Mangalore, April 29: Reservation in private sector should be a question of life and death for SC/ST communities, said Dr. Udit Raj, National Chairman, All India Confederation of SC/ST Organisations.
He was speaking a programme organized to celebrate the 121st birth anniversary of Dr. B R Ambedkar and inauguration of the State Unit Office of the All India Confederation of SC/ST Organisations in the city on Sunday.
Stating that the UPA government had initially in its Common Minimum Programme proposed reservation in private sector Mr. Raj said that it ultimately budged to the pressure of corporate houses who did not want quotas to be imposed on them.
“Today, the corporates are controlling the politics of the country. Anil Ambani's name had figured in the 2G scam but he was not jailed while VIPs like A Raja and Kanimozhi were. Similarly Ratan Tata's name had also surfaced in the Radia tapes episode but no action has been taken against him either. The money of the corporates is controlling politics and media today”, he said.
“The corporates said that they will include Dalits in their establishments themselves. They said they will create 100 Dalit entrepreneurs in a year. Considering the population that we have in the entire country that number hardly has any value. But even this has not been done”, Dr. Raj said.
Dr. Raj warned that a silent conspiracy is being executed in the country to 'kill' reservation in the country.
“Earlier the Brahminical forces would hit from the front but now they are doing it in hiding. They are resorting to dilution of reservation in the garb of privatization, liberalization, better services and so on. Outsourcing of jobs has become a menace and upper castes are becoming wealthier. Reservation is being silently killed. The system is being controlled by Brahmins who are not allowing us to participate. Be it the media, film industry, market, trading, land holdings, hotel industry, export and import industry, we are yet to get our share. Whatever little we have achieved is thanks to reservation”, he said.
T S N Murthy, Deputy Chairman, NMPT, expressing his thoughts, said that reservation was a gift from Dr. B R Ambedkar to marginalized people of our country. “Dr. Ambedkar made us sit inside classrooms through reservations, while he had been made to sit out during his schooling days. He made us drink public water and enter temples. Today we have forgotten the value of the pain that he endured. We are not united and it is being exploited by others. There are sinister plans to scuttle reservations and cutting down of reservation is a hidden agenda”, he said.
Mr. Murthy also said that there is a need to reach out to each and every one using social networking technology to air grievances of the SC/ST communities.
Activist and thinker D Mahadevaiah and many other Dalit leaders were present.
Comments
Add new comment