The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh wants its workers to stop using the word “Dalit” to refer to members of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities as it considers it a derogatory, colonial term, the Hindustan Times reported on Wednesday.
Senior leaders of the RSS want its volunteers and those associated with the Hindutva group to use “Constitutionally approved terms Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes” instead of Dalit, the newspaper quoted a senior RSS member as saying.
“SC/ST is a term that has no castigation and is not derogatory,” Alok Kumar, the international working president of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, told the Hindustan Times.
This development comes weeks after the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, on March 15, wrote to all ministries, departments, states and Union territories, asking them to avoid using the terms “Dalit” and “Harijan” when referring to members of Scheduled Caste communities. The letter said the words “Scheduled Caste” should be used in communiques to refer to people from these communities, according to The New Indian Express.
The ministry’s letter referred to the Madhya Pradesh High Court’s January order, which had asked the government and states not to use the word “Dalit” in official communication. The court had suggested using “Scheduled Castes” or “Scheduled Tribes” instead.
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