Mangaluru: Dalit activist Jignesh Mewani has emphasized on the need for reservation in a caste-driven country like India and said that reservation must exist till caste system exists in India.
Speaking in a students’s awareness campaign organised by Campus Front of India in Town Hall on Tuesday, he said that besides food, clothing and shelter, there is an immediate need to establish a model on the lines of Constitution.
Taking note of rising number of atrocities on Dalit across the country, Mewani said that district-level Samvidhana Suraksha Samitis (SSS) will be formed to fight the atrocities against the Dalits.
C S Dwarakanath, former chairman of Karnataka State Backward Classes Commission and chief guest of the programme said that there is a need to imbibe the qualities and principles of leaders like Ambedkar, Bhagat Singh and Tipu Sultan while creating a model society.
Further he added that the original copy of the constitution where one can find pictures of Jhansi Laxmi Bai and Tipu Sultan have been initialed by Dr Rajendra Prasad, Jawaharlal Nehru and Vallabh Bhai Patel as also by Shyamprasad Mukherjee, the founder of Jan Sangh, a fact which his followers are reluctant to accept.
Addressing the gathering, CFI national general secretary T Abdul Naseer raised the cause of Radhika Vemula and Nafeesa who are seeking justice for their children saying that there was a need to extend support for this fight for justice.
He however said that anyone raising their voices are termed as traitors or may get killed while killers of rationalist writers like Dabholkar and Kalburgi are out in open.
The awareness convention was inaugurated by Prof P Koya, general secretary National Confederation of Human Rights Organizations. Writer, Yogesh Master, social worker, Sunkanna Velpula, national secretary of National Women’s Front, Lubna Minaz, Muhammed Tufail, Mustafa, Sajit, Shabana P and others were present.
Before the commencement of the programme the students took out a march from Ambedkar Circle in the city to the venue of the programme.
