To Sonam Wangchuk: 'Will undertake 70 hour solidarity fast in Gujarat'

By Martin Macwan* 

Dear Colleague Sonam Wangchuk,

I have never met you personally. I wrote a short article at the time of your arrest. Your work correctly introduces you. There is truth in your words.

You have embarked on a fast, following the footsteps of Gandhiji. Your intention is to make people think. Your demand is reasonable; I believe that the resignation of a single education minister will not improve the state of education in India. However, the question you have raised is extremely important for the future generation of the marginalized. Education is the key to power, development, and progress, which empowers a citizen.

Dr. Ambedkar was indeed admitted to school, but he had to sit near the classroom door on a gunny bag, so that his shadow would not fall on other children, and he had to study while enduring the taunts and insults of the teacher.

Eklavya was outright refused education by his guru, and when he learned through his own hard work and struggle, the guru demanded his thumb as guru dakshina and had it cut by Eklavya's own hand, so that this young man would not become the best.

When Savitribai and Jyotiba Phule opened a school for girls, people whose life's mission was to prevent the marginalized from becoming powerful spat on their faces, forced them to leave their homes, and even started beating the girls. In the end, parents were forced to bring their daughters to school packed in sacks to protect them from attacks.

I am a Gujarati Indian. Out of my 67 years of life, I have worked—and continue to work—for 47 years in various fields for the eradication of untouchability and to stop atrocities against Dalits and Adivasis. To set these marginalized communities on the path of economic, social, political, and cultural progress through education, Dr. Ambedkar introduced the 'reservation' system after a heavy struggle with Gandhi.

After struggling immensely, when children from marginalized communities sit for competitive exams, wealthy children snatch away the rights of these struggling children through cheating and corruption. By turning a blind eye to this system, the government—which took an oath on the Indian Constitution—sends the message that "hard work yields nothing." This system has shattered the dreams of progress of the marginalized, who constitute three-fourths of the country's population. People are not born unemployed from their mother's womb. Unemployment is the product of employment schemes and government policies run in collusion with corruption. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, indirectly exceeding his constitutional authority, publicly addresses such unemployed youth as 'cockroaches' and 'parasites'.

Many leaders like Gautam Buddha, Sant Kabir, Gandhi, the Mahatma Phule couple, and Dr. Ambedkar did not take up arms, but they made Indian citizens fearless through the actions imbedded in love, compassion, and rights. Today, the situation is such that the government of independent India is working to make its own citizens weak and lifeless through fear. People have no support from the government, the administration is not on their side, and the judiciary does not listen to them. People's despair has reached such an extent that frustrated youth throw papers in the open Supreme Court and abuse the Chief Justice of India. Just as the National Congress imposed the 'Emergency' in the past and snatched away people's fundamental rights, today's government is also making people cowards and fearful, stripping them of their fundamental rights.

Working for human rights is a constitutional duty of citizens, and this government labels those who work for human rights as 'anti-national'.

I am not a member of any political party. Since you speak of human rights, I am your colleague in that regard.

In public life, my ideals have particularly been Buddha, Sant Kabir, the Phule couple, and Dr. Ambedkar. The teaching of all of them was the same: "Do not be violent, but be fearless." I consider it my duty to protect the fundamental rights given to me as a citizen by Dr. Ambedkar. Whether it is atrocities against Dalits and Adivasis, the rights of laborers, the future of students, or the economic rights of farmers. These rights were not given by any government, but by the Constitution.

I cannot do much else to support you, but on the occasion of the 70th death anniversary of Dr. Ambedkar, remembering his contribution, I want to join you in a 70-hour fast—but in Gujarat, at my birthplace of work (karmabhoomi), the Dalit Shakti Kendra.

The fast will give me an opportunity to introspect: why, as citizens of an independent country, even though we eat the bread earned by our own sweat instead of living on rationed wheat, does so much fear take control of our lives, hearts, and minds? Across the world, thousands of children are buried in graves due to the violence spread by the political intimacy of weapon and ammunition industry owners, and we quietly set those images aside.

I will start my fast in your support at midnight on July 16, after dinner. My fast will end on July 19 at 10 PM. During the fast, I will observe silence so that I can introspect. I present my painting highlighting this very question here, so that those who hold fundamental rights dear can think about this issue.

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*Human rights defender. Founder, Dalit Shakti Kendra, and Navsarjan Trust, Gujarat