The Hindu : National : These Dalits have nowhere to go

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 19, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

National

National

These Dalits have nowhere to go

Manas Dasgupta

AHMEDABAD: Over 100 members of 19 Dalit families are spending their days in makeshift camps in front of the Banaskantha District Collector’s office in Palanpur for the last seven months because they have nowhere to go. They have been forced to migrate from their native village, Bukna in Vav taluka, after a Dalit was murdered following a quarrel with some caste Hindus of the village over a passage through the Dalit’s household plot to their fields.

The District Collector has not taken any steps to enable their return to their village. The State government has not bothered to submit its report on the issue to the National Human Rights Commission, despite two notices.

“Gujarat is considered to be a developed State. It is a wrong perception when we consider the conditions of the Dalits and other backward classes. The conditions in rural Gujarat have not changed, if anything, they have further deteriorated in the last five years as the dominance of the caste Hindus has increased with their political clout,” said Manjula Pradeep, executive director of the Navsarjan Trust, a voluntary organisation working for the Dalits in the State.

She said while the minority migrations after the 2002 communal riots received much media and judicial attention, the Dalit migrations forced by fear for their lives, had been ignored.

Twenty two members of five families in Kasumbad village in Borsad taluka of Anand district are also living in unsafe conditions and would be forced to migrate to some other villages if the authorities did not provide them security. The head of the family, Ramanbhai Makwana, was murdered in this village by caste Hindus after a quarrel over flying kites on the “Utran festival” day on January 14, 2006. The caste Hindus want the Dalit families to withdraw the police complaint on the murder and are threatening them with dire consequences if they did not. The murder took place in the presence of the police and yet no step was taken to book the guilty. The Dalit families were refused protection if they went out of their homes to earn their livelihood.

Ms. Pradeep said some 40 other Dalit families in Kasumbad village were not supporting their affected community members for fear of angering the caste Hindus.

The Navsarjan Trust found little government support to the weaker sections.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National

News Update

Stories in this Section