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I am honoured that a Dalit writer like me has been invited on stage
at such a large literary festival to participate in this seminar
and this kind of invitation to a person like me is a trendsetter
against the rampant discrimination that is practiced in this country.
I therefore can see this being a great success.
(clapping)
I'm from a community which has been damned by history as a criminal community
and we are hence looked down upon as born criminals.
We were condemned to be such by the British in 1871
when we Adivasi's revolted against the deforestation carried out by them.
That is when we were termed criminal by birth.
And there are a lot of such condemned tribes and I belong to one of them
which is considered as the tribe of criminals.
And therefore we are termed as thieves.
So whatever abuses the society coined we became that.
It is for this that I have been fighting for our rights for the last 35 years
and for the rights of denotifed tribes.
Today I am doing that again sitting on stage.
These tribes were not freed the day India got its independence.
That was 15th Aug 1947.
We got our freedom 5 years and 16 days later on 31st Aug 1952
when the Habitual Offenders Act was enacted replacing the Criminal Tribes Act of 1871.
We are the same people that also fought for India's freedom
and were not recognised by India.
Today, too we are looked down upon as second class citizens
and there are 80 million of us and we are fighting for our rights.
So I became an author to shoulder the struggle for our people
who are condemned by history
and were not given a befitting place in the constitution of India.
I wasn't an author and it is by chance that I became one.
I have now written 8 or 9 books on such issues.
So I basically became an author to awaken the people and my community
who still don't enjoy sufficient protections under Indian law
and are further sub-categorised under the general heading of Dalit.
We are considered untouchables even by the untouchables themselves.
We are in the lowest rung of the system.
They still don't allow us into their villages.
When an untouchable enters a village the people consider the village to have been sullied.
But when we go into a village a war erupts and we are beaten.
A few days ago a person by the name of Rakesh Pawar went to a village called Usmanabad.
And people in that village cursed him for belonging to a criminal community and *** him to death.
I went to witness the aftermath.
This was just 15 days ago in Maharashtra.
The very province where our guru belonged.
Therefore, we people who fought for India's freedom...
...have still not gotten ours and hence I authored the story of Gandhi's Goat.
I went to Ahmedabad as there is a settlement of people who belong to my tribe
right next door to Gandhi-ji's ashram at Sabarmati.
and the settlement is just a stone's throw from the ashram.
We are still termed as thieves and bandits and nobody cares about us
and we find it hard to even get employment.
And all our tribesmen drink.
Even in the state of Gujarat which is a dry state...
...people from our tribe distil liquor and drink it.
And we have 150 lawyers just to defend ourselves
in the event that we get raided by the police.
Almost every house has a lawyer.
And every house has a home brewery.
Anyway coming back to the story, we threw a big party for our independence
felicitating Ramsingh in Ahmedabad.
So Ramsingh came for this bash and they wanted me to honour him
with a shawl and a garland of flowers.
So I asked them why are you making me honour him. What has he done?
Then someone whispered in my ears that it is a big story
In short, he is the man stole Gandhi's goat, slaughtered it and ate it.
(laughing)
And that is why we are here to honour him.
So then I was told that it is not such a big deal to steal a goat
but because he stole Gandhi's goat he has been declared a freedom fighter.
So I did felicitate him butů
The story I was told was that there were 8 to 10 kids who used to play near the Sabarmati Ashram.
and Gandhi used to walk by that place
in his usual style with minimal clothes and a stick in his hand
So the kids used to poke fun at him. Asking each other who this old man was.
So Gandhi...he asked, who these kids were.
So he was told that these kids belonged to the colony where the criminal tribe resided close by.
Gandhi-ji instructed these people in the ashram to call the kids over so that he could teach them something.
So these 8 to 10 kids started attending the ashram.
and in this process Ramsingh became the leader of the pack.
So Ramsingh used to bring everyone over and Gandh-ji used to write verses in Gujurati
and he handed them over so that they could read.
And so these kids got to see Gandhi-ji in a close light.
The kids saw that Gandhi-ji had a bag of dried fruit with him
from which he used to feed his goat cashews, almonds and pistachios.
And the kids from the criminal tribe were in awe of the goat's destiny
that it used to get dried fruits to eat while they got morsels for themselves.
and they used to discuss this amongst themselves.
Then came a time when Gandhi-ji left the ashram to sermonise people in a place far away.
And the Uchalaya kids remained at the ashram.
And then there was a drought.
And it was a month of spring.
So everyone went hungry for about 8 days
So there was nothing to eat and everyone was hungry .
So what could anyone do?
So it came to Ramsingh's mind that with nothing to eat
and nothing that anyone could do about it
He decided that there was nothing better
than a goat that was living on dried fruits.
So he planned to steal the goat.
Putting his plan in action he picked two thorns off the Babool tree and put them in his pocket.
And went to the ashram.
And there is a legend that if you stick the Babool thorn
in the tongue of an animal it would not scream.
And so Ramsingh went and poked the thorn into the tongue of the goat.
And he brought the goat with him.
So all the kids including Ramsingh slaughtered the goat and ate it.
So the people at the ashram were frantic when they saw the goat missing.
And they were unusually quiet when Gandhi-ji came back.
When Gandhi-ji came back he enquired about the missing goat.
He was told that his goat was stolen and nobody knew where it went.
Gandhi was livid, screaming that if his people could not take care of his goat
how could they be expected to take care of him or the ashram.
The stories end in this wayů
I believe Sabarmati Ashram and its teachings trickled down
...into every corner of the country spreading the revolution for our freedom.
But unfortunately the very settlement that neighboured the ashram
did not even get a 'drop of this water'.
ůfrom the ashram to benefit that settlement.
The country got its freedom but the Uchalaya settlement has not gotten it's to date.
This is the destiny of this country and that's the reality.
And that's the way I end the story.