FEB. 1, 1982
Editorial: “A Bloody New Year Gift to Dalits”
The New year broke on India with a “bloody” news. Coming events cast their shadows. That 1982 began with a repeat performance of “hunting Harijans as rabbits” at Sadhupur in Indira Gandhi’s own home State of UP even before the smell of Deoli evaporated confirm the fear expressed in our editorial. (Dec. 1 1981), “Dalit life is the cheapest in India”. Officially 21% of the UP population is Untouchables. We have no words to describe the heinous nature of the Sadhupur crime (Dec. 31) in which 10 (official figure) Jatavs were gunned down in a most well-planned bid to silence and subdue the Untouchables. If caste is not the cause of the mass murder, why the “dacoits” wanted to find out where the Jatavs lived and shot only Jatavs and none else? In the Deoli massacre also only the Jatavas were the victims. The Sadhupur mass murder of Dalits confirm our fears that the “Hindi heartland” will soon witness bloody caste wars. It is just a question of time. It also proves that caste and democracy cannot co-exist. If killing a Dalit who challenges the Hindu is jati dharma, how can we have democracy? Our human rights organisations are unconcerned about the human rights of Dalits and Muslims.
Under such circumstances the only solution is that the untouchable victims of Hindu violence in villages must quit their village and migrate to safer cities. As the upper caste- controlled govt. and police cannot be expected to protect Dalits from Hindu violence and as Dalits being weak cannot organise their own self-defence, they have no other alternative but to migrate to cities. We repeat our appeal for migration and systematic shifting of population. Dalits who have already migrated to cities assured us that they had escaped Hindu tyranny. Such a migration and shifting of population cannot be left to govt. which will take no inerest in it. So Dalits must make their own arrangements for self-defence. Dalits can no longer remain unarmed. Because in a society where guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have the guns. This is what is happening in India today.
“None to equal Dr. Ambedkar in India: Periyar EVR: In 1930 or so Dr. Ambedkar gave a call to Untouchables to quit Hinduism and embrace Islam. I gave a telegram urging him that he must take at least a lakh of people into Islam. Hindus are caught in a tight corner by Jinnah and Dr. Ambedkar. (Extracts from a speech at Madras on 13.5.1952).
UNESCO honour to DSA’s “Brahminism” book, Yoichi Mitsu hashi, Tokyo: A great news came to us from France. Mrs. Yumi Tsuji had sent photocopies of DV Editor’s books, “Brahminism” and “Class-Caste-Struggle”, to some French scholars. Leon Poliakov, the distinguished French historian, wrote her that he was impressed with the book, Brahminism, which he would use for his work commissioned by the UNESCO.
“Mass promotions: The Gujarat horror Story”: RS Salil, Ahmedabad. The article is about the 1981 caste war in Gujarat which began at the B.J. Medical College on Dec. 29, 1980.
