Amid the uproar over the death of a Dalit school boy in Rajasthan after being beaten up by a teacher, senior Congress leader Meira Kumar on Sunday stressed on completely eradicating the "illness" of caste system and adopting a "zero tolerance" approach against prejudice.
In an interview with PTI, the former Union minister also said one should not get into which particular regime or political party is responsible in the wake of incidents of atrocities on the basis of caste as it takes the focus away from the main question that the caste system must be abolished. The former Lok Sabha speaker asserted that over the years the caste system has neither been diluted nor has been eradicated.
Her remarks come days after Indra Kumar (9) was beaten up by a teacher allegedly for touching a drinking water pot at a school in Rajasthan's Jalore district on July 20.
He died during treatment in Ahmedabad earlier this month. The accused, Chail Singh, has been arrested.
The Congress government in Rajasthan is facing heat over the death of the Dalit school boy.
Asked if there has been lacuna on the part of the Congress government on the front of Dalit atrocities, Kumar said, "This is something everyone asks me. It is not that I am defending anybody or accusing anybody. I just want to say that yes the political class is responsible to some extent but the issue is social. Politics is a reflection of society."
"To say that this particular regime is responsible, this particular party is responsible and that it has happened in this state, these are the statistics, in other states statistics are different because the party there is different, we should not really get into all this because then it diverts attention from the main issue," she said.
When people start talking about political angles then it dilutes the issue, said Kumar.
Every time an atrocity takes place eventually it gets entangled into whose fault it is, the former minister of social justice and empowerment said.
Talking about ways to move forward on eradicating the caste system, Kumar said there is a need for social will.
"Society must come forward. This is a problem rooted in religion so what are the religious leaders saying...The young people, they always want change, they should come forward. Women, they are mothers, they have a major role in shaping the attitude of the child right from the moment the child is born," she said.