Wednesday, January 7, 2009

REDS Silver Jubilee

REDS Silver Jubilee
Friends

We did not wish any of you for New Year. This is because every year we celebrate Dalit New
Year on 10 January. This is the day on which this Millennium was declared Ambedkar Era in
the year 2000. It was done in a gathering of 42000 Dalits. Ever since we have been busy
initiating and implementing the Agenda of the Ambedkar Yuga. Primacy of Dalit women,
Dalit Panchayat, Recovery of land, Removal of untouchability practices, Electoral Reforms,
Labor based economy, Community education, Organic intellectualism etc. have been our
major areas of involvement and development in Dalit liberation.

This year, 10 January also marks the completion of the 25 years of meaningful and fulfilling
engagement with the people for REDS as an Organization. It was on this day in 1984 that
both of us came to Tumkur and stuck on to our people against heavy odds. When we came
we did not even know Kannada. We studied it in three months and began to earn the love
and admiration of the poor. From then on we have been guided by our people in our
development involvement. We needed to keep aside much of our university learning and
learn precious lessons of life at the feet of our people, especially our Dalit women.
Politicians wanted to drive us out of the District. Caste forces wanted to kill us. RSS
threatened us. The media set a concerted negative and highly damaging campaign against
us. Many friends in the NGOs and in the Movements ascribed separatism to us and shunned
us. Some of our friends described us as mad people and prevented many foreigners from
coming to us to discuss serious issues.

But we focused on the strengths of our people and tried to build their development on their
own latent strength. We refused to leave our people and proved to them that our life will
end in their laps. Ours was a loud cry for the specificity of our people for their meaningful
and powerful integration into the Instruments and Mechanisms of national governance as
enshrined in our Cosntitution. We discovered Dalit history and culture in Dalitology, Dalit
spirituality in Cosmosity, Dalit philosophy in DALITHINK, Dalit Politics in Dalitocracy, Dalit
personality in DYCHE. We are happy that we have been able to stop atrocity in the District,
reduce untouchability practices by 80%, recover 6200 acres of land for our people, establish
a visible Dalit women leadership, establish strong and creative relationship with the
government and work of peace in the country. The litany can go on.

We have also enjoyed unlimited support from many friends who went out of their way to
understand the multiple dimensions of our engagement with our people. Some of you took
the pain to understand us as human beings struggling for the dignity and rights of our
people and stood with us in difficult times. Especially in the recent past some of our friends
have taken strong stand on behalf of our people and in support of our specific approach.
We are deeply aware that in their work context they have to put up hard struggles to
convince their colleagues on the legitimacy and relevance of our approach, which is yielding
unprecedented results. We are extremely grateful to all such friends. Our people in the
villages also have been extremely supportive of us and have become the inexhaustible
source of our energy.

The staff of REDS and the leaders of the Dalit Panchayat Movement have planned yearlong
events to make our future thrusts stronger. The first of such events start on 10 January
2009 in Tumkur with about 1000 leaders assembling to inaugurate the Silver Jubilee of
REDS. We have invited the local bureaucracy along with some of our friends in Bangalore.
The main event will take place on 03 June 2009. We take this opportunity to wish you a Very
Happy Dalit New Year! We wish the blessings of all our Dalit Ancestors, a lot of strength
from their cognitive and emotive waves filling the space. We wish a lot of energy from the
life of Mother Earth.

Even as we move along we wish to hold your hands together and make our presence a
programme for the liberation of our people.

Happy Dalit New Year!

Jyothi and Raj



Rural Education for Development society

Shanthinagar

Tumkur 572102

Karnataka - India

Phone: ++91-816-2277026

Fax: ++91-816-2272515

Web: www.dalitreds.in

Jyothi's Mobile: ++91-9880184667

Raj's Mobile: ++91-9845144893

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