Why are Modi government's initiatives for Dalit uplift being ignored?
RSS leader Jagdish Prajapati, 50, is a lecturer in a college in the north Gujarat town of Modasa.
In 2013, he set a great example of social harmony at his native village Udalpur near Mehsana when his father expressed the wish of following the local practice of throwing a goodwill dinner called "Ujamnu" for the entire village.
He told his father to call Dalits too for the dinner. His father accepted his request but many from the upper caste were hesitant as Dalits had never eaten with upper castes in Udalpur before. When he approached the Dalits, they too were hesitant to join such a dinner as they were afraid of the reactions.
However, Prajapati stuck to his guns. Rather, he was persevering in achieving his objective.
He told both the groups that he would cancel the event if the Dalits and upper castes couldn't eat together. That broke the ice. Not only did the two groups dine together at that time, they did it again recently.
Prajapati asks: "Why does everyone want to highlight only the negative incidents regarding Dalits and not the positive ones? The RSS has a national programme going which aims at one temple, one water source and one funeral place in every village. Why is no one highlighting this programme of the RSS?"
Same is the refrain of Satyam Rao, the head of the Gujarat RSS unit's religious awareness wing.
"There are many positive incidents involving Dalits and upper castes. Plus, the Narendra Modi government has announced the revolutionary Start Up India scheme for SC and ST entrepreneurs which is the first such initiative to empower Dalits and tribals and create a sense of pride in them. But no one is talking about it. Clearly, there is an agenda in a section of the media and NGOs to detach Dalits from the Hindu society by playing on their injuries and prepare ground for their conversion."
Rao has a reason to feel so given the kind of work he has been doing for Dalits as an RSS leader.
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| The Narendra Modi government has announced the revolutionary Start Up India scheme for SC and ST entrepreneurs. |
In May, while attending Ram Katha at Khokharness village near Ranpur in Gujarat's Ahmedabad district, Rao got the organisers of the event to specially include Dalits in the dinner following the Katha. Dalits and upper castes sat side by side and ate.
This was much like the famous inter-caste dinners organised by Veer Savarkar in Maharashtra's Ratnagiri district between 1924 and 1937 in an attempt to break untouchability. The initiative earned the appreciation of even BR Ambedkar at that time.
Clearly, the plans of a section of left-wing NGOs and intellectuals are crystal clear. They see the unfortunate Una episode in Gujarat and some other incidents of harassment of Dalits by cow vigilantes as a golden opportunity to detach Dalits from the Hindu society and the RSS-BJP and prepare ground for a Muslim-Dalit combination against Modi in the 2019 general elections.
The fervour of the NGOs to fight Modi partly comes from a single decision of his government - banning of foreign funds to many of these NGOs which has totally crippled them.
But as the strategically-poor BJP and RSS give a week-kneed response to a plan to overwhelm them with an anti-Dalit image as opposed to the facts on the ground, the Left lobby seems to be succeeding this time unlike during the episode involving the suicide of Hyderabad University Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula in January.
How have Dalits been since Modi came to power? A sincere perusal will reveal that the Modi government has been doing much more to empower Dalits than many previous governments. Amending the law to prevent atrocities on Dalits and tribals, the Modi government has made it much more stringent.
A number of acts have been made punishable or punishable with greater penalties after the amendment.
These include tonsuring of head, moustache, garlanding with chappals, denying access to irrigation facilities or forest rights, performing witch-hunts on Dalits, not allowing Dalit bridegrooms on horse during a marriage processions, imposing social or economic boycott, preventing scheduled caste and scheduled tribe candidates from filing of nomination to contest elections, evicting a member of the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe from a house, village or residence, defiling objects sacred to the members of scheduled caste and scheduled tribe, or similar acts which are derogatory to the dignity of Dalits.
Union minister for social justice and empowerment Thawarchand Gehlot says: "We have a very sincere and honest approach when it comes to Dalits. It is rooted more in their social uplift and empowerment than other considerations."
The Start Up India initiative is a good example of the Modi government's approach towards Dalits. Under Start Up India, the government has directed every nationalised bank branch to launch a drive and give loans to at least one deserving Dalit entrepreneur of that area.
The PMO and Union finance ministry are specially monitoring this programme made for the government by the well-known Pune-based Dalit entrepreneur Milind Kamble who heads the Dalit Chamber of Commerce and Industry. "The Modi government has exhibited a new, refreshing and inclusive approach to uplift Dalits. It is based on empowerment of Dalits by creating pride in them," Kamble says.
The signs of this new approach are tell-tale. For, example the Doordarshan programme on Ambedkar on his 125th birth anniversary on April 14 was a specimen of this approach.
In the past, Ambedkar has been erroneously projected by political parties as only a leader of the Dalits and the maker of the Indian Constitution. While the fact is that Ambedkar was a leader with many more characteristics to him which established him as a leader of all sections of the Indian society.
Gaurav Vallabh, dean of the finance faculty at XLRI, Jamshedpur says: "Ambedkar's rupee exchange determination theorem is relevant even in today's economic context. He was for opening up the economy and encouraging the private sector in the 1950s. He emphasised on science and technology and industrialisation as being essential to progress and development. All these things are coming true. It is unfortunate that these aspects of Ambedkar are ignored."
Alleges Kishore Makwana, a Dalit scholar in the RSS: "Keeping Babasaheb separated from certain parts of the society is politically beneficial to some. It is these people who are trying to detach Dalits from the Hindu society. Makwana is stung by the fact that in the recent flogging of Dalits at Una not one assailant was connected the RSS while anti-RSS forces are bent upon projecting it as an act by RSS men.
Significantly, corrective action by the Gujarat government in the Una case was over by July 17 when the issue was raised in Parliament.
The incident happened on July 11 and on the very next day the culprits named in the FIR were arrested. On the same day, a team of BJP's state-level Dalit leaders landed up in the village and reported dereliction of duty on the part of the policemen in not arresting the assailants immediately when they brought the Dalits to the police station on July 11.
On July 15 two policemen were suspended and another two were suspended on July 17. A compensation of Rs 100,000 each was announced on July 15. Plus, between July 12 and 17, Dalits leaders including ministerial level functionaries of the BJP continued to visit the victims' house to express sympathy.
Perhaps the only fault of the BJP government of the state was that the senior most Dalit leader of the Gujarat BJP, the state social welfare minister, Ramanlal Vora, didn't visit the spot immediately.
Also had chief minister Anandiben Patel visited the village by July 15 instead of July 20, the uproar would have been much less.
However, the poor response from the BJP leaders to counter the Opposition allegations was glaring. Except BJP spokesman Bharat Pandya, few senior Gujarat BJP leaders were defending the government's actions in this case, perhaps owing to internal turmoil going on in the state BJP unit.
Clearly, the BJP and RSS have to pull up their socks to counter the Opposition propaganda or else they will be playing into the hands of their adversaries on this sensitive issue.