Quotes About Dalits

The closest Indian analogy to the position of black Americans is that of the Dalits - formerly called 'Untouchables,' the outcastes who for millennia suffered humiliating discrimination and oppression.

Ambedkar viewed the pact as a compromise benefiting everyone, including the Dalits, an inference confirmed by the fact that only two years after writing his 1945 text Ambedkar began the process of steering the passage of a Constitution that incorporated the pact.

Every Indian election in the eighty-two years since the pact— whether nationwide or in a state, town or village—has been conducted on the basis of that pact, with reserved seats for Dalits but without a separate electorate.

Congress party talks about Dalits but does not involve them in important decision making process.

We have given a government where people feel safe... we gave Dalits a life of dignity.

Minorities, Dalits, farmers, students, writers - all have faced the brunt of the Narendra Modi government and risen in protest.

Dalits are our brothers, but some of us do not embrace them like brothers. But when they go away and become Christians, some of us take pride in associating with them. This should stop.

Even though they are male, because they are Dalits, they have to be like dogs with their tails rolled up when they are in the fields, and dealing with their landlords, There is no way they can show their strength in those circumstances. So they show it at home on their wives and children. But then, is it the fate of our women to be tormented both outside their houses and within?

In order to detach caste from the political economy, from conditions of enslavement in which most dalits lived and worked, in order to slide the questions of entitlement, land reforms and the redistribution of wealth, Hindu reformers cleverly narrowed the question of caste to the issue of untouchability. They framed it as an erroneous religious and cultural practice that needed to be reformed.

What is needed is permanent jobs and the Centre has done everything to discriminate against the Dalits by not releasing funds for them.

The Congress and its kin parties such as the BJP are up to grab the rights of Dalits.

Given the Beemer's Brahminical status at the top of India's vehicular caste system (bicyclists being the Dalits of the road), few cars dared to cut in front of it or venture too close lest they contaminate its uncorrupted, venerated bodywork.

The state government should devote special attention to safeguard their rights. The rights of the Dalits in Vedaranyam, Karur and other parts of Tamil Nadu should be protected by the state government.

As far as the Congress is concerned, we condemn any attempts to oppress the Dalits in strongest terms. If there are parties trying to fan the OBC-Dalit divide in Tamil Nadu, we need to collectively condemn them.

In a democracy, everyone has a right to put forward one's views. But people resorting to violent demonstrations in the name of Dalits are bound to be exposed.

The story of the ugly duckling and its scornful brethren holds special significance for the Dalits. I wonder how many swans waste their lives thinking of themselves as ugly ducklings, trapped and punished by the inequities of our caste system.