Sudhir Prahlad Dhawale, a Dalit activist and editor of Marathi Magazine ‘Vidrohi,’ who was granted bail by the Bombay High Court on Wednesday, has been in jail since June 2018 for his alleged involvement in the Elgaar Parishad case.
Dhawale (about 55), considered to be a key planner of Elgaar Parishad meeting held in Pune on December 31, 2017, was earlier arrested in January, 2011, on charges of sedition for alleged Maoist links. He was subsequently acquitted of all charges by a Gondia court in 2014.
According to Pune Police, due to instigation through ‘inflammatory speeches’ given at Elgaar Parishad meeting, violent clashes broke out on January 1, 2018, between Maratha and Dalit groups near Koregaon-Bhima in Pune district.
The Pune Police, in its chargesheet, had claimed that banned organisation CPI (Maoist) gave Rs 5 lakh to Dhawale, Shoma Sen and Surendra Gadling, through co-accused Mahesh Raut, to keep the Koregaon-Bhima agitation ‘burning at a time it was settling down.’ It was alleged that Dhawale, along with others, was a member of the banned group and was involved in furthering its activities.
In July last year, the HC dismissed Dhawale’s default bail plea. Earlier in December 2021, the HC, while granting default bail plea to co-accused Sudha Bharadwaj, had rejected pleas of eight others, including Dhawale.
Born in Nagpur, Dhawale had founded the ‘Republican Panthers Jatiantachi Chawal’ to provide a common political platform for Dalits. He also launched a movement called Radical Ambedkar. In 2006, he had started an organisation called Ramabai Nagar-Khairlanji Hatyakand Virodhi Sangharsh Samiti’ after four people from a Dalit family were murdered in Khairlanji in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra.
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