After chalo Una, dalits now plan chalo Trivandrum

THRISSUR: Different Ambedkarite dalit movements in Kerala have come together to work with the group led by Jignesh Mevani, the dalit leader from Gujarat in order to launch a continuous struggle for land, reservation and other issues facing the dalits in the state.
Talking to TOI on the sidelines of the three-day meeting here Mevani said about 70 Ambedkarite movements in Kerala have already extended support to the initiative.
"I will now be visiting Kerala frequently and would be making all out efforts to integrate the various Ambekarite movements in the state and to consolidate the present unity that has already been achieved,'' Mevani said.
"After Chalo Una in Gujarat and Chalo Udupi at Karnataka, we are planning Chalo Trivandrum on 26th January. Be it the BJP in Gujarat, the Congress in Karnataka or the CPIM in Kerala, we will fight it out for our land rights," he wrote in his Facebook post.
He said landlessness of the dalits in Kerala will be the main issue that will be taken up by the proposed movement. Even though Kerala brought about the historic Land Reforms Act, the dalits were totally marginalised in the land redistribution programme. They were at best given just couple of cents of land and were ghettoised into colonies.
The state has not yet enacted any legislation ensuring the rights of the tribals, dalits or the workers in the agriculture, plantation and the fishing sectors, pointed out tribal activist M Geethanandan, who was one of the coordinators of the Thrissur meeting. He said a resolution was adopted at the meeting, which concluded on Sunday.
Mevani said reservation will be another major campaign plank of the dalit movements in Kerala. "I was shocked to learn that out of the 12,000 college lecturers and professors in Kerala only 64 are from the scheduled caste. Out of the two lakh primary teachers in the state only 1% are from the scheduled caste, '' he said.
The aided schools in Kerala do not have reservation for dalit teachers and non-teaching staff, Geethanandan added.