Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Leader of oppressed

The editorial "Force Bahujan," the article "The debt we owe Kanshi Ram" and, more significantly, the cartoon (Oct. 11) on the departed leader paid a fitting tribute to one who was instrumental in the significant uplift of the marginalised. Kanshi Ram was no power monger and never aspired to be the Chief Minister of the largest State. Dalits and the nation owe much to him for his selfless work.

C.P. Velayudhan Nair,
Kochi, Kerala

* * *

The purpose of my writing this letter is more to applaud The Hindu for carrying an editorial on Kanshi Ram, than praising his qualities as a leader. I am particularly impressed with the statement on Kanshi Ram's belief "that it was imperative to overturn an order that permitted a 15 per cent forward caste elite to rule over 85 per cent of the population comprising the bahujan samaj." The mainstream media in India have rarely acknowledged that the 15 per cent forward caste elite has claimed (without legitimate basis) to speak for the majority of Indians.

Raman Pichumani,
North Potomac, Maryland

* * *

It is a pity that the bahujan consolidation that was Kanshi Ram's dream has been frittered away, because of what the Samajwadi Party and the BSP eventually turned out to be under the leadership of Mulayam Singh and Mayawati. Far from forging a representative identity of the historically marginalised, the parties went on to articulate OBC and Dalit identities as requisites for power rather than for genuine redistribution and social change. Uttar Pradesh politics of late has only seen a shifting of caste alliances rather than a road map for caste dissipation.

V.R. Srinivasan,
Rochester, New York

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