The Bahujan Samaj Party and the Lok Jan Shakti Party on Saturday demanded that sociologist Ashis Nandy be arrested and that the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act be invoked against him for his comments against Dalits and backward classes at the Jaipur Literature Festival.
Demanding an “immediate apology” from him, BSP leader Mayawati said, “Ashis Nandy is trying to malign Dalits and OBCs. His statement is far from the truth, condemnable, unfortunate and reflective of a casteist mindset. The Rajasthan government should send him to jail after lodging a case against him under the SC/ST Act and other stringent Sections, otherwise people would be compelled to come out on the streets to protest.”
Mr. Nandy’s comments that “most corrupt people come from the OBCs, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribe communities’’ sparked a major row during a panel discussion, prompting him to clarify that he had been misquoted.
Asking the organisers to bar him from participating in the lit fest, Ms. Mayawati said his comments seemed to emerge from a “well thought-out scheme to defame these sections.”
Mr. Nandy later said what he meant was that most of the people getting caught for corruption were people from these communities as they did not have the means to save themselves unlike people from upper castes.
Asked about her ‘next step’, the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister said she would wait and watch.
Patna Staff Reporter reports:
In Patna, LJP leader Ram Vilas Paswan, in a statement, accused Mr. Nandy of spreading “caste hatred” and said he should be arrested under the National Security Act.
LJP principal general secretary Raghavendra Singh Kushwaha alleged that Mr. Nandy represented the section which had misused its might and intellect to gain dominance over 80 per cent of the country’s resources and that he had made similar baseless remarks in the past also.
