Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 22.08.1350 Dalit families face boycott in Jampad village- The Hindu
Dalit denied entry into 'house of God'- DNA
http://www.dnaindia.com/ahmedabad/1878218/report-dalit-denied-entry-into-house-of-god
Man arrested on charges of trafficking girls- The Hindu
14 kids quit school protesting dalit cook's removal- The Times Of India
Protest against damage to Ambedkar statue- The Hindu
Narendra Dabholkar: Right to water was among his first struggles- The Times Of India
Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar seeks info on ostracised Dalit families- DNA
Government rolls back IAY norms; SC/ST quota reinstated- The New Indian Express
India's villages are beginning to smile- Deccan Chronicle
The great famine of Madras and the men who made it- The Hindu
Genetic research suggests Indian caste system began 1,900 years ago- Concord Monitor
NOTE : Please find attachment for HINDI DMW (PDF)
The Hindu
50 Dalit families face boycott in Jampad village
PDO says of the 50 families, around 40 have been given job cards
"They want us to leave the village for good. That is the message," says Saidappa, a Dalit from Jampad village in Bidar taluk.
The members of
his community have become victims of social boycott by the 'caste' Hindus.
"For nearly two weeks now, farmers have stopped employing us. Some of them have even sent back women who went to pluck weeds," he said.
He complained that the farmers were sending jeeps to villages in the neighbouring State to get labourers from the Reddy and Welma communities.
"A farmer told us he would not employ us, even it meant that his crops would not be harvested," said Raghunath Narasappa, another resident of the Ambedkar colony.
The boycott has been hard on the 250 Dalits from 50 families in Jampad as none of them owns land. There is only one government employee from the Dalit community here.
The Dalits say trouble started last year when they requested the panchayat to provide land for the Ambedkar Bhavan, to be constructed under the local area development fund of the then MLA, Rahim Khan.
The Chillargi Gram Panchayat granted land and Mr. Khan released Rs. 5 lakh for the building.
Meanwhile, some village residents objected saying the land could be used for a bus shelter or to park vehicles.
They also forced the officials to stop the construction.
DNA
Dalit denied entry into 'house of God'
http://www.dnaindia.com/ahmedabad/1878218/report-dalit-denied-entry-into-house-of-god
Thursday, Aug 22, 2013, 11:13 IST | Place: Ahmedabad | Agency: DNA
A retired state government officer & his wife felt "utterly humiliated".
"Before I could offer Billipatra to Lord Shiva, the priest asked me my caste. As soon as I replied that I am a Vankar (Dalit), he asked me to get out using derogatory language," said 66-year-old Gordhan Jadhav, a retired state government officer, on Wednesday. He and his wife — a respected couple of the locality — felt "utterly humiliated" by the incident.
After Jadhav was thrown out of the Bhavnath Temple near Sanand Civil Hospital on Monday, he went to the Sanand police station to lodge a complaint on Wednesday. But, no FIR was filed and Jadhav, a former class two officer, had to file an application, requesting to file a complaint under SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. "I have been told that they will conduct a preliminary investigation and then file the FIR. I will wait," said Jadhav, adding that many people living in Sanand visit the Bhavnath Temple and no one is denied entry, barring Dalits.
Being the month of Shraavan, Jadhav and his wife went to the temple to pray. "As women are not allowed inside the temple, my wife stayed out while I went inside to offer Billipatra," he said, adding: "Then the priest asked me about my caste and told me to get out. Apparently, some person, who knows me, was present in the temple and he informed the priest about my caste."
The police had avoided accepting the FIR. Talking to dna, deputy superintendent of police, Ahmedabad Rural, Nirlipt Rai, confirmed that an application had been received by his office.
"Prima facie, the temple seems to be a private property and entry is restricted. However, we will thoroughly investigate the matter and if there is any substance in the allegation, we will definitely file the FIR," said Rai.
The temple administration had a different opinion to offer though. Talking to dna, the in-charge administrator of Bhavnath Temple, Hitendrasinh Vaghela, said: "The temple is managed by my family since long. It was built by the then king of Sanand and no other person than members of the Kshatriya clan are allowed into the temple as it is a private property." Then, denying the incident of Jadhav's humiliation, he said the SC/ST Act was being misused by him and his supporters.
When this correspondent visited the temple, it was found that the temple is located in the middle of a residential locality and there was no system of checking visitors.
Jadhav and his wife Dhangauri are residents of Navdurga Society in Sanand town. He had retired as clerk from the National Textile Corporation while his wife had retired as principal of a school on the Sanand-Bavla Road.
The Hindu
Man arrested on charges of trafficking girls
The Banashankari police have arrested a person who was allegedly trafficking girls from Manipur by luring them with decent jobs and forcing them to work as domestic helps in the city .
The accused, identified as Sanaulla, who is married to a Manipuri girl, used her in the racket to make quick money. The racket came to light last month when two of the victims managed to contact the Kuki students Association in the city alleging torture and confinement.
The association later sought the help of Praja Rajakiya Vedike (PRV), a city based NGO last month and succeeded in rescuing the girls.
He is booked under human trafficking Act and SC, ST Atrocity Act. He has also been booked under bonded labour Act and cheating case, the police said.
"We have remanded Sanaulla in judicial custody and questioned Gaurav Gupta, a businessman who had employed one of the victims as domestic help.
Further investigations are on to ascertain whether Sanaulla was involved in similar cases," the Banashankari police said.
The Times Of India
14 kids quit school protesting dalit cook's removal
KENDRAPADA: Fourteen dalit children from Gahirapala project upper primary school in Jajpur district withdrew from the school to protest the removal of a dalit woman cook. All have obtained School Leaving Certificates (SLCs).
The cook was allegedly removed after upper caste students refused to have food cooked by her. "We decided not to send our children to the school as the village education committee removed the cook, Janaki Jena, at the behest of some upper caste persons," said Nabaghana Jena, a dalit villager.
District inspector (DI) of schools Laxmidhar Das, who visited the school on Wednesday, said the village education committee appointed Sabita Nayak, a non-dalit, as cook. This led dalit parents to withdraw their children from the school. I visited the school. I am trying to sort out the matter".
Admitting to the fact, headmaster Laxman Murmu said, "The village education committee appoints the cook and I have no role in this. I appealed to all parents and guardians of dalit students not to withdraw them from the school but to no avail."
Flaying the school committee's decision, human rights activist of Kendrapada Amarbar Biswal said, "The Supreme Court has directed that cooks belonging to the SC and ST communities should be given priority in the midday meal."
The Hindu
Protest against damage to Ambedkar statue
The desecration of the Dr. B.R. Ambedkar statue at Bendarwadi village in Malavalli taluk of Mandya district on Wednesday had its impact in Yadgir city with hundreds of Dalits, under the banner of Dalit Sangharsha Samiti, staging a protest near the Dr. Ambedkar Circle.
Condemned
Condemning the incident, the activists staged a rasta-roko from Shastri Chowk to Gandhi Chowk in the city for more than 30 minutes.
The protesters alleged that the "failure" of the police to take stringent action against the perpetrators of the earlier attacks on the statues of Dr. Ambedkar and on the Dalits had encouraged them to continue their mischief.
They demanded that the government arrest the culprits and provide adequate protection to the statues of national leaders.
The samiti members submitted a memorandum to the district authorities.
The Times Of India
Narendra Dabholkar: Right to water was among his first struggles
PUNE: "A struggle for water is essentially a struggle for survival," Dr BabasahebAmbedkarhad once said. Following in his footsteps, all major progressive movements in Maharashtra have highlighted water as the basic human right during their agitations.
When veteran activist Baba Adhav launched the "Ek Gaon, Ek Panavtha" (one village, one source of water) movement in 1972, Narendra Dabholkarwas among the first ones to join him. The movement promoted the cause of those who were banned from drawing water from public water sources.
Adhav and Dabholkar, along with thousands of activists, visited villages across the state and opened water sources for Dalits. The movement, which evoked violent reactions, soon spread to other areas and became one of the landmark agitations in modern Maharashtra, resulting in various socio-political movements for emancipation of Dalits and the downtrodden.
"It was one of the revolutionary movements for right to water. We all took a clue from Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar's 1927 agitation at Mahad in Raigad district to allow the Dalits access to water from the Chavdar lake. When we launched the movement in 1972, Dabholkar was then a young activist and working with Samajwadi Yuvak Sabha. He was the first one to join the movement. Despite strong resistance, he succeeded in Satara district," recalls senior social activist Suresh Shipurkar. He says that Dabholkar and other activists had been threatened.
Another veteran activist, Vilas Wagh, said that though the Indian Constitution guarantees right to equality to every person, Dalits in villages and even some urban areas face discrimination.
"It is a fact that because of movements like Ek Gaon, Ek Panavtha and active participation of activists like Dabholkar there was a wave of change in Maharashtra. This movement gave immense strength to all those who were fighting against caste-based discrimination," he said.
The seeds of various movements, including the Dalit Panther agitation for naming theMarathwada University after Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar, protests over violence against Dalit women and for implementation of reservation were sown directly or indirectly during the one village, one source of water movement.
"Dabholkar has made seminal contribution to the movement against caste discrimination. Although the activist later shifted focus to the anti-superstition movement, he remained connected to all agitations and movements for justice. While caste and related discrimination is acquiring new forms in today's world, we are going to miss Dabholkar a lot," said veteran communist leader Govind Pansare.
DNA
Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar seeks info on ostracised Dalit families
Wednesday, Aug 21, 2013, 11:26 IST | Place: Jaipur | Agency: DNA
The office of Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar has taken cognisance over the alleged ostracisation of 13 Dalit families in Bhilwara district and has sought a detailed report from the state government.
KP Baliyan, the officer on special duty (OSD) with the Speaker raised the issue of ostracised Dalit families in a letter written to chief secretary CK Mathew recently. The OSD stated that media has reported the incident alleging that families were forced to leave their homes following a diktat issued by a local village panchayat.
"The state government should take action on the incident and report back to the office," said Baliyan in his correspondence. The CS has forwarded the letter to the district collector Onkar Singh and sought a reply.
A caste panchayat in Syopur village in Bhilwara had allegedly ostracised 13 Dalit families on suspicion of their involvement in thefts and forced them to leave their houses. The families belong to nomadic Rangaswamy community.
Following the dictate the families had been living outside Shyopur village since the past few days. They then approached the district administration, after which they returned to their homes under police cover.
Meanwhile, Bhilwara collector Onkar Singh said that the issue has been settled after proper rehabilitation of the families. "There was a dispute between one Kali Singh Ravat and a few people of the community which led the families to leave their homes. As the administration got the news we brought them back under security cover."
"They have pattas of their land and they are living without any threat here. Besides, we are enrolling members of the families under BPL category (below poverty line) so that they can take advantage of the government schemes," said the collector while talking about the status of the families. He added the community is engaged in business of selling cattle.
The New Indian Express
Government rolls back IAY norms; SC/ST quota reinstated
By N V Ravindranathan Nair | IANS - THIRUVANANTHAPURAM
Published: 21st August 2013 10:28 AM
Last Updated: 21st August 2013 10:28 AM
The state government has issued a directive to implement the Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) as per the prevailing norms for the current fiscal, reinstating the 60 per cent quota for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities in the state.
The Central Government's circular effecting a steep hike of 47 per cent in the share of minorities in the IAY scheme meant for constructing houses for the rural poor, had evoked strong protest in the state.
It was following the Centre's decision to ensure 15 per cent share for the minority communities in the country that the Centre issued the circular to hike the quota in Kerala from 15 to 47 per cent. Based on these guidelines, the state had reduced the quota of the SC, ST communities from 60 per cent to 45 percent leaving just eight percent for all other communities.
Following protests from SC, ST communities and general category sections, Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had asked the department to temporarily stop the implementation of the scheme.
The state government could also convince the Centre that the circular effecting hike in the minority quota in the state alone to raise the national average of 15 percent for minorities was unscientific and unrealistic.
''Union Minister Jairam Ramesh has accepted our views and allowed the state to implement IAY as per the prevailing norms,'' said A Mohan Kumar, Additional Development Commissioner, said.
He told Express that 60 per cent of the 45,000 houses to be constructed this year under IAY will be given to the SC/STs, 15 per cent to minorities and 25 per cent to others including general category beneficiaries.
However, in districts like Malappuram where minority concentration is very high houses would be also given from the general category.
Jairam Ramesh had also assured to review the situation on the basis of the socio-economic caste census during the next fiscal.
The Department of Rural Development of the Union Government had on May 13 this year approved new guidelines for Indira Awas Yojana scheme for rural poor.
Deccan Chronicle
India's villages are beginning to smile
So far the impact of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and its implementation, however tardy, in the Indian rural setting has been discussed in terms of wage and work availability.
Various agencies have doled out statistics of the number of people who have benefited and the amount of money flowing into the hands of the rural poor. Even the team that put this act in place may not have fully realised its effect on India's rural poor, and its social, cultural and political impact.
For example, the latest National Sample Survey Organisation data has shown a drastic reduction in poverty levels of many states and that must be seen in the backdrop of implementation of this programme.
The reduction in the number of poor people in Andhra Pradesh within just two years was drastic — from 176 lakh to 80 lakh. The impact of this programme on health and empowerment is very much visible across the rural landscape of Andhra Pradesh.
The socio-cultural impact of the programme is more significant than the physical impact, and it cannot be measured in numbers. It has to be seen and sensed.
The poor — men, women and children — were treated as virtual slaves of the landlords. Doing whatever work was assigned, taking whatever wage — both in kind and coin — given by the landlord was the only option. The dalit population in particular was vulnerable to exploitation, and their women were under the grip of landlords.
This system did not even give the option of school to children belonging to the SC, ST and OBC castes, leave alone thinking of compulsory education. Even after we abolished child labour, insufficient work days in the fields and a "feudal wage system" continued in our villages.
This forced poor families to pull their children out of school and make them work as labourers, often at the command of the landlords during peak work season, and sometimes out of their own necessity. The so-called Land Reforms Act hardly changed this relationship.
But the MGNREGA has changed the situation considerably. For the first time in history the state has asked rural people to take up agrarian developmental work — digging or repairing tanks, canals, laying roads or soil bunds on their own agricultural lands — and it pays wage through a bank.
There is a qualitative difference between earning wage and earning dignified, unconditional wage. Dignified wage for work, hitherto unknown in Indian villages, has, thus, energised the spirit of the rural poor.
Though it requires them to learn the nitty-gritty of the banking system, the very act of interacting with a bank has changed their lives. This mode of earning wage abolishes feudal indignities that were, till now, interwoven with rural poverty. The Indian state did not know how to work for abolition of these indignities. The MGNREGA has initiated this process.
The labouring lower castes, by acquiring relative economic autonomy, are slowly becoming free voters. When they were dependent on the landlord wage system alone, they could not even exercise their right to vote.
Though the pro-landlord economists call the Indian landlords "farmers", the Indian landed gentry has not yet become capitalist cultivators or farmers leaving their caste-feudal cultural heritage behind.
In fact, the landlord class, which was earlier living as a "drink and enjoy" class, has been forced to soil their hands as the former bonded labour is now employed elsewhere. Slowly but surely, MGNREGA is injecting some amount of dignity of labour among the lazy, upper-caste landed gentry.
No wonder, the landlord lobby is very unhappy with MGNREGA. They are not used to labour not being available at their beck and call. They, therefore, talk of the labour class becoming lazy and greedy because of this programme. This is absurd.
Fact is that MGNREGA has empowered the rural poor. It has, for example, changed the condition of women. For centuries, a poor woman's sexuality was under the control of the landlord because of lack of employment opportunities. They had no choice but to work in the fields of the landlords.
Untouchability, of course, did not extend to dalit women, who have always been vulnerable to sexual exploitation by the landlords. Dalit and other lower-caste women would silently surrender to their landlords' whims and fancies.
Culturally, poor rural women hate the landlords. But because they need to feed their children they silently suffer sexual abuse. Once the state steps in with an alternative dignified wage-earning mechanism like MGNREGA, the dalit/tribal/OBC women are bound to challenge the landlords more and more.
The alternative wage under MGNREGA has emboldened the women. Now the poorest of poor woman is not surrendering. They are resisting and in case of rape they are reporting.
Finally, it is important to understand the role an assured, dignified wage plays in a family. MGNREGA has brought a sense of happiness into the lives of the rural poor and herein lies the essence of change in India.
The Bharatiya Janata Party and its leader Narendra Modi have been attacking this programme as uneconomical. Though Modi is being supported by a large section of monopoly capitalists, large number of landlords are also with that party. They are opposing this programme in various ways. But no one is suggesting an alternative to this programme. They probably don't want one.
(The writer is director, Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad)
The Hindu
The great famine of Madras and the men who made it
While we celebrate Chennai and its various facets such as the legacy of the British who practically founded the city, writer Jayamohan – through his yet-to-be released novel Vellai Yanai – reminds us of the dark and cruel aspects of the colonial era. He says that the famine of 1876-78 exterminated half the Dalit population, with millions dying. And, as has been documented by historians such as Amartya Sen, Jayamohan points out that the famine was man-made and a direct outcome of British rule and Indian inhumanity.
But the Dalits were not all submissive. In Vellai Yanai, Jayamohan records a protest action by 300 Dalit workers at Ice House, against the killing of a fellow worker and his wife. This short-lived labour unrest – a two-day sit in strike – has not been well documented in history books.
The book takes its name from blocks of naturally formed ice in the lakes of New England in the U.S. that were imported to India to add flavour to the evening drinks of British officials.
Ice blocks were cut into pieces at the factory and distributed throughout the country. But workers in the factory were kept in sub-human conditions. Jayamohan writes that the ice blocks would slide around like mad elephants when unpacked and could crush inexperienced hands handling them.
The protagonist of Vellai Yanai is not an Indian, but Aidan, an Irish police officer. Aidan records the condition of these workers: "Their [workers'] bodies look like small rocks covered by grey moss. Blisters adorn their necks and armpits. Blisters that gape open like mouths of small fishes."
Aiden, while inspecting the migration of Dalits from Chengalpet to the city during the famine, is warned by Rev. Fr. Brennen, the parish priest of Royapuram, to resist the urge to throw a piece of bread to the "thin black hands" tapping his coach, crying "thora thora" (open, open).
Bodies lie on both sides of the road and the Scottish Missionaries bury them. Aidan sees children clutching one another, hiding themselves in a tree to escape from marauding dogs.
Aiden resolves to help the workers, but is helpless when he confronts a corrupt British bureaucracy. Caste Hindus – traders – have no concern whatsoever, seeing in the workers an opportunity for profit. For his efforts, Aiden is rewarded with a promotion and transfer to Tenkasi.
Jayamohan says the apathy and indifference of fellow human beings towards these poor Dalits shocked him into writing the novel. "But again whenever there is a famine, people become selfish," he adds.
"The British, who were waging wars all over the world, needed food and they rejected suggestions from officers like Aiden and allowed export of foods. Merchants sold the food for a premium while crores of people died here," says Jayamohan.
Concord Monitor
Genetic research suggests Indian caste system began 1,900 years ago
By JOSHUA KEATING
Slate
Thursday, August 22, 2013
(Published in print: Thursday, August 22, 2013)
Recent studies have suggested that India's traditional caste system remains surprisingly intact despite the country's economic surge. A 2011 report, for instance, found that in "40 percent of the schools across sample districts in Uttar Pradesh – India's most populous state, with 199 million people – teachers and students refuse to partake of government-sponsored free midday meals because they are cooked by dalits (once known as untouchables)." It's also certainly still a factor in the country's politics, as shown by the emergence of the controversial Dalit politician Mayawati.
But when did the caste system actually begin? One team of researchers believes the country's genetic history holds the key. In a recent paper published in the American Journal of Human Genetics, researchers from Harvard, MIT and the CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology in Hyderabad assembled what they call the "most comprehensive sampling of Indian genetic variation to date," using samples collected from 571 individuals belonging to 73 "well-defined ethno-linguistic groups." The data allowed the authors to trace not just the genetic mixture between these groups but how long ago this mixture occurred.
Five thousand years ago, the ancestors of modern Indians were composed primarily of two groups: ancestral North Indians, who related to people of Central Asia, the Middle East, the Caucasus and Europe, and ancestral South Indians, who are not closely related to groups outside the subcontinent. The mixture between these two groups and their many subcategories happened mostly between 4,200 and 1,900 years ago, according to the study. The authors note that this period is significant as it was a "time of profound change in India, characterized by the deurbanization of the Indus civilization, increasing population density in the central and downstream portions of the Gangetic system . . . and the likely first appearance of Indo-European languages."
About 1,900 years ago, the mixture largely stopped, as Indian society moved toward endogamy – the practice of avoiding intermarriage or close relationships between ethnic groups – which reached its most extreme form in the creation of the caste system.
News Monitor by Girish Pant
--
.Arun Khote
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of "Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC")
...................................................................
Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre- PMARC has been initiated with the support from group of senior journalists, social activists, academics and intellectuals from Dalit and civil society to advocate and facilitate Dalits issues in the mainstream media. To create proper & adequate space with the Dalit perspective in the mainstream media national/ International on Dalit issues is primary objective of the PMARC.
No comments:
Post a Comment