Dalit show of strength in city on July 31

Ahmedabad: Dalit rights activists on Tuesday announced that a 'Mahasammelan' would be held on July 31 to protest against the Una outrage: the flogging of four dailts by so-called gau rakshaks. The victims had been skinning a dead cow.

The activists, who met under the banner of 'Una Dalit Atyachar Ladat Samiti', said that they have sought permission from the Ahmedabad district collector to hold the convention. They said that if permission was denied, carcasses would be thrown inside government offices as 'surprise packages'.

"The number of atrocities against dalits have been increasing under the 'Gujarat model' and the Una atrocity has triggered anguish and fury of the community," said Jignesh Mevani, a city-based dalit rights activist and lawyer. "To express our anger and grief, we will hold the massive convention at the Ahmedabad district collectorate on July 31."

Mevani said that if the government was apprehensive about the size of the gathering, it should provide the GMDC ground at negligible cost as it was done for the Patidar community in August last year. Mevani said that the government should meet dalit activists to discuss various demands of the community just as it had done in the case of the Patidars. He said that thousands of people from 35 organizations would participate in the convention.

Valji Patel, a dalit activist, equated the condition of dalits with that of Kashmiri Pandits. "Kashmiri Pandits cannot live with the Muslim population in Srinagar and dalits cannot live with the so-called upper-caste sections of the Hindu society."

The activists demanded that the perpetrators be charged under the sections of the Prevention Of Anti-Social Activities Act (PASA). The activists also want all the accused in the case to be externed from their home districts. Another demand is the allocation of wasteland to dalits so that they can jettison their traditional profession of skinning dead animals.