Govt urged to distribute land, title deeds to Dalits

Mangalore, Nov 17: “Reservations based on caste is not a permanent solution to establish social equality; a permanent solution is distribution of lands to the landless. Only if social equality is realised, there will be upliftment of Dalits,” said CPI(M) state secretariat member and vice president of Dalit Hakkugala Samiti G N Nagaraj.

Delivering the inaugural address at the city-level Dalit Hakkugala Jagruti Samavesha (Dalit Rights' Awareness Covnvention) – 2013 at NGO Hall, Hampankatta here on Sunday, he said that the ruling governments over the years had been a total failure at creating a society free from exploitation of Dalits. Even after 63 years after the Indian constitution was formed, Dalits are victims of untouchability in rural areas to this date. Without having worked for the equal rights of Dalits, the ruling political parties in the state and country have been using Dalits merely as vote banks. This is the reason that Dalits have not been enabled to live a dignified life as citizens of the country, he said.

Speaking on reservations based on caste, he said that the Constitution had given Dalits merely political equality, not social and economic. Upto 70 percent of Dalits in rural areas do not own an inch of land. About 52 percent of children in Karnataka do not have access to education, out of which 80 percent of children are Dalits. The government has still not provided title deeds to Dalits in slums and rural areas, he said.

He said that Dalits had to understand the system of casteism that discriminates sections of people in the society based on their caste. Although the government has provided temporary benefits such as financial aid and grants to people from lower castes, no political party had tried to eradicate the system of casteism. Although our Constitution denounces all types of inequality in the society, it has remained only in textbooks, he lamented.

He said that the system of casteism consisted of caste exploitation and caste oppression, and the upliftment of Dalits was possible only if both the legs were opposed simultaneously. “If social equality has to be realised, the caste system should be abolished, and to achieve that, we need to be empowered,” he said.

He urged the state government to distribute land to landless Dalits. Thousands of acres of land is being held by some landlords and upper-caste people in violation of the ceiling limit. The government has hundreds of acres of land which can be distributed, he said.

Speaking on the occasion, secretary of CPI(M) city unit Sunil Kumar Bajal claimed that the funds released by the state government for the welfare of the Dalits were being misused by the Mangalore City Corporation for other developmental works.

City president of the Samiti Sanjeeva Balkoor presided over the convention.

CPI(M) leaders such as Lingappa Nanthoor, Shankar Moodbidri, Prashanth M B, Narayan Talapady, Shankar Jeppinamogaru and others were present.