Chair, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies  and Gentleman, May I apologise for my absence from this most august gathering. I so looked forward to joining you, but sadly the poor state of my health prevents me from doing so. How ever, though I may not be with you in person, I am with you in spirit, emotion and solidarity.
        I was delighted to receive your kind invitation to be your Chief Guest at the 18th national convention of BAMCEF and to inaugurate your unique website.
        Firstly permit me to pay tribute to your president, Mr.Waman Meshram, a charismatic, cerebral and courteous leader. It was my privilege to meet your president in London. I was not the only one to fall under his compelling spell. He was calm, composed and impressed all who met him with his superb logic and his powerful intellect.
        The Chinese have a proverb- a family in trouble always produces a great son. The Dalits, who have had more than their fair share of problems and tribulations, have produced some first rate leaders, starting with Dr.Babasaheb Ambedkar, that gigantic scholar, philosopher, jurist, statesman and social reformer. President Mr. Waman Meshram belongs to this magnificent tradition.

         Babasaheb was meticulously thorough, scrupulously honest in everything he did. When he returned to his motherland, he threw himself, into the struggle for freedom with great courage and vision. For him freedom did not just mean freedom for the old Brahminic order, but for all the people of India, particularly his own grievously oppressed people, the Dalits.
         He never deviated from that goal and for good measure he also espoused gender equality, at a time when it was not fashionable, either in the east or west.
         Not all the so-called leaders of the freedom movement agreed with his enlightened world view. True, some of them made noises about caste equality, but in many instances this was just sheer hypocrisy. They sought to preserve the old decaying order at all costs.
         They tried by every means at their disposal, from outright threats to cajolery and even bribery, to deflect Babasaheb from his choosen path. There was emotional blackmail in the form of fasts. He was often excluded from important Congress meetings which were dominated by a Brahminic cabal.
          And when it came to talk with the British, every effort was made to keep him out, lest the embarrass his supposed colleagues with his just demands for the liberation of his people. 

           But Babasaheb stood firm and, till his dying day, never betrayed his people. His noble stand aptly summarized by a famous religious leader, who posed the question: "What does it benefit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul.?"
In contrast men lesser intellect and questionable morality ,who ostentatiously paraded their self importance and savior like qualities, were reduced to dwarves in his towering presence. Some never forgave Dr. Ambedkar for that, and tried to not only discredit him but to write him out of history.
          But history, not crude propaganda triumphed. Dr. Ambedkar occupies a glorious, unsullied chapter not only in the history of Indian emancipation, but in the entire history of the oppressed of the world. History has shown that Mahatmas, like phantoms, may raise dust, but they soon evaporate in to nothingness. They did nothing for the people, they were but mendacious servants of the castes and bourgeois order.
Allow me to salute you with the eloquent words of Dr. Ambedkar: “Noble is your aim and sublime and glorious is your submission.” Blessed are those who are awakened to their duty to those among whom they are born. "Glory to those who devote their time, talents and their all to the amelioration of slavery."
           Ladies and gentlemen, we are living in the turbulent times. The world has become even more of an interdependent global village. Isolation is out of the question. 

        The September 11 Catastrophe of the Twin Towers not only underline the dangers in store, but demonstrated that the old world order based on the exploitation of the supposedly weak on grounds of race, caste or gender can no longer be tolerated.
No longer can the powerful be indifferent to, or ignore the universal cry of social justice for the wretched of the earth.
         Let me warm the oppressors that time is not on their side. The impunity with which they heaped suffering, deprivation, degradation and disadvantage on captive peoples, while nauseatingly parading their "Highly civilized", but in reality blood-stained history for centuries is soon going to end.
         The purveyors of fascist Brahminic ideology and their bourgeois cohorts can no longer camouflage their spurious, offensive and repulsive religious, social and traditional excuses for their criminal deeds. There is going to be an inexorable chain reaction from which the Brahminocracy their apologists and defenders cannot escape. It is not only international pressure which will turn the spotlight on their vile crimes, but more importantly, the Dalit people are increasingly demonstrating that they are no longer passive victims, but powerful players in the shaping of the new order of freedom and social justice, and the destruction of the nefarious caste system.  

        This is surely going to be the case in Mother India, which is now the only region in the world in which the majority are cruelly oppressed. We will not rest untill Mother India succors, not only a few chosen sons and daughters, but the entire mass of Indian humanity.
        The mightiest power on earth has suddenly and rudely been awoken to the hard, inescapable facts of global injustice. No amount of brute force and economic might can preserve the current fortress of men's inhumanity to man. The days of the privileged elite living in luxury at the expense of the majority are over.
         For centuries, the weak and under privileged have been under the cosh, the whip, the bullet and the bomb of the exploiters and rapists of our world.
         But now the epoch of the opium of religion, false gods and fraudulent "mahatmas" and "soothsayers" is mercifully drawing to a close.

We marvel at some of the stupendous achievements of man, in art, architecture, and engineering. However, let us spare a thought for the slaves, helots and ancient Dalits, without whose blood, sweat and tears, these wonders would not never have come into existence. This applies equally to the pyramids of Egypt, the Great Wall of China, and Taj Mahal. This is the uncomfortable truth about these so-called creations of man's limitless genius.
          Permit me to pay tribute to the unsung, voiceless masses of the world who, from conception to the grave, have toiled to keep inequalities in societies afloat. Let me also salute the voiceless millions of my sisters and brothers who endured and continue to endure the agony and pain inflicted on them by their so-called masters.
          They should take encouragement from the fact that the nature of the anti-Brahminic tyranny is gradually changing, despite the power of their vicious servants, the police, the army, the bureaucracy and the security forces. The latter are finding it increasingly difficult to crush the Dalit resistance. International opinion, as was demonstrated in Durban, South Africa, at the historic anti-racist conference in September, is also ralling to their side, ironically in the same way that it once rallied to the support of the anti-apartheid struggle in that country.  

        In Durban, the oppressors were so terrified of public opinion that they shamelessly entered into dirty deals, backed by threats and blackmail, and material inducements, in their attempts to keep caste off the agenda.
        Ladies and gentlemen, the irony of the Durban conference was that South Africa's liberation owed much to the rightful intervention of  New Delhi, which provided generous material and diplomatic support to the ANC liberation movement.

         But apartheid has not been completely eliminated - it is alive, well and thriving in India.  Ladies and gentlemen, may I state that I speak here today not only as an ardent supporter of Dalit liberation, but in my capacity as Chair of the Phoolan Devi Memorial Committee. Phoolan Devi was, of course, one of the most potent and heroic martyrs of the Dalit Resistance. In the noble spirit of the oppressed, beloved Phoolan, and the thousands of other martyrs who have selflessly given their lives in the struggle for Dalit freedom, it is unacceptable that in the 21st century, upper caste oppressors, in the so-called largest secular democracy, still contemptuously chant the poisonous mantra, 'Two Dalits to be assaulted every hour, three Dalit women to be raped every day, two Dalits to be murdered every day. Two Dalit houses to be burnt every day.
         Ladies and gentlemen, these are not figures plucked from my imagination, but are from officially reported cases. Yet, the Human Rights Charter of United Nations, while taking note of socially obnoxious practices based on race, religion, language and gender, inexplicable excludes caste from these categories.

         Whatever the original reason for this omission, we should no longer accept such an arbitrary exclusion. The same people who did their worst at the Durban Conference are behind it. We should lobby hard, in a more favorable political climate, to remedy this grave omission.
         According to Dr. Ambedkar, the caste system is one of graded inequality. For centuries, the Dalits were even prevented from protesting about their inhuman condition.
         In a paper submitted to the World Peace Conference in Canada as far back as 1942, Dr. Ambedkar expressed his anxiety over the continuing cases of abuses of the human rights of the Dalits:
         What I fear is that the problem of the untouchables may be forgotten, as it has been so far. That would indeed be a calamity. For the ills which the untouchable are suffering, if they are not as much advertised as those of the Jews, are not less real. Nor are the means and the methods of suppression used by the Hindus against the untouchables less effective because they are less bloody than the ways which the Nazis against the Jews is in no way different in ideology and in effect from the Sanatanism of Hindus against the untouchables. The world owes a duty to the untouchables as it does to all suppressed people to break their shackles and set them free."

               Dr. Ambedkar was prophetically right. The oppression of the Dalits continues unabated in India. How do we, in the 21st century, show our solidarity in words and deeds to help consign the evil of caste to the dustbin of history?
         Like most of you gathered here today, and perhaps in some degree more, we from the Diaspora also suffer discrimination and oppression. It is a salutary fact and a profound lesson that, whatever our caste status and origin, when we leave our homes for the imperialist heartland's, we join the ever swelling ranks of the global Dalit community, the wretches of the earth, in the international apartheid system of inequitable capitalist economics. Therefore, we can share experiences and empathy, though gained in different circumstances, for a similar reason: accident of birth.
         Ladies and gentlemen, you must heed the sagacious advice of Dr. Ambedkar and act accordingly.

               Today, ladies and gentlemen, you have a great well of resource and support, both here in India and out there in the wider world. You have to create a brigehead between communities, villages, towns, cities, different provinces, in a word, an entire country. So that wherever there is need to combat oppression, the full might of collective Dalit power will intervene.
         You should create a situation where no private 'militias' of upper caste thugs could descend upon the villages of innocent Dalits to rape, pillage and burn. If you are sceptical about the government upholding the rule of low, create your own rapid reaction force of fighters, writers, theoreticians and the great information highway. You should also from a network with the Diaspora so that we can also marshal support, material and moral, for our struggle.

        Ladies and gentlemen, one of the most important weapons the oppressor has been using against the weak is the power of the media. In its subtle and covert way it has been brain washing and indoctrinating the masses for centuries. Its power, of late, because of developments in science and technology, has increased manifold. We have to meet them on their own ground.
        So I say, bring out journals, newspapers and magazines and set up web sites and provide information and organisation and make your enemies shudder and with fear. That is the first sign that he is cracking. On the domestic front, form co-operatives, withdraw your business from the Brahminical run enterprises. Support your own lawyers and setup your own tribunals to settle your disputes. Emulate the effective boycott strategy of the Irish and the African-Americans. Remember you are many and they are few and they cannot do without you as either laborer and consumer.

        I am glad that you are also embracing the power of education. You ought to build on the work of Mahatma Phule and others pioneers, setting up schools and universities whose syllabuses accord with your own philosophy of liberation. These should be the nurseries, the intellectual breeding grounds of the thinkers and doers destined to rewrite history and destroy the caste system.
        As is well known, the Indian Government is the voice and mouthpiece of the dominant social order. Seventy eight percent of Dalit households have no electricity and about 70% no sanitation. Nearly half of 160 millions Dalits live below the poverty line. Sixty percent of Dalit children, under four years of age, suffers from malnutrition. The infant mortality rate exceeds 90 per one thousand births. According to Naoko Yuzwa, leader of the Dalit women's delegation in Durban: "Dalit women suffers triple oppression. They were oppressed by being made members of the lower caste, for being women, and for being workers."

        This brave Dalit sister added : "We do not have right from foetus to after life. The government has initiated forced sterilisation which only targets Dalit women. As toodlers we can not play with other children. As teens, we are segregated to the back of classes in school and have  no right to higher education. We can not drink from the same wells as the upper caste. Even in death, they rob us of dignity, we can not be buried or cremated in the same graveyards as the upper caste. 
        Babasaheb was never a preacher. He believed strongly in leadership by example and this he magnificently exemplified until his last breath. 
        Man, in his view, especially oppressed man with a passion for freedom and justice, was indomitable. He has demonstrated throughout history, that there are no chains in the world, no prisons, no dungeons of torture, that can hold him back from his cherished goal to live a life free of persecution, oppression and exploitation.
        Babasaheb was contemptuous of the colour bar, the caste bar, the gender bar and the slave bar. Nothing, he insisted, should stand in the way of the full development of the human personality. This calls for iron resolve, steely determination and unshakeable courage and integrity. Ambedkar's own noble example cruelly exposed the lies and the hypocrisy of those who contented that individual fulfillment and salvation were the sole preserve of a privileged, self-anointed elite.

        A slave was much better than a Dalit. For a slave could be freed by manumission. He could attain any status in society he desired providing he had the requisite qualifications. Many slaves, after acquiring their freedom, went on to become emperors in ancient Rome. In Indian history, too we have had a slave dynasty ruling medieval Delhi. In slave tainted society a slave's qualities were always rewarded. But it was not so far the Dalits. A Shudra, Rishi Lomharsha, who was an acclaimed scholar of the Vedas, was accepted as a teacher in one of the many institutions of learning of the time. When Balram, a Hindu deity saw the Shudra, a Dalit, sitting on a teacher's seat, he was so enraged that he murderd him in cold blood.
        The enlightened scholars of that seat of learning, on hearing of this cowardly and senseless act, told Balram that, although the Rishi was from the Shudra caste, he was such a formidable scholar that he had not only become a Brahmin but also their teacher.
Ladies & gentlemen, even in antiquity the despicable caste system decided one's fate on the trivial basis of accident of birth. One's intellectual and moral strength counted for nothing.
         In India of today, the media, both written as well as electronic, is being manipulated by those who want to perpetuate and strengthen the evil caste system.
The Hindu Merchants of Deceit
         Ladies and gentlemen, by harping on old and ancient past glorise, those marchants of deceit in the brahminic ruling class, with their militias named after Hindu Gods, like Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal, Ranbir Sena and so on, are trying desperately to ward off the Armageddon that stares in the face.
         Be they victims from the Dalit communities, the atrocities committed by these modern days Ku Klux Klans is unacceptabler. Whether they are drugged thugs or men with filled religious hatred, they must be vigorously combated.
         A call must go out to all minorities and people of good will everywhere in the world to come together to defeat these evils masquerading in India in pseudo-religious garb. All people from all minorities should come together with enlightened souls from everywhere to see that oppression and suppression of the weak and the helpless ceases forthwith. The whole world was shocked by the destruction of the ancient Buddhist sculptures by the mindless Taliban thugs in Afghanistan. These sculptures were not only of great spiritual value of those like Babasaheb who are followers of the Buddha. They were the priceless cultural heritage of mankind, recognised as such by UNESCO. Yet what hypocrisy it is for the BJP-led government to condemn the Taliban sacrilege, when it is their own Home Affairs minister who proudly boasts of leading the mobs who tore down the sacred Babri Masjid.

         Ladies and Gentlemen, we are feeling the impact of these evils in the Diaspora. With their web sites, temples and other means they are out to disseminate poison and break up our united movements against racists. With the help of their few 'God men' and some diplomats of questionable integrities they are seeking to the infest our communities abroad in order to get financial contributions for their dubious and immoral repression in India.
         However, with a two-pronged campaign, both from here and within the Diaspora, we should be able to expose and defeat these evil men and their nefarious designs. The other danger that faces your communities in India is from the multinational companies. Whether they are in media or other fields in business, they are out to make a fast buck. For India is a huge market. With their modern techniques, where packaging is more important than substance and presentation is more important than the massage, they pose a great danger to the local and indigenously based on small-scale industry which still forms the backbone of the Indian economy. I appeal to you to be vigilant and prepare yourself and your communities not to be taken in by apparent short-term gains.
Ladies and Gentlemen, it is very important to bond together at local, district, provincial and national levels to be able to apprise, from top to bottom, all the minority communities of the dangers of inaction. Always remember that these evil monsters are out to pick us off one by one. But we must remind everyone of the noble words of the German Padtor Niemoeller, who lamented: First, they came for the Jews, but I did nothing as I was not a Jew. Then they came for the communists, and again I did nothing, for I was not a communist. When they came for the socialists, I did nothing, for I was not a socialist. When they came for the tredes unionists, I did nothing for I was not a trade unionist.  When they came for the gypsies, I did nothing, for I was not a gypsy. Finaly when they came for me, there was nobody left to do anything for me.
Ladies and Gentlemen, let this message go out to every hamlet and village in India, and every corner of the globe, that enough is enough: that we shall never allow the rogues, the charlatans and the criminals to pass. We shall defeat them. And we shall consign their evil caste system in to the thick of the dustbin of history.
          Dr. Ambedkar lived and led by example. He did not believe in sitting in a distant commander's tent relaying instructions to the foot soldiers. he was always in the thick of action. Ambedkar's vision for the future was that no bar to caste, sex, wealth or privilege should prevent the full growth and development of the human personality, the ultimate man in all his unfettered cultural, spiritual, material and historic glory.
           Ladies and Gentlemen, let us make this the sole mission of our lives- to try to fulfill the vision of Babasaheb.