Urging the government to transfer K.G. Jagadeesha, Commissioner of Dakshina Kannada, for walking out midway from a Dalit meeting here on Wednesday, Dalits on Friday threatened to hold a protest in the city on August 28 to press for their demand.
They said that Dakshina Kannada District Dalit Organisations Co-ordination Committee would hold jathas, torch-light processions and protests ahead of the August 28 protest to prevail upon the government to transfer the Deputy Commissioner. About 10,000 people would gather for the protest. Many Dalit leaders would be invited to it, they said.
Addressing presspersons, Chandu L., president of the committee, said that the Deputy Commissioner walking away abruptly ending the meeting called to address grievances was an insult to Dalits. In the meeting, Dalit representatives were only demanding that the district administration allocate the Depressed Class manna land, reserved for people of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, to Dalits and vacate encroachments on such reserved land. But the Deputy Commissioner said that he would have to get the guidelines from the government.
Shekar Laila, a Dalit activist, said that the Deputy Commissioner should seek voluntary transfer or else the co-ordination committee would continue agitations till the government transferred him.
Ashok Konchady, general secretary of the committee, claimed that there was 8,450 acres of Depressed Class manna land in Dakshina Kannada. It was as per the data furnished by the revenue officials at a meeting in the office of Deputy Commissioner last year. Of that, 50 % land has been encroached upon.
The leaders alleged that since Mr. Jagadeesha took charge as the Deputy Commissioner, no Depressed Class manna land has been allotted to Dalits.
Mr. Chandu claimed that when A.B. Ibrahim was Deputy Commissioner, 25 Dalit families had got 20 acres of land in Koyyur and Hosangady villages in Belthangady taluk.
He said that the Depressed Class manna land had been reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes by the erstwhile British government in 1938 in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts. There is no such reservation of land for Dalits in other districts in the State.
Mr. Konchady said that if the process of allotting land to Dalits was not hastened, the Dalits would on their own would barge into the available Depressed Class manna land in the district and would hoist their flag there.
He said that the Depressed Class manna land in the district has been allocated to the offices of many government departments, and also a cashew plantation of the Karnataka Cashew Development Corporation (KCDC).
