Dalit rights leader asks Murari Bapu to campaign for saving cows from plastics

Natubhai Parmar with his letter to Murari Bapu

By Our Representative
Gujarat-based Dalit rights activist Natubhai Parmar, who created flutter across Gujarat through his unique protest of dumping dead cows in front of the Surendranagar district collector’s office following the Una incident in 2016, in which seven members of a Dalit family were flogged for skinning a dead cow, has asked well-known preacher Murari Bapu to campaign against largescale death of cows because of plastic.
The seven Dalits were flogged because cow vigilantes suspected the Dalit family members had killed a cow. The cops had allegedly helped the vigilantes locate the spot where they were skinning the dead cow, a traditional occupation of Rohits, a Dalit community. Following the incident, Dalit protests broke out across Gujarat against cow vigilantism.
In a letter, Parmar asked Murari Bapu to come to his Gautam Buddha Goseva Ashram in Surendranagar, where he has displayed plastic taken out of dead cows, pointing out, in his view, it is the plastics which is the main reason behind the unnatural death of cows. “In one of the cows, we weighed 60 kg of plastic was retrieved from a dead cow”, Parmar said, adding, “We informed about this to Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani."

Plastic retrieved from dead cow's belly

Pointing out that he has been campaigning against cows eating plastics, which are thrown around everywhere, Parmar said, he sent across his first letter to the Gujarat government on this on December 12, 2014. Then, on May 10, 2017, on Gautam Buddha's birth anniversary, a huge Dalit procession was organized and a memorandum was sent to all the 182 Gujarat state assembly MLAs with bottles with plastic retrieved from dead cows' bellies.
Even as appreciating Prime Minister Narendra Modi's decision to ban plastics October 2 onwards, the letter to Murari Bapu said, “You are known to have been successful in your campaigns, whether it was at Kailash Mansorovar, saving a whale, or taking food in a Valmiki household, thus sending the message against untouchability. We request you to come our ashram and send a signal to the society that it is plastics which are the main reason for the untimely death of cows."

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By Rajiv Shah
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By Our Representative
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By Shamsul Islam*
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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.

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By Shamsul Islam*
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*** 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…

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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".

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By Rajiv Shah
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By Our Representative
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