December 06, 2015
Array

Special Sitting of Parliament: An Empty Talk

THE Dalit Shoshan Mukti Manch (DSMM) at a press conference held in New Delhi on November 28, has expressed its deep disappointment over the outcome of the two day special sitting of parliament on the occasion of the 125th birth anniversary of Dr B R Ambedkar who dedicated his entire life to the just cause of downtrodden sections of our society. His tireless fighting against caste discrimination and for social justice has now been put under tremendous pressure. The entire dalit and other oppressed communities of this country eagerly awaited the outcome of this session. But their expectations have been belied with the empty hands shown by the Modi government. Nothing has come out except lots of wind bag speeches. Moreover the government tried to take claim for the Indian Constitution which was prepared under the chairmanship of Dr Ambedkar, for their narrow communal agenda and is trying to amend it for demolishing its plural character. DSMM has come to know this by the home minister's blatant speech. It has raised some genuine issues. The Dalit Shoshan Mukti Manch expected that the government might move some bills in this special sitting, relating to dalit upliftment which are overdue since long time like providing statutory status to Sub-Plan by enacting a law, reservations in private sector and higher educational institutions, filling of backlog posts, amendments to POA Act to sharpen its teeth to punish the culprits who are aggressively attacking dalits and other weaker sections of this society and launching a “mission” to take up nationwide campaign against untouchability and caste discrimination. But almost all these issues were simply ignored by the Modi government. That way this government insulted Dr Ambedkar's ideals and vision. These types of speeches won’t help in anyway to ameliorate the conditions of dalits who have been suppressed for ages together. DSMM has appealed all MP's belonging to various political parties in the parliament to draw attention and exert pressure on the government to address the genuine issues of dalits at least in the remaining session so that legislations benefitting the dalits are enacted. The DSMM, along with other democratic, progressive dalit associations, organisations and individuals will continue to fight for achieving these demands. All like minded organisations should come together to fight unitedly for the cause of the social justice. The press conference was addressed by V Srinivasa Rao, G Mamatha, Nathu Prasad, members of the national convening committee of the DSMM. They said that their fears that the special sitting of the parliament would turn out to be a vacuous excercise, proved true. The hopes that some tangible measures would be adopted to better the conditions of the dalits and laws would be enacted to ensure development and safety and security of dalits were belied by this government. They reiterated that in the days to come, a strong, united movement would be built on the above demands.