Dalit activist and Gujarat MLA Jignesh Mevani has called upon all Dalit and Adivasi organisations to join forces to remove the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from power at the Centre in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Inaugurating a Dalit-Adivasi-Bahujan convention and agitation proclamation meet here on Tuesday, Mr. Mevani said there was an unprecedented increase in attacks on Dalits in Rajasthan, while in Gujarat, hundreds of false cases were being foisted on them. This was happening as the BJP had decided that if the the ‘mandir-masjid’ agenda did not work, they would go for Dalit vs rest of India, Mr. Mevani alleged.
He said the recent Supreme Court judgment on the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989 should be be seen in this light. The judges had the power to interpret the law but not the right to rewrite the special legislation as they had attempted to in this case.
The Dalit leader also came down on successive governments in Kerala for their failure to carry out the second stage land reforms to further the economic and material interests of Dalits and tribespeople. Despite the first stage land reforms, most Dalits and Adivasis remained landless. If the concern of the CPI and the CPI(M) for Dalits was genuine, they should start allotting land to the landless, Mr. Mevani said.
Pradeep Nehwal, Dalit activist, said the Union government wanted to criminalise Dalit voices in the country. The BJP wanted to suppress Dalit voices across the country, but it was painful that the situation was the same in Kerala. Ashok Bharati, Dalit leader, said that as per government figures, 60% of the population had 5% land, and 10% of the population had 55% land. Nearly 35% of the tribespeople were landless, despite the land ceiling Acts in the country.
