The controversy surrounding a Ranchi Court order which imposed the condition of distributing five copies of Quran for grant of bail, triggered an unprecedented show of Hindu unity. Teenager Richa Bharti was pulled up for a controversial Facebook post on Kashmiri Hindus and Tabrez Ansari, a Muslim youth who succumbed to his injuries after being attacked by a mob in Jharkhand. She was arrested after a member of Sadar Anjuman Committee filed a complaint against her. She was granted conditional bail, the condition being distributing 5 copies of Quran.
Though the country is traditionally not used to Hindus showing a sense of unity or even being aware about their rights, the Richa Bharti case was not the first time we witnessed Hindus coming together in the recent past. Prior to this, the Hindus had come together against an adamant Communist Kerala government that was hell bent on ensuring women of a particular age group entered the Sabarimala temple. While women in the age group of 10-50 years, that is, women of reproductive age, were restricted from entering the shrine not because of any misogynistic notion but because of the popular sentiment about Bhagwan Ayyappa in his celibate form, the Kerala government made every move to break the spine of Hindu devotees protesting, after the Supreme Court ruled against the temple’s traditions. The judgement has since been under review, however the CPI (M) led government of Kerala attempted with high-handedness and violence to facilitate forced entry of women in the shrine against the will of thousands of devotees. At a time when the state government had prepared itself to launch an onslaught against the faith of Hindus and Ayyappa devotees, the Hindus had resisted it strongly. The movement found support from Hindus across the country, with north Indian Hindus standing hand in hand with the Hindus in the southern state of Kerala.
Thousands of protestors, led by local women, had taken to the streets after the state government ignored the sentiments of the local people and constantly expressed the commitment to allow entry into the Sabarimala temple, to women of the said age group. Female protesters were dissuading and trying to prevent other women within the age group of 10-50 years from entering the temple. As it turned out the leaders of these protests were local women who were not only arguing with other women and urging them not to visit the temple but also screening the vehicles approaching the Sabarimala temple in order to ensure that women did not enter the temple of the celibate form of Bhagwan Ayyappa. These protests went on to show a deep sense of disappointment towards the onslaught against their faith and sentiments.
When a shocking order was passed in the Richa Bharti case, there was palpable disappointment among Hindus, which was particularly echoed on social media with the likes of Dr. Subramanian Swamy and Advocate Ishkaran Singh Bhandari speaking against the Order requiring the teenage girl to distribute five copies of Quran, after she shared a controversial Facebook post. Later on, a fundraising campaign for the 19-year old girl’s legal aid to challenge the controversial order, launched by Vikas Pandey, a BJP volunteer, turned out to be enormously successful as the donations surpassed the target of Rs 6,00,000 and has now reached 7,20,000 within hours. Later on the Jharkhand unit of the BJP also came into the picture. It was reported that the convener of BJP legal cell in Jharkhand, Vinod Kumar Sahu, also paid a visit to Richa Bharti and assured her of support and legal aid.
In the Sabarimala issue, the Hindus had laregly gone down fighting even if the struggle still goes on. However, it had already marked a new kind of phenomena- Hindus coming together in a show of unity. And this time, in the Richa Bharti case, the show of unity met real success even as the Ranchi Court removed the conditions imposed for grant of bail. In its revised order, the court stated that on the advice of the Investigating Officer, the Court has decided to do away with the condition that Bharti must distribute five copies of Quran in order to avail bail. Hindu consolidation has reached new highs, in terms of hunting down and stopping injustices towards the Hindu faith. Such a quantum of Hindu unity against injustices may be a first in the decades since independent India’s history.