Mistreating Dalits
The tragic and shocking death of Rohith Vemula has shaken the nation. Vemula was a member of the Ambedkar Students' Association, which fights for the rights of Dalit students on the University of Hyderabad campus. He was one of five Dalit students who were protesting against their expulsion from the university's housing facility. Narendra Modi will never dismiss his minister of Labour and Employment Bandaru Dattatreya, (who referred to Rohith as an ‘anti-national’) or his HRD Minister Smriti Irani or the Vice “Chancellor of the Hyderabad Central University Appa Rao “ all of them were directly responsible for his death. Modi will not take on the ABVP who have been holding campuses across the country to ransom-doing their best to deny other students of their legitimate right of freedom of speech and expression. He will never have the courage to take on the likes of Subramaniam Swamy and his ilk who tweeted, “The Hyd U drama is fast becoming the biggest con job of Communists and their running dogs”.
True, you can’t expect the Prime Minister to comment on every death in the country, however tragic. But his government went ahead to deny the Dalit-ness of Rohith’s death, so to speak, then to deprive him of even his Dalit identity, to even accuse others of politicising his death.
How do we come to grips with a reality which we have not dared to address as a country for almost seventy years now? How do we accept the fact that across the country “ in small villages, in growing towns, in mega-cities “ Dalits are still blatantly discriminated against? It is disconcerting that millions of our country men and women are not doing enough either to have prevented his death or for that matter improve the reality of his people in keeping with the values and spirit of the Constitution and particularly of the vision of Dr Ambedkar for a more humane, just and equitable society.
Roger D’Souza, Panaji
Dead river
The River Sal has been the lifeline for many down in South Goa. It starts in Verna and weaves it way through Salcete ending up in Cavellossim. I remember my childhood and teenage years, the summer holidays in the 70s when we visited family in Carmona and beyond. We would take one of the neighbours boats and row towards Mobor, sometimes crossing over to Velim. There we ate fried fish and had a few drinks, then jumped off the boat and swam to the shore and back. Those were some good memories. But our children cannot relive those moments. Now, that river is a cesspool. You cannot fish in it, because the fish will be poisoned. You cannot swim in those waters. The fishermen who live along its shore almost cry in anguish at the loss of their livelihood. There have been promises made in the past, about cleaning it. Studies have been conducted. If I’m not mistaken, the government promised to solve the issue but nothing has come of it. What will happen to that glorious river that was such a large part of our childhood?
Steven Almeida, Parra
