R S Katheria, the Chairman of NCSC, in an interview with the ET, has blamed everybody that stands for the current Dalit movement. He declared that the goals of the Dalit movement and RSS are the same. He thinks that the RSS is on the strong foundation and that the BJP’s decline will not matter as the foundation is strong. He claims that the Dalits are the purest of the Hindus who practice Hinduism and the Hindu festivals. For Katheria, Mayawati is the danger to the Dalit movement as she sabotaged the movement of Ambedkar and Kanshiram. He thinks that the Bhim Army is not the Dalit movement. This is his thinking, in a nutshell, a thinking of a narrow-minded who is speaking ‘His Majesty’s Voice’.

Well, you cannot expect much from the stooges of the RSS. And, there is nothing that we can expect from the NCSC which is a quasi-judicial body which never uses its jurisdiction to protect the Scheduled Castes.

However, examining the views of the RSS inspired Dalits, we can get an idea into a number of issues that may become tactically very important for the Dalit movement at the present state. Babasaheb Ambedkar worked out clever and clear solutions to the problem of the untouchability and caste system. Perhaps, he singlehandedly shook the entire caste system by its roots and in the process ensured many safeguards and directions for his people to follow. He combined many strategies at different phases of his life and really made a big crack on the monolithic caste system. Many people benefitted, but something was lost after Babasaheb Ambedkar left us. We left him. Particularly those who benefitted by his movement deserted his mission and that is why we see that the stooges are rising all over the places.

Our leadership did not care to understand Babasaheb Ambedkar’s integrated fight on several fronts. We started taking his movement serially, instead of understanding that he ran many parallel strands. His movement was not following any sequence, but it was attacking every single enemy of the untouchables and caste. To blame Katheria is not fair because he is voicing his ‘His Majesty’s Voice’.

But if anyone is to be blamed, it is the Ambedkarites who are failing their emancipator. The media is creating the misperception that Chandrashekar Azad of Bhim Army has nothing to with the Dalit movement. But, his struggle and fight for his people in Saharanpur when the Thakurs attacked Dalits is commendable. Mayawati disowned him. The BJP/RSS have all the reasons to disown him. But something is becoming very clear that the Dalit movement is potentially very active and it has the power to rise up. Give this community an organized leadership, the community self-organises itself and transforms into a force that cannot be challenged by anybody.

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Babasaheb Ambedkar had a mission to politicize his people. He succeeded in making his people politically conscious.

There is no politically conscious community in India as conscious as the Dalits. The Dalits have been always in the forefront to fight the battle on the behalf of the other oppressed. It is because of their solitary fight that the OBCs have their reservation today. Mayawati had exploited the political aspirations of the people of UP fully, and they have been at times betrayed by rising power of the Brahmins in the BSP: the BSP they built with their sweat and tears. They want more than politics. They want dignity and security. They want Buddhism. It is essential for Mayawati to come open and openly denounce Hindu religion and prove that Dalits are not the pure Hindus. A pure Hindu is a contradiction in terms, by the way. There must be revival Buddhism movement spread like wildfire in all the villages of UP. Or else, people in UP must disown Mayawati for failing Babasaheb Ambedkar and Kanshiram.

We, as a community, must stand by the new leaders and new thoughts and new initiatives. If there is nothing new emerging, it means that we are slowly dying. The emergence of the new is the sign of revival and revitalization. In the RSS/BJP regime, the institutions that are meant to protect the people are becoming institutions that are making people vulnerable. The Chairman of NCSC claiming that Chandrashekar Azad is not leading the Dalit movement is a political statement.

The democratic institutions are meant to protect the constitution, but when the Constitution itself is reinterpreted as a vector to promote the anti-constitutional values, then we are left with only one option –

Rise up and take the controls in our own hands!

Author – Mangesh Dahiwale, Human Rights Activist

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