Shyama Venkateswar, Assistant Director, Asian Social Issues Program, Asia Society, 725-Park Avenue, New York, NY 10021: The Asia Society in New York invites. you to attend an upcoming event here that is being organized at the time of the United Nations Special Session on Indigenous Rights on May 14 at our office.
Our passport was confiscated years back (1986) and we are not allowed to go out of India–EDITOR
Mumtaz Hussain, PO Box 862, Doha, Qatar: I request my Muslim brothers to seriously study the article published in Dalit Voice of April 1, 2002 p.6 by Rajendra, a Dalit intellectual from Karnataka. Rejendra recommends “Dalit-Muslim unity” but the Muslim leadership is interested only in “Hindu-Muslim unity”. The brahminical media have been corrupting the Hindu mind by saying that Muslims are traitors and anti-nationals. Unfortunately Muslims cannot give a fitting reply as they have no media of their own to educate the rest of the Indians. Dalits brainwashed by this media killed Muslims in Gujarat. Brahminical forces have succeeded in creating hatred between “low caste Hindus” and Muslims. Godhra incident was well planned by Hindu nazis. What took place in Gujarat was not anti-Muslim riots but a systematic BJP (Brahmana Jati Party) Govt-sponsored ethnic cleansing even worse than Bosnia, Chechenya, Afghanistan. Over 33,000 anti-Muslim riots were staged in India from 1947. Upper castes conducted this experiment because they were well organized through their RSS shakas. Till now no govt. institution has confirmed as to who burnt the train first. The Brahmin-Bania-controlled media is spreading the news that Muslims burnt it. The brahminical “ethnic (Muslim) killing” is going on successfully but still they are not able to identify the culprit behind the incident. Instead the whole world says including the Indian Muslims that it is “Hindu-Muslim” riots. It looks the Muslims will finally surrender to Hinduism like Sikhism, Jainism and Budhism. Muslims have no media of their own. India is a conglomerate of gram-panchayats. The sound you make in the panchayat echoes in Parliament. In every gram-panchayat, 10 Muslim youth should join hands with 10 Dalits to block the venom spread by the brahminical media. Convince the Dalits about the brahminical conspiracy that divides India and make them fight each other. This campaign shall go on from mouth to mouth and through wall posters. Within 10-15 years there will be good result. Are the Muslim leaders ready? “Dalit-Muslim unity” from the zero level is being blocked by the present-day Muslim leadership in Delhi and UP. They rather prefer “Hindu-Muslim unity”. The Muslim leadership is not ready to forget their pet “Hindu-Muslim unity”. The Muslim leadership is blocking “Dalit-Muslim unity because they have historical blood connections with upper caste Hindus.
R.A. Dalavi, 26-Amish Park, Baroda -390 009: In the issue of March 1 DV, I read the articles of S. Krishna and Dr. Vinod Wanjari on Vipassana. I have also read several views of Anil Rangari, Sakegaonkar etc. on this subject. I feel my intellectual brothers are wasting their intelligence in this unproductive in-fighting instead of doing any constructive work for society. Today, the upper castes (Hindus) are using the Dalits in Gujarat to kill our Muslim brothers and burning and looting. But there is no single local leader from the Dalit fraternity to come forward and convince the Dalits that the Tagodia and Modi gang has been using them as tools. The Ram Mandir even if built may not be open for these Dalits. Then why are they wasting their blood for it and becoming the enemy of the Muslims? Rather, they should have protected the Muslims and fought against the Hindu nazis. Two days back, my office attendant (Dalit) asked for a monitory help for a Dalit brother who lost his one hand in the Gujarat riots. He was not a member of the Hindu nazi BJP, VHP or BD. That is why he was not getting medical help from these organizations. He was also booked for rioting. He is ignorant about it and only knows that he is fighting for Hindu religion. He which does not own him except in attacking Muslims. Such instances are in hundreds. My wife and I tried to convince some of the locals to dissociate themselves from this Hindu-Muslim fighting. Since Muslims are their neighbours, Dalits should help them and avoid enmity. This will be repaid in their difficult times. I sincerely feel that before this “Hindu spirit” takes over the Dalits all over India, all my intellectual brothers should see that Dalits don’t get involved in these Hindu-Muslim fights in their respective localities. Did not Babasaheb, our Father say, that Dalits are not Hindus and were never Hindus? Yesterday it was Christian, today it is Muslim, tomorrow it will be Dalit. This is the right time for all the minorities like Muslims, Sikhs, Dalits, Christian to come together and fight the Hindu nazis. All the DV readers should communicate this message all over India through their emails to their friends and relatives.
This Letter is the only one of its kind received from Gujarat or any other part of india on the current Gujarat genocide of Muslims. We visited Ahmedabad twice during the height of the Gujarat caste war 1961 and 1985 and did all the spade work but within a couple of years the same upper castes who attacked and killed Dalits in 1981-85 succeeded in instigating Dalits against Muslims. Our Dalit leadership in Ahmedabad failed. The Muslim leadership is mainly responsible for not promoting the Dalit Muslim unity – EDITOR
P.S. Mane, 106/9, Shiv Ganga Nagar. Ambarnath-421 501: After a very long time I am communicating with you. I was not at Ambarnath for quite some time. Hence the DV subscription lapsed. Later, I thought DV had stopped publication. I too forgot to verify this for two years. Since the beginning of your career in DV, you have been campaigning for a “Media Centre” of our own. Kanshi Ram promised you but did not keep up his words. Kanshi Ram later decided to launch a daily and he wanted to discuss it in detail at Bangalore with you. I came to Bangalore as requested on 18.4.1989 but he could not spare time. Your shifting of publication from Bangalore to Delhi twice proved to be a historical shifting of capital from Delhi to Daulatabad and back to Delhi. You today are a sad person that your dream is not fulfilled.
L.K. Suryawanshi, Post Box No. 5417. New Delhi -110 011: I liked your editorial, “Gujarat violence stage managed: Muslim life & property no longer safe under Hindu nazis” (DV March 16, 2002). You are right in saying innocent non-Hindu Dalits, BC and Tribals killed Muslims. Our Dalit brothers are fast becoming Hindu. Dalit movement is dying because our brothers have become slaves of Hindus.
Gurnam Singh Muktsar, 12 Guru Angad Nagar, Muktsar-152 026: I read Gurtej Singh’s article: “Sikhs have not turned against Dalits” (DV April 1, 2002 p.22). Every Sikh paper in Punjab accepts the truth about upper caste Sikh role and their casteist behaviour against Dalit masses in rural areas of Punjab. How can he deny these facts of history? Shocking. Sister K.K. Sidhu is also a Jat Sikh and she is very much aware of all the facts and admits them. I am a victim of the casteist behaviour of these Jat Sikhs. Our Dalit masses depend on Jat Sikhs and their lands. They face daily insults even today. In many villages, Jat Sikhs have constructed walls between two sections of the society. Even today, Dalit Sikhs are prohibited from reading the Guru Granth. Newspapers report all these stories every day. At least 100 such insulting incidents take place every day. Dalit women are raped. Even small boys and girls are raped. How dare they deny all this? I fully agree with the conclusions of Sister Sidhu. I shall distribute 100 copies of her pamplhet, How vaidiks Turned Sikhs into Muslim Haters? (DSA 2002). The Akali Sikhs are more castiest than the Congress Sikhs.
- Singha Chowdhury, Ramakrishnapally, P.S. Lane PO, Howrah dt. 711 109: The BSP-BJP alliance in UP is slowly taking shape. The prospect is very likely to lead to a deep crisis in the BSP as you have rightly pointed out in your Editorial of March 1 DV: “BSP-BJP post-poll pact in UP will be disastrous & demoralise Dalits”.
The gloom gathering in the hearts of those who are around the party is too compelling not to burst out in storm. The reasons being put forward in favour of the alliance are too shocking. You have rightly warned at the prospect and have very aptly ventilated your worries in terms which are also struggling in the hearts of the well-wisher unable to express in the public. My hearty congratulation to you for your bold exposure of the issue in DV of March 1 last. If brahminic vices like opportunism and corruption, favouritism, misappropriation (deception, cheating) are to be practised by our people also then where is the future for Dalits? In what way we will be different from Brahmins? Dr. Ambedkar was a noble person. He never stooped to corruption and co-option in the name of political strategy and tactics. If the proletariat are also corrupted in the same way as bourgeoisie, there is no need for revolution. Dalit revolution will be as dangerous as the vaidik counter-revolution. If strategies and tactics are considered supreme for the sake of continuing in power. the ideologies will be relegated under the table, and the leaders and the led will be condemned perhaps irretrievably in the corruption. Has the BSP ever considered clearly what is the core of its ideology which it will preserve at any cost? It has always condemned Manuwad, which the BJP is hell-bound to preserve as a Brahmin party. Would it then partially compromise on Manuwad under a compromise formula with BJP? Today’s enemy is tomorrow’s friend is a false theory. It obtains in a society already totally corrupted and depraved so much so that it has lost its ideological identity. It can continue in a multiparty system where the party- hordes are a hungry lot. And where the filthy lures are nutritious elixer of life. Can BSP mass the Dalits all over India under its flag and move them to make a strident movement against the Manuwad and thus create a two-party system. Where there is no place for such humbug as today’s enemy becoming tomorrow’s friend? It has to be remembered that “compromise” will concern “ideology” and not strategy and tactics which get a permanent lease of life. Under their weight the ideology will get lost. Chastity is not saved either by prudery or prudence. I am all with BSP if it can have BIP agree to go the whole hog under its terms. But the cobra will not agreeably give its poison pit under its teeth into the BSP for root it out.
Md Zubair, c/o P.G. Baramappa, Dr. No. 2986/25, 6th Main, Vivekananda Extn., Davanagere 577 004: The vultures are on the flesh of the weak and oppressed. The Hindu fanatics have devised harder and cunning tactics of massacres. If you remember the Gujarat violence, the upper castes have very cunningly used the Backward “Hindus” to destroy their own brothers. It is very unfortunate that we the oppressed were to expect sympathy from those who had already suffered from their hands and now they turn against us. Don’t you think that it is very pitiable plight of the Dalits that they are not being able to recognise their enemies? You are trying to save an already sunk ship. There is no point in awakening the already dead. I have my personal experiences to account for the mis-behaviour. You are unnecessarily using this stint of Muslim leadership to woo Muslims to your way of thinking. The Muslim leadership has no meaning in India. What we need to better do is to sit back and think where we Muslims and Dalits are falling prey to the hawks. And seriously analyse our political leadership. I would also like you to note that Dalits are still backward due to the parasitic Dalit leadership. And I seriously believe that the Jamate Islami Hind has the capacity to lead and take up the issues relating to Muslims and also of all the oppressed.
The brahminical forces are doing their duty to promote their hegemony but the Muslim leadership is not doing its duty. The Jamate-Islami leadership knows our stand too well. Yet it is refusing to support our plea for Dalit-Muslim unity. Here again we can’t blame the cadres of the Jamat. Only the leadership. At least 100 members of the Jamat are our DV family members-EDITOR
S.M.A. Majeedi, Hasan Mansion, 116-Katkuj, Chandpur -246 725: I am a 63-year old retd. construction engineer now practicing as an architect. I offer my profound regards to V.T. Rajshekar, “hailed as the Mufakir-e-Azam for Muslims”. I was reading Dalit Voice since 1981 till my retirement in the Govt. of India. Now I am independent architect.
Shadab Kalim, A-1/2, Suroor Apartments, Sir Syed Nagar, Aligarh-202 002: I have been following your writings for some time (after I came across your book Curse of Allah, DSA-1997). I have just finished reading, Muslims suffer for ignoring Dalit-Muslim unity…” (DV Edit April 1, 2002). Yes, the Muslims have failed to rebuild the Babri Masjid till now. But what options did the Muslims have other than going to the court as the situation stands now. Shame… Yes, what should have been done? I didn’t have much interest in politics and neither did I try to understand it (not now). But which Nawabi Muslim leader are you talking about in the above Editorial? The Muslim organisations have failed to deliver.. But we have faith. The Gujarat incident is a terrible scar in our mind.
When everything is taking the colour of Hindu in India, how can Muslims repase confidence in such a court? We Dalits have lost hope in the Hindu courts long back. Over 95% of the Muslim masses, poverty-stricken, are good. revolutionary. But the leadership is exercising control over them through the religion of Islam hiding its revolutionary aspects- EDITOR.
Ilyas Patel, Khanpur Deh, Gujarat-392 150: After 8 to 10 years, I am writing you. I am one of your old readers and have translated various booklets and articles in Gujarati. Gujarat is burning amid torched human beings here and there. Yes, everywhere. BSO’s power-grabbing tactic and yellow journalism once again succeeded to get loyal monkeys. Yes, your Dalit brothers, the Tribals of Gujarat have been enjoying their slavery. Yes, they have done the role of loyal monkey (Hanuman) for great Rama’s force. Haven’t they? Thousands of Hanumans eliminated innocent Muslims in almost every village in almost entire tribal belt in Gujarat. They have come out to torch the “golden Lanka” of Muslim businessmen and industrialists. They have burnt down establishments where they are working. Who will change their minds as 5,000 years have passed?
Poot illiterate Dalits were attacked by the Gujarati upper caste Patels. Banias and Brahmins in the 1981 and 1985 “Gujarat caste war. At that time we came to Ahmedabad twice and met all Dalit and Muslim leaders. We held several meetings with Muslim leaders urging them to immediately go in support of Dalits and defend them in their fight against upper castes. We impressed the Muslims that both Muslims and Dalits had a common enemy. But the Muslim leaders did not listen and within a couple of years the cunning and crafty upper castes turned the very Dalits against Muslims and Ahmedabad witnessed one of the worst anti-Muslim riots. At that time we again rushed there and reminded the Muslims their lapses and said they must step in and stop the hinduisation of Dalits. The Muslim leaders did not listen to our second warning also. What is the point in now blaming the innocent unthinking Dalits and Tribals? The latest genocide of Muslims is the price the Muslim leadership paid for ignoring our repeated warnings. Even now It is not too late. The Muslim leadership must take up the “Dalit-Muslim unity” work at a lightning speed. We will come there to support your work. If not, Gujarat will witness a bigger and better genocide. Take this warning –EDITOR
Dr. Hasnain Sarshaar, 294-H.H. Hall, AMIJ, Aligarh – 202 002: though you are doing a very good work it is hard to achieve your goal. I am afraid hardly any work is being done at the peripheral level to motivate the poor, illiterate Dalit and Backward masses. The Dalits in my contact (mainly sweepers, of course) do not even know about such a big movement being carried out by you. I am trying to convince few of my friends regarding the need for missionary work for Muslims of India and the current situation in Gujarat is helpful in doing my job. Hopefully we will try to meet with you soon. We have reprinted your booklet, How to Exterminate the Muslims in India, as a pamphlet. I will send you a copy of the same soon.
