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In his tackle on India’s seventy fifth Independence Day, Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi mentioned: “The objective of Amrit Kaal is to ascend to new heights of prosperity for India and the residents of India.” Lately, I used to be invited to talk on the All India Federation for Social Justice, the place democratic leaders from completely different events and states gathered to deliberate on the problem. Whereas we shared ideas, I questioned why we couldn’t focus on this essential problem in Parliament. The reason being greatest recognized to the members of the treasury benches, who, it appears, have determined to stall any dialogue in Parliament.
Whereas considerable, the PM’s imaginative and prescient for Amrit Kaal shouldn’t be holistic. His imaginative and prescient, sadly, falls in need of the sincerity and real dedication to emancipation and empowerment that the framers of the Structure anticipated from leaders of impartial India. The Structure proclaims to safe social and financial justice, equality of standing and alternative, and guarantee the dignity of the person. In the present day, we should replicate on the progress made prior to now earlier than taking a rhetoric-fuelled leap of religion into an uncertain-unequal future for tens of millions of Indians.
Since its Independence, India has emerged as a big financial and scientific energy, a matter of pleasure. But, after we have a good time reaching Mars, we should additionally grasp our heads in disgrace over handbook scavengers dying in sewers. The thought of “ascending to new heights of prosperity”, with out addressing the legacy problem of social injustice, gained’t serve any goal past a cleverly crafted picture makeover PR marketing campaign missing substance.
Our historical past of wrestle for social justice dates to over a century, with nice social reformers main the trail for incremental change. However the best change was introduced below the management of BR Ambedkar when the Structure of the newly impartial India abolished untouchability and ushered in a brand new period of constitutionalism that assured equality, dignity and social justice.
As we have a good time the centenary of the historic Vaikom Satyagraha for temple entry, it’s pure to imagine that we’ve got moved on from the discriminatory caste system. But, as an MP, I’m distraught at any time when I come throughout information about caste-based discrimination. A number of years in the past, some reviews mentioned that the then-president of India, Ram Nath Kovind and his spouse have been ill-treated in a temple allegedly due to caste. A Dalit MP was denied entry right into a village in his constituency in Karnataka. In Rajasthan, a younger Dalit youngster was killed by his upper-caste instructor for consuming water meant for upper-caste youngsters. In Uttar Pradesh, a paramilitary soldier needed to search police safety towards upper-caste atrocities and put on a protecting helmet on his wedding ceremony day.
It isn’t that the individuals who pressured Dr Payal Tadvi in Maharashtra and Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad to commit suicide didn’t learn the Preamble of the Structure, which proclaims, we the folks of India, by adopting the Structure of India, guarantee for all our residents social, financial, and political justice. So, then who’re these individuals who discriminate? Do they not imagine within the Structure, or do they don’t embrace themselves in “we the folks of India” written within the Structure? In that case, nothing may be extra unlucky and worrying for the nation.
Earlier than we make lofty claims about Amrit Kaal, we should treatment the deep fractures in our society. There must be no place for caste-based discrimination in a contemporary constitutional Republic with a civilisational historical past of over 1,000 years. As an alternative, we have to instil a way of social justice in each citizen and ask them to comply with the trail proven by BR Ambedkar, RM Lohia and Periyar. Ambedkar and Lohia have been contemporaries, and each opposed casteism and fought for social justice. Whereas there have been ideological variations between the 2, each believed that the caste system was a logo of backward mentality, as a consequence of which the nation’s progress shouldn’t be attainable.
But, it’s our misfortune to be ruled by a regime that has labored towards guaranteeing social justice for traditionally marginalised communities. In the present day, when leaders related to the Sangh parivar communicate on caste, they usually help the prevalence of the caste system and fail to acknowledge rooted inequalities and the necessity for continued multifold affirmative motion. Ambedkar had deconstructed such justifications for the caste system, and his visionary management advocated for social democracy. He advocated for the annihilation of caste and dismantled varied notions, starting from caste-based financial effectivity to ideas of purity and air pollution.
Quite the opposite, the Hindutva nationalist undertaking of the federal government is fuelled by inducing caste-based social and political sentiments alongside non secular propaganda, which repeatedly weakens our battle for social justice and encourages a tradition of apathy. Makes an attempt to alter the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe Act or calls for to finish reservation are harmful concepts we should battle towards. Additional, an absence of curiosity in conducting the caste census is an try to cover from the truth of Dalit, Bahujan and Adivasi communities for whom the trail to social justice is incomplete. It’s because the caste census would act towards the BJP’s Hindutva narrative, highlighting the necessity to strengthen structural help and ship on our aspirations of a socially simply society for tens of millions of Indians.
India should go away behind the caste system and reaffirm religion within the Structure. We should try in the direction of equal alternative for all in order that one’s future is set not by delivery however by one’s alternative. Justice additionally has a that means of equity, and on this sense, the distribution of assets shouldn’t be affected by any morally arbitrary and one-sided causes.
Gandhi mentioned, “Casteism is dangerous for the event of each the soul and the nation”. So, now’s the time to maneuver in the direction of a brand new future for a socially simply India that treats all residents equally and with dignity.
Sanjay Singh is AAP Rajya Sabha MP
The views expressed are private
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