Bangladesh Dalit Hindus fight for jobs and homes

Bangladesh Dalit Hindus fight for jobs and homes
AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

Dhaka, sept 19: Dalit Hindus in Bangladesh are joining forces in an unprecedented move to fight for their jobs and homes amid rising unemployment in the country.

Last week, several hundred Dalits attended a conference in Dhaka to organise the ranks of their caste who originally migrated here from India under British rule and stayed on after the partition of the subcontinent in 1947. Despite a better life than fellow Dalits in India, they fear being sidelined and risk losing the homes provided rent-free by their official employers.

``We are not asking for much, but we just want job security and a proper home to stay in,'' says Krishna Lal, a leader of the minority community.Most Dalits in Bangladesh work as municipal cleaners and domestic workers, taking lowly jobs shunned by Muslim Bengalis who make up the majority of the country's 120 million population. There are no official figures of the number of jobless, but it reportedly stands at around 21 million, causing migration from the villages to the already-crowded cities.

Mayor of Dhaka, Mohammad Hanif, who attended the conference, said: ``I am very much aware of their problems and have already taken steps to help them as we do not consider them as outcastes, but one of us.'' Their daily wages have been increased from 35 taka to 75 taka as they face extreme hardship and cannot to do any other job, Hanif said. ``Since they do their job better than people from other communities I give them preference,'' he added.

Dalits make up the majority of the 5,500 cleaners working for Dhaka City Corporation. Abul Malek, political advisor to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed, who was also present at the conference, said the Government would definitely pay attention to the problems the Dalits faced. The Dalits live in small, dark old quarters provided by the city corporation, with no gas or electricity. They breed pigs for Dhaka's minority Hindu and Christian populations and also work as vendors and rickshaw pullers. In Bangladesh, Dalits they do not suffer the same segregation and stigma that exists in India, as the caste system is not as deeply imposed here. Many still pass themselves off as Biharis or those who migrated from Bihar.