Etawah
This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. |
Mausoleum of the Snitcher
Apr 25 2015
The tomb that's hit with shoes for luck
Faiz Rahman Siddiqui
Mausoleums and tombs are usually sacred places where people of all faiths go to seek blessings. But in Etawah's Chugalkhor ka Maqbara (Mausoleum of the Snitcher), there's a story with a `sole', literally. Instead of offering flowers or burning incense sticks, devotees rain blows on the dilapidated tomb with shoes and slippers.
This unique method of `paying obeisance' at the 500-year-old grave is usually done by people praying for a safe journey on the Etawah-Farrukhabad-Bareilly Highway .
Legend has it that the king of Etawah waged war with the king of a place called Atteri. Later, the king of Etawah came to know that his courtier Bholu Saeed was responsible for the war. The king announced that for his betrayal, Saeed his betrayal, Saee should be beaten with shoes till death. Since then, the custom of beating the grave with shoes prevails.
One Iqbal, a local who was awaiting his turn turn to hit the grave, told TOI: “I am headed for Bareilly and have come here to hit the grave of Bholu Saeed five times to save my family from evil influences during the journey .
Situated at a distance of 3km from Etawah district headquarters, the tomb is in a dilapidated state. “I have never seen anyone burning incense sticks, candles or offering `chadars'. They just beat the grave with shoes or slippers and pray before embarking the journey,“ Bilal, a resident of Datwali, said.
“It is a rare sight. Unlike other `maz aars', Chu galkhor ka Maqbara has no caretaker. Passengers request the driver to stop, and they pay obeisance to Bholu by hitting his grave with slippers,“ said Ravi, a taxi driver.
Politics
1991-2019
Etawah, where ‘gathbandhan’ clicked in 1991, April 28, 2019: The Times of India
ETAWAH: At the peak of the Ram Temple movement in 1992, the BJP victory march was stopped dead on its tracks when Mulayam Singh Yadav and Kanshi Ram entered into an alliance. The slogan of ‘Mile Mulayam Kanshi Ram, hawa main ud gaye Jai Shri Ram’ rent the air and the BJP was trounced. Yadav, then, emerged as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.
Their alliance was not sudden. In 1991, Kanshi Ram, who had by now failed to register a win in two consecutive Lok Sabha elections in 1988 and 1989 from Allahabad and East Delhi respectively, decided to enter the fray once again from Etawah, backed by Mulayam from his home turf and Yadav bastion. Kanshi Ram defeated his nearest BJP rival by over 20,000 votes. Twenty-seven years later, the party’s leaders have changed and so has the constituency. Etawah, however, is once again the laboratory where BSP chief Mayawati and Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav are putting to test the social experiment first tried by their parties’ founders.
Present-day Etawah, however, has undergone sociological change. From being the Yadav-dominated constituency it was some decades ago, it is now a reserved seat home to over 4.23 lakh Dalits. After the last delimitation, a bulk of the Yadav population has shifted to neighbouring Mainpuri seat, promising to increase, local analysts say, Mulayam’s victory.
The BJP’s presence, however, has remained constant. In 1991, BJP was a runnerup. In 2014, it won Etawah. This time, there is a head-on battle between BJP’s Ram Shankar Katheria, the party’s incumbent Agra MP, and Kamlesh Katheria, the son of former Samajwadi Party MP Prem Shankar Katheria, who is the mahagathbandhan’s consensus candidate. Congress has fielded BJP turncoat and sitting MP Ashok Dohare.
Even as the alliance hopes to garner a chunk of the Dalit, Yadav and Muslim votes, there seems an upper caste consolidation around the BJP. Opinions are also divided on rural and urban lines. While the rural populace gives an edge to the gathbandhan, large urban sections still swear by Modi.
In the rural parts, disenchantment runs deep. Ram Kumar, a farmer in Aminabad said, “We don’t know who benefited from demonetisation. All we know is that we are still plowing the land.”
“Promises every government makes are never to better our lives,” says Virendra Singh, another farmer.
An equally vocal segment, however, maintains Modi’s leadership has steered the country in the positive direction. “Modi ji has made sure India’s position and perception in the World has improved,” said Aslam Khan, a tea stall vendor.
