Dhubri, March 25: Indigenous communities of the Northeast should not be treated as only beneficiaries but also be made part of policy-making.
This was stated by lecturer of Gauripur PB College, Buddha Dev Basumatary in National Seminar on Caste, Democracy and Affirmative policies in India organised by Dr Ambedkar Studies Centre and sponsored by the UGC at Gauripur PB College of Dhubri district today.
Basumatary said affirmative action would fail if there was active agenda of assimilation of castes.
Another paper presenter, lecturer of Dhubri Girls’ College, Motiur Rahman Khan, stressed inter-caste marriage and massive educational opportunity which, according to him, could only ensure true affirmative initiative in the plural caste society in the Northeast and country.
R.S. Thakur, department of English, North East Hill University (Tura campus, Meghalaya) also spoke at length on caste, democracy and affirmative policies in India.
Addressing the seminar as a resource person, Jyotirmoy Pradhani, department of English, North East Hill University (Tura campus, Meghalaya) said caste is a social reality and an identity of the community and any action to uplift the community economically cannot be achieved if caste identity is lost.
“In Bengal also class initiative to bring change in the community failed. There are many examples set by Bengal in yesteryears to show that it had to bow down before the strong caste factor and took affirmative action to mitigate the various socio-economical problems by caste-based approach,” Pradhani said.
R.S. Thakur, department of English, North East Hill University (Tura campus, Meghalaya) also spoke at length on caste, democracy and affirmative policies in India.
Besides them, teachers including Hemlata Kakati, Tanuja Saha, Mousumi Das, Shyamal Chandra Sutradhar, Bhabananda Debnath and Udhay Kumar are among those who presented their papers and spoke in the seminar.
The first session of the seminar was chaired by former head of the political science department of Dhubri Bhola Nath College, Ajit Kumar Barua, while the second session by Ganga Sankar Pandey, a retired principal of the college.