SatyaGuru

THOSE INDIANS making up the scheduled castes are the most badly affected by the policies and plans of the government. The private and corporate sectors need to be challenged and opposed for the wrongs they commit in the lives of those in the scheduled castes and adivasis. Casteism is breeding, even today, and untouchability practices are common where those in the scheduled castes are segregated, humiliated, harassed, and oppressed. A recent study on the status of those in the scheduled castes, especially the prevalence of untouchability practices in rural India, that covered 565 villages in 11 states found:

• Public health workers refused to visit homes of those in the scheduled castes in 33% of villages
• Those in the scheduled castes were prevented from entering police stations in 27.6% of villages
• Children from scheduled castes were forced to sit separately while eating in 37.8% of government schools
• Those in the scheduled castes did not get mail delivered to their homes in 23.5% of villages
• Those in the scheduled castes were denied access to water sources in 48.4% of villages

Police statistics averaged over the past five years show:

• 13 people from the scheduled castes are murdered every week
• The homes or possessions of five people from the scheduled castes are burned every week
• Six people from the scheduled castes are kidnapped or abducted every week
• Three women from the scheduled castes are raped every day
• 11 people from the scheduled castes are beaten every day
• A crime is committed against a person from the scheduled castes every 18 minutes
• 70% of rural people from the scheduled castes are landless

WE DENOUNCE

• All forms of caste and gender discrimination, communal prejudice, and class injustice
• All forms of atrocity (killing, burning homes, raping and parading women naked, torture, and devdasi [child prostitution])
• All forms of corruption, bribery, and financial malpractice
• All draconian legislation that curtails civil liberties and democratic rights

WE DEMAND

• The right to live a peaceful and dignified coexistence that is free from violence
• The primary right to nonpolluted water, land, forest, and air and the right to wealth derived from their natural resources
• The rights of those in the scheduled castes, adivasis, women, and minorities to egalitarian and participatory development and social justice
• The rights of those in the scheduled castes, adivasis, women, and minorities to a proportional share of accumulated wealth and resources
• The right to free expression, association, assembly, and democratic dissent
• Strict enforcement--through the use of people's committees--of the SC/ST Act (Prevention of Atrocities), 1989, dealing with atrocities committed on those in the scheduled castes and indigenous peoples
• Privileges in education and employment
• A law to prevent atrocities committed on women similar to the SC/ST POA Act
• Long-term medical monitoring and medical care/rehabilitation for pollution-impacted communities and the social, economic, and livelihood rehabilitation of victims
• Abolition of caste in all forms of government documentation
• Enforced and time-bound eradication of manual scavenging
• Five acres of irrigated land given to each scheduled caste family and jointly assigned to scheduled caste women, along with cultivation resources. If land is not available, then the government must purchase land from special component funds and
  distribute it to those in the scheduled castes
• Enforcement of affirmative action in the private sector, as well as filling the backlog in the public sector

"Man is mortal. Everyone has to die some day or the other. But one must resolve to lay down one's life in enriching the noble ideals of self-respect and in bettering one's human life. We are not slaves. Nothing is more disgraceful for a brave man than to live life devoid of self-respect."

-Dr. B. R. Ambedkar