Skip to main content

Govt of India bullying Gujarat Dalit NGO Navsarjan into silence, return FCRA license: Panchmahal rights group

Panchmahals Dalit group which submitted memorandum
By Our Representative
Taking strong exception to cancellation of Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) license to well-known Gujarat-based Dalit rights NGO Navsarjan Trust, Dalit activists from several districts in Gujarat have sent memorandums to President Pranab Kumar Mukherjee terming the step an effort to “bully the organization into silence, motivated by an anti-Dalit agenda.”
Also calling it “political vendetta against Dalit advocates”, “abhorrent” and “anti-democratic”, one such memorandum, also submitted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh, says, it is a “selective targeting” of an organization which advocates “on behalf of the Dalit people”. The government step, it adds, has also taken away the funds which supported 80 activists’ job to carry out social work.
Asserting that Navsarjan has “no hidden agenda”, as it has “aimed at alleviating the Dalit community people from “historical” poverty, untouchability, and caste-based violence by seeking remedies provided by the Indian constitution and laws, the memorandum asks the President the Prime Minister to “restore” the FCRA license.
Submitted by members of the Dalit Human Rights Committee, Panchmahal, under the leadership of senior activist Rohit Manu at the district collector's office in Godhra, the memorandum takes strong exception to the government view that the NGO’s activities are aimed to “prejudicially affect” harmony between “religious, racial, social, linguistic, regional groups, castes or communities”.
Insisting that nothing can be father from the truth, the memorandum says, the Dalit community in “Gujarat and beyond” have come to depend on Navsarjan to provide “essential services and advocacy on behalf of our uniquely vulnerable community”.
Thus, says the memorandum, thanks to Navsarjan, thanks to its petitions in different courts, including the Gujarat High Court, the state government set up Safai Kamdar Corporation, meant to provide alternative source of income to sanitation workers allocating Rs 125 crore.
The memorandum recalls, a major success, thanks to one such legal intervention which went right up to the Supreme Court, was the Government of India forced to come up with a legally-binding time-bound programme of action to end the inhuman practice of manual scavenging and rehabilitate thousands of them across India.
The result, the memorandum says, was that, recently, Parliament amended the anti-manual scavenging law, making it more stringent, and the Supreme Court asking states to provide Rs 10 lakh each to compensate the death of each manhole worker.
All this, according to the memorandum, went alongside organizing members of the Dalit community, educating them not to tolerate caste-based and gender-based violence, use of the law to fight untouchability practice, and be educated to overcome inhibitions of caste and poverty.
Giving examples of educational involvement of Navsarjan, the memorandum says, it set up three primary schools (grade 5-8) in Sami (Patan district), Rayka (Ahmedabad district) and Katariya (Surendranagar district), where mostly school dropouts and belonging to Dalit and other backward communities, have been studying.
As part of its educational programme, it began a “No plastic, No caste” campaign, the memorandum says, adding, Navsarjan also set up 500 Bhimshalas, whose objective is to motivate children not to drop out of schools, even providing them library facilities and other educational material.
Then, the memorandum says, Navsarjan set up a vocational school for Dalit students to learn new skills, where over the last 13 years the school more than 8,000 girls and boys have graduated. Having a labour success rate of 82.5 when last measured, the vocational school has now has been registered as a separate organization, Dalit Shakti Kendra, it adds.

Comments

TRENDING

Importance of Bangladesh for India amidst 'growing might' of China in South Asia

By Samara Ashrat*  The basic key factor behind the geopolitical importance of Bangladesh is its geographical location. The country shares land borders with Myanmar and India. Due to its geographical position, Bangladesh is a natural link between South Asia and Southeast Asia.  The country is also a vital geopolitical ally to India, in that it has the potential to facilitate greater integration between Northeast India and Mainland India. Not only that, due to its open access to the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh has become significant to both China and the US.

Swami Vivekananda's views on caste and sexuality were 'painfully' regressive

By Bhaskar Sur* Swami Vivekananda now belongs more to the modern Hindu mythology than reality. It makes a daunting job to discover the real human being who knew unemployment, humiliation of losing a teaching job for 'incompetence', longed in vain for the bliss of a happy conjugal life only to suffer the consequent frustration.

Buddhist shrines were 'massively destroyed' by Brahmanical rulers: Historian DN Jha

Nalanda mahavihara By Our Representative Prominent historian DN Jha, an expert in India's ancient and medieval past, in his new book , "Against the Grain: Notes on Identity, Intolerance and History", in a sharp critique of "Hindutva ideologues", who look at the ancient period of Indian history as "a golden age marked by social harmony, devoid of any religious violence", has said, "Demolition and desecration of rival religious establishments, and the appropriation of their idols, was not uncommon in India before the advent of Islam".

'BBC film shows only tip of iceberg': Sanjiv Bhatt's daughter speaks at top US press club

By Our Representative   The United States' premier journalists' organisation, the National Press Club (NPC), has come down heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi for recent "attacks on journalists in India." Speaking at the screening of an episode of the BBC documentary “India: The Modi Question,” banned in India, in the club premises, NPC President Eileen O’Reilly said, “Since Modi came to power we have watched with frustration and disappointment as his regime has suppressed the rights of its citizens to a free and independent news media."

Chinese pressure? Left stateless, Rohingya crisis result of Myanmar citizenship law

By Dr Shakuntala Bhabani*  A 22-member team of Myanmar immigration officials visited Rohingya refugee camps in Cox's Bazar to verify more than 400 Rohingya refugees as part of a pilot repatriation project. Does it hold out any hope for the forcibly displaced people to return to their ancestral homes in the Rakhine state of Myanmar? Only time will tell.

China ties up with India, Bangladesh to repatriate Rohingyas; Myanmar unwilling

By Harunur Rasid*  We now have a new hope, thanks to news reports that were published in the Bangladeshi dailies recently. Myanmar has suddenly taken initiatives to repatriate Rohingyas. As part of this initiative, diplomats from eight countries posted in Yangon were flown to Rakhine last week. Among them were diplomats from Bangladesh, India and China.

Natural farming: Hamirpur leads the way to 'huge improvement' in nutrition, livelihood

By Bharat Dogra*  Santosh is a dedicated farmer who along with his wife Chunni Devi worked very hard in recent months to convert a small patch of unproductive land into a lush green, multi-layer vegetable garden. This has ensured year-round supply of organically grown vegetables to his family as well as fetched several thousand rupees in cash sales.

Over-stressed? As Naveen Patnaik turns frail, Odisha 'moves closer' to leadership crisis

By Sudhansu R Das  Not a single leader in Odisha is visible in the horizon who can replace Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. He has ruled Odisha for nearly two and half decades. His father, Biju Patnaik, had built Odisha; he was a daring pilot who saved the life of Indonesia’s Prime Minister Sjahrir and President Sukarno when the Dutch army blocked their exit.

Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Ban Ki-moon, others ask Bangladesh PM to 'protect' Yunus

Counterview Desk  A campaign has been launched to support Bangladesh-based economist, micro-finance guru and Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, seeking signatures from citizens across the globe in order to “protect” his work, life and safety.

Electricity sharing opens up new window for India’s eastern neighbourhood engagement

By Sufian Asif* Today, challenges like climate change, pandemics, energy reliance, economic crisis, and many more are concerning us. No nation can overcome these obstacles without the assistance and collaboration of other nations. Most importantly, many of these problems have international repercussions. South Asia is facing much more difficulty when compared to other regions. In South Asia, we have some regional organizations, but they are ineffective.