Four retired but enlightened scheduled caste officers of Karnataka have issued a statement hailing conversion of untouchables to Islam. The statement says: Conversion of untouchables to Islam in Tamil Nadu and other parts of India has shaken the Hindu society and according to some Hindus this is the biggest crisis faced by Hinduism since the partition. The Hindus are extremely worried because their properties and privileges are threatened by this wholesale revolt of the Dalits.
The report submitted by Union Minister of State for Home Makwana to the Prime Minister and the findings of many Hindu leaders like Prof Subramanian Swamy and others, reports in the national Press and the findings of the Regionals Director of SCs and STs have all gone to conclusively prove that the Tamil Nadu mass conversion of untouchables was solely due to socio-religious reasons. The untouchables themselves had testified that they felt fully liberated after becoming Muslims the bogey raised by the Shankaracharya’s, the Pejawara Swamis and other Hindu communalists under the leadership of the RSS about Arab money and the use of force in conversion has not worked. On the other hand, it is the Hindu leaders who are now trying to bribe the Dalits in their desperate but futile attempts to reconvert them. The very fact that they have failed to publish the names of those Muslims who were allegedly reconverted at Meenakshipuram and also other places further proves that all the noise raised by the RSS has proved to be totally false Meanwhile, the conversion to Islam has spread to North India as well.
In the light of this most significant turning point in the history of the untouchables’ liberation struggle, we the following elders belonging to the oppressed SC community express our full solidarity and sympathy in this liberation struggle. We also assure to stand by them in this struggle.
The most important thing that has to be correctly understood is that what the untouchables of India want is destruction of the caste system which alone shall destroy untouchability. All the constitutional reservations and governmental schemes, even where implemented sincerely, have only tried to improve the economic conditions of the untouchables. But the problem of the untouchables is not economic but social. Man cannot live by bread alone. He wants self-respect and manhood. Dr. B. R. Ambedkar said the untouchables must realise that as long as they live within Hinduism, they cannot get self-respect. The Marxists’ oftrepeated theory that untouchables will be liberated when the have-nots launch the “class struggle”” against the haves, has been falsified in India.
Therefore, the Government’s economic reforms having failed to deliver the goods, the Marxists having failed to bring about revolution and the Hindu leaders having no programmer to destroy caste system, the untouchables are forced to take recourse to the only path left-a religious solution by embracing Islam which they say has assured them human dignity. This is what they have been searching for centuries and if Islam offers them the way out, no Hindu, who is the very cause of the untouchable’s miseries, has the right to question what they do.
Therefore, we congratulate Makwana for upholding the right of the untouchables to seek justice and the Karnataka Dalit Action Committee for giving a call to the Dalits of India to quit Hinduism on August 15, which they observed as a “BLACK DAY”, As for the charge that some Dalit organization has sought money for conversion, we would like to vehemently condemn such insinuations. Such mischievous propaganda is nothing but adding insult to injury. The Dalits are not so cheap like the Brahmins who were responsible for selling this country to every foreign invader.
In Karnataka, the position of untouchable is in no way better than that of any other part of India. In Kollegal, Hunsur (Mysore Dist), Kolar, Ahalki (Bidar) Holenarsipur (Hassan), Gulbarga and in many parts of the State the untouchables are being persecuted We call upon Dalits of all these places to immediately quit Hinduism. We also call upon students and officials to kick off these Hindu crumbs of bread given in the shape of reservation and seek salvation by getting out of this gas chamber of Hinduism. It is better to live in honors for one single day than live as a dog for hundred years.
We also call upon our Muslim brother’s not to worry about any repercussions as long as we two persecuted minorities, together forming a sizeable population, say 40 per cent, come together. Along with Christians and tribals, we will be a force to reckon with. The Hindu communalists are trying to use this opportunity to engineer communal riots and all of us will have to be guarded against this danger. Untouchables must know Muslims and Christians are our best friends and therefore we should not fight the Hindu battle.
Remember we are doing this in the interest of saving the honors of India Only those who are traitors and anti- nationals can oppose our holy crusade”.
The signatories are Dr. D. RUDRAIAH, Director of Animal Husbandry and Vet. Services, S. PUTTASWAMY Engineering in Chief, Rlys., D. R. NANJAYYA, Deputy Commissioner, Commercial Taxes, & Editor BHEEMAVANI, all retd. K. DODDAVEERAIAH Undersecretary to Govt. several others officials have also signed the statement.
