Full text of the Congress vice president's speech at National Awareness Camp Scheduled Cast Empowerment at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi
There is a concept of escape velocity in aeronautics. What is escape velocity of Jupiter? It is 60 km/sec acceleration. Dalit community in India needs Jupiter's escape velocity. We all need for push for their development. You may wonder why I am talking about Jupiter’s velocity here. In India, we have casteist concepts. There is an escape velocity in this too. If you belong to a particular caste and you want to surge ahead, you also need an escape velocity. And, thus the Dalit community in India needs Jupiter’s escape velocity; because, you have to push a lot for development.
When we study the Dalit history of our country, SCs look at Ambedkarji with pride. The reason is it was he who first gained this escape velocity to move ahead and went to US. He worked on Constitution and worked on the reservation with Congress.
There are several stages in the Dalit movement in the country.
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First stage was that of Ambedkar, as I had mentioned earlier. Entire community witnessed a sudden rise of a Dalit individual.
Next stage was of Mr. Kanshi Ram. He used the energy of reservation and tried to get escape velocity for people. He organised all the Dalits and brought more Dalits together and made a good movement by which several Dalits could gain escape velocity to move forward.
Third stage is connected with Ms. Mayawati. She had played a crucial role when she worked with Kanshi Ram.
But the important factor in Dalit movement is the matter of leadership. If we want to take this Dalit movement further, we need more leaders – not just one or two. We need lakhs of Dalit leadership.
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In the second stage of the Dalit movement, the production of leaders stopped, Mayawatiji has captured the leadership. The unfortunate fact is that Mayawatiji did not allow any other leaders to emerge. Though it is her personal choice, it is a great time for Congress party who has a history of working for Dalits.
That is why we have called this meeting here now. We want to build more Dalit leadership – at panchayat, MLA, MP and policy levels. We must discuss about building leadership and about polices and I also will try to share my views with you.
I just want to share a personal thought with you. Shindeji was saying that Dalits and other weaker sections of the society have a special place in my family. I just want to tell you why it is so. I myself was thinking I was thinking where did I get the quality of taking sides of underdog. Finally I got the answer and I want to share that with you.
During my childhood days, we used to have our dinner or lunch together with my father, grand mother etc at our home at Safdarjung Road. One day, after lunch, me and my grandmother (Indira Gandhi) were discussing various matters. One day I was sitting with daadi. She told me about a story of Germany.
She visited Germany when she was a child; that time Germany was ruled by Hitler. The entire people were following Hitler then. She, with her friends, went to watch an ice-hockey match between Germany and another team. Germany was in full form and was scoring goal after another against its opponent. She felt so sad that a strong team is crushing a weaker team so badly. The entire crowd was cheering for Germany. They applauded loudly for every single goal scored by Germany. Suddenly, the opposite team made a good move against Germany. Immediately my grandmother, alone, stood up and started clapping. The entire stadium started booing her. She said she was scared. But made up her mind she would stand up against underdog.
“A strong team is crushing a weak side so badly, and the entire people support the strong team, I could not control myself and decided to support the weak team”; This was her mentality - to help and support the weak always. I also learnt this from her. I, therefore, decided to always stand up and support the weaker sections. So you too must not just sit, but stand up and fight for your rights.
