Gujarat Dalits to hand over India's largest National Flag to CM, ask him to declare one village untouchability free on I-day

DSK students preparing the National Flag

By Our Representative
Alleging that even 70 years after Independence, untouchability is practiced against those who weave khadi clothe, Dalits, Gujarat’s Dalit rights activists led by Martin Macwan have decided to hand over India’s “largest-ever” National Flag made of hand-made clothe to Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani to remind the latter about his fundamental constitutional duty – to abolish caste discrimination.
Proposed to be handed over to the Gujarat chief minister on August 11 by Macwan and his colleagues following a march to Gandhinagar with the participation of 1,500 villagers, the National Flag, made of khadi as a symbol of Dalit rights, would be 125 feet long and 83.3 feet high. Along with the National Flag, the activists would also be handing over a supda (big-sized winnowing basket), which is usually made by the Dalits’ Valmiki community to earn a livelihood.

The Ashok Chakra of the National Flag

“We would give our memorandum – a one liner, asking him to write down the name of one Gujarat village as untouchability free on August 15, Independence Day. The memorandum would placed in supda, which would be handed over to the chief minister along the National Flag as our reminder to him that the Dalit community is still not free of any type of discrimination in Gujarat and in India”, an activists’ communiqué says.
The communiqué, prepared by under the banner Abhadchched Mukt Bharat Andaloan: Mission 2047, says, “The chief minister recently visited Runi village in Kankrej taluka of Banaskantha district of North Gujarat to see for himself the grave flood situation. Even in this village, today, the Valmiki community makes supda, its hereditary profession, to earn livelihood.”

Students colour the National Flag

The National Flag has been prepared by girl students and teachers, majority of them Dalits, at the Dalit Shakti Kendra (DSK). The decision to hand it over to the chief minister has been taken, says the communiqué, because India’s top Dalit icon Babasaheb Ambedkar was a member of the National Flag Committee, and his main thrust was to abolish untouchability. As for its length, it matches Ambedkar’s 125 birth anniversary.
Prepared after working on it for 25 days, which included washing the cloth, sewing it and colouring it, even as printing a 25 ft x 25 ft Ashok Chakra in the centre, the National Flag is 2,120 of sq metres. The total cost in preparing has come to just Rs 53,000. The cost of labour in preparing it has not been counted, says the communiqué.

Martin Macwan examining preparation of the National Flag

Pointing towards the importance of Ashok Chakra, the communiqué says, its 24 spokes symbolize Gautam Buddha’s dharma chakra, which consists of 12 basic principles of life – one of which is equality, underlining, the Mission 2047’s campaign is to free India of untouchability on its 100th year of Independence, and is the same as that of the Buddha.
The decision to hand over one-liner memorandum on supda along with the largest National Flag was taken on July 15 at the Dalit Shakti Kendra, of Dalit Empowerment Centre, which trains young girls and boys into technical skills. Founded by Macwan in 1999, DSK offers more than 20 courses, including tailoring (pants, shirt, blouse for sari, salwar kameez, and industrial), furniture, driving, beautician, basic computers, computer tally, secretarial training, handicrafts videography, photography, etc.

Comments

Girl child education: 20 major states 'score' better than Gujarat, says GoI report

By Rajiv Shah
A Government of India report, released last month, has suggested that “model” Gujarat has failed to make any progress vis-à-vis other states in ensuring that girls continue to remain enrolled after they leave primary schools. The report finds that, in the age group 14-17, Gujarat’s 71% girls are enrolled at the secondary and higher secondary level, which is worse than 20 out of 22 major states for which data have been made available.

Savarkar in Ahmedabad "declared support" to two-nation theory in 1937, followed by Jinnah three years later

By Our Representative
One of the top freedom fighters whom BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi revere the most, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, was also a great supporter of the two nation theory for India, one for Hindus another for Muslims, claims a new expose on the man who is also known to be the original proponent of the concept of Hindutva.

Congress 'promises' cancellation of Adani power project: Jharkhand elections

Counterview Desk
Pointing out that people's issues take a backseat in Jharkhand's 2019 assembly elections, the state's civil rights organization, the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha, a coalition of activists and people’s organisations, has said that political parties have largely ignored in their electoral manifestos the need to implement the fifth schedule of the Constitution in a predominantly tribal district.

Hindutva founders 'borrowed' Nazi, fascist idea of one flag, one leader, one ideology

By Shamsul Islam*
With the unleashing of the reign of terror by the RSS/BJP rulers against working-class, peasant organizations, women organizations, student movements, intellectuals, writers, poets and progressive social/political activists, India also witnessed a series of resistance programmes organized by the pro-people cultural organizations in different parts of the country. My address in some of these programmes is reproduced here...
*** Before sharing my views on the tasks of artists-writers-intellectuals in the times of fascism, let me briefly define fascism and how it is different from totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is political concept, a dictatorship of an individual, family or group which prohibits opposition in any form, and exercises an extremely high degree of control over public and private life. It is also described as authoritarianism.
Whereas fascism, while retaining all these repressive characteristics, also believes in god-ordained superiority of race, cultur…

Hindutva founders, not Congress, were actual 'proponents' of two-nation theory

By Shamsul Islam*
No other organization, in the present world, can beat Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in double-speak. In fact, what George Orwell termed as "doublespeak" would be an understatement in the case of RSS. The latest proof of this nasty case was provided by the Union Home Minister Amit Shah, de facto Prime Minister and senior RSS leader in the Lok Sabha (akin to the House of Commons in England) on December 9, 2019.

Ex-World Bank chief economist doubts spurt in India's ease of doing business rank

By Rajiv Shah
This is in continuation of my previous blog where I had quoted from a commentary which top economist Prof Kaushik Basu had written in the New York Times (NYT) a little less than a month ago, on November 6, to be exact. He recalled this article through a tweet on November 29, soon after it was made known that India's growth rate had slumped (officially!) to 4.5%.

With RSS around, does India need foreign enemy to undo its democratic-secular fabric?

By Shamsul Islam*
Many well-meaning liberal and secular political analysts are highly perturbed by sectarian policy decisions of RSS/BJP rulers led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, especially after starting his second inning. They are vocal in red-flagging lynching incidents, policies of the Modi government on Kashmir, the National Register of Citizens (NRC), the demand for 'Bharat Ratna' to Savarkar who submitted 6-7 mercy petitions to the British masters (getting remission of 40 years out of 50 years' sentence), and the murder of constitutional norms in Goa, Karnataka and now in Maharashtra.

Ships recycling Bill 'allows' India to be turned into a landfill for foreign hazardous waste

Counterview Desk
In a letter to M Venkaiah Naidu, chairman, Rajya Sabha, senior activist Gopal Krishna of the Toxics Watch Alliance has said that the Recycling of Ships Bill, 2019 should be referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology, Environment, Forests and Climate Change to "safeguard country’s maritime environment from harmful and hazardous wastes and materials".

Post-Balakot, danger that events might spiral out of control is 'greater, not less'

By Tapan Bose*
The fear of war in South Asia is increasing. Tensions are escalating between India and Pakistan after the Indian defence minister's announcement in August this year that India may revoke its current commitment to only use nuclear weapons in retaliation for a nuclear attack, known as ‘no first use’. According to some experts who are watching the situation the risk of a conflict between the two countries has never been greater since they both tested nuclear weapons in 1998.

Worrying signs in BJP: Modi, Shah begin 'cold-shouldering' Gujarat CM, party chief

By RK Misra*
The political developments in neighbouring Maharashtra where a Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress government assumed office has had a trickle down effect in Gujarat with both the ruling BJP and the Congress opposition going into revamp mode.

Counterview

Search This Blog