Dalit Shoshan Mukti Manch, an umbrella organization representing various bodies fighting for Dalit rights across the country, along with the All India Dalit Rights Movement and some other left-wing activist unions, on Saturday unanimously demanded the extension of reservation rights. resolved to support. For Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims.
The resolution was tabled by Communist Party of India (Marxist) Politburo member Subhashini Ali at the All India Conference on Escalating Attacks against Dalits at HKS Surjit Bhavan in New Delhi. The charter of demands agreed to in the conference also called for strengthening the Prevention of Atrocities (SC/ST) Act, reinstatement of the SC/ST sub-scheme and its literal implementation and introduction of compulsory reservation in jobs. and in the private sector.
However, in the resolution passed in the Convention, the Left bodies specified that giving reservation to Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims should not come at the cost of reducing the share of the total reservation already available to Scheduled Caste communities.
Ms. Ali told Hindu“In India, social problems and social divisions are very acute and even when people convert they take their caste with them. They do not escape their caste identity and caste oppression. This is the truth. In recognition of this reality, Dalits who converted to Buddhism were included in the reservation in 1990.”
He said that in view of the discriminatory circumstances in the country, there should be room to increase the limit of reservation by more than 50% so as to accommodate this demand without hampering the share of reservation available to the existing Scheduled Caste communities.
Welcoming the move and terming it a “healthy political development”, Ali Anwar of All India Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz said that more opposition parties in the country need to speak up for Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians because in the absence of it, the ruling The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is looking for a place to “infiltrate our movements and break our cause”. He also made a case for supporting his community and their demands at the convention on Saturday.
While some Dalit Christian and Dalit Muslim communities have already been counted as Other Backward Classes (OBC), their central demand has been for inclusion in the SC category, given that they face discrimination due to the practice of untouchability. continue to face.
Despite the unanimous resolution passed on Saturday, there is disagreement within the Left bodies. For example, DSMM national president K. Radha Krishnan, who is also the SC/ST/OBC Welfare Minister of Kerala, said that Hindu“Certainly there is a matter of reservation for Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims but it should be separated from SC reservation.”
VJ George, president of the National Council for Dalit Christians (NCDC), one of the organizations fighting for SC status for Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims in the Supreme Court, said, “We do not support this separate reservation. Our fight has always been to be included in the SC list and to that end we also believe that the entire SC quota can be increased so that the existing SC community does not lose out.
The development comes even as the central government has constituted a three-member commission headed by former CJI Justice KG Balakrishnan to examine whether Dalit Christians and Dalit Muslims can be given Scheduled Caste status.
Apart from this, the organizations participating in the conference on Saturday also called for repeal of the National Education Policy, implementation of Land Ceiling Acts and distribution of land to the landless, stop privatization, regularize contract and temporary workers and enact laws . Institutional murder”.
At the conference, Ms. Ali called on all affiliated organizations to organize similar conferences at the state level and to prepare people for the charter of demands decided to hold large public rallies on February 28, 2023 over the next few months. requested. Saturday.