On the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached out to dalits and Muslims in his speech from the ramparts of the Red Fort, his home turf of Gujarat continued to witness the rage of the dalits. The 10-day dalit yatra, to protest atrocities and discrimination against the dalits, culminated on the Independence Day at Una in the Gir Somnath district of the Saurashtra region.
Radhika Vemula, mother of late Rohith Vemula, the Hyderabad University student who committed suicide at his hostel in January, and Balu Sarvaiya, father of one of the victims of the Una dalit flogging incident, jointly unfurled the national flag at a school in the coastal town, which has emerged as the epicentre of the dalit protests. Seven dalits were publicly flogged in Una by a local cow vigilante group on July 21 for skinning a dead cow.
Muslims in Una and from other parts of Gujarat also joined the event, declaring their solidarity with the dalits. Some view this as an attempt to create a new political force, consisting of dalits and Muslims. The dalits have threatened to launch a rail-roko stir in Gujarat, if their demand for granting five acres of land each to the dalit families is not met by the Gujarat government within a month.
Thousands of dalits and social activists, holding posters and photographs of Babasaheb B.R. Ambedkar, had started the yatra from Ahmedabad on August 4 to protest the relentless attacks on the dalits by the self-styled cow vigilantes across the country and in Gujarat.
The yatra was organised by Una Dalit Atachiyar Ladat Samiti, headed by 35-year-old Jignesh Mavani, a lawyer-turned-politician. “You take cow’s tail, give us land,” Mr Mavani said, adding, “We have presented our demand before the state government. If you do not accept our demand of giving five acres land to each dalit family in next one month, we will launch a rail-roko agitation.”
He also made all the dalits at the rally take a pledge not to continue the business of skinning dead cows. Attacking Prime Minister Modi, Mr Mavani said, “The sheer scale of protests had forced him to speak out on the issue. Modi did not speak a word when three youths were killed in police firing in Thangadh town in 2012, another incident of dalit atrocity.”
Addressing the gathering, Radhika Vemula said, “It is good to see that the dalit movement in Gujarat has forced chief minister Anandiben Patel to resign. I have come here so that no other dalit children face what my son had to suffer.”
“I have not got justice for my son. He had to commit suicide just because he was a dalit,” she added.
JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar, who belongs to backward Bhumihar caste, was also present at the rally. Documentary filmmaker Anand Patwardhan was among others who attended the Una flag-hoisting event.
Mr Kumar criticised the Gujarat model of development and claimed that it has been “punctured by the dalits” of Gujarat. “We want freedom from casteism. We will not tolerate any more atrocities on the dalits anywhere in the country. Everybody has to come together to fight against such atrocities,” the JNUSU president said.
