Implement reservation for dalits in toto: Krishnasamy

Madurai, Apr 17 (UNI) Dalit leader and Puthiya Thamizhagam (PT) President K Krishnasamy today demanded that the state governments implement reservation for dalits in toto in their respective domains before pressing for the OBC quota in higher educational institutions.

''A credibility gap arises when there is clamour for reservation to OBCs in centrally-sponsored educational institutions and when the state governments ignore and neglect the reservation for Dalits,'' he told mediapersons here.

He said though Chief Minister M Karunanidhi, during his previous tenure, was forced to come out with a white paper on reservation to Dalits in Tamil Nadu, had not shown the requisite political will to clear the pending backlogs.

Leave alone the private universities, even the state-run varsities were not implementing reservation, he charged.

''When the state governments themselves were not adhering to the rules it is ironic for them to demand the Centre to implement reservation,'' he added.

The current debate on the OBC quota had only helped to obliterate the legitimate concerns and struggles of the Dalits in the last 60 years, he said.

Globalisation and privatisation had made the ''half-hearted'' affirmative actions increasingly irrelevant and hence the demand should be for resources, mainly land and not jobs, the Dalit leader opined.

Taking strong exception to the recent Government Order (GO) making it mandatory to refer the Scheduled Castes as ''Adi Dravidar'', he urged the Chief Minister to recall the GO.

It would lead to unnecessary confusion and facilitate issuance of fake certificates, he said.

Dr Krishnasamy said in Tamil Nadu there were 77 castes in the SC list and the Adi Dravidar was one among them.

UNI