IT News
Mumbai, Dec 27
Dr B R Ambedkar’s grandson and President of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) on Thursday claimed that besides Muslims, the CAA-NRC will hit at least 40 per cent of the Hindus in the country and its implications are yet to be fully understood.
Addressing a huge an anti-CAA rally at Khodadad Circle in Dadar in Central Mumbai, Ambedkar warned that not only the Muslims but even the Hindu community would bear the brunt of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Register for Citizens(NRC). These include “Tribals, Vanchit Jatis and Nomadic tribes” who comprise 12-16 per cent nomadic tribes, around 9 per cent tribals, besides small migrant labour communities), who have no documents of any type, he said.
The nationwide exercise expects the citizens to furnish documents to prove that they or their ancestors were living in the country prior to the cut-off date of March 26, 1971.
“Under such circumstances, if these communities are asked to produce their birth certificates and if they are unable to do so, they will be liable for action under the NRC,” Ambedkar pointed out and added that this fight is not about Hindu-Muslims, but it is about “RSS citizenship versus Constitutional Citizenship”.
Giving an example of the Mang community, which falls under the Scheduled Castes (SC) category, he said that the people of this community worships a goddess “Kadak Laxm” and asks for money in her name. They earn livelihood through this traditional nomadic job. Where from they will get the basic documents to prove their identity ? The people of this community are spread over Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana.
As the new citizenship law ensures that the Muslims are excluded from the NRC if they are unable to furnish the documents, some “Islamophobic” sections of the society have extended their support to it without realising that this subtle bigotry is harming lakhs of others within the Hindu religion itself, he said and added that an attempt is being made to snatch the identity of minorities by the Modi Government and we will oppose and expose this act”,
Ambedkar said.
In another development, the nomads led by former member of the National Backward Class Commission Dr Kailas Gaud have organised a state wide convention to decide future course of action at Sion in East-central Mumbai on Saturday. They are also planning to submit a memorandum to Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray urging him to take up the matter with the Union Government.
The Nomadic Tribes and Denotified Tribes comprise about 60 million people in India, of which nearly five million live in Maharashtra. There are 313 Nomadic Tribes and 198 Denotified Tribes. They are in dilemma since they do not possess caste certificates or any other proof to prove continuous stay.
In Maharashtra, they have to get caste certificates from the state social welfare department. But they find it difficult to get them since they are being asked to submit many documents, including the documents to explain where have been residing before 1961.
In fact the people belonging to nomadic tribes are spread across the country including West Bengal, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Delhi, UP, Bihar, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Tripura, who are placed under scheduled caste, scheduled tribes by different states. They are known by different names in different states.
Due to the wandering tradition of over several years without any ostensible means of livelihood, they were forced to live under sub-human conditions. The large section of these tribes is known as “Vimukta jaatis” or the Ex-Criminal Tribes because they were branded as criminals by birth under the “Criminal Tribes Act 1871”. That act was replaced with the Criminal Tribes Act (CTA), 1911 and eventually it was repealed in 1952, but the nomads are still treated as criminals and subjected to harassment and persecution and do not get reservations under “Denotified”, “Nomadic” or “Semi-Nomadic” categories, Dr Gaud said.
