Meira Kumar, former minister, Lok Sabha Speaker and a Presidential candidate, reacted with a visceral tweet right now to the loss of life of a 9-year-old in Rajasthan. The boy was crushed badly by his trainer for ingesting water from a pot meant for the so-called higher castes. Her father, former Deputy Prime Minister and Dalit chief Babu Jagjivan Ram, Meira Kumar mentioned, was crushed for the same motive 100 years in the past. “Now, 75 years after Independence, India has not modified. Nothing has modified,” she advised NDTV in an unique interview.
100 years in the past my father Babu Jagjivan Ram was prohibited from ingesting water at school from the pitcher meant for Savarna Hindus. It was a miracle his life was saved. 1/2
— Meira Kumar (@meira_kumar) August 15, 2022
“I requested my father. ‘Why did you struggle for freedom? This nation did nothing for you. It has given nothing to you or your ancestors’. He mentioned, ‘Free India goes to vary. We may have a caste-less society’. Glad he’s not there now,” Meira Kumar mentioned.
Issues didn’t change for her both, added the 77-year-old. In her case, there have been “snide remarks, gestures, open statements made to me”, Meira Kumar mentioned.
Narrating an anecdote to point out how the caste system has travelled past the borders of India, she mentioned when she was in search of a home on hire in London, the proprietor, who was a Christian, requested about her caste.
“I favored the home and mentioned I’ll shift. When he was leaving, he shot a final query. ‘Are you a Brahmin?’ I mentioned ‘No, I’m not a Brahmin. I’m a Scheduled Caste. Do you will have an issue?’ He mentioned ‘No’. However he didn’t give me the home,” she added.
“It’s supposed that Dalits are silly. However Dalits have emotions, mind. We all know once we are being humiliated,” she mentioned.
“My father achieved a lot however even right now, he’s referred to as a Dalit chief. He achieved a lot, however was nonetheless outlined by his caste… My father was Deputy Prime Minister and he was humiliated and he was requested to go and plenty of casteist slurs had been mentioned,” she mentioned.
From her father’s life, she shared one other occasion. When Babu Jagjivan Ram, as a Deputy Prime Minister in 1978, had gone to unveil the statue of Sampurnanand, he was humiliated.
“Jagjivan, chamar, go away,’ they mentioned. And so they washed the statue with Ganga Jal. As a result of it was polluted. So that you see, the caste system embraces everybody,” she mentioned.
Requested why the casteism is so entrenched and whether or not it’s potential to come back out of it, she mentioned there must be political and social will.
“I requested my father, why doesn’t the caste system change. He mentioned, in case your fundamental wants are met, roti, kapda, makan (meals, garments and housing), cash for healthcare, then you definitely want two issues — love and respect. You will get love. That’s straightforward. However it’s tough to get respect. It’s laborious work. You must toil a lot. Those that have a maintain on the system won’t ever let it change,” she mentioned.
Immediately, there are such a lot of examples of change in varied fields. “However the place is the humane issue? There’s a lot poison, hatred, violence within the minds of individuals. Everybody pities the Dalits, I’ve an objection to that,” she mentioned.
The political class, she mentioned, is liable for voting on caste traces. “However to place the burden solely on the political class and political system will likely be to get the problem misplaced. You’re not addressing the primary difficulty of how one can do away with the caste system. That’s why I don’t wish to talk about which celebration is ruling which state. That’s simply statistics,” she mentioned..
