Thanking the organisers for inviting him for attending the 18^th National Convention, Mr.Paul Diwakar said that he was really impressed with BAMCEF. For him this was the first occasion to take part in such a huge gathering of SC/ST/OBC and converted minority people. I am impressed with the management and the way this whole conference is conducted.
      That’s really great that you have planned to spread the network of BAMCEF in 6,00,000 (six lakh) villages by 2009. I think that's the vision that we Mulnivasi Bahujans should have. We are the most privileged amongst the Dalit Bahujan community in India. I don't think any other organisation has this much of talent, energy. But a great responsibility is on us because we are the fruits of the struggle of Babasaheb Ambedkar and Mahatma Phule.
      We have started with the slogan "Dalit Rights are Human Rights!" and we wanted to take this message across to the policy makers, to the rulers, to the Dalit elite and to the UN to talk them that if you do not take care of protecting the Dalit Rights, this community is going to blow up and when we blow up, we blow up not only the country but the world. Now people have asked after we came back from DURBAN, What this conference was? What this racism, caste discrimination is?. We received mixed messages. Have we failed or succeeded. No body knows, I think even BAMCEF has put that in the English pamphlet. Before I venture into that I would like to say that world conference is not an end in itself. It is only an event. It is a mile stone that we have to cross. And it is that first mile stone that we have to cross. The success or failure depends on what we do now and how we go about it now. How we occupy the spaces that have been vacant? How we take the debate along that has been open up across the country for past three months. When this whole process towards participation in the world conference has taken place and when journalist/ Star news ask me. Then I told them, don't ask me. Ask Mammagalai, who is the wife of the Murgesham from Tamil Nadu, from a Panchayat called Melwalaer and her husband Murgesham. She dare to stand for election as a panchayat president in an open constituency not in a reserved constituency. They told them not to stand. She stood. They threatened them to cut the neck. He said, let us see. And after ten days when he was traveling in the bus they caught him, drag him out the bus, cut his neck, took the head showed it to Manimagalai. And Manimagali came to Durban to tell his story to the world. Her story was viewed by millions of people across the world her story was heard by Secretary General. Her story was heard by the High Commissioner of Human Rights of UN and her story was heard by hundred and sixty heads of the states all over the Globe. I told that journalist that, you ask her whether the DURBAN conference was a success on failure.
      You ask the family Namala Ballawami who was cought in the middle of the height in Mahabub Nagar, Distt.of AP in July. They drug him, they conducted a village panchayat, they striped him and tied to the pole then tortured him, beat him till almost he was dead. They were not satisfied and they took him and put him in a burning hair stag and he was burnt alive and he was coming out they put two ladder across the body so that he will not come out of the fire.
      You ask Harijan who was a Deodasi women, who came along with us to Durban. She told her story how she was exploited and how she became a Deodasi women. So don’t read about the conference in the Hindutava press. In the Hindutava press you will get nothing but the story of Aabdulla, Bangaru Laxman and Sanghpriya Gautam. But the story is unfinalised and we have to tell.
      Even till today if you go to the police station and try to give a first information report (FIR) saying that they have abused and killed somebody. Please book this FIR under Scheduled caste/Schedule tribe prevention of atrocities act. Most of the police and the section house officers will not register FIR. They refuse, they will quote all other sections but they will not quote this because this particular Act if citied will make not only convict the victim more and not only penalize the victims but will give relief and rehabilitation to the Dalit victims. They will have to give compensation of two lakhs and they will have to give land. They will have to give houses. They will have to give job. So the police normally refuse to book the cases under this act. Now we tell them that even today people can not wear chappals and walk through streets. The streets of the upper caste. They will wear loongi or Panchi whenever they go through the streets of upper caste. Separate classes still exist today. People can not enter into the temples. We conducted survey in few states and that was documented. He had a national public hearing in April 2001 in Chenai where 56 major victims across the country from 14 states including Bihar, Kerala, Maharashtra, A.P., Karnataka, Rajasthan, Gujarat, U.P. were brought and a junk of prominent people of justices, not just Dalit Bahujans but upper caste were also there and they had to give judgement of what are the kind of atrocities. We looked that 26 kinds of atrocities and violations of Dalit Human Rights are observed. We brought out the book of this National Public Hearing, so that people will not say any more where is this? Where is the untouchability? Where is the Dalit Human Rights violations that is taking place? Inspite of the act what kind of atrocities that are being committed day in and day out. Way in which government have diverted there funds. We also documented the Dalit Rights Violation in the early years of livelihood, women, land, labour, life, security, education and employment. And I brought out what is called black paper “Broken promises and Dalit betrayals” which gives six fact sheets of how this is systematically being done. And this has been translated into many languages and many of these petition alone with specific cases in terms of petitions has gone to district level and at the state level. We demanded governments responsibility in protection of the Dalit rights.
        We gave 25 lakh signatures and went and meet Aatal Bihari Vajpeyee. He sat there and looked at and said, “Is it still existing? We had Dalit Ministers like Ram Vilas Paswan, Bhandari Dattaraya, Bangaru Laxman and many others, eventhough we didn’t call them they accompanied us and we gave this 20 lakh signatures and said, “enforce the act, protect the rights of the Dalits and ensure that there is UN special Reporter on the caste discrimination recommended by the government. At the end of 2001 we realised that until and unless this issue is taken to the UN nothing is going to happen. Until and unless the issue is  internationlise and bring international solidarity net work with as many countries as possible, this particular country and this government will not open their eyes. Finally the conference was decided at Durban.
       They decide agenda. They decide the themes. They decide the participants and they decided the workshop and they decided most of things, like what happens actually during that time is only a drama. But all the preparation all the issues, all the paragraphs is more or less finalized and the little beat of variations alone takes place. So right from Jan. 2000 we began. In this whole exercise about 40 countries had gathered together and started looking at what are the issues. We participated in this conference and told them that this particular issue of Dalit Rights. Everybody was there in the conference. Only 40 people were there from all over the world. About 20 of them were UN members or export committee members. Other 20 were representative of various social movements across the world. Basically those communities who are discriminated because of social origin. You had African Brahmin from American, UK, Canada, Rome  which is has its origin in India. Many of these people brought quite a few of their issues. Most of these issues were being discussed. Women’s issue was also one of them. But in this five days conference, Dalit issue was not coming in the discussion. I waited till third day. There was no mention of Dalit Rights. This was in 2000 Jan. in Belajo (part of Itali) And there this whole issue had come up. Then I asked Mr. Ramcharan. Just like Hitler had versicuted the jews, the Brahmins are Versicutting the Dalits for much longer time. I said, such a large community which is systematically being sidelined, How come you are not able to take their particular issue? It was a pin drop silence. And Ramcharan said, Do you realize who you are accussing your government. I said yes. Again there was a pin drop silence. Then ammuntiy international president who was black African from France. So he said I would like to state something. Anmenstry international has made a mistake that for the past fifty years of there movement they have gone on class lines and when we are taken from the view of class the whole issue of Human Rights of those most marginalised communities never got represented. Don’t make the same mistake. You must include this issue of caste discrimination and once he said that many other UN Human Rights experts and others from countries like phaletine, from Brazil, from Japan and others had said yes! This is an issue that must get into the agenda. That is how the issue got into the main agenda which as again when it went back into the various preparatory committes as minority has just said. It was debated but with the presence of debate many people who have not heard about this issue came to know and they asked to their collegues. Who happen Soli Sorabjee, like supreme court justice Bhagawati. Justice Bhagawati is suppose to be one of the famous leader in Human Rights.
        What is the impact of the conference? For the first time in the history of UN, a sub commission for the protection and promotion of Human Rights which is one of the organ Body of the UN had taken up a study which has been headed by Rajendra Gunshekhara, a UN export from Shrilanka. We had to do tremendous lobbing for it. Hold brief meetings. Hold public meetings outside the UN. Convince many leaders, many UN experts. And finally with lot of dabate the issue was discussed. Our country is most respected in UN. But in this particular conference India never opened its mouth and always we could see him or see Savitry Konadi, the Ambassador begging Ambassadors.
In the media of 36 papers in Hindi, English, Gujarati, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam have published articles. In European union parliament this particular issue was raised. So both at the National level and at the international level the media propagated the conference. And in the electronic media at least 20 different news channels and 20 different News Networks like CNN, CBS, BBC off course many of the Network within the country has carried many stories because we had invited almost 20 type of electronic media and before the conference we had taken them around the country to show them Namala Balswamy’s family, Mani Megalai’s family, Harijan’s the Deo Dasi system and many other kinds of issues.
        The second thing is that, it had an impact on the state policies. Human Right commission boldly took out a stand against Indian Government Commission mainly because of the efforts we had made through P.L.Mimroth jee and many others. Andra Pradesh Government after we have come, off course we don’t agree with Chandra Babus policies, but it had taken out an official campaign against caste discrimination in the state. I think in many other states we should push. We had a direct dialogue and gave them the kind of government orders that should be given.
At the international level, European Union’s Human Rights Policy very clearly stated that, in any development cooperation, trade cooperation that we have in India, please ensure that it reduces caste discrimination and it address caste discrimination I can give you the references. The US senate has passed an order saying, that, if any sewage and wet project, that is supported in Asia,  if the employee’s manual scavenging community we will not support that kind of a project. And that was result of our Campaigns.
         Then in the wider Human Right Seminar the third impact that the whole process to the world conference has brought out was in the Human Right Erena. Earlier monthly it would have been on class lines. But now Dalit Rights, Dalit womens Rights. Aadivasi’s Right that are one of the factors that you will find in the Human Rights agenda. There are four major Human Rights Organisations in the world. Amnesty international human rights watch, Anti slavery international ministry rights group, Asia human rights commission and many others. But in all these they have specifically taken a stand that whenever they are bringing out their Human rights Bulletins, they will question the Indians. We have got now an international Dalit Solidarity Network in 20 countries. Civil society members, Human Rights Activists  have formed Dalit Solidarity Bodies in UK, USA, Nederland, Germany. Brazil, Japan, Philliphines and many other countries are going to form and they have come together as international Dalit solidarity network. In the world conference about 5000 social organizations, movements had gathered together and all the 5000 organisation, movements UNDP is raising a question. When they are interacting with our country UNDP is asking what is it? You are taking lot of money but what is it you are actually doing for the dalits. UNICEF is also taking.
         You are the cream of the dalits. You have access to lot of information. So I think that we could do this and build up a network with activists, elected representatives, and professionals and see how we can take this forward in any issue that comes. If we can link these up across the country, I think we can achieve a lot.
I think this is one particular area that we need to work together and see what are these amounts and where is it that they are doing and either file cases or with the kind of movement that you and the kind of connections that we have should come together and have mass protest and take government to accountability.