Bagal me churi, mu me Ram!

Come elections and a battery of interesting personalities emerge from the woodwork of politics to claim the stage. It so happens that there is a "Chandrashekar Azad" in UP who runs an outfit called "Bhim Sena" (Bhim's Army)! Strangely enough, Azad goes by a self-imposed nickname "Ravan". As the name of the organization implies, it mobilizes Dalits and claims to propagate the vision of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. It has 33 objectives listed on its website including eradication of caste system and social emancipation of SC,ST and OBCs. Of course another national organization which has similar goals is Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP). While Ravan maintains that he has the greatest respect and affection for Mayawati and BSP, madam Mayawati has no love lost for him. Her contention is that he is an agent of the BJP and the RSS and seeks to confuse, confound and mislead her support base. She may have a point.

Coincidentally, Bhim's Army is headquartered in Nagpur which as we know, is also the HQ of another interesting organization - the right-wing RSS. While there is no apparent open connection between these two interesting organizations, Bhim's army is nowadays busy strumming up support for building the Ram temple in Ayodhya among Dalits. This leaves me scratching my head as to how and where it fits in with Ambedkar's vision; a man who walked out of the caste-ridden "Hindu" fold and asked his followers to also do so by adopting Buddhism!

What is funny is that while Ravan is up to his antics (miles away from Lanka), he has run into a practical problem with the Ayodhya issue. People are asking how come Ravan is campaigning for a temple to be constructed for Ram! "Kya dal me kuch kaala hai?" Or is it "bagal me churi, mu me Ram?" And before this becomes a burning issue, dude Azad has now decided to ditch "Ravan". He says he may want to be called "Chulbul Pandey" from tomorrow, it is his choice, what say you to it huh?