The idea of Dalit empowerment, which found lip service for 60 years, is today an idea whose time has come, an idea that needs to be propagated by us, cutting across political affiliations so as to ensure that the term ‘Dalit’, does not mean oppressed or marginalised
Strictly speaking, the word ‘Dalit’ means ‘oppressed’. Dalits, both Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST), as a group, account for 25 per cent of the Indian population. A recent report by the very erudite Amitabh Kundu said that 44.8 per cent of ST and 33.8 per cent of SC populations in rural India lived below poverty line in 2011-2012. This highlights some other known and yet embarrassingly disturbing facts.
A 2014 report by The India Governs Research Institute said that medical field workers do not visit 65 per cent of Dalit settlements, 47 per cent are not allowed entry into ration shops, 64 per cent are given less grains than non-Dalits. And yes, the aforesaid data is for the period when the Congress-led UPA Government was in power which shamed and failed its people en masse.
And this is not all. A report by the National Confederation of Dalit Organisations, working for the Dalits, said that in 2011-2012, 49 per cent of the children from Dalit families in Haryana were underweight and malnourished. Eighty per cent of the Dalit children in the six to 59 months’ age group were anaemic.
The sex ratio in Haryana had been languishing at 877 or each 1000 male for a decade. However, in 2015-2016, under the BJP-led Manohar lal Khattar Government, it stood at 905 females for every 1,000 males. Dalits are the biggest beneficiaries of the fall in infant and maternal mortality rate in States like Haryana.
Hundred per cent digitisation of ration cards, linking Aadhaar with ration cards, transferring subsidies/cash via direct benefit transfer to provide food security, opening more than 22 crore bank accounts under the ‘Jan Dhan’ scheme, efforts to give loans to at least 1.5 lakh Dalit entrepreneurs under the ‘Stand up India’ scheme by asking bank branches to give at least one loan under this scheme to a SC/ST aspirant, benefits under the ‘Green Business’ scheme to help Dalits fight the adverse impact of climate change, venture capital fund with a Rs 200 crore corpus specifically for the SC/ST, ‘Sukanya Samriddhi’ scheme which specifically aims at the girl child, especially girls from Dalit families, efforts to ensure five crore free lPG connections to families below poverty line over the next three years, et al, are slated to make the lives of the poor, especially the Dalits, much better.
last two years of Modi’s governance has done more in terms of empowering the Dalits than almost 60 years of inept Congress rule. Yes, it is the same Congress which is trying to usurp the legacy of BR Ambedkar and has blissfully forgotten about its own leaders. I am talking about Jagjivan Ram who was one of the tallest Dalit leaders and has now been abandoned by his own party men.
Hypocrisy of the Congress was again highlighted last year during the death of Rohith Vemula, a Dalit research scholar at the University of Hyderabad. Between 2004 and 2013, as many as eight Dalit students committed suicide in University of Hyderabad. Of the eight suicides, seven took place when the Congress Government was in power — both at the Centre as well as in the State. Surprisingly, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi, never visited the aggrieved families then, but made a dash to Hyderabad to lend ‘support’ to Rohith’s cause.
On the other hand, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati’s conduct has been equally deplorable. The outrage over the violence in Una is a sham coming from a behenji who did not even deem it fit to condemn a mob that stripped and paraded a Dalit woman naked in full public view, in front of her young son, in Uttar Pradesh last year.
Both the Samajwadi Party and the BSP did virtually nothing in the last decade to improve the condition of the Dalits in Uttar Pradesh. In sharp contrast, the BJP-led Devendra Fadnavis Government in Maharashtra took a noteworthy step by passing the Prohibition of Social Boycott Bill in the State Assembly. This Bill seeks to make discrimination and social boycott a punishable offence, with a maximum punishment of seven years in prison or a fine up to five lakh rupees or both.
One thing amidst all the clutter that deserves applause and is unarguably one of the most defining moments for its sheer progressiveness, is the laudable step taken by BJP president Amit Shah who on May 11, took a holy snan (sacred bath) with Dalit sadhus, on the occasion of Simhastha Kumbh Mahaparv at Valmiki Ghat in Ujjain. Dalits know that religious, social or caste-based discrimination can alienate one forever. The holy snan is symbolic of the BJP’s larger ethos and desire to bring the Dalits onto the socio-cultural centrestage; from the fringes to the mainstream.
It will be suffice to conclude that the rise of Dalit capitalism and Dalit empowerment under the charismatic leadership of Modi is best exemplified by two gigantic steps. First, the Pradhan Mantri Mudra Bank loan scheme which gave loans to the tune of Rs 1.37 lakh crore to almost 3.6 crore people last year. For the next year, the target is even more ambitious at Rs 1.8 lakh crore with the re-finance rate in many cases being just seven per cent.
Coming back to Uttar Pradesh, which along with Bihar accounts for more than 30 per cent of all crimes committed against Dalits, Mayawati’s doublespeak has no takers anymore. While Mayawati reportedly spent anywhere between Rs 7,000 crore to Rs 40,000 crore in building elephants in pink sandstone and obscenely expensive statues of Dalit leaders, the true inheritor of the legacy of Kanshi Ram is the BJP.
The second big stride by the Modi Government, to ameliorate the condition of the Dalits, is the amendment to the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The amended act assumes special significance in the wake of horrifying data from the Akhilesh Yadav Government in Uttar Pradesh which reported a shocking 8,946 cases of crime against Dalits in 2015.
The amended SC/ ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act which was passed by both houses of Parliament in April, is more lethal as it includes new offences, increases quantum of relief payable to Dalit victims, provides for speedy justice via exclusive special courts and special prosecutors and even has a whole new provision to fix wilful negligence and dereliction of duty by public servants while dealing with crimes against the aggrieved.
It will be apt to end with an immortal quote by BR Ambedkar which goes thus... ‘Men are mortal. So are ideas. An idea needs propagation as much as a plant needs watering. Otherwise both will wither and die’. That idea of Dalit empowerment, which only found lip service even after 60 years of independence, is today an idea whose time has come, an idea that needs to be propagated by each one of us, cutting across political affiliations so as to ensure for future generations, ‘Dalit’, does not mean oppressed or marginalised, but empowered and enriched.
(The writer is an economist, stock market expert and a spokesperson for the BJP)