Paul is Chairman of Asia Dalit Rights Forum and has been advocating Dalit rights, their economic rights and also human rights. Economic empowerment of Dalit and Adivasi communities has been his areas of interests. He has also emphasized on focus on justice on the basis of gender and caste.
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Speaking about his personal experiences with caste atrocities, Paul said, “When I was young, my family had been exposed to violence by land mafia because of several kinds of institutions my father was holding. Our car was ambushed and petrol bomb was thrown where my mother was killed in that encounter. I was 19 at that time.” He further added, “Only few people were caught on the scene but main conspirators escaped. When I was working in a union one of the workers was killed and the union split into two on the basis of caste. These two experiences pushed me to work for the marginalized communities.”
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Continuing the conversation Paul said, “Unless Dalit’s realize that these are all fabricated things to keep you in some sort of bondage, and the fantastic quality of humanness that is in all of us, we need to break it. But for most marginalized communities there is social and economic exclusion. So, Dalit’s also happen to be the most poor and vulnerable communities because most of them don’t have land of their own hence they can’t build capital. Many of them don’t have jobs and are going through distressed migration which has been very much visible during the COVID times. Sometimes casteism is so much in our mindset that without realizing we’re experiencing or perpetuating the caste practices. State has an important role to play here! State starts from Panchayat at the ground level and continues to district and block administration. We’ve signed the UN declaration of Human Rights because of which all countries must adopt certain protective measures. According to Paul, “Though the laws have been enacted and the constitution has also outlawed untouchability, it has not outlawed casteism. We can see that the implementation is lacking. The mindset has not changed and mechanisms of institutions of implementation has failed. We need a bigger political will which can be generated by UN mechanism.”
Talking about ground realities of caste discrimination in India both online and offline, Paul shared, “Not just in India but caste discrimination is present in South Asian countries like Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In Africa also there is discrimination. When you compare with other countries India has at least outlawed and abolished untouchability in all its forms. Protection of Civil Rights Act has come and Prevention of atrocities Act also come in which protects people from all forms of atrocities. With efforts by Babasaheb there is a system is place but there is a need of political will to make these systems work.”
On experiences of caste discrimination in online spaces, Paul opined, “Online as broad norm, exceptionally Twitter is trying to bring changes but we haven’t seen much of it. There aren’t any norms. The only norm is abuse. I would really commend Social Media Matters for liasoning between Twitter and the communities for having these conservations. Twitter is having automotive artificial intelligence system which can detect any caste slur. Basically the so called power brokers are present in these platforms. And the moment it is brought out it creates a debate and people who are abusive based on caste are immediately sanctioned. Therefore, it’s important that we take this not just on ground but online also. We can’t replace on ground activism with social media alone. Social media can support and challenge power but the community has to continue to fight on the ground.”
On inspiring leaders to use twitter for social change, Paul said, “Earlier we used to mobilize and encourage people for physical mass protest. Now days it’s not possible. It’s not creating any repulse and people aren’t taking notice of it. To be where the authorities and intelligentsia are, we have to make use of social media. WhatsApp, Twitter and other social media platforms gives space to talk about the discourse and escalate the issues. On Twitter we can tag authorities to raise the concerns. He further added, “You can send the tweet to Superintend of Police, Barkha Dutt, Ravish Kumar or any of the visible media people. Twitter is excellently efficient because you don’t need to write stories and there is a word limit. Your tweet becomes viral instantly as many of these authorities are present online. Even with the support of Social Media Matters we got our activists trained and it changed the way the compliant mechanism we’re using. It becomes more impactful when we have more people putting their concerns and their point of views across.”
While concluding, Paul pointed out, “We must thank Dalit’s and Adivasi’s who despite all the discriminations don’t want to become criminals. We don’t expect charity but justice. All of us must come together to support and to build an equal society.” As the session concluded Pratishtha said, “We need to start practicing it in order to take it forward to the masses. Let’s stand against discrimination by not being a bystander anymore.”