The Caste Hindutva At The Root Of Bhima Koregaon Violence

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Why caste Hindutva, not an Elgar conspiracy, is at the root of the Bhima Koregaon violence

This is the first report in a three-part investigative series on the Elgar Parishad/Bhima Koregaon case. Read part two here and part three here.

By Prashant Rahi and Mouli Sharma

February 27, 2025

That chopper hasn’t gotten used to me yet Its wound hasn’t gone deep enough as yet That’s the commoners’ clarion call we hear Not a mindless mob of elite nincompoops These two couplets from a singular Marathi ghazal might feel a bit prickly to some, but they can touch an indignant chord among the oppressed. The first of the two couplets is the refrain, while the “clarion call” in the second gives the composition its name: Elgar. The composer who penned it, Suresh Bhat, was born in Maharashtra’s Amravati to a Brahmin family, though he later converted to Buddhism, and has a coveted auditorium in his name. The Kavivarya Suresh Bhat Auditorium in Nagpur, close to the Brahminical ultra-right headquarters, was inaugurated by the president at the time, Ramnath Kovind, in September 2017. On the last evening of that year, the contentious Elgar Parishad—a public meeting organised for the defence…

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Prashant Rahi

Prashant Rahi is an electrical and systems engineer, who completed his education from IIT, BHU, before eventually becoming a journalist for about a decade in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand. He was the Chairperson for Human Rights and Democracy at the annual Indian Social Science Congresses held between 2011 and 2013, contributing to the theorisation of social activists’ and researchers’ experiences. Rahi devoted the greater part of his time and energy for revolutionary democratic changes as a grassroots activist with various collectives. For seven years, he worked as a Correspondent for The Statesman, chronicling the Uttarakhand statehood movement, while also participating in it. He has also contributed political articles for Hindi periodicals including Blitz, Itihasbodh, Samkaleen Teesri Duniya, Samayantar and Samkaleem Hastakshep. From his first arrest in 2007 December in a fake case, where he was charged as the key organiser of an imagined Maoist training camp in a forest area of Uttarakhand, to his release in March 2024 in the well-known GN Saibaba case, Rahi has been hounded as a prominent Maoist by the state for all of 17 years. In 2024, he joined The Polis Project as a roving reporter, focusing on social movements.

Mouli Sharma

Mouli Sharma is a scholar of religion at Jamia Millia Islamia and a freelance journalist from New Delhi. Her work has appeared in Nivarana, Think Global Health, Feminism in India, The Leaflet, and NewsClick. She is a published photojournalist & illustrator and has been featured in The Hindu College Gazette and the quarterly Pink Disco. She is the editor-in-chief of the student-run news site, The Voice Express, and is a literary editor for the digital lit-mag, The Queer Gaze.