Tomorrow is 14th April 2001!

First Fourteenth April in the New Millennium, in the Twentyfirst Century! What the Third Millennium will hold in store for the World, we don't know! But, what it will do for us Dalits, is a matter with which we all should be concerned!

Tomorrow all Political Parties, and most of the Political Leaders, Dalit Associations, Educated Dalits and Dalit Officials will be vying with each other to Garland Baba Saheb Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar's Statues all over the Country! Even those who can't spare a couple of hours, or a little bit of time, to think, write, speak and share with us the Communities Problems, and also their Problems, if not their powers wealth influence and contacts, will be out, and be prominantly there, perhaps with their wives children and other members of their families! Starting from Parliament House, where Honourable President of India normally leads the Nation in paying Homage and offering Floral Tributes to Baba Saheb in the early hours of the morning, followed by the Vice-President, Prime Minister, Leaders of the Opposition, Speaker of the Lower House of Parliament - Peoples' House or Lok Sabha - Governors and Lt Governors visiting Delhi, Welfare Minister and other Central Ministers, Members Of Parliament, Chief Ministers, State Ministers and other Dignitaries in Delhi, will in all humility place Garlands or offer flowers and flower petals at the feet of Baba Saheb's Statue in the Lawns of the Parliament!

This, big thanks to Dr Ambedkar Foundation and Mr N Manohara Prasad, its first Director, who inspite of opposition from the Finance Wing and the then Financial Adviser in the Welfare Ministry, and the resistance by Mr Ganga Das the then Joint Secretary for Scheduled Castes Development Division, had managed to ensure that the Function to Pay Homage and Floral Tributes to the Architect of Free India's Constitution is organised by the Govt, through the Welfare Ministry on a regular basis, even after the Centenary Celebrations of Baba Saheb had formally been concluded! Mr N Manohara Prasad, the then Director of Dr Ambedkar Foundation was whole heartedly supported in this regard by Mr KSR Murthy, the then Secretary Welfare, and the same was approved readily happily willingly and gladly by Mr Sitaram Kesari, the then Welfare Minister, Govt of India. It was the bold and strong Notings of Mr N Manohara Prasad, against the remarks of the then Finanacial Adviser are remarkable and clinched the issue! And his Proposal for Regular Govt Functions in the Parliament House, on 14th April and 6th December every year, were formally accepted, and had since then become a Big Function, and a Great Rallying Point for all the Dalits in the Capital of the Nation! The impressive gatherings, and the involuntary mobilisation of Dalit Masses of Delhi at Parliament House, has to be really seen to be believed! How We can tap the Dalit Interest and Enthusiasm of the Common Dalits, into a Big Powerful Force is the big Question! Today it is going waste, frittered away, after a few hours on this day every year!

We all, in a way, must indeed be grateful for the boldness, guts and commitments of this man, Mr N Manohara Prasad, who did what he did, inspite of being harassed all along by others, and also by those selfish dalit officials like Gandha Das! It is a shame to tell that they were also our own people! They were really petty people with too small a mind! Wrong People were they all. If only Mr N Manohara Prasad had continued there, we are sure that Dr Ambedkar Foundation would not have gone down the way it went due to the machinations of Gandha Das, his henchmen like JN Prasad, Sanjay, Handa, stupid Radha Krishnan, Verma, mad Kamu supported by JD Seelam then PS to the Welfare Minister, and the incompetant Bheema Shankar.

The Grand Function in the Lawns of the Parliament House at the foot-steps of Baba Saheb will be followed by an exclusive function inside the Parliament in the Central Hall, where again flowers and tributes will be paid to Baba Saheb's Portrait there! There may be other Functions in Siri Fort Auditorium to Screen Fillms on Baba Saheb, Vigyan Bhavan to organise Lectures and Seminars on Baba Saheb, and a Big Function in the President's House - Rashtrapathi Bhavan, formerly Viceroy's Palace - to confer on someone whom the Govt wants to favour out of turn or though undeserving, Dr Ambedkar National Award and even Dr Ambedkar International Award! This, even though fairly one to two kilometer away, 25 Ashoka Road, where the Dr Ambedkar Foundation was registered, and used to function, had silently been pulled down by this Govt, without any murmour or protest from any quarter! Mr RVP, the Prodigal Dalit Son who had gone astray to fall into the evil grips of dangerous fundamentalist forces - promoting the mirage of hindutva to Club to Silence all non-brahmins with baniya money and kshatriya muscle, with the help of kayasth manipulations and others foolish blindness - had been the daily witness to the damage to Dr Ambedkar Foundation, as it was pulled down brick by brick. Drunk with power and money, RVP was blind to the destruction of Dr Ambedkar Foundation! Ask him! We won't be surprised if RVP says that he does not even know till date and that he had not seen the physical destruction of Dr Ambedkar Foundation! This, even as it was being demolished right in front of his very eyes! And he is sitting, almost everyday, in either one of the two adajacent buildings of Sanchar Bhavan and Dak-Tar Bhavan, right opposite 25 Ashoka Road! And his Car enters and comes out of his Office in Sanchar Bhavan almost Daily, exactly in front of the Gate of 25 Ashoka Road! Thus, daily he was thus the eye-witness to the daily destruction of Dr Ambedkar Foundation! Well, Abdul Khalique, Burjia, Rathi, Sitaraman and such ilk must be pulling their own wools over his eyes everyday, to blind his vision to the actual realities and to the happenings around him! Poor fellow! Let us Pity him, as he now goes by himself down the drain!

And other Dalit Leaders like Kanshi and Maya are blissfully oblivious of Dr Ambedkar Foundation, what it is, what for it had been set up, what it was doing, what had happened to it, what is happening to it, what will happen to it, and what needs to be done! They are all busy with their own affairs, worries and private or personal problems. Some are busy with petty issues. Others are busy making money! Some others are busy in hiding the money they had made! Some one else is engaged in escaping from the net that had been silently caste around them and all the money they had made so far! Some don't even respond when the sad end of Dr Ambedkar Foundation at 25 Ashoka Road is mentioned to them! They just blink and look blank, as if they had not heard, or what had been told to them did not register in their minds, or had just passed them by, or that they don't understand it all, or else that they do not understand the significance and seriousness of the problem! Or perhaps, they just do not believe in what had been told to them! They go dumb on hearing it, with disbelief or just helplessnes, not knowing what to do!

We have been hoping that all Powers will descend on to We Dalits in the beginning of the Twenty First Century! We thought that We Dalits were raising up, that We will ascend upto the Power. We expected that real Power would soon come into our hands! Yes, We Dalits were carried away for a ride, by the short temporary shortlived master stroke of Mr Kanshi, as he built a massive and strong Bridge of Understanding with the Backward Classes of Uttar Pradesh led by Mulayam, to stop what then appeared to be an unstoppable jaggernut of RSS-BJP-VHP-Bajrang Dal Combine, with their Ram Rath and what not, fuelled and propelled by the money and venom of the fascist Multani Refugees! None did expect then that Kanshi and Mulayam, the lowly Dalit and OBC, could really join hands and hold strongly and firmly enough, to stop the ever-scheming and always manipulating dominant caste hindus! And they did! The DCHs badly mauled were sent scrambling down, licking their deep gashes of bleeding wounds! We all, like the whole World expected that Kanshi and Mulayam would roll on with the all Powerful Dalit-OBC Armoured Regiments to the Red Fort in Delhi, and beyond to India Gate and into the Parliament House! But fools they were both! Power and success had gone into their heads! The sick and old Kanshi, had alrady begun to slowly turn senile and imobile! And intoxicated, without thinking foolishly he had nominated the greedy Maya as his Sentinel in UP. And she, a juvenile, a small time municipal teacher went berserk, and was perhaps the first from our Dalit Ranks and Dalit Masses to walk into the trap set by the BKVs, who were spending sleepless nights full of many nightmares of what the Dalit-OBC Combine had already done, and can also do to them in future!

The BKVs were all then scared of being forced to work, earn their livelihood and lead an ordinary common peoples' lives of struggles and competition! That they were not prepared! Nor were they ready to give up their Privileges and luxuries! So they went overtime to work stealthily and cunningly on the easily mouldable Maya, to turn her against Muslims Mulayam OBCs and all other Dalit Groups! Sadly, she joined hands with BJP, infused life into them, gave them respectability, some form of acceptability, and suddenly unexpectedly opened the doors of Dalits to the evil influences of RSS, lures of BJP, madness of VHP and dangerous designs of Bajrangs etc. She sold the Dalit Cause, and We Dalits lost not only our Movement and Momentum, but also our Directions! We also lost the delicate slowly emerging Dalit-OBC Equation very badly! And We Dalits, as a People lost Friends in every direction, became a laughing stock to be considered as untrustworthy People with out a progressive Goal, Aim or Objective, who can be easily influenced divided and purchased or made to run behind any mirage or unreachable carrot held high and ahead! This no doubt is a big loss and a sad chapter in our lives and our Quest for Power!

We Dalits, as a People, as large Communities and as an impressive Nation, are a very Big Force, inspite of these inspite of these drawbacks! That is why, even in the bad hopeless helpless and laughing situation in which Kanshi Maya RVP, many other even unmentionable individuals and names unworthy of being mentioned, have left us today - Govts and almost all the Parties and Leaders who are seriously in Politics, and hence want our valuable votes, will be vying with one another, and will be queing up tomorrow to garland the Statues of our uncorrupted Messiah, Baba Saheb. Some of them would have already chosen some specific Statues in the City, and or reserved some time slots; with all the TVs, Press, Cameras and Photographers lined up to cover their Garlinding of this Great Man's Statues, who gave to them the Nation's and the Republic's Constitution! Friends, let us all not be foolish enough to see these, watch the TV, hear the News and Read the Papers Magazines and Journals, and feel proud and happy! These are all big diversionary tactics, to be specifically enacted only to cheat and fool us! These are serious issues, and are a matter of concern! All these Public Shows and humility, let us remeber - are only for the Cameras, Press and Public! Remember, in another couple of Weeks, in many States and UTs - all these very same crooks, and camera lense and before-mike actors will be coming to us, begging for our Votes!

Let us remember then, all the sacrifices of our fore-fathers, the endless humiliations heaped on our elders; our own sufferings, miseries, discriminations, deprivations, toil, sweat and blood; violences on our people - the killings rapes wounds injuries broken-limbs lost-lives looted-homes and burnt-houses; and all the oppressions, tyranny, greed, manipulations, betrayals and cheatings; the way they have been grabbing, robbing, swindling and stealing everything of ours; appropriation of all our Jobs, Wages, Produce, Lands, Homes, Savings and Assets, Suspensions, Terminations and Dismissals; as well as the daylight looting and gobbling up of most of our Public Sector Undertakings! Our Freedom and Votes are neither to be sold or wasted, nor are they to elect and empower any of these betrayers cheats and swindlers! Please let us all Remember these, and also remind these to one another regularly at frequent intervels, least some of us may forget!

Let us now Resolve tomorrow, on the 110th Birth Anniversary of our Liberator and Messiah Baba Saheb Dr BR Ambedkar, that We won't Vote for our Enemies, Cheats, Betrayers and Traitors! Our Votes must go only to those who agree to our Education, assure us to give back all our Lands, and restore all those Valuable Jobs they had stolen from us and the Power they had appropriated from us!

- Jangli
13th April 2001