Dalits Media Watch
NewsUpdates 27.01.12
Gujarat dalits refuse to shift youth's body from police station- DNA
Her legacy set in stone, 'Dalit queen' Mayawati faces polls- The Ecinomic Times
Ambedkar's statue again desecrated in Andhra- The Times Of India
Assembly elections: Dalit assertion in Punjab's Doaba does not mean votes for Mayawati-The Economic Times
DNA
Gujarat dalits refuse to shift youth's body from police station
A white Maruti Van entered Sanand police station on Wednesday morning and two youths got out of the vehicle. They brought out the body of Atul Rathod, the 25-year-old dalit youth who was killed on Tuesday in Rethal village of Sanand taluka, allegedly in a fight with a group of darbar youths.
A large number of women, weeping and wailing, entered the police station premises soon after and they were followed by a large number of dalits, all angry with the functioning of the Sanand police.
They placed Atul's body outside the officers' room at the police station which was now thronged by more than 200 dalits, shouting slogans against the police department and demanding the arrest of the culprits.
The angry people started shouting slogans against the police, which forced the officers to seek shelter in their rooms for some time. Nothing could be more illustrative of the Sanand police's failure to act against the criminals in the area than the officers' attempt to hide in their rooms.
When some dalit youths wanted to ransack the police station, some elderly people of the community tried to keep them calm and non-violent in their agitation against police inaction.
A flurry of meetings followed at the police station. Dalit leaders of Rethal village had a meeting with DySP, RK Patel. This was followed by a meeting between the leaders and the superintendent of police, Ahmedabad rural, RR Bhagat.
Eventually, Ahmedabad collector Vijay Nehra arrived and held a meeting with the Dalit leaders at the police station. His meeting was followed by a meeting between the leaders and the IGP, Ahmedabad range, GS Malik.
There was just one thing common to all these meetings. Every officer tried to persuade the leaders to remove the dead body from the police station.
But the Dalit leaders demanded two things. First, arrest the people who had killed Atul and, secondly, suspend the police officers who had failed to act responsibly during the incident.
The dalits allege that the police had done absolutely nothing to arrest the culprits. "They did not even bother to raid their houses or ask their relatives about their whereabouts. They want us to remove Atul's body but don't want to arrest the people who killed him," alleged Vashram Rathod, the paternal uncle of the deceased. Meanwhile, dalit youths brought two slabs of ice and put the body on it. Family members, relatives, friends and well-wishers stood around weeping and mourning the whole day. The family members also attended the meetings with different officers in the police inspector's office.
The dalits also demanded the suspension of police officers who had failed to respond following the clash between dalits and darbars on Tuesday in which Atul Rathod was killed. The three people named accused in the case are Yuvrajsinh Rajput, Bharatsinh Rajput and Jabbarsinh Rajput.
The people injured in the incident are Valji Rathod, Manu Rathod, Ramesh Cheu, Khodabhai and Ishwar Khoda. Talking to DNA, a Dalit and victim of the caste system, Shankar Shenva, said Dalits from several villages had now united against the atrocities of the upper caste people in the taluka. They had demanded prompt police action against those responsible for atrocities on dalits.
The Ecinomic Times
Her legacy set in stone, 'Dalit queen' Mayawati faces polls
LUCKNOW: By her own standards, Kumari Mayawati's birthday celebrations were low-key this year.
After driving through a red-carpeted tunnel of plaster elephant tusks in an Ambassador, India's retro-looking national car, the chief minister of India's largest state swept past a coterie of her party's workers, who bowed and touched her feet.
Diamonds adorned the diminutive figure of "the Dalit Queen", encrusting her necklace, a bracelet, her earrings, a nose-ring and her watch, as she accepted a few bouquets of flowers and marched about briskly in the marigold-draped party headquarters.
But the huge crowds of gaping admirers were missing this year; there was no garland of banknotes, no upper-caste Brahmin on hand to symbolically pop a morsel of birthday cake into the mouth of an "untouchable" who has risen from the bottom of India's social pile to become one of the most powerful women in the world.
That's because election campaign rules are now in effect for staggered polls to be held in February and March in Uttar Pradesh.
Mayawati is far from a sure bet to win another term as chief minister of the northern state whose population of 200 million would rank as the fifth-most populous in the world if it were a country.
If she doesn't, it would be a blow to her undisguised ambition to one day become prime minister of India, a goal that looked reasonable back in 2007 when she won a huge mandate from the state's voters by appealing to a rainbow of castes, which still define the socio-economic status for many of India's 1.2 billion people.
Launching the seventh, gilt-edged volume of an autobiography that runs to thousands of pages and is printed in Hindi and English, Mayawati bemoaned Election Commission rules that obliged her to row back on her usual birthday beneficence.
"Normally, my birthday is an occasion to give away thousands of crores in welfare schemes for Dalits and other backward castes, but because of the election code of conduct we could not do that this year," she said. A crore is 10 million rupees, or $188,000.
Mayawati's nemesis in the election is Rahul Gandhi, scion of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty that has ruled the country for most of its six decades of independence. A relative greenhorn in the hurly-burly of Indian politics, Gandhi has staked his future on the performance of the venerable but troubled Congress party in Uttar Pradesh.
A TRADITION OF EXTRAVAGANCE
Although she presides over one of the most poverty-plagued states of India -- its per-capita income is just above 50 percent of the national average -- Mayawati's extraordinary personal extravagance preserves a tradition set over the centuries by a succession of rulers in the plains of the river Ganges.
In the five years since she took office, she has blanketed hundreds of acres of prime real estate in the state capital Lucknow and elsewhere in pink marble and sandstone monuments.
The Times Of India
Ambedkar's statue again desecrated in Andhra
HYDERABAD: In the second such incident in less than a week, unidentified people desecrated a statue of BR Ambedkar in Andhra Pradesh's East Godavari district on Thursday, triggering protests from Dalit groups.
A statue of the architect of the Indian constitution, who is a Dalit icon, was found desecrated on the Republic Day in Dowleswaram, a suburb of Rajahmundry town, sparking tension in the region.
The incident occurred even before the situation could return to complete normalcy in Amlapuram town in the same district, where three statues of the national leader were desecrated on Monday.
Following the latest incident, Dalit groups began road blockade on the Chennai-Bhubhaneswar national highway, leading to huge traffic jams. They also staged a protest near the Republic Day function venue and observed it as the black day.
Leaders of Dalit groups have demanded stern action against those involved in the incident. The protests were also organised in Rajahmundry town.
Additional police forces were rushed to the town to prevent any untoward incident.
Meanwhile, prohibitory orders banning any gathering of more than four people were continuing in Amlapuram town, where two groups clashed Monday after desecration of the statues.
The state government Thursday decided to send a delegation of ministers to Amlapuram. The four-member ministerial team will try to find the facts about the desecration of statues.
The Economic Times
Assembly elections: Dalit assertion in Punjab's Doaba does not mean votes for Mayawati
BALLAN (Jalandhar): A speech by BSP leader Mayawati interspersed with music, especially a Ravidasa song, blares from a loudspeaker fitted on an auto bouncing down NH1 between Phagwara and Jalandhar. India's most powerful dalit leader must win over Doaba, Punjab's dalit heartland if she wants any real presence in the state.
Will the UP CM succeed? The answer perhaps lies 20km down the road that leads to Pathankot from Jalandhar. Dera Sachkhand at Ballan village is the most sacred place for the region's dalits, mainly Ravidasis. Its growing clout ensured that Congress's Amarinder Singh visited their chief guru Sant Niranjan Dass for a 'darshan' , and CM Parkash Singh Badal is also expected. But while the sant blesses all, he refuses to talk politics.
Dass, who escaped a bid on his life in Vienna in 2009, has manager Amrik Birdi speak on his behalf. "BSP has sought our support but the sant believes only people who behave as mahapurush should be voted,'' says Birdi. The Dera has led dalits in strengthening their identity.
Another follower is more forthright. "Punjab's dalits are not Jatav like Mayawati and will not like to waste their vote on BSP; they will choose between Congress and Akalis," he says, pointing out that the 'valmikis' have decided to vote for Akalis on the Khanna seat. The Sehajdhari Sikhs, many of who are dalit, have decided to back Congress.
Despite their 'dalit' assertion, the community will as always choose between the two main parties. Importantly , both Congress and SAD (Badal) have given sufficient representation to dalits.
Mayawati drew a blank in 2007 with BSP getting 4% vote share. BSP's best performance was in 1996 when Maya entered into an alliance with Akalis and won three out of four seats. Mayawati apparently has so far failed as Punjab dalits comprise Ravidasis, Valmikis and Majhabi Sikhs who do not relate with the UP CM's Jatav identity.
"Punjab has been more liberal in religious practices which has made it difficult for Mayawati to create a vote-bank solely on her Manuwadi plank,'' says Pramod Kumar of the Institute for Development and Communication.
--
.Arun Khote
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of "Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC")
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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.
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