New Delhi:
Over 2,000 Dalit men, women and children of the Dalit Liberation Army courted arrest here at Boat Club on April 26, to protest against the practice of untouchability in the Rashtrapati Bhavan and the anti-Dalit attitude of the government which refused to receive the memorandum of the DLA. A deputation of the DLA had gone to the Rashtrapati Bhavan to present a petition to President Zail Singh. But they were not allowed to meet him. On the other hand, the staff of the President allegedly addressed the members of the deputation as Chamars and passed abusive remarks. On hearing about this insult thousands of Bheem Sainiks shouted slogans against the President’s secretariat and the Central government, broke the police cordon and courted arrest. Addressing the Boat Club rally, the DLA Commander, Prof. Jogendra Kavade, condemned the government for practising untouchability within the Rashtrapati Bhavan, the highest office of the country. The atrocities on Dalits, rapes of Dalit women and cold-blooded murder of Dalit children in India was going on unabated and Central government had miserably failed to stop it. Every human right guaranteed by the UNO was being violated in India. The Dalit March started from Nagpur on April 14 on the occasion of the Ambedkar Jayanti. At Agra, more Dalits joined it reaching Delhi on April 24, where they were accorded a heroic welcome. On April 26, Dalits marched in procession from Ambedkar Bhavan to Boat Club, raising slogans. It was a scene of surging humanity that had risen in revolt against the outdated Hindu religion, orthodoxy, corrupt bureaucracy, undemocratic politics and the capitalist forces which jointly conspired to crush 170 millions of Dalits and imposed on them the social, religious slavery. There were Dalit women in worn out sarees, barefooted children, Dalit men in torn clothes looking weary, hungry and thirsty. But their anger revealed they were in revolt against the Hindu social tyranny.
