Tomorrow is 14th April 2001!
First Fourteenth April in the New
Millennium, in the Twenty first 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 Honorable 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 Financial 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, in spite 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 helplessness, 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 juggernaut 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 Armored 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 immobile! 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, in spite of these in spite 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 queuing 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 Garlanding 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 remember - 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 intervals, 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
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