At Gujarat Dalit rallies starting June 3 at Zanzarka, Dalit MLAs, MPs to be asked: Why are you silent on Saharanpur?

Shambhunath Tundiya, Atmaram Parmar

By A Representative
Defying scorching heat, top Dalit activists of Gujarat have planned a series of public meetings across the state starting with June 3 at Zanzarka, about 110 kilometres south-west of Ahmedabad, to protest against the alleged failure of elected Dalit representatives to speak up against the attack on Dalits in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh.
Home to Rajya Sabha Dalit BJP MP, Shambhunath Tundiya belongs to Zanzarka, and is considered among Gujarat Dalits their dharmaguru. Said to be belonging to the Garoda community – loosely called “Dalit brahmins” – Tundiya has religious seat in Zanzarka.
Forwarding a detailed programme of the public meetings, Martin Macwan, founder of Gujarat’s top Dalit rights NGO Navsarjan Trust, which is coordinating, said, these are being organized to “expose” the political conspiracy of silence in the wake of increasing number of caste attacks after the BJP came to power in India, and now in UP.
A leaflet distributed to mediapersons wondered why – despite slogans like ‘Ambedkar Murdabad’ and ‘Ravidas Murdabad’ in Saharanpur, ransacking of the Ravidas temple, chopping a Dalit woman’s hand, torching of 56 Dalit houses, two Dalits gunned down and 17 others suffering serious injuries – the elected representatives have remained silent.
Following Zanzarka, a public meeting has been planned on June 6 in Gadhada in Bhavnagar district, represented in the Gujarat state assembly by social justice and empowerment minister Atmaram Parmar, who is said to be the main person behind the Government of India ban imposed on foreign funds to Navsarjan Trust in December 2016.

Martin Macwan

Also planned at Rajkot (June 7), Kadi (June 8), Ahmedabad (June 9), Idar (June 10), Dasada (June 12), Patan (June 13), and Vadodara (June 16), the meetings would ask elect Dalit representatives as to what steps have they taken to ensure a ban on cow vigilantes following the Una incident of July 2016, and if they have worked to make public the Sanjay Prasad Commission report on the 2012 Thangadh police firing in which three Dalit youths were gunned down.
Other questions to be asked are: Dalits face social boycott and are forcibly displaced from their own homes, why are you silent? Manual scavenging practice continues in Gujarat even today, sanitary workers die because of asphyxiation in gutters, why are you silent? How much agricultural land did you get allotted to the Dalits in your area?
To be held under what has been called Stop Selling Ambedkar Committee, the six page leaflet says, “For quite some time, planned efforts are on to suppress Ambedkar’s ideology and Dalit movement.”
Protesting against the effort of saffron outfits to to project Dalit icon BR Ambedkar as a Hinduist, it recalls that it is he alone who organized mass burning of Manusmiriti and converted to Buddhism during the later days of his in order not die as a Hindu.
“There is an effort to project him as anti-Muslim by distorting what he said. Just as Buddhism was destroyed by calling Gautam Buddha as the eighth incarnation of Lord Vishnu, a well-planned conspiracy is on to destroy the ideology of Ambedkar”, the leaflet claims.
Citing how the ruling BJP in UP is undermining Ambedkar, the leaflet said, even at the provocative Ambedkar Shobha Yatra, took out by BJP MP Raghav Lakhanpal Sharma, only slogans like “Jai Shri Ram” and “Yogi Yogi” (for UP chief minister Adityanath Yogi) were shouted.
Currently, says the leaflet, Uttar Pradesh police is seeking to find a link between Dalit protesters in Saharnpur led by the Bhim Army with Naxalites, wondering, “The government is thinking of using the National Security Act against the Dalits. The National Security Act will not be used against those who attacked the Dalit locality for five hours with guns, swords and petrol bombs!”

Comments

Vishal said…

Not garoda caste. Wrong info

May 30, 2017

When a lake becomes real estate: The mismanagement of Hyderabad’s waterbodies

By Dr Mansee Bal Bhargava* Misunderstood, misinterpreted and misguided governance and management of urban lakes in India —illustrated here through Hyderabad —demands urgent attention from Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), the political establishment, the judiciary, the builder–developer lobby, and most importantly, the citizens of Hyderabad. Fundamental misconceptions about urban lakes have shaped policies and practices that systematically misuse, abuse and ultimately erase them—often in the name of urban development.

'Serious violation of international law': US pressure on Mexico to stop oil shipments to Cuba

By Vijay Prashad In January 2026, US President Donald Trump declared Cuba to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US security—a designation that allows the United States government to use sweeping economic restrictions traditionally reserved for national security adversaries. The US blockade against Cuba began in the 1960s, right after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 but has tightened over the years. Without any mandate from the United Nations Security Council—which permits sanctions under strict conditions—the United States has operated an illegal, unilateral blockade that tries to force countries from around the world to stop doing basic commerce with Cuba. The new restrictions focus on oil. The United States government has threatened tariffs and sanctions on any country that sells or transports oil to Cuba.

When grief becomes grace: Kerala's quiet revolution in organ donation

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Kerala is an important model for understanding India's diversity precisely because the religious and cultural plurality it has witnessed over centuries brought together traditions and good practices from across the world. Kerala had India's first communist government, was the first state where a duly elected government was dismissed, and remains the first state to achieve near-total literacy. It is also a land where Christianity and Islam took root before they spread to Europe and other parts of the world. Kerala has deep historic rationalist and secular traditions.

Bangladesh goes to polls as press freedom concerns surface

By Nava Thakuria* As Bangladesh heads for its 13th Parliamentary election and a referendum on the July National Charter simultaneously on Thursday (12 February 2026), interim government chief Professor Muhammad Yunus has urged all participating candidates to rise above personal and party interests and prioritize the greater interests of the Muslim-majority nation, regardless of the poll outcomes.

Beyond the conflict: Experts outline roadmap for humane street dog solutions

By A Representative In a direct response to the rising polarization surrounding India’s street dog population, a high-level coalition of parliamentarians, legal experts, and civil society leaders gathered in the capital to propose a unified national framework for humane animal management. The emergency deliberations were sparked by a recent Suo Moto judgment that has significantly deepened the divide between animal welfare advocates and those calling for the removal of community dogs, a tension that has recently escalated into reported violence against both animals and their caretakers in states like Telangana.

Why 20 years later, Rang De Basanti feels less like cinema, more like warning

By Mohd Ziyaullah Khan* This Republic Day , the Rang De Basanti , starring Aamir Khan , completed 20 years since its release. I first watched it in a single-screen theatre in my city—at a time when multiplexes were only just beginning to appear and our town was still waiting for one. It remains my favourite film, and I often revisit it on OTT platforms or television around Independence Day or Republic Day, when the air is thick with rehearsed patriotism. A few days ago, I noticed it streaming again on Jio Hotstar . Released in 2006, it is a film I have watched many times over the years. Yet, like all powerful cinema, returning to it at different stages of life offers a different experience. Twenty years ago, I found it deeply inspiring. In 2026, watching it again felt suffocating. At its core, the film follows a group of Delhi University friends who challenge the might of the central government after one of their own, a flight lieutenant, is killed in a MiG aircraft crash alleged...

The Galgotia model: How India is losing the war on knowledge

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Galgotia is the face of 'quality education' as envisioned by those who never considered education a tool for social change or national uplift — and yet this is precisely the model Narendra Modi pursued in Gujarat as Chief Minister. In the mid-eighties, when many of us were growing up, 'Nirma' became one of the most popular advertisements on Doordarshan. Whether the product was any good hardly seemed to matter.

Stray dogs, an epsilon (ϵ) problem: Of child labour, and the art of misplaced priorities

By Bhaskaran Raman The Greek alphabet ϵ (epsilon) is used in maths and science to denote a quantity which is not zero, but extremely small *** Since the Supreme Court's interim order on the issue of stray dogs came out on 07 Nov 2025, there have been a range of opinion pieces speaking for the voiceless. Most of them take the stance that there is a "problem" with stray dogs, but that we need a humane solution. I agree with this broadly, but I think we need new terminology to talk about this.

A. R. Rahman's ‘Yethu’ goes viral, celebrating Tamil music on the world stage

By Syed Ali Mujtaba* Good news for Tamil music lovers—the Mozart of Madras is back in the Tamil music industry with his song “Yethu” from the film “Moonwalk.” The track has climbed international charts, once again placing A. R. Rahman on the global stage.

Search This Blog