BARAMATI, MAHARASHTRA: Ethanol manufacturers have decided to come up with an innovative idea to counter demands to rollback E20 petrol by certain section of the society. A consortium of sugar mill owners, big farmers, cooperative bosses, and politicians have come together to fund research at JNU and TISS where Ethanol could be declared a ‘Dalit Fuel’.
“There are professors at such institutes who have come up with concepts like Dalit Music, Dalit Food, Dalit Festivals, Dalit Commerce, Dalit Cinema, etc. and all such concept are celebrated as great intellectual exercise. So, we thought there should be a concept of Dalit Fuel too,” a politician owning an ethanol manufacturing plant told News Paunch on conditions of anonymity.
Sources say that the idea of declaring ethanol as a Dalit Fuel is aimed at curbing criticism of the E20 petrol, which has caused mileage of cars and bikes to go down. As people realize the lower fuel efficiency of their vehicles within a span of a few years, they have voiced demands to either rollback E20 or provide option to buy pure petrol at affordable prices.
“Frankly, pure petrol is a casteist idea like pure vegetarianism,” a professor nicknamed Buffalo Intellectual argued, showing his willingness to work on the research idea if the industrialists provided enough funding.
The ethanol manufacturers hope that once enough literature has been produced declaring the biofuel as a Dalit Fuel, any criticism of ethanol blending can be curbed and crushed by declaring it casteist and manuwadi. This will ensure that their manufacturing units run to full capacity and are able to sell their stocks to Oil Manducating Companies without any opposition.
“Why are they opposed to blending? How does it hurt if a fuel with lower energy value mixes with another fuel of higher energy value? Because the mere idea of inter-mixing scares some people! It is the same thought process that later leads to practices like untouchability and ban on inter-caste marriage,” Buffalo Intellectual made his pitch strong.
“Ethanol blending is like inter-caste marriage, it’s a progressive step!” he signed off, calling the dibs over funds.
Sources say that industrialists have earmarked around 100 crore rupees to fund this research and literature development, which could strengthen ethanol sales.
Although there are no plans by the government to rollback E20, industrialists don’t want to take any chances. Small political outfits claiming to represent Dait voices are also being reached out as part of this plan. They would phatically beat up anyone talking against E20 as an insult to marginalized communities and to Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar.
“Anyone complaining against this physical beating will be booked under SC/ST act,” Chandrashekhar Gautam, leader of an upcoming Dalit outfit explained their plan.
