HYDERABAD: Expressing that a powerful Dalit movement would be led from South India and would then spread across the country in the coming days, Jignesh Mevani, the man behind the historical Dalit Asmita Yatra, said, “India was never as casteist as it has become under the Narendra Modi regime.
I am very thrilled about leading a movement in South India.” Mevani, who had mobilised Dalits in Gujarat through the slogan “Your Mother, You Bury Her,” and is going to undertake a padayatra in Kerala from April 29, was in Hyderabad on Wednesday to garner support for his movement from the platform of Lamakaan.
“After the padayatra in Kerala, I will host a national conference in South India to strengthen the movement. I see a lot of possibility for it in this part of the country. I have plans to travel through the length and breadth of the five states in South India to seek people’s support,” he said.
The Dalit activist also wants to use social media to get in touch with people to strengthen his movement. “Not only Hyderabad, but the entire nation will find Rohith Vemula again through us, through our movement and a new morning will come,” he asserted.
When asked to comment on reservations for Dalits in employment, he said, “In year 2013, over 1,51,841 jobs were created in the country.
At present the figures have come down to 16,000. Be it for Dalits or other castes, my demand is only that more employment generation should take place in the country and nothing should stop that from happening.”
He went on to underline the achievement of Chalo Una movement and Chalo Udupi and said that he now looks forward to Chalo Trivandrum.
“We made path-breaking achievements through the success of Una movement. It led thousands of Dalits in Gujarat many to give up handling cow carcasses. Our demand for land also received response and my Dalit brothers were allotted 300 acres of land,” he said.