Karni Sena founder Lokendra Singh Kalvi, who led anti-Padmaavat protests, dies

“Till when will we tolerate distortion with historical facts? I am a descendent of Rana Ratan Singh and Maharana Pratap. If we tolerate this, I have no right to live anymore,” Kalvi said in January 2017 after Karni Sena members slapped Bhansali while shooting for the movie was going on in Jaipur.

Kalvi, 67, suffered a brain stroke last June and was undergoing treatment since then. He died in Jaipur’s SMS Hospital on Tuesday. Karni Sena national president Mahipal Singh Makrana told The Indian Express that Kalvi died after suffering a cardiac arrest.

The leader of Rajput assertion in recent years, Kalvi founded the SRKS in 2006. The outfit remained in the news for its opposition to movies such as Jodha Akbar and Padmaavat, along with acting as a pressure group for the community, that once ruled most of the princely states comprising the erstwhile Rajputana in a feudal system.

A national-level basketball player who often reiterated that he was over six feet tall and weighed more than 100 kg, Kalvi’s image as a burly strongman for the community was similar to that of his father Kalyan Singh Kalvi who was a Union Minister.

Kalyan Singh Kalvi was at the forefront of the pro-sati demonstrations organised by the Rajput community in 1987 after Roop Kanwar, an 18-year-old woman committed sati in Sikar district’s Deorala. Even as activists demanded that no glorification of sati take place, the Rajput community ignored a court order and held a Chunari Mahotsav to pay tributes to Kanwar.

It was the senior Kalvi — then a Janata Dal leader — who took a pro-sati stand. The movement shaped the careers of several Rajput politicians, including present and former ministers from both the Congress and the BJP such as Pratap Singh Khachariyawas and Rajendra Rathore.

In his career, Lokendra Singh Kalvi unsuccessfully contested elections. Somehow, even though the Karni Sena attracted thousands of Rajput youngsters — SRKS president Makrana claims the total membership of the outfit is 87 lakh — Kalvi lost elections from constituencies such as Barmer. In the early 2000s, he also was one of the founding members of Samajik Nyay Manch, a political party that contested the 2003 Assembly polls but didn’t make any significant impact on the state’s politics. At different times, Kalvi joined both the BJP and the Congress but failed to win elections. But the Karni Sena, his creation, became hugely successful and resulted in the formation of several splinter groups, all claiming to be the real Karni Sena.

During the previous BJP regime, Kalvi was one of the leading figures behind the “Kamal Ka Phool, Hamari Bhool (the lotus is our mistake)” campaign that urged the Rajput community, traditional supporters of the BJP, to vote against the party. The reasons ranged from the death of Rajput gangster Anandpal Singh in a police shooting, cases against Rajput leaders, and the sidelining of senior Rajput leaders such as Jaswant Singh in the state BJP by Vasundhara Raje.

Kalvi toured the state and mobilised Rajputs against the BJP, which was voted out in December 2018. Several leaders such as Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot and former CM Raje expressed condolences on Tuesday following Kalvi’s death.