Hailing Dr. B.R. Ambedkar as a voice of the voiceless and a visionary national leader, Minister of State for Medical Education Dr. Sharan Prakash Patil has stressed the need of disseminating and popularising Dr. Ambedkar's revolutionary ideas, which he said were still relevant.
Mr. Patil, who is also the District In-charge Minister, was addressing a programme organised to mark the 125th birth anniversary celebrations of Ambedkar at Mahila Samaj Grounds here on Thursday.
“Dr. Ambedkar was an unquestionable leader of all the downtrodden communities that were historically oppressed and exploited. He instilled awareness and self-respect in them and inspired them to rise in protest against all forms of exploitation and oppression. His monumental work, the Constitution, was his consolidated vision for India … we need to preserve and follow it,” he said.
Ambedkar was one of the rare leaders in the world history who passed through all humiliations and hardship and persistently struggled to put an end to exploitation and oppression of humans by humans, Mr. Patil added.
Reiterating the State government’s commitment in developing the marginalised sections in the light of Ambedkar thoughts, Mr. Patil claimed that Karnataka was ranked second in formulating Dalit welfare programmes and made budgetary allocations to implement the welfare schemes.
He further strongly held that the realisation of special status to the backward Hyderabad Karnataka region with the insertion of Article 371(J) to the Constitution was a result of Ambedkar’s farsightedness.
“With the special status under Article 371(J) of the Constitution in force, the Hyderabad Karnataka Regional Development Board is getting a grant of Rs. 1,000 crore every year to initiate welfare projects, apart from reservations in education and employment to the candidates from the region. Determined to the development of the region, the State government is making consistent efforts to fill all the 30,000 vacant posts in all the departments in the region,” Mr. Patil said.
The Minister expressed dissatisfaction over the media’s approach towards the government by stating that a section of media was making a mountain out of a molehill.
He urged people to wholeheartedly follow the Ambedkarite thoughts to build the country on the strong foundation of social justice, equality and liberty.
The Department of Information and Public Relations released a booklet pictorially depicting Ambedkar’s life. Rare photographs of Ambedkar were also on display on the occasion.
B.V. Naik, Member of Parliament, Shivaraj Patil, MLA, Basavaraj Patil Itagi, MLC, Tungabhadra Command Area Development Authority chairman A. Vasanth Kumar, Deputy Commissioner S. Sasikanth Senthil, Superintendent of Police Chetan Singh Rathor and leaders of various Dalit organisations were present.
