A coin for new Parliament building with a reminder on untouchability

The coin, which has pictures of Dr B R Ambedkar and Gautam Budhha engraved on its either sides, was made from 2,450 kg brass utensils donated by people, mostly from Dalit community, from different parts of the country.

The coin is having 2,047 milimeter diameter and weighs 1000 kg. It has a message in Hindi and English languages on untouchability: “Will the 1947 dream of untouchability-free India be a reality in 2047?”. The word untouchability has also been written in 15 Indian languages on one side. It has been made by two artists – Vishwa Ranjan from Odisha and Ballu Jatav from Delhi.

The organisation, also announced its plans to travel to Delhi in the form of a yatra to donate the same to the government through the President of India.

According to Martin Macwan from Navsarjan Trust, they have thought of the initiative, called Bhim Rudan (Cries of Dr Ambedkar), to remind the political class that untouchability still exists in the country even after 75 years of independence.

“It is a collective failure of all political parties. And we want to ask the country if when will it (untouchability) be abolished. Because without it, there is no meaning of fundamental right,” Macwan said.

“We have named the initiative as Bhim Rudan because that (abolition of untouchability) was the Ambedkarite dream of Babasaheb Ambedkar. And therefore, we had Article 17 in our Constitution,” he said.

Macwan said, “We want the coin to be kept in new parliament building so that all the parliamentarians can remember that they have not been able to deliver their Raj Dharm of abolishing untouchability.”

On the organisation’s plans to take the coin to Delhi, Macwan said the brass coin along with a statue of Dr Ambekdar will be taken from Nani Devti village on August 1 in the form of yatra – of two trucks and six buses with 336 persons. It will reach Delhi on August 7.

Permission to carry out the yatra has also been sought at the respective places from where it will pass through.

“We have written a letter to the President, Lok Sabha Speaker and Rajya Sabha Chairperson that we are coming. We have stated in the letter that we will stay for 24 hours in Delhi. After that we are not going to stay. We are people with dignity. If you accept (the coin), we will be happy. If you don’t accept it, then we will return with it.”

Among other things, the letter mentions, “The glory and pomp of the new Parliament will shine only when it can ensure implementation of its constitutional mandate to abolish untouchability.”

As part of the initiative, a small replica of the coin is also planned to be sent to all the Chief Ministers of India. And a similar, but smaller, replica of the same will be sent to all the members of parliament and national political parties of the country.

In a connected initiative, the voluntary organisation has also collected 20 lakh coins of Re 1 (weighing 7 tonne) from people voluntarily. And it plans to donate the coins as a contribution of common people to the country.

In the context of untouchability, Macwan said that there was no authentic data available in the country about total number of registered cases of atrocities against Dalits and tribals since 1947.

He added that the data of cases of atrocity against Dalits is available only from 1974 and that of atrocity against tribals from 1978.

In reply to a question if he is legitimising the new Parliament building by giving these coins for it, Macwan said this expense “could have been avoided” when there is so much poverty in the country .

“Untouchability is a bigger issue than the (new) parliament building. If we are a 75-year-old democracy and still untouchability is prevalent and nobody, neither the president nor the prime minister, is speaking about it,” Macwan said.