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Ssc SOCIAL STUDY CIRCLE di (ESTD
1982) www.dalitindia.com ssc@dalitindia.com *********************************************************************** |
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September
9, 2002
SC&ST DALITS AT CROSS ROADS
- the Task before Political Leaders
Leave us alone.
We shall manage our own affairs.
We can make our Mother Land India, a Land of Peace, Plenty, Wealth,
Riches and a Heaven. The Colonial
Rulers exploiting the Nation and swindling this Country must go. On these lines were speaking the Leaders of
the Freedom, as they gave the call ‘Quit India’
The greatness of Freedom Movement, hardly recognised is
that, it fired the imagination of almost all Leaders, brought them out to
publicly air their own basic demands, and gave voice to the aspirations of
every Minorities, be they the despised SC&ST Dalits, or marginalised
Minorities, or the silently exploited other Backward Classes. There were the great Mahatma Phule in
Maharashtra, the then Bombay Presidency, and Periyar EV Ramaswamy Naicker in
Tamil Nadu, the then Madras Presidency.
They spoke, like true Nationalists, which they really were, for Justice
in the Society, and on behalf of all the Weaker Sections, be they the SC&ST
Dalits, or Backward Classes, or all other Religious and Linguistic Minorities. Then there was that great one, originally a
Congress Man, Mr Jinnah. And there was
the unsinkable Baba Saheb Dr BR Ambedkar.
These were not the only Leaders of the Backward Classes – the OBCs,
Minorities and Dalits. That was a
period of the Melting Point, social and political awakening, and the flowering
of the Minds of the People in a period of Liberal Ideology.
The People and Leaders of the Weaker Sections, who
incidentally have always been the majority of the Indian Society, did not through
their lot with the People and Leaders of the Freedom Movement. In their eyes, the Leaders of Freedom
Movement and their Motives were always suspect. Mahatma Phule said that the Funds of the State goes to feed the
most dominant caste hindus. Periyar
said that all Educational Institutions, Govt Offices and Party Fora are all
really the Club of the most dominant caste
hindus. Jinnah said that the Govts in
Free India will mean a rule by the caste hindus, and Democracy would loose its
meaning purpose and lustre to be run aground as
the Tyranny of the Majority. And Baba
Saheb Dr Ambedkar said that the lots of the People after Independence would be intolerable as being at the mercy of
the
dominant caste hindus, for the Indian Society is nothing more than a Caste
Ridden Society, and the Rural India where the real India lives with about 90%
People in the Villages are nothing more than bottomless pits of corruption and
cesspools of caste discriminations.
Mahatma Phule wanted the Govts to change their attitudes
and relationships with the People, where as Periyar said the dominant caste hindus must be dislodged from all their
dominant positions in Govts, Politics, Education, Economy, Culture and
Education. While Baba Saheb, aware of
the poverty, ignorance and helplessness of
his People, worked for getting from the Imperial British before the left the
Shores of this Nation, Constitutional and Legal Protection, as well as
Governmental Safeguards of a Powerful Rational Central Govt based on the Rule
of Law and working on the Foundations of Equality of all before Law; Jinnah
like Disreli speaking in British Parliament, said hell with all Guarantees and Assurances of the Govts, fought and got his own Nation for
his People. As a result, we now have
three different Nations, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, in the Indian
Sub-Continent husbanded by the British Colonial Rulers as nearly one
Nation. That is after the Great Ashoka
of the Mauryan Empire, and the majestic Moghuls, Emperors of Hindustan, who
almost brought the Sub-Continental India into an Empire!
Today, the Dreams of the Founding Fathers of the Nation,
and the Aspirations of the People are in doldrums, already vaporised and gone
with the wind into he thin air, without any trace or realistic hope
whatsoever. The Nation is poor, but there are too many billionaires and thousands of millionaires. There are
today many more hundreds of illiterates and hopelessly poor, than what we saw
at the time of Independence. The People
today are much more miserable, in spite of many extraordinary developments and Indian Satellites circling the earth in space. The absolute poverty and penury of hundred
of millions of People today is much more harsh and bone sapping. There are two Nations in India that coexist
today in an exploitative symbiosis - the poor backward dreaming India, and the
rich arrogant reckless exploitative India.
The poor, be they SC&ST Dalits, or Minorities of different shades
and hues, or the other Backward Classes, have lost faith in both the Govt and
the Leaders. But still they look at the
Govt, and hang around the Leaders, with a blind irrational hopeless hope! That is the sad part of the Social Reality
in the Country today. Why? Because the Models of Development visible to
any average poor Indian is one of heady mix of Corruption, Exploitation,
Cheating and Swindling.
Earlier the Reservations were grudgingly conceded, by the biased and prejudiced traditional elements in
an adhoc manner, only under the compulsions of the circumstances, but with a
show of bourgeois sympathy to the sufferings of the
poor backward helpless individual SC or ST Dalits.
Today the Reservations are being vehemently opposed, by the antagonistic DCHs in a planned
premeditated manner, solely because of their caste arrogance, personal
jealousy, social intolerance and politico-economic
fear of the growth of SC&ST Dalits, and are being accommodated exclusively when inescapable, because of
Constitutional compulsions and fear of being caught exposed and punished for violating specific laws made for the protection of SC&ST Dalits and their Rights as the Citizens of
this Country, but with an extremely un measurable heartburn and animosity.
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