MNS:- The Minister of Social Justice & Empowerment Kumari Selja, speaking at the Dr. Ambedkar Memorial Lecture on “Remedies to Racial and Ethnic Economic Inequality” here today, said,” It is indeed a pleasure for me to be here today as Chief Guest at Dr. Ambedkar Memorial lecture organized by Indian Institute of Dalit Studies. Dalit is a word in Sanskrit and Hindi which means oppressed or underprivileged. This word is frequently used to refer to the Scheduled Castes, who have historically faced discrimination. Babasaheb Dr. Ambedkar has undoubtedly been one of the central figures in the evolution of the dalit philosophy in India. His works and thoughts have touched almost all serious or important issues in the life of Dalits. For the dalit masses, he is everything together; a scholar par excellence in the realm of scholarship, a messiah who led his people out of ignominy to the path of pride, and a saint who was not after material things. He is always bedecked with superlatives, whatever may be the context in dalit circles.
The major achievement of Dr. Ambedkar was that he succeeded in getting an identity and self respect for the Dalits. He adopted the means of constitutional movements and self-reliance for getting this. Through his movement for Dalits, he made the upper classes to introspect and think about the social inequality. He was able to establish harmony in the demands of the dalits and the society, this resulted in special safeguards against discrimination and enabling features for positive discrimination for these classes in the Indian Constitution. The experience of more than half a century of the Government policies and schemes on the empowerment of the dalits indicate that there has been improvement in the status of the dalits in the ownership of agricultural land and private enterprise, education, in public employment and other spheres. These improvements post Independence have occurred on account of the Constitutional directives, legislative and executive measures, implemented by successive Governments at the Central and State level. Despite these improvements, SCs/STs continue to lag behind and the gap between them and others is still very wide. Their performance with respect to human development is much less than other groups. SCs continue to be landless & asset less by and large. In 2009-10, only about one third of SC households owned some assets. About 58 % of rural and 25% of SC urban households were wage laborer. Only 11% of SC rural households owned private enterprises, when compared to 54.5% others. The SCs also lag behind in access to civic amenities. In 2012, the housing shortage among SC rural and urban households was 55% and 32% respectively compared with 40% and 21% among others.
Similarly 68% in rural and 38% in urban areas, the SC localities did not have proper drinking water facilities, compared with 49% and 20% for others. In 2008-09, about 41 % rural SCs and 7.5% urban SCs were without electricity in their houses, compared with 30% rural and 3% urban for others.
Access to higher education is also low; enrolment rate being 10 % compared with 25% for the others, but dropout rate is high. Unemployment rate among SCs is as high as 17%, compared to only 9.50% among others.
Thus, in term of access to assets, land, private enterprises, employment, education, drinking water, sanitation and housing, SCs suffer deprivation and consequently deeper levels of poverty. Added to this, SCs at many places continue to suffer untouchability, discrimination in public spheres and caste based atrocities.
All these issues relating to SCs/STs and Dalits need to be addressed.Our pursuit for growth has to be socially inclusive so that the gaps in the development of these peoples when compared to others would be bridged in a definite period of time.
The access of dalits to agricultural land and private enterprise and business needs to improve. The productivity of small farmers from Scheduled Castes needs to improve by providing them access to inputs.
The private enterprises owned by dalits etc. needs to be made profitable. The government has introduced policy of affirmative action in procurement. The SCs in rural areas need to be assisted to access sustainable livelihoods. Programmes to secure greater access of quality education, particularly technical education, and skill development for SCs would be evolved and implemented effectively.
Scheduled Castes Sub-Plan (SCSP) is a critical initiative of the Government in closing the development gap between the Scheduled Castes when compared to others. However, the implementation of SCSP needs to be improved.
We are striving to get statutory backing to SCSP through a legislation to ensure its effective implementation. Strategies aimed at securing access to investment, technology and market linkages to SC educated youth also being evolved to promote entrepreneurs among SCs.
We need to focus on effective implementation of SCs and STs (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. We are also working for its amendment and presently consulting all the stakeholders including State Governments.
The Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment through Dr. Ambedkar Foundation, setting up a world class Dr. Ambedkar National Memorial at 26, Alipur Road, Delhi, where Babasaheb breathed his last breath. It is also setting up Dr. Ambedkar International Center”.
The Minister concluded her speech with a quote of Babasaheb Ambedkar: “The first condition precedent for the successful working of democracy is that there must be no glaring inequalities in the society. Secondly, there must be statutory provisions to mitigate the sufferings and to safeguard the interest of the suppressed and oppressed people. The society must be based on the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity in order to ensure social endosmosis”.
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