(This note has been written by Kasturi and translated by the Sanhati Collective)
There are some things about Western UP that should be said at this juncture, to see things properly in their dialectical light. And to make sure that in the haste to construct heroes, we do not forget history.
The first image that comes to mind is from 2013, in the wake of the Muzzaffarnagar mass killings. It is the image of a hundred murdered people, mostly non-Jat Muslims. And of 80,000 Muslims in a relief camp, small farmers and farmworkers who had been displaced and rendered homeless by the riots. Riding on the back of this massacre, Narendra Modi would go on to sweep UP and come to power in 2014.