Minority Rights Day was on December 18. The aim of the day is to raise awareness of minority communities' pride and dignity while defending their rights to freedom and equal opportunity. However, the tragedy that happened that very night in Kanpur, one of the nation's major cities, will paint a clear image of the struggles that the nation's disadvantaged and minority populations face. With the nine-day Buddha Katha celebration beginning on December 15, the Dalit community in Pahewa village, Kanpur, had begun preparations weeks in advance. Despite being conducted for years, several members of the upper caste had voiced their objections, saying that the event should not take place. On the fourth night, after the audience had left following the Buddha Katha and Prasad distribution, a gang of assailants arrived at the venue in a number of vehicles and started firing in the air and throwing hand grenades. The statue of Sant Ravidas placed near the stage was vandalised. They lashed out at the organizers and technical staff present at the venue and threatened to drop dead bodies if the Buddha Katha program went ahead. Organizer Ram Sagar Paswan said that he had approached the police seeking protection while planning the Buddha Katha event itself, but the authorities did not listen. Two people were seriously injured, and more than that, a community has been deeply scarred. The assailants had already left the scene by the time the police learned of the unfortunate incident. Yesterday, five persons were arrested and a number of people were booked, including an aide of Saroj Kurileen, a prominent leader of Apna Dal and an ally of the ruling NDA at the Centre and UP.
One would be surprised to know what the assailants who vandalised the venue, statue, chairs and pictures, looted from the venue along with money and electronic devices- it was a volume in whose very preamble it was declared as intended to make the country a sovereign egalitarian secular democratic republic and socio-economic-political justice for all its citizens: the Preamble of the Constitution of India which guarantees that it has been solemnly decided to ensure freedom and equality of thought, expression, belief, religion and worship and to ensure the dignity of the individual and the unity of the nation. This incident, which again raises doubts about how far the fundamental rights guaranteed to the people of the country by the constitution are being ensured to Dalits and minority communities, is not being discussed by anyone except a few media, and not even a line of protest is issued by political parties that claim to stand for equality and demand for the implementation of caste census. A few months ago, the country's Prime Minister Narendra Modi quoted Sant Ravidas' saying that 'oppression is the greatest sin' while laying the foundation stone for the Sant Ravidas memorial, which is being built at a cost of one hundred crores rupees in Madhya Pradesh's Sagar district. But is the Prime Minister ready to think about how his party and governments oppress the people who follow the ideals of Ravidas? What about the crimes against Christians and Muslims, whom the various racial and communal groups consider to be their sworn adversaries and who are so intolerant of talking about the principles of Buddhism—a minority group that makes up only 0.70 per cent of the people in the nation—!
With only a few months left for the general elections, the ruling BJP and the opposition parties are gearing up to give various packages of promises to Dalits and minorities. What should be released immediately before these promises is a detailed document giving the exact number of atrocities committed against Dalits and minorities in the country in the last ten years and the steps taken by the authorities concerned to solve them. The country needs to know whether the Dalits who were beaten to death for walking in sandals, performing wedding processions on horses and singing Ambedkar songs got justice. It is essential that Dr. Ambedkar and the Constitution should not be confined to be a statue in the courtyard of the Supreme Court like, as they say, freedom is a statue in America.