Dalit group slams ASF for `spreading confusion'

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD Jan. 7. A group of Dalit, Adivasi, Backward Caste and minority organisations have denounced the Asian Social Forum (ASF), which concluded here on Tuesday for organising "festivities with the money pumped and dumped by imperialists and multinationals.''

Speaking to the press at a protest sit-in organised at Babu Jagjivan Ram's statue opposite Nizam College -- the venue of the ASF, Bellaiah Naik Tejavath, convenor, All-India Adivasi Federation, said while the ASF was speaking the language of anti-globalisation, it was actually a "front'' of the WTO and the World Bank to mislead people.

Roundly criticising the "intellectuals'' for raising "hoax'' slogans, he said that those Dalit, Adivasi, backward caste and minority community persons who have participated in the ASF have "fallen into the trap laid by the imperialists and they are least bothered to put [forth] the interests of people's movements.''

The protesters questioned the politics of the ASF slogan "Another World is Possible'' and said that by not mentioning what this world would be, they were spreading confusion among those who were opposed to imperialism and globalisation.

They took credit for putting up a challenge to the ASF's "complicity'' with the WTO and claimed that their opposition to the ASF had generated a meaningful debate at the national and international levels.

Organised under the slogans "Boycott ASF'' and "World Bank NGOs go back,'' the protest was led by the revolutionary balladeer, Gadar. The Lambada Hakkula Porata Samithi, Mala Mahanadu, Ambedkar Uvajana Sangam, BC Federation, Jamate-Ulema-e- Hind, Dalita Hakkula Porata Samithi, Girijana Vidharthi Sangam were the other organisations which took part in the protest.