Kasganj to prevent another communal flare-up.
“We don’t know how she reached Chandan’s house. But as soon as we came to know about it, we dispersed the crowd before the situation could get volatile,” said an officer deployed in Kasganj.
Prachi had also visited the family of those accused in the Mohd Akhlaq lynching case in Dadri in October 2016, expressing sympathy for them. Two days later, a BJP leader, and Union cabinet minister Mahesh Sharma, also paid the accused’s family a visit.
“Before Kasganj was made into a district during Mayawati’s time, Etah was a regional political hub of sorts. This is where influential political heavyweights and strongmen from as far as Chambal have met and strategised. Now that Kasganj is a district in itself, political signals issued from here will become quite important,” says a Kasganj-based political worker who did not wish to be identified.
On the far side of the town in Buddu Nagar, on the same spot where Muslims unfurling the tricolour were confronted by saffron flag waving boys during last Republic Day, there was heavy police presence.
It is here, the local Muslims claim, that the national flag is unfurled on each Independence and Republic Day. On this very spot, communal clashes broke out on the morning of January 26, 2018.
But a year down the line, people aren’t allowed an assembly. They were denied permission to unfurl the tricolour. This is a grouse that many of the local youths express first.
“What was our fault, why weren’t we allowed to unfurl the flag? In some schools and madrassas where permission was given, our children saluted the national flag and sang our anthem. We have made videos. You want to see?” a Muslim youth standing with his friends asks before a police constable forces everyone to disperse.
Despite these changes Kasganj, whose name very few people had heard before communal clashes broke out here, in many ways remains unchanged.
School children dressed up in little army fatigues run across the streets bearing tiny tricolours. In a different part of the town around 20 ex-servicemen proudly bearing their medals walk around streets just behind a tractor with a retired major singing patriotic songs on a megaphone. Just like they have been walking for scores of Independence and Republic Days.
But the return of routine may not after all be able to repair that something which cracked a year ago in Kasganj that did not suffer a shred of violence even in the aftermath of Babri demolition on last Republic Day.
Since that day, some attempts have been made to widen that crack. Despite strict vigilance of authorities against sharing of hate-speech on social media, in course of which some arrests have been made, local boys continue to share provocative messages on Whatsapp and Facebook.
Songs in praise of Chandan’s ‘martyrdom’ are being composed and shared on Facebook every hour. Pushing the town further and further off the edge of normalcy.
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