Bharat Bandh on 21st August

Let us tell you that in this episode, the officials of the All Scheduled Castes and Tribes Society submitted a memorandum to all the officials and different organizations of Jagdalpur and informed them about the Bharat Bandh on 21st August. Bharat Bandh-Bastar Bandh Bharat Bandh An appeal was made to make it a success. Chamber of Commerce, Small Traders Association, Transport Association, Bus Transport Association, Amcho Taxi Transport Association etc. organizations were also informed. Divisional President of Sarva Adivasi Samaj Prakash Thakur said that the entire division will be closed on 21st from 5 am to 5 pm in protest against the decision given by the Supreme Court regarding reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. Bharat Bandh District President of Sarva Scheduled Caste Society Vikram Lahare said that during the bandh our youth will keep moving around on bikes from morning onwards and after that they will gather near Dharampura PG College and will walk through the main road to reach Lalbagh Ground and will pay homage to Bhimrao Ambedkar here. District President of the Federation Satish Wankhade has requested all the rural and urban people to participate in maximum numbers so that the echo of the movement can be heard till the Supreme Court.

Reservation Bachao Sangharsh Samiti has formed a committee to protest against the Scheduled Caste scheduled caste The bandh has been called to protest against the recent Supreme Court verdict regarding reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The Constitutional Bench of the Supreme Court delivered an important verdict on August 1, 2024. They allowed states to create sub-categories within the SC and ST groups, saying, “Those who really need it should get priority in reservation.” This verdict has sparked widespread debate and a call for a Bharat Bandh, as reported by OneIndia Hindi. The main objective of this Bharat Bandh is to challenge the Supreme Court’s verdict on reservation and demand its reversal. The bandh is expected to receive support from various social and political organisations. The protest aims to highlight the unjust decision of the court. In view of the possible violence during the bandh, top police officials held a preparatory meeting through video conferencing. All divisional commissioners, district magistrates and senior police officers attended the meeting. Principal Secretary Home and Director General of Police (DGP) chaired the meeting and directed the officials to prepare for the demonstrations to be held on August 21. Western Uttar Pradesh has been deemed particularly sensitive, due to which the police there have been put on high alert. Authorities are taking extensive steps to ensure the safety of the public during the protests.

Supreme Court Supreme Court After the decision of sub-categorization of SC-ST reservation and the suggestion of creamy layer, another big platform for the struggle on reservation seems certain to be set up. After the decision of the Supreme Court on August 1, the people of SC-ST communities are divided into two parts: pro and anti, and the rest of the society, especially the Hindu reservationists, are keeping an eye on them, enjoying. Among these, the opposition has expressed disagreement with the court’s decision and announced a Bharat Bandh on August 21. Although there is a buzz all over India regarding Bharat Bandh, but there is more activity in North India. In the states of this region like UP, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana etc., the organizations of Dalits have started preparing for the bandh on a war footing. In comparison to them, the activities of the sub-categorization supporting groups are looking weak. The reason for this is that they neither have big leaders like Mayawati, Chirag Paswan, Ramdas Athawale, Chandrashekhar Azad nor YouTube channels and portals that use social media effectively! Despite this, the leaders and intellectuals of the group supporting the decision of the apex court are explaining the benefits of sub-classification of reservation in their limited resources and are calling for depriving Mayawati, Chirag, Athawale, Chandrashekhar etc. of their votes forever, which is also having an effect. However, both the supporters and opponents of classification are definitely active at their own level, but the eyes of the country are fixed on the group opposing the decision, which has started preparing on a war footing for a bigger bandh than the historic bandh of 2 April 2018.

However, now that Bharat Bandh seems certain, it is important for the bandh supporters to keep some basic things in mind before joining the bandh. First of all, it must be kept in mind that the Dalits are not going to suffer any loss due to the classification of reservation, because even after the classification, their reservation will remain intact in proportion to their numbers. In such a situation, from the news coming from all around, it seems that the real concern of the bandh supporters is the breaking of unity. To maintain unity, they want to reverse the court’s decision by putting pressure on the Modi government through the bandh. But even if the Modi government reverses the decision of sub-classification under the pressure of Bharat Bandh, as it has done in the case of creamy layer, the unity will not remain unbroken. After the court’s decision, the feeling of hostility towards the alleged beneficiaries of reservation that has developed among the groups seeing benefits in sub-classification has almost become permanent. Therefore, even reversing the court’s decision will not be of much benefit on the unity front, because a mentality of looking at the advanced groups as a dominating class has developed among the non-progressive groups, which seems difficult to change in the near future.

As far as the question of the division of reservation into Dalit-Adivasi unity is concerned, the supporters of the bandh should not forget the unpleasant truth that there has never been any real unity among them, especially among the Dalit castes! Everywhere, the Dalit castes like Chamar-Bhangi, Mahar-Mang, Dhobi-Dusadh-Pasi etc. have not only been indifferent to each other’s joys and sorrows, but they have also lacked sufficient compassion and brotherhood towards their own lower sub-castes. But if the bandh supporting group is really worried about the breakdown of mutual unity, then they will have to look for other options to compensate for it, which is not very difficult. The honourable judges of the Supreme Court themselves have provided such a basis, using which not only can unity be given a bigger dimension, but the dream of Ambedkar-Gandhi etc. of building an egalitarian India can also be fulfilled along with the elimination of the economic and social inequality that has spread in the most severe form.

The decision and suggestion given by the Supreme Court on August 1, conveys the message that for the upliftment/betterment of the deprived, some special measures can be taken even by going beyond the scope of the Constitution and those who have become capable by taking advantage of the system (reservation) should be excluded from it. Remember that the burden that the Court has entrusted to the states to identify the creamy layer along with the classification of reservation, comes under the category of encroachment of the scope of the Constitution: Only the President and the Parliament have the right to change the reservation. However, the deprived for whose upliftment and benefit the Honorable Supreme Court has given a surprising decision, are only of the SC and ST communities. Not of the entire Indian society! Whereas the concern should have been for the entire deprived of the Indian society. But the Court has ignored it, which is a matter of great surprise. If the Court had cast a comprehensive view on this problem, it would have found that just like the Dalits and tribals, the way the OBCs, minorities and above all the half of the population are victims of deprivation and exploitation, is no less a big problem than the non-progressive Dalit-tribals. The World Inequality Lab report titled ‘Towards Tax Justice and Wealth Re-distribution’ released in May 2024 revealed that the upper castes have an 89% share in the country’s wealth, Dalits have a 2.8% share, and the vast majority of backward communities have a mere 9% share.

But the section of the society in India that is suffering the most from deprivation is half of the country’s population, which, according to the Oxfam report of 2023, has only a 3% share in the country’s wealth. In the ‘Global Gender Gap’ report published by the World Economic Forum since 2006, the condition of Indian women has been seen to be getting worse. In this report, gender equality is evaluated on 4 bases: economic participation and opportunity, educational opportunity, political participation, health and survival. In the Global Gender Gap report that has been published for more than a decade and a half, year after year, India’s condition has been seen to be worse than Bangladesh, Nepal, Myanmar, Bhutan and even Pakistan. Half of India’s population is more than 70 crores, which includes several dozen countries of Europe and two countries like America. According to the Global Gender Gap Report 2021, it will take 257 years for half of India’s population to reach economic equality with men.

Overall, if we look at it properly, the deprivation of half of our population of more than 70 crores is the biggest problem not only of India but of the world, to which neither the Modi government nor the Supreme Court is paying attention. The Modi government has been running a long cycle of dividing the reservation of Dalits along with setting up the Rohini Commission for the upliftment of the backward classes. The reason behind this is more political interest than the interest of the deprived. The policy of division that it is adopting in the name of upliftment is to create a division between Dalits and backward classes, so that the parties fighting for the deprived become weak and they can take advantage of it. Not only this, in the name of upliftment of deprived castes, BJP’s ultimate goal is to give all the sources of power in the hands of upper castes. Therefore, while it is blind to the dominance of upper castes who have captured 80-90% of the economic, political, educational, religious-cultural, film-media etc. areas, it is completely indifferent to the extremely worrying situation of Dalits-tribals, backward, minorities and women. But behind the indifference towards the deprived is BJP’s love for upper castes. However, there is no such problem with the court. Still, it is indifferent to the economic-social inequality that can explode democracy and the deprivation of various sections including women. This indifference of the Supreme Court has provided a golden opportunity to the sections agitated by the classification of reservation. Taking advantage of this opportunity, if they make the liberation of all the deprived groups of India including half of the population, Dalits, tribals, backward and minorities, their main agenda.

Then such unity will be created among the 90% deprived population that the plans of the powers trying to break their unity will be thwarted forever. The privileged class of Hindu reservations, i.e. the upper castes, are responsible for the worst economic and social inequality and the prevalence of deprivation in India. This is the real ruling class of India. This is the class which has 80-90 percent control over all the sources of power. But this control is not of the entire upper caste society, but only of its men, whose population is barely 8 to 9%. These minority people have 80-90% control everywhere. If this class is stopped at their proportion of 8-9% in the distribution of opportunities and resources, then 70-80% opportunities will become surplus in various fields. If these additional opportunities are distributed among women, Dalits, tribals, backward and minorities, then along with the elimination of the biggest problem of mankind, economic and social inequality, the dream of Ambedkar, Gandhi, Nehru etc. of building an egalitarian India will also be fulfilled. Therefore, the agenda of India building on 21st August should be ‘Justice for the deprived of Indian society’ and a voice should be raised for this to stop the upper castes on their numerical strength.

But today, due to economic and social inequality, deprived castes are fighting against each other for petty selfish interests, and Ambedkarites are equally responsible for that. Despite Dr. Ambedkar’s open declaration in November 1949 to end economic and social inequality, Ambedkarites never made it a big issue. They never thought beyond the reservation made available by Dr. Ambedkar in jobs, politics and education. Baba Saheb had demanded reservation in contracts from the British government in 1942, but Ambedkarites never raised this demand in independent India. They remained satisfied with the fight to end Brahminism after getting a share in government jobs through reservation. They never went beyond jobs and fought for a share in all the economic activities including supply, dealership, contracting, film-media. Later, when government jobs started ending due to neo-liberal economics, they started demanding reservation in private sector jobs, promotions and judiciary, but did not fight for the division of all sources of power among various groups to end economic and social inequality. Taking advantage of this, the upper castes have captured 80-90% of every sector, evidence of which can be seen in the May 2024 report of the World Inequality Lab, which states that the upper castes have captured 89% of the country’s wealth. This capture has proved that if Jatav, Mahar, Dusadh, Mala, Pasi etc. are the dominant classes among Dalits, then the dominant class of the entire Indian society is the upper caste society, which has an unimaginable: almost 90% control over wealth. In contrast to the over-ruling upper castes, the most deprived section in Indian society, like the Bhangis among the Dalits, is half the population, whose share in the wealth is merely 3%.

In contrast to the Dalit society, when we look at the Indian society, it is clear that half the population is the most impoverished and the upper caste society is unimaginably the most prosperous society. To provide justice to the poor of the Indian society, all those measures can be applied to the half population which have been suggested by the 7-member bench of the Supreme Court in a 6-1 decision. Similarly, just as the rich Dalits have been excluded from the reservation system, the same formula can be applied to the rich upper castes. But to provide justice to the deprived of the Indian society, something different will have to be done. For this, first of all, sub-classification will have to be done in the major social groups of India, Dalit, tribal, backward, minority and upper caste. This will not be a new thing. The division of the deprived into Dalit-Mahadalit, backward-most backward, Ashraf-Pasmanda has already been done. What will be new will be the division of the upper caste society. But this has also been discussed. Rahul Gandhi has raised the issue of poor upper castes many times. EWS reservation has also exposed the existence of poor upper castes in the society. In this way, sub-classification will easily happen among the upper castes as well. After sub-classification of the five communities, Indian society will be divided into ten parts of rich and poor. These ten parts should then be divided into men and women. In this way, there will be a total of twenty divisions in Indian society. After these 20 divisions, the first half of each category i.e. 50% of the share should be given to women.

The next 50% will be given to the men of that community. The roster of its division will have to be made in such a way that half of the total distribution of opportunities will first go to women and the remaining half to men. For this, the distribution of opportunities will also have to be done in reverse method. That is, earlier in the roster of distribution of opportunities, the upper castes i.e. general class used to come first and then the reserved castes. Using the reverse method, the distribution of opportunities should start from the most deprived class and end with the most prosperous class. This is an innovative idea, the gist of which is that starting from the women and men of the deprived class, the distribution should end with 4% men of the prosperous upper castes. In such a situation, if the Bharat Bandh of 21st August focuses on stopping the upper castes, the root of all the problems arising from inequality, by sub-classifying the general class in the distribution of opportunities and resources, on their numerical ratio, then it will be marked as the most revolutionary bandh in history. Except for the three and a half to four percent rich upper castes, almost 95-96% of the country’s population will join this bandh, which will also include Mahadalits. There will be no better opportunity than this to launch a movement to stop the most rich upper castes on their population ratio. With the slogan ‘As much population, so much right’, Rahul Gandhi has already prepared the ground for this movement. In such a situation, for a revolutionary change, the supporters of Bharat Bandh should make up their mind to focus their movement on stopping the rich upper caste men on their population ratio.

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2024-08-18 18:40:44

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