According to AFMI’s Dr A R Nakadar, currently visiting India, some prominent personalities from dalits and minorities from different states of the country, besides Paswan, will also attend the meet. “The idea behind holding the programme is to empower minorities, dalits, socially, educationally and economically backward communities (SEBCs),’’ said Dr Nakadar.

Hailing from Gujarat, Dr Nakadar said that the conference is in relation to a dalit-Muslim convention held in the Convention Hall of Parliament in December 2006. It was decided at that convention, he said, to hold a biennial convention of dalits and minorities in different parts of the globe.

According to him, the next convention is proposed to be held in UK in 2010.

Paswan, when questioned, said there were four types of discriminations against minorities and suppressed classes. They are: racial discrimination, religious discrimination, social discrimination based on caste as in India and gender-based discrimination. Saying that discrimination was very deep all over the world, he said that no woman could so far become president of the United States, the most modern and oldest democracy of the world. He sees an international conspiracy against the suppressed and communities at global level.

``By holding the conference, we want to bring minorities, particularly Muslims, and dalits of Indian origin from all over the world on one platform,’’ he says.

Asked about the logic behind holding such a programme in New Jersey, Paswan said : “It will focus international attention on discrimination based on caste, gender and religion had taken its extreme shape’’. Stating that every one was equally entitled to get a fair share in the national cake of development, he felt pained to say that it was really not happening so in India.

``Poor people are being denied a share in the national cake, resulting into poverty, unemployment and humiliation,’’ he remarked. ``This is the reason behind naxalite and maoist violence in some parts of the country and more than 90 per cent of those involved in such violence are unluckily dalits and adivasis,’’ he said.

To remove these economic imbalances, he said that the national policy with respect to sharing of national resources among all categories of people irrespective of their caste or creed, required a drastic change.

Asked to elaborate it, he said reservation for dalits be extended in private sector as well and ban on reservation in judiciary be lifted to extend employment opportunities for dalits and other suppressed classes. Coming over to Muslims, he advocated implementation of Sachar Committee report to grant job reservation to Muslims as the community had economically come down to the level of dalits and other weaker groups.