The issue of “Jati identity” raised by DV is extremely important for India. We Dalits lost everything because they identified us by caste but not as Dalits. So, the way to regain all that we lost is to identify ourselves by Jati.
“Jati identity” will provide us a platform for shared perception and common expression. When we know ourselves, we will start asking who we are, how we are and why we are. To answer these questions, we are supposed to search our past and study our present.
Blacks in US: Our liberation is not a simple task. Only conscious people feel the pain of persecution and fight for their liberation from that pain. The Blacks in US did it because they were a conscious lot. Here in India, our liberation is getting delayed. We are still unconscious. “Caste identity” is the simplest and best way to make us conscious.
For this we should create our own people in every sphere of human life — social, educational, economic, political and cultural. We should produce doctors, engineers, planners, lawyers, teachers, executives, writers, artists, historians, sociologists, anthropologist’s, economists etc. Who will be able to set a parallel culture oriented towards the enlightenment of Dalits throughout India.
Let it be a renaissance in Indian art, culture, politics and literature. We should deliberately develop personnel of high intellectual honesty and capacity.
Our people must go out and join different parties and platforms headed by the BSO in search of status and social respect.
We must help our people get education, promote research and development activities. Give out awards and rewards to those who deserve. Change our actions and thoughts as a way of life. Dalits as a way of life.
To make Dalit out of a Harijan: Our task is to make a Dalit out of a Harijan. How to do this? How an undergraduate is made a graduate? it is through teaching texts based on a prescribed syllabus and getting the feedback through exam. We too must set a syllabus —Dalit syllabus — based on which texts on Dalit history, culture, caste, untouchability, discrimination, struggles, prominent leaders, taboos, mores, folklore and Dalit future etc. can be produced in each regional language focussing on each state. Those who go through the texts prescribed in the syllabus will get a shared experience which will result in their common expression. When we all think alike, our problem of unity will become very easy.
