Dooars tribal body backs India shutdown

SNS  | Siliguri | March 31, 2018: The Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad (ABAVP) has decided to support a ‘Bharat Bandh’ (shutdown) on 2 April called by a group of organizations in response to a proposal from the Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribe Adhiniyam Bachao Sangharsha Samiti, Dooarsbased Adivasi leader, Tej Kumar Toppo, said on Friday.

The groups have started protesting against alleged dilution of provisions of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. “We have decided to support the Bharat Bhadh on 2 April in protest against misuse of the Act and to draw the attention of the Supreme Court,” a senior ABAVP leader of the region, Mr Toppo, said.

Sources said the Supreme Court had neutralized the Prevention of Atrocities Act of 1989 as the Centre could not present a firm prosecution and appropriate reports on the matter.

The purpose of the Act is to help the social inclusion of Dalits into Indian society, but the same has allegedly failed to live up to its expectations. The Act was enacted on 9 September 1989.

According to Mr Toppo, extending support to the shutdown call, tea workers belonging to the ABAVP backed PTWU (Progressive Tea Workers’ Union) will go on the strike even in the tea belt in the Dooars and the Terai region.

The vice-president of the ABAVP, Mr Toppo, also said that the Bharat Bandh will also go against the Centre for deprivation of the Adivasi people. “We have been demanding inclusion of ‘Tribal religion’ in the constitution for the past many days, but the Centre is reluctant to provide that status. During the British era, we belonged to the Tribal religion between 1921 and 1941. But after the 1951 Census, we were included in ‘other religions’,” he said.

“Besides tea gardens extending support to the Bharat Bandh, supporters of the ABAVP will hit the streets, blocking roads and rail tracks and expressing unhappiness over the Central government’s reluctance to prevent atrocities on tribals,” he added.