Seminar on Dalit Issues Held at Punjab University

A seminar on emerging Dalit issues was held in the Panjab University Auditorium on March 27, 2019. The prime focus of the seminar arranged by the Department of Sociology was to identify and find ways to eradicate emerging issues that are now being faced by Dalits who constitute 16.7% of the country’s population according to the 2011 census in India.

Dr. Sandhu, Professor of Urban Sociology in Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar pointed out that despite continuous endeavours by the state, the discrimination, casteism, deprivation against Dalits have increased in the past few years.

Dr. Sandhu also showed an estimated data that shows the Dalit population in India has been continuously increasing in mostly Class V towns.

Showing the data, he said that the scheduled caste populations in big cities are under-represented which is more prone to poverty population in big cities. He showed, in big cities, the SC population is about 17% of the total but in Class V towns, it is around 42% mostly.

Sociologist Harwinder Bhatti of Punjab University, Patiala said that the attitude of segregating people into classes has only helped to encourage discrimination between Indian communities. He also added that the education and healthcare sectors can act as two major pillars to empower the communities. He questioned that if private sectors are the future over government sectors, what impact would it have on Dalit and poor communities.

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Dr. Baridar Pal, the concluding speaker of the seminar said that it has been observed that educated people tend to discriminate between classes more. He concluded the seminar at Panjab University by saying that there is no way out in the current scenario.

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