OUR CORRESPONDENT
Bangalore: Dalitology, a voluminous 820-page book in English hailed as the “sacred scripture” of the Untouchables, was released at a mammoth public meeting here on Feb.3 along with its Kannada version (970 pages).
M.C. Raj, the author of the book who runs a powerful Dalit NGO at Tumkur, near here, is one of the few honest and committed Dalit scholars and activists whose number is dwindling under the cyclonic impact of the brahminical corrupting and co-opting tactics. The spirited and punch-packed speech that he delivered. introducing his book at the beginning of the function electrified the audience. But more than that the speech proved his deep love for the Untouchables and his anger at the Brahminical Social Order the enemy-oppressor. (The speech of Brother Raj will be published separately as it deserves a close study).
However, the function was marred by the absence of half a dozen Karnataka Congress Ministers, all Dalits, and also the Lok Sabha Speaker Balayogi, also a Telugu Dalit. Their absence is yet another proof that Dalit politicians have no love for their community but they are afraid of their upper caste party bosses.
But H. Hanumanthappa, a former Congress MP and ex-chairman of the National SC/ST Commission, made up the loss and came out with a frank admission that at the end of 50 years of SC/ST reservations – he called it glorified slavery the progress was practically nil.
Not only the “reserved community” has become selfish but more than that they have betrayed their own (Dalit) society. Since reservations have been killed by the ruling upper castes and super- speciality courses are barred to Dalits, Dalit future is bleak. Hence the need to evolve an alternative to reservation, he said. The speech of Hanumanthappa indicates that he is a rare thinking political leader. Now that he is out of office, he can use his vast experience and all-India contacts to evolve such an alternative to reservations. Since Dalit Voice too had been for long voicing such a concern. (DV Edit March 1, 2000: “Sun set on the Dalit world”) we would be too pleased to support such a search, of course non-political.
Media blackout: Srinivas Prasad, Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, also spoke. Nine Dalit intellectuals were honoured on the occasion.
As expected, the brahminical “national” toilet papers virtually blacked out the function. This was expected. Those papers do not belong to us. We have no right to seek anything from the enemy media. If the Dalits want publicity they must have their own media.
