New Delhi: Looking to build on the momentum of the Dalit protests in Gujarat, scheduled caste organisations are planning to stage a mega rally at Delhi’s Ramlila grounds ahead of the winter session of Parliament that is being billed as a challenge to the Modi government’s policies.
The sustained protests after the flogging of Dalits in Gujarat’s Una has encouraged Dalit outfits to mobilise support in other states with several events leading up to the Delhi rally that seeks to rope in more disadvantaged sections.
Plans are afoot for mobilisation in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar and Odisha between August-December with Dalit leaders organising the community and also inviting political parties to support their demand for an equitable share of national resources in all spheres and to protest against violence and discrimination.
“We want a new social contract as the Pune Pact (between Ambedkar and Gandhi) has become irrelevant. So it is time for a fresh contract,” said activist Ashok Bharti of National Confederation of Dalit and Adivasi Organisations.
The Pune Pact was specific about political rights of Dalits, but now we want the downtrodden to get their due in all walks of life…like agrarian, land, corporate, mining,” said Bharti.
“By Dalits, we mean not only the caste identity or community, but all those who are downtrodden and marginalised people in the larger sense,” said Prakash Ambedkar, a political activist and grandson of B R Ambedkar, said Gujarat has become the hub of Dalit protests as “it has turned into a fascist state”.
He accused BJP and RSS of representing caste hegemony. He is also organising a conference in Delhi on September 12 on the issue of atrocities against Dalits.
The organisers are planning to organise Dalit marches from places of significance in terms of historical incidents of atrocities against Dalits, such as Laxmanpur Bathe in Bihar (1997). State-wise plans are being taken up ahead of the rally that organisers hope will be attended by 10 lakh people and the mobilisation is expected to take between August 29 and the first week of September. Marches will be held from Dalit localities to areas with Muslim presence or vice versa.
In UP, Dalit leaders are picking up centres like Ghaziabad, Saharanpur, Chandauli to name a few for rallies to start before a big show of strength at Lucknow. In Gujarat, 5,000 motorbikes are to set out from Junagarh on August 29 for Gandhi Nagar. Similar programmes are being worked out in Madhya Pradesh, Haryana and elsewhere, The Times of India reported.
Community leaders said an important trigger that set off the present movement was resentment among Dalits at V K Singh’s “dog remark” in October, 2015. He had said, “For everything like, if somebody throws a stone at a dog, then the government is responsible, it is not like that”.This was in reaction to an attack on a Dalit family by upper castes in Haryana.The issue further escalated with the Rohit Vemula incident at Hyderabad University. A Dalit leader explained that lack of action against Singh or Union minister Bandaru Datttreya (for the Vemula case), both of whom remained in government, had angered SC opinion and revealed the mindset of the BJP government.
Case filed a month after Dalit pupil died
A month after a Dalit MBBS student succumbed to his injuries after he was beaten up badly by his friends, Roorkee police finally registered a case on Wednesday only after the intervention of the director general of police. Since his death on July 17 at AIIMS in New Delhi, the victim’s father was running from pillar to post to get a case registered in the matter.
Dalit boy thrashed, forced to drink urine
Father of a Dalit teenage boy has lodged a complaint alleging that his son was tied, beaten up and forced to drink urine by members of an influential Gangwar family whose daughter was reportedly in a relationship with the boy.The boy’s family also said they could only get an FIR registered after the superintendent of police, Yamuna Prasad intervened.