The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Progress of Dalits linked to education alone

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Friday, Feb 15, 2008
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Progress of Dalits linked to education alone

Special Correspondent

It is the only panacea to their problems, says Agawane

‘Remove the scourge of untouchability by living together’
Forum to redress Dalit human rights violations planned

— Photo: Sampath Kumar G.P.

For the uplift: (From left) Principal Secretary R.B. Agawane; Director-General and Inspector-General of Police K.R. Srinivasan; ADGP (Directorate of Civil Rights Enforcement) Sushant Mohapatra; and Commissioner of the Social Welfare Department Baburao Mudabi at the seminar in Bangalore on Thursday.

Bangalore: Top IAS and IPS officers heading the Police, Social Welfare Department and Directorate of Civil Rights Enforcement Cell (DCRE) — mandated under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 to punish the perpetrators of atrocities on the Dalits — on Thursday expressed their displeasure over the failure to protect and give relief to the Dalits under the provisions of Section 3 (sub-section 4 and 5) of the Act in the State.

They were speaking at the inauguration of the one-day workshop on atrocities committed against the Dalits, organised by the DCRE, the first such programme of the directorate. Principal Secretary to Government, Department of Social Welfare, R.B. Agawane said imparting education to Dalit children was the only panacea to all their problems.

Mr. Agawane, who had studied the welfare programmes aimed at improving the living conditions of the Dalits by giving them buffaloes or similar facilities, said this had only marred their socio-economic progress rather than benefiting them. Instead, they should be given employment which will fetch them daily wages, he said.

Mr. Agawane, himself a Dalit, said such programmes had not only perpetuated the poverty of the Dalits, but also forced the children to be in the same livelihood as their parents. Such livelihood had very low monetary returns, he said. Instead, they should be given education, so that they could compete with the people of other castes and live with dignity. They should not be left to depend on others for economic development.

Earlier, the Additional Director-General of Police Sushant Mohapatra, who heads the CRE cell, said that the cell had plans to constitute a forum to redress the problems of the Dalits subjected to serious human rights violations. The cell would comprise lawyers, NGOs, the police and some persons from civil society. Mr. Agawane said he was unhappy that though there were many complaints by the Dalits, there were hardly any convictions due to lack of evidence, disinterest on the part of public prosecutors and police.He also said that the practice of forcing Dalits to live in a colony (derogatively used as keri or basti in local languages) in a village or town should be done away with. Sites should be distributed in a manner that people from all castes could live together to remove the scourge of untouchability and caste biases.

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