Bangalore: The Editor of Dalit Voice, V.T. Rajshekar, came here on July 11,1997 on his first visit to Orissa and electrified the dormant, if not dead, Dalit movement in this backward east coast state.
He addressed a meeting of the Dalit Voice readers on July 13 under the auspices of the Dr. Ambedkar Vichar Manch. Bhajan Behar, a former Union Minister and president of the Manch, presided and Hemanand Biswal, Deputy Chief Minister of Orissa and State’s most powerful leader, was the chief guest.
Readers of all the districts of Orissa attended the day- long meeting. They had come even from Koraput, 650 km away, and Ranchi in Bihar.
Oriya edition of DV: The Editor delivered his speech in English for nearly two hours and it had a tremendous electrifying effect on everybody. The Rabindra Mandap Hall was almost full. The entire stock of books, which the Editor brought with him, were sold out even before the meeting began.
Bhajan Behar, who is emerging as a non-party Dalit leader acceptable to all sections, said the meeting was a unique and unprecedented event in the history of Orissa Dalit movement because never before the Dalits, Tribal and BC representatives from different parts of the state gathered on a common platform to discuss such serious subjects. A very striking development is the presence of Dalit political leaders from all parties and they said on the question of Dalit oppression, they all would forget their party differences and stand united.
They all said the Editor’s visit would be the beginning of Orissa Dalit movement.
Pandas & Patnaik’s: The meeting decided to bring out an Oriya edition of Dalit Voice by shifting the Dalit Varta, being published by Advocate Panchanan Parida, from Balasore dt., to Bhubaneshwar. Bhajan Behar’s organisation and DV readers agreed to assist Parida.
The Editor’s speech at the DV readers meeting will be published separately in DV.
He was received and seen off at the Bhubaneshwar airport by a large number of Dalit leaders.
The three-day visit of the Editor was a great success and we have every hope it will energise the Dalits, “educate” and “agitate” them to launch a powerful Dalit movement in the state which is ruled by a small 5% of Aryan upper castes – Pandas and Patnaik’s.
