Changi Devi Aharwal, a young woman from Madhya Pradesh, has done something that not many people from the dalit community back in her village have been able to do: she sends her little daughter to school.

But the high of seeing the next generation get education, and through it earn respect and dignity that most scheduled caste people from her generation has been largely denied, comes crashing down the moment she talks about the school. “It’s a government institution but our daughter is served food from a distance during midday meals even there,” she says.

The dictionary calls it untouchability — and it is to fight that, and to get their rightful respect and dignity in the social order, that Aharwal has joined over 1,500 others from her community to protest in New Delhi.

Christened ‘Dalit Dignity March and National Dalit Assembly,’ the five-day programme began with a rally from Ramlila Maidan to Parliament Street on Wednesday, December 5.

The programme, organised by the National Confederation of Dalits’ Organisations (NACDOR), is an attempt to highlight inequality against people from scheduled caste (SC) and adivasi communities, and demand that they be treated with dignity as equals.

As the march wound up on Parliament Street, speakers like social activist and civil rights leader Aruna Roy and Left leaders like AB Bardhan, D Raja and Brinda Karat addressed the participants, who have gathered from over 20 states, including Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Punjab, Haryana and West Bengal.

This is the third such assembly being organised in the national capital.

A fight for equality

Addressing the gathering, NACDOR chairman Ashok Bharathi said: “This is a fight for equality. People have been thrown out of their villages, they have been made untouchables, and they have even been forced to live in isolation in jungles. The decisions for these people are being made by people sitting in air-conditioned rooms.

“This is the fight to make the poor man the leader.”

Stressing on the need for education among dalits, Bharathi said, “Despite 65 years of independence, we have not been able to educate all our women. He added that NACDOR would focus on the issue over the next five years.

Quoting Dr BR Ambedkar, Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D Raja said, “Education is a weapon in the hands of the dalits.

He also emphasised that dalits were not given reservation in parliament on a platter. “Dr Ambedkar had fought for the reservation policy but today even that is facing a challenge,” he remarked.

Stressing the importance of reservation for dalits, AB Bardhan, the former general secretary of CPI, said, “We have reservation of 15 percent seats in parliament today (for SCs), and we cannot give this up for any reason. This reservation could be increased but not brought down.”

Raja said it should be made mandatory for even the private sector to reserve a certain number of jobs for people from SC communities. While some corporate organisations are reserving jobs for dalits, they are doing it randomly, he said. “Let them not think of this as any help or sacrifice they are doing. Let it be a law and be made mandatory for all industries to follow,” the Left leader said.

Vidhanand Vikal, chairman of Bihar SC/ST commission, said the 12th five year plan says institutions of higher education will be formed under the public-private partnership (PPP) model. “Everything is becoming privatised now, and this is a big challenge in the way of dalits. The Rs 25,000-crore budget for education of dalits has been reduced to Rs 15,000 crore. It is a plot to keep us off education,” Vikal said.

Bipin Kumar, a volunteer with NACDOR for the last two years in New Delhi, raised another issue. “At the most basic ground level, every dalit faces a strong challenge in terms of land,” he said. “Many dalits are forced to escape to cities, hoping that the inequality that they face back in their villages would end that way. But in cities, they are forced to live on the streets because the government refuses to support them. They begin settling down in slums and different governments and political parties use them to their benefit: the people are not allocated ration cards but are all given voter’s identity cards.”

Ram Ratan, a farm labourer who had come from Madhya Pradesh, supported his statement: “It is true even in our villages. I have not received a ration card, despite approaching the authorities on several occasions. They (administration and parties) only care about the elections and our votes. So little wonder that I have a voter’s ID card.”

Brinda Karat, CPI(M) politburo member and Rajya Sabha MP, drilled on a specific instance to focus on the broader issue. “Dalit homes were burnt in Haryana because a dalit boy fell in love with an upper caste girl,” she said, “and this is a matter of shame to every Indian that such atrocities are being committed so close to the country’s capital.”

Social activist Aruna Roy raised concern about the lack of dignity dalits face even today. “When our Constitution was being framed, there was a vision that there would be an end to untouchability and inequality. But nothing can be achieved without fighting for it in our country,” she said.