Written By- Subhash Gatade
Does anybody still remember the Dalits of Chakwara, a village around 50km from Jaipur in Rajasthan, who had launched a struggle to gain access to the pond in their village? It is more than 18 years since the Dalits, supported by human rights organisations, won that fight for water. Their undertaking had echoes with the historic struggle launched by Dr BR Ambedkar in March 1927 at Chavdar tank at Mahad to assert the equal rights of Dalits to water. It is well known to most people that while animals were allowed to use the water of this tank in present-day Raigad district of the state, the Dalits were not. Anand Teltumbde has described the events of this satyagraha in his book, Mahad: The Making of the First Dalit Revolt, published by Navayana in 2016.
But what happened at Chakwara after the Dalits started using the village pond is hardly known: the upper castes slowly stopped using the water from the pond once the Dalits gained access to it, saying it had become “impure”. Enraged by the assertion of the Dalits and keen to humiliate them for it, they dug up the village sewer and directed the waste water to their own village pond. There is no change in the status quo there.
दलित दस्तक (Dalit Dastak) एक मासिक पत्रिका, YouTube चैनल, वेबसाइट, न्यूज ऐप और प्रकाशन संस्थान (Das Publication) है। दलित दस्तक साल 2012 से लगातार संचार के तमाम माध्यमों के जरिए हाशिये पर खड़े लोगों की आवाज उठा रहा है। इसके संपादक और प्रकाशक अशोक दास (Editor & Publisher Ashok Das) हैं, जो अमरीका के हार्वर्ड युनिवर्सिटी में वक्ता के तौर पर शामिल हो चुके हैं। दलित दस्तक पत्रिका इस लिंक से सब्सक्राइब कर सकते हैं। Bahujanbooks.com नाम की इस संस्था की अपनी वेबसाइट भी है, जहां से बहुजन साहित्य को ऑनलाइन बुकिंग कर घर मंगवाया जा सकता है। दलित-बहुजन समाज की खबरों के लिए दलित दस्तक को ट्विटर पर फॉलो करिए फेसबुक पेज को लाइक करिए। आपके पास भी समाज की कोई खबर है तो हमें ईमेल (dalitdastak@gmail.com) करिए।