I get this picture in the email today and thought I must share it with everyone.
Isn’t it true? Years after year, Dalits have been denied of their rights, their dignity. They are kept at the lowest rung. Years after year, Governments have betrayed Dalits and Dalits’ trust. Now is the time to wake up and make our community aware of the discrimination Dalits’ facing in all the spheres. Unless we unite and raise voice against injustices, nothing is going to happen, wake up!!
Filed under BSP, Caste Discrimination, Casteism, Dalit-Bahujans, Dr B R Ambedkar
The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history, Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster. The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting. – Milan Kundera.
In the month June 2012, the Government of Punjab announced that it will set up a ‘cow memorial‘ at a factory site in Joga town, Mansa District, where recovery of cow carcasses had sparked off riots. And a day after announcing a ‘cow memorial’, the Badal Government further announced it will constitute a ‘cow commission‘ to ‘prevent cruelties against the holy animal’. Mr. Badal even made a visit to the factory where cow slaughter was supposedly taking place and instructed the DGP to look into the cases of cow slaughter with interest and thoroughly. Mr. Badal and his party members didn’t even have the time to pay a visit to the blanket factory at Jalandhar which collapsed in April 2012 and which left more than 10 people dead and 100s badly injured. Not even a single statement came in favor of dead or injured in the one of worst factory accidents of Punjab’s history. Was it because people working at that factory were poor and their lives were not as important as the lives of cows? And recently, when a madman at a Wisconsin Sikh Gurdwara killed 6 people, Mr. Badal, CM of Punjab, decided to visit Wisconsin! Isn’t it strange that when in his home state, thousands Dalits are being tortured and when the crime rate against Dalits is going up day by day, he decided to visit Wisconsin to comfort Sikhs of Wisconsin? Is it because these people living abroad finance him and support his party during the election time and the poor Dalits don’t have as much money to donate? So Dalit voices are left unheard.
All these announcements didn’t come to me as surprise as I know who are working behind all these. For centuries, Hindu fundamentalists have always taken a keen interest in destroying Sikhism, Buddhism and Jainism. RSS’s ‘secret agenda‘, (published by “New Age” weekly of Communist Party, dated 18th-24th June 2000, same was also reproduced by Aajka Surekh Bharat, Nagpur, Oct. 2000, P-44,) shows the same, ‘secret agenda’ in which it was advocated to members that they “teach false history, misguide minority communities, compel them to chant ‘Om’, divide Dalit unity, keep converting Dalits, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists into Hindus etc. There were 34 such points in that ‘secret agenda’, points which were against humanity, mankind & full of hatred. These days, Sikh organizations, Sikh temples etc are hijacked by Hindu fundamentalists and they are running these organizations as they want. Sikh leaders can be seen at Hindu functions, celebrating Hindu festivals, visiting Hindu temples and performing Hindu pujas. How can Dalits, who protected Sikhism at each and every step, trust such Sikh leaders who attend such Hindu functions where Sikhism is being ruined?
Recently, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar has been ranked as “The Greatest Indian”. You can watch the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J48dmpKoyPo or you can read about it at http://www.outlookindia.com/content10894.asp
Filed under Dalit-Bahujans, Documentary, Dr B R Ambedkar
Mumbai’s Way: Buddhism in the Daravi slums (Visits to Daravi slums with Dr. Arun Kamble)
You can also watch the same video from this link https://vimeo.com/9441279
Filed under Buddha, Buddhism, Caste Discrimination, Dalit-Bahujans, Documentary, Dr B R Ambedkar
My final words of advice to you are Educate, Agitate and Organize; have faith in yourself. With justice on our side I do not see how we can lose our battle. The battle to me is a matter of joy. The battle is in the fullest sense spiritual. There is nothing material or social in it. For ours is a battle not for wealth or for power. It is a battle for freedom. It is a battle for the reclamation of the human personality. – Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
Filed under Buddhism, Dalit-Bahujans, Dr B R Ambedkar, Equal Rights
Today, I got stumbled upon news that RBI is considering national iconsfor Indian currency. The name of Dr. B R Ambedkar has been recommended for Indian currency. It reminded me of the time of my childhood, when first time in my life I had seen the Rs. 1 coin with Dr. Ambedkar’s photo on it. I was filled with the joy and kept that coin in the closet, never to lose it. I know this is not only with me but millions other Dalits also want to see Dr. Ambedkar on Indian currency and experience same joy. Few years back, I even came in contact with family who had actually provided RBI the picture of Dr Ambedkar for Rs. 1 coin. It was wonderful feeling knowing the journey and I’m sure almost same feeling evokes in Dalits when they see picture of Dr. Ambedkar on coins. I’ll say if any person deserves to be on Indian currency then that person should be Dr. Ambedkar. Nobody else deserves that place on Indian currency. We must make sure RBI don’t forget Dr. Ambedkar’s name in later stage. So, I request everyone in capacity to make our voice reach higher authorities that we love Dr. Ambedkar more than any other icon in India so we want Dr Ambedkar’s picture on Indian currency.
Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
Dr Ambedkar’s Role in the Formation of Reserve Bank of India
Did you know Reserve Bank of India (RBI) came into picture according to the guidelines laid down by Dr Ambedkar? RBI was conceptualized as per the guidelines, working style and outlook presented by Dr Ambedkar in front of the Hilton Young Commission. When this commission came to India under the name of “Royal Commission on Indian Currency & Finance”, each and every member of this commission were holding Dr Ambedkar’s book named “The Problem of the Rupee – Its origin and its solution.”
(The legislative assembly passed this under the name of RBI act 1934, its need, working style and its outlook was presented by Dr Ambedkar in-front of Hilton Young Commission. Read, “Evidence before the Royal Commission on Indian Currency and Finance” and “The Problem of the Rupee – Its origin and its solution.”)
Now, walking through the streets of India, on most of the “State Bank of India’s” (SBI’s) street hoardings it shows Rabindranath Tagore as “The banker to this nation”, as if Rabindranath Tagore is the brand ambassador of SBI!
What hurts many of us is the picture of Mr. Gandhi on the Indian currency. We need to ask everyone what’s the contribution of these two leaders (Rabindranath Tagore and Mr. Gandhi) towards Indian currency, finance and economics, and who deserves to be there on the signposts or on Indian currency?
If a man with God’s name on his tongue and a sword under his armpit deserved the appellation of a Mahatma, then Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was a Mahatma. – Babasaheb Ambedkar
Writing about who deserves the place on Indian currency reminds me of a Hollywood movie “Do the Right Thing” directed a way back in 1989 by Spike Lee. Movie revolves around the demand of Afro-Americans to place some pictures of black heroes on the “Wall of Fame” in a pizza shop (where all pictures are of Italian heroes as pizza shop owner is from Italy and very proud of that) as the pizzeria is situated in a black neighbourhood and sells pizza to black people.
At the end of the struggle Afro-Americans succeeded to have a picture of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, shaking hands on the “Wall of Fame.”
(excerpts from article “Why weren’t we told?”)
P.S. Please spread the message, Like the post and share it with your friends. We want picture of Dr Ambedkar on Indian currency!
Filed under Dalit-Bahujans, Dr B R Ambedkar, Equal Rights, India
Filed under Buddhism, Dr B R Ambedkar
Few weeks ago, I lost my uncle (my father’s elder brother, profoundly called “taya ji”). He was the eldest member of my family and was in eighties. Last time, I’d met him in November, 2011 and he looked weak. My father told me about the unfortunate news over phone-call and it was like I lost someone who inspired me, who was strongest pillar of family, who knows a lot despite being illiterate, and I started crying for being helpless over phone-call. I felt lonely.
I can remember taya ji always speaking about the golden olden days of his life and his experiences. Taya ji migrated at the time of Independence from Sialkot (located in Pakistan in the north-east of Punjab province near the Chenab River) along with my grandparents. There wasn’t any official record of his birth year but as he remembered he was around 18 years old at the time India got Independence and he’d memories of it live with him. He never got a chance to go to school but he could read Hindi and Punjabi newspapers without any difficulty.
I had always asked taya ji what living was before independence. What was the life style of our people? Was it like today? Were we better off in Sialkot? Was our village in Sialkot same as it is now? Were we living in Hindu dominated or Muslim dominated village? Was there a mosque also? There were many things I asked taya ji. He always replied me with patience and I always got interesting answers from him. Interesting and strange answers.
“We didn’t even know we are under British rule.” He said once and continued, life for poor wasn’t any different as it is now and we were poor so it hardly mattered whether we were under British rulers or under Brahmins rulers of today. We were discriminated and caste system was as strong as it is today. Maybe today we can’t see open discrimination and upper caste people have devised new plans to discriminate but condition is same as it was before independence. We were offered dirty jobs; we worked in the fields as slaves and were offered nothing but few pieces of bread or rotis.
He told me once and my father confirmed me that our homes or any piece of land if any we had never used to registered under our names. We were not given lands under our names no matter even if we were capable of buying it. We had to register it under the name of higher caste people. We’d to convince upper caste landlords to let us use their name and get us register our land on their names. It wasn’t easy and enough, after registering our land on their names we had to keep them happy via working on their fields so that they don’t change their minds and grab our lands. All this continued till late 70s and I believe in many parts of India it would still be the case. Taya ji also told me that no matter how much money you had in cash at the time of separation, everything was looted from us. Partition of India was ill planned and unfortunate event. Only land was transferred and that also not in the proper way. So, it was another lesson for me and I learnt that also in early in life that is I’ll buy as much as land I can. Earlier we’re not given chance to buy a land and now if we have a right to buy a land then why to waste this opportunity?
Filed under Caste Discrimination, Dalit-Bahujans, Equal Rights
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Dr. B. R. Ambedkar's Caravan 