Kamra song for Shinde row: Why thousands of farmers are now rallying around Kolhapur’s suspended teacher Girish Phonde

Kolhapur: When built, the Shaktipeeth highway, connecting Nagpur with Goa, will be the state's longest expressway at 800km. But the project has drawn anger from farmers who say the road could decimate cultivable land in the more than a dozen districts it's set to go through. That anger convulsed into large-scale protests when the Kolhapur Municipal Corporation, in a controversial move last Saturday, suspended a govt teacher who's been at the forefront of agitations against the proposed expressway.
Girish Phonde, 44, received the suspension order days after he announced at a press conference that farmers had planned to play stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra's song during deputy CM Eknath Shinde's visit to Kolhapur. The song had rankled Shiv Sena in Mumbai. Members of the party destroyed the venue Kamra performed at and police even summoned those who had attended the gig. Kamra, himself, now faces charges.
In Kolhapur, Phonde has been accused by KMC of misconduct and making statements "against a policy decision of the state govt". But this is not the first time KMC has suspended Phonde.

Born in Shiroli, on the outskirts of the city, he first steered student movements at Shivaji University, Kolhapur. Years later, he founded a forum to eradicate caste discrimination and help organise intercaste marriages. In 2008, came his anti-liquor movement, which began after widespread protests by women in a Kolhapur village who wanted a liquor shop in their locality shut. Phonde, with help from the then district collector, organised a ballot, urging women to vote on the matter. The women won, and the shop in Wathar village was shut down permanently. However, the anti-liquor movement would go on to spread to more than 50 villages. At Ichalkaranji in 2016, women protested for two months against a liquor shop there, forcing the then excise minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule to announce the shop would shut within a year's time.
Phonde's first run-in with KMC was back in 2005 when he was suspended after alleging that newly recruited teachers were being asked to pay Rs 50,000 in bribes. The order was later revoked. "So a suspension is not really new to me," he said, after KMC's most recent move on April 5. "This time as well, I'm taking legal recourse. Soon, in a day or two, a petition against the order will be filed at Bombay HC," said Phonde, who is pursuing a PhD in political science.
He was also guided along the way by some of Maharashtra's most famous reformers and activists. Phonde was part of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar's Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti, becoming one of the organization's youngest members. Later, he came in contact with activist and author Govind Pansare, an association that would last 13 years until Pansare's murder in 2015. Only two years before, was Dabholkar's killing, allegedly by anti-rationalist forces. Phonde had seen his idols die.
"And now we see Pansare in him. Phonde's oratory style and the way he speaks Marathi is very similar to how Pansare reached out to the masses," said a former Mumbai-based journalist.
Baburao Gurav, a Sangli-based intellectual and author said: "Girish Phonde is now among the few young leaders in the state with a firm ideological standing. Sometimes, his views can be against the govt of the day. But is there a ban on thoughts and beliefs in a democracy?"
Kolhapur: When built, the Shaktipeeth highway, connecting Nagpur with Goa, will be the state's longest expressway at 800km. But the project has drawn anger from farmers who say the road could decimate cultivable land in the more than a dozen districts it's set to go through. That anger convulsed into large-scale protests when the Kolhapur Municipal Corporation, in a controversial move last Saturday, suspended a govt teacher who's been at the forefront of agitations against the proposed expressway.
Girish Phonde, 44, received the suspension order days after he announced at a press conference that farmers had planned to play stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra's song during deputy CM Eknath Shinde's visit to Kolhapur. The song had rankled Shiv Sena in Mumbai. Members of the party destroyed the venue Kamra performed at and police even summoned those who had attended the gig. Kamra, himself, now faces charges.
In Kolhapur, Phonde has been accused by KMC of misconduct and making statements "against a policy decision of the state govt". But this is not the first time KMC has suspended Phonde.
Born in Shiroli, on the outskirts of the city, he first steered student movements at Shivaji University, Kolhapur. Years later, he founded a forum to eradicate caste discrimination and help organise intercaste marriages. In 2008, came his anti-liquor movement, which began after widespread protests by women in a Kolhapur village who wanted a liquor shop in their locality shut. Phonde, with help from the then district collector, organised a ballot, urging women to vote on the matter. The women won, and the shop in Wathar village was shut down permanently. However, the anti-liquor movement would go on to spread to more than 50 villages. At Ichalkaranji in 2016, women protested for two months against a liquor shop there, forcing the then excise minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule to announce the shop would shut within a year's time.
Phonde's first run-in with KMC was back in 2005 when he was suspended after alleging that newly recruited teachers were being asked to pay Rs 50,000 in bribes. The order was later revoked. "So a suspension is not really new to me," he said, after KMC's most recent move on April 5. "This time as well, I'm taking legal recourse. Soon, in a day or two, a petition against the order will be filed at Bombay HC," said Phonde, who is pursuing a PhD in political science.
He was also guided along the way by some of Maharashtra's most famous reformers and activists. Phonde was part of rationalist Narendra Dabholkar's Maharashtra Andhashraddha Nirmoolan Samiti, becoming one of the organization's youngest members. Later, he came in contact with activist and author Govind Pansare, an association that would last 13 years until Pansare's murder in 2015. Only two years before, was Dabholkar's killing, allegedly by anti-rationalist forces. Phonde had seen his idols die.
"And now we see Pansare in him. Phonde's oratory style and the way he speaks Marathi is very similar to how Pansare reached out to the masses," said a former Mumbai-based journalist.
Baburao Gurav, a Sangli-based intellectual and author said: "Girish Phonde is now among the few young leaders in the state with a firm ideological standing. Sometimes, his views can be against the govt of the day. But is there a ban on thoughts and beliefs in a democracy?"