Author – Praveen Ashok

The recorded history of Dalit movement dates back to the 19th century that vehemently challenged the status quo and few of the many recognized faces of this movement are Jyotirao Govindrao Phule, Rajrshi Chhatrapati Shahuji Maharaj, Narayan Guru, Ramaswami Naiker Gopal Baba Walangkar and these were not confined to or addressing the issues faced in only a single part of the country but there movements were decentralized and there were leading the struggle from various provinces in the erstwhile princely states.

Taking the cue from these struggles and the legacy that they had built up, the reins of the struggle were taken over new emerging modern leadership who was able to make a mark Internationally. Leaders and visionary like Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar, Jagjivan Ram, Kanshi Ram, K. R. Narayanan made sure that the fire of the struggle of the Dalit community was kept burning.

There was never a period of vacuum in Dalit movement and the struggle howsoever small or big it may, continued to exist and fuel the need for change.
Much of this can also be attributed to the acts and omissions of oppressions of Dalits that never completely stopped. Each and every day since the existence of the caste system embalmed as the social norm we have suffered at the hands of the ruling caste a.k.a Brahmin. The oppression continued to bear the same character in the villages but its character changed in cities and urban areas. Each and every smaller to bigger riot has been managed with a political motive and we were the ones who were and are the most affected as victims, as falsely implicated perpetrators, as falsely implicated police and administrative officers.

The rights assured and guaranteed under the Constitution were misused, abused, undermined, and interpreted by the ruling party and for that matter every political party for appeasement of the Dalits. It was used as a tool to generate hate and detestation by the political class to widen the existing divide between the Dalits and others. Post-independence each and every smaller or bigger riot has been managed with a political motive and we (Dalits) were the ones who were and are the most affected as victims, as falsely implicated perpetrators, as falsely implicated police and administrative officers.

Now the period of resurgence has arrived, fuelled by the revolution of the information technology in the hands of Dalits, this has given us the might to create our own content to drive our own agendas. The seed of knowledge sown by Baba Sahib had already started blooming, growing into big fruit-bearing trees and now we have reached the threshold when these have started producing their own seeds.

These seeds have full potential to usher the dawn of a new generation which is much more robust, ready to carve out a future which Baba sahib had dreamt for our people in our country. The strong voices that we hear from our young generation girls and boys emanating from universities, colleges, schools, cultural forums are those seeds. Current polity has created a vacuum, a nonexistent opposition and we are well qualified to claim that space and convert it first into an active political opposition ready to take on the current government and second to start our march of victory to form a full-fledged government of our own.

Our destination is now clear and what remains is a challenge to chart a path that would take us to our goal. There exists a need for channelizing the youth, voices of the youth, give them an independent space and medium away from Brahmanical controlled media. We would as a new responsible media space (responsible to our Dalit sisters and brothers) needs a social media strategy for all available platform and be ready with the plan for new emerging social media in the future.

We have a responsibility to reach each and every individual, organization and group from our community and engage them in a healthy political discourse. We need to give them access to information from the standpoint of a Dalit. We need to give them the answers to all the why’s, how’s and what’s of an information and the current fake narrative to interpret and understand it from the standpoint of a Dalit.

We along with the spirit of Dalit assertion also need to rekindle feminist spirit among our Dalit sisters and stress for their equal role in the movement of empowerment through information and technology. We need to outreach to students by supporting their existing social movements by increasing their visibility and garnering support for them. We need to outreach to youth through targeted content. We need to reach to our bureaucrats and make them part of a larger movement.

We need to recognize the contribution of music and culture to carry forward our narrative and build a platform for nurturing this pool of talent that our people can relate too. We need to break the barriers of language and create contents in every possible language to expand our reach. We need to network and seek every possible contribution from our NRI sisters and brothers. We have to act as one unit not as sub-castes, tribes but as Dalits sisters and brothers. We should be able to communicate with each and every member of our community that we have all the numbers and it’s just a matter of judicially using this strength.

We have our historic, spiritual and modern intellectual leaders to look forward and to follow. It’s just that we need to build our own narrative. We need to break the existing false narrative and only we hold this power to do this by giving prominence to our own narrative. Enough is enough …we have been the pawn at the hand of politicians and politics now is the time to take the charge and do a role reversal.

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