INTERACTION: Science and Technology Minister Ramachandra Gowda with participants at the slum dwellers' conference in Bangalore on Friday. — Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

Bangalore: The State-level conference of Ambedkar Horata Samiti and associations of residents of slums was marked more by the "kranti geethe" sung by an activist from Gulbarga, M.J. Madan.

Many of them touched on the life of Ambedkar and his times and the Buddhist principles he advocated as an egalitarian alternative to the caste-ridden Hindu society.

Minister for Science and Technology Ramachandra Gowda, who inaugurated the "Conference of awakening," stressed the fact that a large number of people were deprived of a home while even birds had trees to nest and animals, burrows and caves.

`Indifference'

"If after 60 years of Independence, a large section of our people still have to fight for even basic rights of life, it shows the indifference of successive governments, irrespective of their political leanings," Mr. Gowda remarked.

"Ambedkar was for equal opportunities than reservation forever. But the concessions guaranteed by the Constitution have gone only to a few, a new privileged class," the Minister said. "You are not asking for heaven, only basic needs and some respect which any government is obliged to provide," Mr. Gowda said.

Memorandum

After receiving the memorandum from the samiti's State president S.G. Bharati, the Minister referred to the demand for subsidised housing for those in urban slums, who were constantly under threat of being displaced and also their demand for schooling for their children. "These demands are justified and I shall take them up with the Chief Minister and have them discussed by the Cabinet so that justice is done at least now," he said.

Shashil Namoshi, MLC, said Gulbarga district was known for the thousands of construction workers who migrated to cities like Bangalore, along with their families, and literally lived on pavements.

If at least their children received schooling, their cycle of poverty of forced migration could end in a generation.

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