Clearly unnerved at recent mobilizations of Dalits in the laboratory of the Hindu Rashtra, Gujarat, a "harmony meeting" called by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to woo Dalits in Una town ended in a complete fiasco on Thursday, September 1, after a protest by the attending Dalits forced the party to call the event off in barely 20 minutes ! July 2016 will be remembered for the historic mobilization of Dalit cadres across Gujarat, ruled by the BJP since 1998.
Not only have demands related to their human dignity and fundamental freedoms been voiced since the deplorable Una episode in early July, but cries and slogans of Dalit-Muslim unity have been echoing in Gujarat's villages and districts.
The 200-odd Dalits present had already been angered at being denied permission to speak first at the Samrasta Sammelan, organised to calm Dalit tempers following the flogging of four community members by cow vigilantes in Una on July 11. The Telegraph reports that the few Dalits present exploded in rage after the first speaker, Girish Parmar, a Dalit politician who had joined the BJP from the Congress in 2012, attacked Bahujan Samaj Party chief Mayawati.
Another 200-odd Dalits arrived at the venue, seemingly from nowhere, and began chanting " Manuvadi BJP". Clearly this was not on for the Dalits present. After creating a ruckus for a few minutes, all the Dalits left the venue, ignoring the pleas of the organisers who publicly admitted that they had erred by refusing to let the Dalits express their views first.
BJP sources said that a senior party functionary from the district, Gir Somnath, had earlier warned against holding the meeting in Una saying the local Dalits were in no mood to forgive the BJP yet. But district unit president Zaverbhai Thakar went ahead with the programme. Kalu Rathod, a former BJP lawmaker from Una and one of the event's organisers, blamed the disruption of the meeting on a "pre-planned conspiracy" by the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party.
"Neither of these parties wants peace and harmony in the state. They are instigating Dalits and are likely to continue doing so until the Assembly elections next year," Rathod said. Dalit politician and state social justice minister Atmaram Parmar echoed Rathod.
"Certain anti-BJP elements, who include some Church-funded NGOs, have joined hands to create political instability in the state," he said. "Such forces are against peace and harmony in the state and want to derail the BJP's agenda of social harmony. They planted their men, who disrupted our harmony meeting at Una yesterday."Parmar said the Samrasta Sammelan had been organised to caution the Dalits about the hidden political motives of those politically mobilising them.
If September 1 is anything to go by, it will not be so simple now for the sangh and the BJP to silence Gujarat’s Dalits anymore.
The story of Dalits in the state of Gujarat is a sorry one. In a book edited by Teesta Setalvad, Gujarat-A Mirage of Development, in 2014, social commentator and Dalit leader, Raju Solanki had written on ‘The Saffron Brigade and the Dalits: Ground Realities’
Raju Solanki, who voluntarily gave up government service in 1985 to involve himself in the direct struggle for the rights of Dalits, especially their land rights showed in this work how, “ 410 brutally murdered, 5733 either fully or partially disabled; 537 women abused, tortured or raped (not a single candle was burned for any of them); 9773 insulted, threatened and humiliated; 1204 incidents of damage to property, including houses, livestock, orchards, boats, vehicles, irrigation wells, drinking water wells, tube wells and electric fittings; 1673 incidents of migration and 19135 incidents of social boycotts (an effective step to maintain the façade of samrasta) – these are the statistics for atrocities on Dalits in Gujarat for the two decades from 1990 to 2011. “ “The year-wise break-up of atrocities on Dalits in Gujarat during the period are as follows: 1991 (1080), 1992(1561), 1993(1751, 1994(1916), 1995(1777), 1996(1781), 1997(1844), 1998(1762), 1999(1586), 2000(1405), 2001(1033), 2002(1007), 2003(895), 2004(929), 2005(970), 2006(998), 2007(1124), 2008(1168), 2009(1083), 2010(1011), 2011(1082).”
"Gujarat is the land of saffron," wrote Solanki, "the septic tank of the so-called Hindutva experiment, in which the worms of Samajik Samrasta teem in mind-boggling numbers. One must also remember that in Gujarat the percentage of acquittals in cases registered under the Atrocities Act is as high as 96. To put it plainly, only in four cases out of a hundred, are the accused convicted and sentenced. Out of the more than eight lakh families of Dalits in Gujarat, only twelve thousand possess four-wheelers. About a hundred thousand families possess some kind of two-wheeler. More than six lakh families are miserably poor and marginalized and live in slums in cities or in hovels in the outskirts of villages."
“They constitute the poorly-paid, unorganized casual labour of Gujarat’s workforce. Few, if any, of them can send their sons and daughters for higher education; they have no medical insurance, and their lives and their meagre savings are constantly threatened by deadly diseases and accidents. They are the poorly paid casual labour of Gujarat’s workforce and the workers in the un-organised sectors. Critically, the leadership of the Dalits present in both the major parties of the state (the Congress and the BJP) comes from the microscopic minority of affluent families who care little for the impoverished, ill-educated people of their community, nor are they concerned about the atrocities perpetrated on them.
Solanki’s analysis said that the atrocities are only part of the story. "The plight of Dalits in Gujarat is worse than what the statistics on atrocities reveal. The statement ‘malnutrition among children in Gujarat is 44 percent’ is not true. The actual rate of malnutrition among the children in the age group 0 to 6 is much worse, not to speak of the horrifying figures for Dalit children. A recent study conducted at Gerita village in Mehsana by DHRM (Dalit Hit Rakshak Manch) has revealed that malnutrition among Dalit children in the age group 0 -6 is a staggering 94 percent. Mehsana, the home district of the chief minister is, incidentally, one of the most prosperous and developed districts of the state.
Just before the 2014 elections that swept Narendra Modi to power, more than a thousand Valmikis (a caste of Dalits in Gujarat who are still forced to do manual scavenging in some areas) gathered in Ahmedabad and prayed to their god to make Narendra Modi the prime minister of India. Will their communal god win, or my secular khuda, queried Solanki in the book.
“I do not have an answer now. But I can vouch for one thing: not a single Valmiki has permanent, secure employment in any of the thousands of local self government bodies in the state, nagarpalikas, village panchayats or municipalities. Today, the Valmikis of Gujarat are still demanding (unsuccessfully) ‘varsai’, or the posting of the heir or dependant of the deceased in employment in the same post. In the last fifteen years, the socio-economic conditions of the Valmikis in Gujarat have not undergone any noticeable change. Yet they have been duped by the saffron brigade. Why? I know at least one reason.
“Anandiben Patel, Narendra Modi’s second-in-command has found a unique way to win over Valmikis. She went to a Valmiki colony, accompanied by her party workers, approached aged men and washed their feet with feigned reverence. She told them meekly: For thousands of years, you have swept our streets and carried our dirt. You are rishis. We owe you a debt of gratitude for all you have done for us. Today I wash your feet and feel humbled. Anandi performed this samrasta gimmick twice, first in Patan and then in Ahmadabad, and the reaction was imaginable. A leader of the Valmikis saluted Anandi and said: Mam, your fame will spread in all directions of the universe. Among your ancestors nobody performed such a great task (like washing the feet of a Harijan). We salute you.
But faced finally with the wrath of Dalits post the Una incident in Gujarat, on August 1, 2016 the chief minister had to eat humble pie. She quit her post as chief minister. It is Dalits, finally who have made Anandiben Patel and even prime minister Narendra Modi, eat humble pie.