It was heartening to see on a television channel the interview of Mrs. Meera Kumar, who said “I have always worked towards a casteless society. The aim of the founding fathers of the Constitution has been to establish a casteless society. Anything which leads to that, would take us further in that direction is welcome”.

As the daughter of Mr.Jagjivan Ram, who was a Dalit by birth, Mrs.Meera Kumar’s words are very significant today at a time when some are clamouring for inclusion of caste in the Census 2010 process. Her words show the progress that India has made since independence towards the uplift of Dalits. She may be one of the very few educated people from this society, who have tasted better standard of living that will support her dream of casteless society.

Majority politicians in India try to exploit Dalits for votes and will never make it easy for her dream to come true. We, Indians, should identify such politicians and give them a befitting response by shunning them in the political arena. You may also find some of the officials who hold higher positions in the government continuing to support the caste based system to milk the benefits for personal gains.

Make discrimination on the base of caste or religion as serious crimes and punish them who propagate it. As a first step towards this remove the ‘Caste/Sub-caste’ clause from all government and private registration/application forms in India.

As a next step, you can remove surnames that are usually used to identify religion/castes of individuals. It should not be mandatory to have such surnames to be filled in any registration/application forms. One can have their parents’ first name to be their surname that can show their family lineage. Bring in a support system that will take care of economically poor people in their education and healthcare. If these steps are taken by the government, we can make Mrs. Meera Kumar’s dream to come true.

Let us support such politicians who will work towards these dreams of our people.