ON the occasion of the 125th birth anniversary of Dr BR Ambedkar, the Dalit Shoshan Mukti Manch (DSMM), Delhi committee has organised a seminar on ‘Neo-liberal policies and Dalits’ on July 4. Hundreds of people from various areas of Delhi, Ghaziabad and Noida participated in the seminar. Professor Gopal Guru (JNU), Subhashini Ali, Polit Bureau member of CPI(M) and Dr Bajrang Bihari Tiwari (Delhi University) were the main speakers in the seminar. A three member presidium comprising Brahmjeet Singh, Sonia Verma and Vidyapati conducted the proceedings of the seminar. Nathu Prasad, convener, DSMM (Delhi) chaired the meeting. Prof Gopal Guru said that dalits have been unable to assert their demands. In the neo-liberal setup, there is equality only for those who have money. People who can buy everything in market can have equality also, while those who don’t have money don’t possess equality either. He said, today the so-called nationalist forces are in power in Maharashtra which was once a centre of dalit movement and it is the same state where a dalit youth was killed for keeping a song on Ambedkar as ringtone on his phone. CPI(M) Polit Bureau member Subhashini Ali spoke about the Ambedkar’s trip to Kanpur in 1946, in which he had participated in three separate meetings. First meeting was of workers, in which he highlighted the demand of permanent housing for the workers. Second one was of women, in which he highlighted the need for equality between men and women. The third meeting was in rural Kanpur, in which various sub-castes among dalits had participated. Here, he underlined the clearly present class differentiation even within the dalits. Caste and community based political parties have proliferated since the 1970s, but most of the leaders of these parties have benefited the capitalists only. The betterment of dalits is possible only under the leadership of the working class. Baba Saheb had also noted that a significant portion of working class comprises of dalits, adivasis and women. Today the time has come to intensify the struggles and join the voices against the neo-liberal policies. It is the only way ahead for the betterment of dalits. Dr Bajrang Bihari Tiwari pointed to the increasing cases of violent crimes against the dalits by citing the example of Haryana. Such cases have intensified in the last few years in the states of Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Odhisa. V Srinivas Rao, from the DSMM all India centre, speaking in the seminar said that Modi merely speaks for dalits; his government has no time for discussion on the atrocities and discrimination which the dalits face. He said that DSMM will organise a ‘Dalit Parliament’ in the second week of September in Delhi, in which invitations will be sent to various dalit organisations and intellectuals to participate. People from various sections participated in the seminar. There were women, workers, middle class employees, government officers, doctors, lawyers, teachers and students in large numbers. A resolution was passed unanimously in the end, which gave a clarion call to launch struggles on the burning issues of the dalits in the Delhi-NCR region. A demand was also raised from the seminar to call a special session of parliament on the dalit issues. Struggle will be launched on questions like equal opportunities for quality education and jobs for the students and youth from the dalit community, filling up the vacant reserved seats in government jobs, reservation in private sector, allocating 16.75 percent of the Delhi government budget as per the Scheduled Caste Sub-Plan (SCSP) and stopping discrimination and violence against dalits.