Only education can help people gain self-respect in India, where a slavery mindset is still prevalent 75 years after Independence, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said at an event in Mangaluru on Wednesday to mark the centenary of a historic dialogue on caste and religion between Kerala spiritual leader Narayana Guru and Mahatma Gandhi.

“Only education helps people gain self-respect. Self-respect is very important. Even 75 years after Independence, we have not come out of the slavery mindset,” Siddaramaiah said at an event seen in political circles as a show of strength by backward communities amid a power tussle in the Congress between Siddaramaiah, an OBC leader, and his deputy D K Shivakumar.

“For example, an upper caste person, even if he is poor, is called respectable names.

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