NEW DELHI: Dalit organisations coordinating the countrywide Bharat Bandh on August 9 will protest atrocities against the community and specifically against the Supreme Court ruling to “dilute” the punishment to offenders under the SC\ST Act.

Dalit organisations decided on Thursday that, their planned “peaceful agitation and strike work” programme will go ahead as scheduled. The protest comes at a time when the Centre had on Wednesday decided to bring an amendment, to restore the Act to its pre-SC verdict status in Parliament.

This was decided at a strategy meeting of all the organisations here in the context of the Centre’s move to appease the dalits ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha elections and also with three major BJP ruled states going in for assembly polls later this year and to be followed by the 2019 Lok Sabha elections in less than a year.

“Unless the legislation is passed in both Houses of Parliament and a gazette notification issued, we will not consider that this (SC\ST) Act is being protected,” said Ashok Bharti, dalit activist and one of the coordinators for the April 9 bandh.

Dalits are sceptical about the commitment of the government on this account says Bharti adding that the members of the community feel that the government is bringing the amendment to the Act in a hurry and if the fate of the Bill turns out to be that of the women’s reservation Bill which has long been passed by Rajya Sabha but has still not been passed in Lok Sabha, things will not work for them.

At the meeting, the demand from the government has been sharpened on the release of five dalit activists who are in jail for months, including Chandra Shekhar of the Bhim Army in Uttar Pradesh . The other four who are all from UP have been identified as Sonu, Upkar Bawre, Shiv Kumar and Yogesh Verma.

Apart from the immediate release of the five activists in UP, the dalit orgainsations who are also coordinating with tribal groups, farmers and workers for the August 9 protest movement, are also demanding withdrawal of about 20,000 cases that have been slapped against various people after the April 2 bandh.

