At Dalit meet, call for alliance forged on dard ka rishta

Is social justice only or primarily made up of reservations in the public and private sectors? What are the possibilities of internal critique in the disadvantaged caste or community?

It is unfair to expect any one conference, however ambitiously titled, to deliver all the answers. Then, of course, those questions were never fully on the agenda of the ‘International Convention of Dalits and Minorities International Forum’, hosted by the American Federation of Muslims of Indian Origin, that came to a close on Sunday in New York.

Over the last two days, speakers — an assortment of former and present legislators, retired bureaucrats and activists from India and the US — kept the focus on a tantalising project of electoral engineering: a confederacy of the vulnerable — a coming together at the hustings of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes along with Muslims and minority communities. Speaker after speaker reminded the audience that together these groups make up at least 40 per cent of the electorate. Together they could form a Government of their own.

Several speakers expressed frustration at the “closing of doors” in times of the shrinking State, and urged the immediate extension of reservations to Dalit Muslims and Dalit Christians. For E Ponnusamy, PMK MP, the judiciary has become the “stumbling block” to a more encompassing reservation policy. Syed Shahabuddin, former MP, exhorted his audience not to forget that, “In the near future, the government will remain the largest employer in our country”. The general consensus was that the concept of “creamy layer” could not be applied to the SCs and STs.

Gujarat 2002 was a recurring reference point and a call to action. Amid the vivid recitations of the crimes, it was the silent projection on the wall of the photographs — by his daughter...