March 1, 1982
Editorial : “A Constitutional fraud on Dalits”
A report of a Dalit Christian organisation from Bangalore says constitutional reservation has been given to “Hindu SCs” but denied to the SCs who got converted to Christianity. To be a SC and entitled to reservation one has to be a Hindu or Sikh. This is an unconstitutional condition. This is nothing but the State itself discriminating in favour of a religion. So the Presidential Order of 1950 is unconstitutional. The right to change religion being a fundamental right, the PO violates this, it says.
Hindu leaders of the Gujarat Caste War of 1981and the Hindus who challenged reservation in promotions in the Railways and many others want “poverty” as the yardstick for reservations and not ‘caste’. Many Brahmin conferences also passed resolutions demanding ‘economic criterion” for reservations. The Hindu press chorus is also on the same lines. All over India, the upper castes want “poverty yardstick” to measure backwardness.
But the same Hindu rulers who demand “economic criterion” do not apply this yardstick in all cases. They have different yardsticks for different people. They apply this criterion to some but deny it to others.
They oppose individual or mass conversion on the ground that it will not improve the economic status of the converts. Conversion will not wipe out poverty, they say while opposing the conversions.
By Implication it means that the converted Christians will continue to remain “poor”. If the converts are poor and poverty should be the yardstick then why the Hindus are opposing reservation to Dalit Christians who are also “poor”? Communal Hindus who are unanimous about “economic criterion” suddenly change over to “caste criterion” when it come to reservation to the posts of archakas (temple priests).
That means they will change their slogans according to their convenience. Therefore, can we say that reservations are being used by Hindus to safeguard their religion? Are they not punishing non-Hindus by using the reservations?
A Black American’s Recipe for Revolution in India: M. Mazharuddin, Illinois, USA. One of the reasons for India’s backwardness and poverty is Hinduism.
Maratha lobby behind Pune communal riots : The two- month long Hindu unity conference of RSS has finally resulted in a series of communal riots in Pune, Sholapur, Baramati, Pandharpur, Sangli etc. from Feb.14. One report said Pune was experiencing its first anti-Muslim riots since 1973.
‘Letter to Editor” include those of Mrs. Yumi Tsuji, Tokyo, Dr. F. Vivekananda, Stockholm, Miss. Vibhuti Patel, George Menezes, both Bombay, Dr. M. Vasu,Trivandrum Medical College.
Women’s Liberation and class-caste Struggle: Flavia D’Mellow, Vibhuti Patel, Amar Jesani, and Sonal Shukla, Bombay. Dalits observe R. Day as Black Day in Bangalore.
Why I became a Muslim: M. Kumaran, Nagpur, writes on Vittal Rao Wankhede (52) a top officer of the Maharashtra State, PWD, working as Suptd. Engineer, embracing Islam at Nagpur on Jan. 9, 1982.
