The Bengaluru police on Sunday, December 11, lathi-charged Dalit activists who were holding a protest at Freedom Park for the implementation of internal reservations within the Scheduled Caste category. The protestors were beaten back by the police as they tried to take a delegation to submit a memorandum to Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai seeking the implementation of the Justice AJ Sadashiva Commission report which recommended that the Scheduled Caste category be subdivided in proportion to the population of the various communities within it.
In the fracas on Sunday, senior DSS leader Kariappa suffered a head injury due to a push during the police arrest and was immediately admitted to the KC General Hospital in Malleswaram. He was grievously injured even as around 200 protestors were detained by the police who allegedly attacked the gathering without warning.
The mass gathering at Freedom Park was a culmination of a padayatra that started from the gravesite of Dalit Sangharsha Samiti (DSS) founder Prof B Krishnappa in Harihara Taluk of Davangere. The agitation, which is being led primarily by members of the Madiga SC community, is gathering steam by the day, and following the violence on Sunday is expected to draw even larger numbers. Dalit leader have meanwhile given a call for a statewide agitation as a response to the police action.
"This is a major blunder by the BJP government. They will pay dearly for this mistake. We have alerted our activists in every district to hold demonstrations against the police action today," said senior Dalit leader Bhaskar Prasad.
Commenting on the police action, Ambanna Arolikar, a Madiga reservation activist said, “We have been protesting despite the rains and cold weather. And yes, we came onto the road. You [the police] should have at least behaved with courtesy and spoken to us first. Are we terrorists? Aren't we citizens of this country? Don't we follow democracy? As the head of the state, you are supposed to do the government's work as the Chief Minister. But instead of working with everyone, you chose to have us arrested. You will have to repent this.”
The demand for internal reservations is several decades old, the Sadashiva Commission report is itself more than a decade old, however, the agitation this year is believed to be unprecedented. Observers said it has the support of prominent leaders from those SC communities that have traditionally reaped most of the benefits of affirmative action. These communities, most prominently the Holeyas, have traditionally been opposed to the proposal of internal reservations.
This new unanimity was on display on December 6, the death anniversary of Dr BR Ambedkar, when Dalit organisations, cutting across the caste divide, passed a resolution demanding the Karnataka government provide for internal reservation for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in accordance with their population. The massive gathering at Bengaluru’s National College grounds, which was titled ‘Dalit’s Cultural Resistance’ convention, was the largest in recent years to demand the implementation of the AJ Justice Sadashiva's recommendations.
What is expected to have deep implications for the Karnataka elections next year is the resolution a clause in that vowed to carry out further protests against various bills passed by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led (BJP) governments both in the state and at the national level. The resolution also referred to the BJP’s unwillingness to act upon the atrocities against Dalits.