A GLANCE THROUGH the daily news papers reveal that the attacks on dalits in various forms are increasing day by day. When the common people have to unite and fight against pauperization of their life under neo-liberal policies, the ruling class parties with the help of religious and caste forces are dividing them by provoking attacks on dalits and intensifying casteist hatred against the downtrodden people. While in a large number of the cases denial of land right to the dalits is the root cause of attacks as in Vu-isakhapatnam and Madurai, even for provoking the workers in a modern factory like the Maruthi Suzuki plant at Gurgaon, abusing by calling caste names was used. It is often repeated by vested interests that as economic reforms take place and generations change the caste system will automatically. But what is happening is contrary to it. As the so-called reforms intensify the new generation is getting more infested with caste based hatred, internalizing caste based notions and Brahmanism is openly exhibited through ‘sacred threads’ and various rituals with only Brahmins having the rights to perform them. The films and media propagate these profusely. Even programs of political parties and launching of space rockets are ‘sanctified’ through religious rituals performed by Brahmins. Each and every day all these small things intensify the religious and caste taboos, with the dalits and most backward sections on the receiving side. These caste based attacks are used to dilute and terminate the reservation rights in different forms, with even courts dishing out orders against Constitutionally granted provisions of reservation. So it is becoming clearer day by day that the heinous caste system will not disappear on its own, but has to be annihilated through a social and Cultural Revolution combined with the radical land reforms ensuring land to the tillers and developing their capability to cultivate.
The question of adivasis is also the same. In spite of so many Constitutional guarantees and enactment of laws ensuring their right over the forest, land and natural resources in those areas, adivasi autonomous councils etc., rarely they are put in to practice and where they are in practice they are diluted so much that the real benefits do not goes to them. In areas where the corporate houses have entered in a big way, they are marginalized, thrown to slums and ghettos, the adivasi women sexually attacked with immunity, they are sold as house maids in cities or to brothels, the water resources are diverted for corporate use etc.
A neo-Brahmanical section is consciously created among them along with Hinduizing or Christianizing them, spreading new rituals, habits and taboos among them. In the name of neo-liberal policies and under illegal mining they are displaced from their habitats on a large scale. As a result of all these 95 % of them are under abject poverty, living under state terror.
It is in this context the significance of the Caste Annihilation Movement launched with the declared objective of annihilation of the caste system with revolutionary left forces including CPI(ML) taking initiative to take the message of caste annihilation to the masses and to launch a militant struggle for it starting with resistance to all forms of caste based oppression. Similarly, as clearly pointed out in the Party Program of the CPI(ML), the Central Committee has called for vigorous campaigns all over the country so that the nearly 100 million adivasis in different states achieve their right to have autonomous councils with full right over the ‘jal, jungle, zameen’ in that area. The CPI(ML) appeals to all progressive and democratic forces to come forward and make these campaigns and struggles successful.