Dalits Media Watch News Updates 19.10.13 Dalit woman alleges police inaction- The Hindu thehindu/news/cities/Madurai/dalit-woman-alleges-police-inaction/article5250685.ece Wifes kin sold my baby, says Dalit dad- The New Indian Express newindianexpress/states/tamil_nadu/Wifes-kin-sold-my-baby-says-Dalit-dad/2013/10/18/article1842115.ece Sholavaram girl who eloped with Dalit now wants to go with mom- The New Indian Express newindianexpress/cities/chennai/Sholavaram-girl-who-eloped-with-Dalit-now-wants-to-go-with-mom/2013/10/19/article1843496.ece Seemandhra doctors plan hunger stir- Deccan Chronicle deccanchronicle/131018/news-current-affairs/article/seemandhra-doctors-plan-hunger-stir Raising Statues to Invisible Indians- The New York Times nytimes/2013/10/19/opinion/roy-raising-statues-to-invisible-indians.html?_r=0 The wait is still on...- The Hindu thehindu/news/cities/Delhi/the-wait-is-still-on/article5244401.ece The Hindu Dalit woman alleges police inaction thehindu/news/cities/Madurai/dalit-woman-alleges-police-inaction/article5250685.ece A 56-year-old Dalit woman, allegedly intimidated and abused by caste Hindus over a land dispute in Kodangipatti village under Palamedu police station limits, has complained of police inaction. According to the complainant, Rajammal, she was alone at home on September 22 when Swaminathan, his son Venkatesan, and another person barged into her house and attempted to kill her for refusing to part with her property. With the help of her brother, Lohidasan, she lodged a complaint with the Palamedu police on October 4. The police registered an FIR against the trio under SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. However, no arrests have been made so far. “Since the accused belong to the upper caste, the police officials have turned a blind eye to my family’s suffering,” Lohidasan contends. It is alleged that Swaminathan sold 48 cents of land to Rajammal in 1998. But the following year, her family left the village, along with other Dalit families, in the wake of caste clashes. However, the property remained in her possession, though no sale deed was registered in her name for over a decade. “Taking advantage of the situation, the accused had transferred the patta of the land to his name without the knowledge of Rajammal and threatened her family to vacate the land,” said Sivalingam, Rajammal’s lawyer. When contacted, Superintendent of Police V. Balakrishnan said the complaint appeared to be “exaggerated.” The New Indian Express Wifes kin sold my baby, says Dalit dad newindianexpress/states/tamil_nadu/Wifes-kin-sold-my-baby-says-Dalit-dad/2013/10/18/article1842115.ece In yet another instance of caste discrimination wreaking havoc in the lives of a couple, Ranjith Kumar, a Dalit from a Villupuram village alleged that he was separated from his Vanniyar wife, whose family members had even gone to the extent of selling their new born baby boy. In his representation made with the DGP through Madurai-based NGO Evidence, Ranjith Kumar (20) from Gounderpalayam village in Villupuram stated he fell in love with a Vanniyar girl Shanthi from Sasthripuram village and got married on November 28, 2012. Ranjith said Shanthi’s parents were opposed to the marriage since he was from a lower caste. When Shanthi conceived, the couple moved to Parisum village, where Ranjith’s parents lived. Meanwhile, Shanthi’s relatives approached Ranjith and asked him to send his wife to her mother’s house. On September 25, 2013 Shanthi delivered a baby boy at a government Hospital. Ranjith Kumar claimed in his petition that he was not allowed to see his wife and son and was threatened by his wife’s relatives. Also, he was told that the new born baby had died and was cremated. Ranjith further alleged that on the behest of relatives, Shanthi refused to go with him. Following this, he lodged a complaint with the Arumbavur Police seeking to trace his child. Investigations revealed that the baby was sold by Shanthi’s relatives to one Yesudas, a watchman at the Cuddalore GH. On further inquiry, police found out that Yesudas had sold the baby boy to one Ismail, who hails from Chennai. The Arumbavur Police then rescued the baby from Ismail and handed him over to Ranjith through the Perambalur Child Welfare Officer. Ranjith stated that he was presently living with the new born and that Shanthi’s relatives were refusing to sent his wife to his house citing his caste, besides threatening to kill him.He therefore sought action against the persons who sold his child and also against his wife’s relatives, including his mother-in-law, under the SC/ST Atrocities Act. The New Indian Express Sholavaram girl who eloped with Dalit now wants to go with mom newindianexpress/cities/chennai/Sholavaram-girl-who-eloped-with-Dalit-now-wants-to-go-with-mom/2013/10/19/article1843496.ece The teenaged Caste Hindu girl, who allegedly eloped with a Dalit boy last week, expressed her desire to go with her mother, in the Madras High Court on Friday. Justice KBK Vasuki, before whom the girl was produced on Friday, said that she was entitled to stay in a place according to her wish, as she was a major. The police officer concerned also told the judge that there was no law and order problem in Ponneri in Tiruvallur district. The judge then directed the officer to give adequate protection to the girl when produced before the Judicial Magistrate in Ponneri, where the original complaint was pending. The judge also directed the JM to record the girl’s wish to stay with her mother and release her on Friday itself to enable her to go with her mother. The judge was disposing of a writ petition from Manjula, the girl’s mother, from Jegannathapuram Chathiram village in Tiruvallur district. The girl had eloped with a boy last week. Her mother lodged a missing complaint with the local police. Meanwhile, the girl’s father Ravi, unable to bear the humiliation, committed suicide. In the meantime, the girl was secured by police and kept in a social welfare home at Kellys. The mother approached Justice Vasuki with the present writ petition at her residence on Sunday last to permit her daughter to attend her husband’s funeral and the judge granted the permission. When the matter came up again on Friday, the girl and her mother were present in the court. The girl expressed her desire to go with her mother. Recording the wish, the judge disposed of the petition. Deccan Chronicle Seemandhra doctors plan hunger stir deccanchronicle/131018/news-current-affairs/article/seemandhra-doctors-plan-hunger-stir Anantapur/Kurnool/Kadapa: The Samaikyandhra Joint Action Committee of medical officers decided to take up a fast unto death protest from October 21 to protest against the apathy of the Centre towards the 79-day old agitation in Seemandhra region. RIMS (Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences) JAC convener Dr Venkaiah and government medical doctors association convener J. Rammohan said the agitation would be intensified if the Centre fails to reverse the decision on bifurcation. As already doctors and other staff have shut down the OP wards due to the stir, the doctors are planning to launch a hunger stir from October 21 to mount pressure on the Centre. The ongoing agitation is being intensified after teachers, RTC employees and other sections called off their indefinite strike and joined duties in the region. The YSR Congress is staging protests in all parts of the region extending support to the agitation by non-political JACs. YSR Congress cadres are making efforts to make the Samaikya Sankaravam programme at Hyderabad a success. The in-charges of Assembly constituencies and MLAs from the region have been entrusted to get the maximum number of cadres for the meeting. In Kurnool, women advocates staged a relay fast at the collectorate. The advocates threatened dire consequences if the speedy steps for bifurcation are not withdrawn. YSR Congress activists held a autorickshaw rally on the main roads of Kurnool city protesting against the division process. The SC, ST, BC and minority association activists staged a knee bending protest at the Potti Sreeramulu statue in Anantapur. Telugu Desam MLA P. Kesav condemned the ¬cases registered against Telugu Desam activists for building a tomb for Congress chief Sonia Gandhi at Tirupati. Speaking to newsmen at Anantapur, Uravakonda MLA Payyavula Kesav called on Telugu Desam Party cadre to build tombs in each and every village in the Seemandhra region to protest against the unilateral decision to split the state by the Centre. “We’ll build tombs for Sonia in all villages and let the police register cases against all people,” he said. The New York Times Raising Statues to Invisible Indians nytimes/2013/10/19/opinion/roy-raising-statues-to-invisible-indians.html?_r=0 NOIDA, India — At the gates of a new park here, motorcycle taxis disgorge chattering women and children from surrounding villages. Dignified-looking men in turbans and dhotis stroll along. Joggers and walkers from more urban areas drive up in their Renault Dusters and Hyundais. It might seem like any other park, but this one, the National Dalit Memorial and Green Garden, which opened earlier this month, stands out. It is dedicated to the historically oppressed Dalit community, and was commissioned by one of the few Dalit women to rise to power in India: the former chief minister of the state of Uttar Pradesh, Mayawati. Dalit is a modern term for a wide cluster of social groups who were historically the lowest of India’s castes — shunned, marginalized and even considered a source of contamination. Historically, being a Dalit — it has replaced the ugly word “untouchable” — triggered social practices intended to segregate and exclude. Dalits were compelled to use separate glasses and plates from others, and to dine separately. They were denied access to community wells, places of worship and schools. Though caste-based discrimination is illegal under the Indian Constitution, the social and legal reality is far more complex. Just last year, the police had to intervene in some villages near Noida — an industrial city about 20 kilometers southeast of Delhi — to resolve a dispute over Dalit access to temples. Along with Dalits, members of other subordinate castes and members of tribal communities have been victims of systematic, entrenched discrimination. Recent genetic research suggests that the caste system originated some 1,900 years ago, though of course caste is, like race, a social construction. In 2006, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh caused a stir when he compared the system of untouchability to South Africa’s era of apartheid. At the park here, one woman saw me taking notes and asked my name. “How do you like our park?” she asked. “Are you Brahmin? Your name isn’t Dalit. Do you like the statues? Aren’t they enormous?” The woman, Munni Devi, who said she is in her late 30s (she didn’t know her exact age), had come here from the village of Kharkhoda, and was as curious about my impressions as I was about hers. The park is filled with statues; towering pink sandstone elephants surround it. The indoor hall includes soaring monuments of Mayawati (who uses only one name); of her mentor, the Dalit politician Kanshi Ram; and of B.R. Ambedkar, the father of India’s Constitution and a passionate opponent of the caste system. (He died in 1956.) All three figures rise under a glittering, shiny dome inlaid with gold. “Too many plaques of Mayawati,” said one of Munni Devi’s friends, crossing her arms in disapproval. “One would have been enough, no?” Mayawati, the leader of Uttar Pardesh from 2007 to 2012 and now a member of Parliament, was criticized for the roughly 6.8 billion rupees (about $113 million in today’s dollars) spent on the memorial (which critics said could have been better spent on education), and the cunning way in which elephants — the symbol of her Bahujan Samaj Party — were incorporated into the memorial’s design. A defensive-sounding plaque (unique in my experience of Indian memorials) explained her statue’s presence by stating that her mentor, Mr. Ram, had made it a provision in his will. Munni Devi and her friends were unimpressed. They showed greater interest in the information about Mr. Ambedkar’s life, and especially in the carvings by the Dalit sculptor Ram Sutar, who specializes in gigantic public institutional works in a Soviet-inspired social-realist style and is highly regarded for his statues of Gandhi. His is the kind of success story many Indians like to tell, to show how the rigidities of caste have given way to the opportunities offered by modernity. Unsurprisingly, it is those from the higher castes who like to say that the system is irrelevant in modern, urban India. Statistics don’t support those pieties, though. For a study on caste-based economic discrimination, published in 2009, the social scientists Sukhadeo Thorat, Paul Attewell and Firdaus Fatima Rizvi sent made-up job applications to private companies. In India, surnames can reveal religion, caste and even one’s ancestors’ occupations. The scholars found measurable biases: Given equally qualified candidates, it was the higher-caste applicant rather than the Dalit job-seeker who would be called for an interview. Another recent study, by the economists Srinivas Goli, Deepti Singh and T.V. Sekher, published in The Journal of Comparative Family Studies, found that intercaste marriage was rare (and interreligious marriages rarer still). Dalits and members of other historically despised castes are invisible in much of Indian public life, including popular culture. Their stories seem to be told mainly in terms of their victimization from oppression and violence. In one notorious episode, 58 Dalits in Lakshmanpur Bathe, a tiny village in Bihar, were massacred in 1997. Eventually, some two dozen men from what amounted to a higher-caste private army were convicted of the killings, but earlier this month, the High Court in Patna, the capital of Bihar, acquitted the killers, citing questionable evidence, including eyewitness reports. The ruling, which is being appealed, amplified the Dalit sense of injustice. Here in Noida, I came across a group of Dalit children, looking up in silence at statues of heroes like Birsa Munda, a tribal freedom fighter who led armies against the British in the 19th century, and Jyotiba Phule, a social reformer, also from the colonial era, who worked on caste reforms. From one angle, the statues might seem grandiose, or even pompous; from another, they’re poignant. A few garlands had been laid at the feet of the statues. As I walked among them, past Birsa Munda, Ambedkar and even Buddha (Ambedkar was a convert to Buddhism), I reflected on the politics of invisibility. My country is crowded with gods. Surely we can make room for a few new idols. Nilanjana S. Roy is an essayist, critic and the author of the novel “The Wildings.” INTERNATIONAL NEW YORK TIMES The Hindu The wait is still on... thehindu/news/cities/Delhi/the-wait-is-still-on/article5244401.ece Post Partition, Dalit refugees from Pakistan continue to suffer with little or no aid from the administration “Log aaj bhi chhua-chhut mein vishwas rakhte hain aur isiliye hum aage nahi badh pate (Even today, people believe in untouchability and that is why we are unable to progress),” says 80-year-old Mangat Ram, a Dalit refugee from Pakistan in India. For the Dalits, changing one’s country too is not enough to escape the discrimination they face. Many stories from the 1947-Partition, forgotten, buried, hidden or ignored by the mainstream are alive in the memories of the migrant survivors. Among millions who migrated or got displaced by Partition, there were a significant number of Dalits. Many Sansis, Bazigars and Banjaras that were considered to be criminal tribes under the British rule, arrived as refugees to East Punjab and Delhi post-Partition and are today considered a part of the Scheduled Castes. Each refugee camp in Punjab at the time had hundreds of these refugees, but their exact number is not known as they were never organised or categorised by the government. In 1948 these communities did not carry one or two identities but multiple -- Refugees, Criminal Tribes (the Criminal Tribes Act 1871 was repealed only in 1952) and SCs. The Criminal Tribes Act of 1871 was repealed in 1952, after which the number of SCs in Punjab increased substantially, but the stigma attached to the community as criminals continues to this day. Depending on where in the country they chose to settle, the De-notified Tribes became a part of the SCs, Scheduled Tribes or none of the two. The story of Mangat Ram is one such story. Belonging to the Sansi community in Okara Mandi, Pakistan he travelled to India by foot. “We walked for four or five days, day and night under the supervision of the military and got blisters on our feet! The kafila was so long that the first person was at Ferozpur and the last person was at Okara. Many were killed amongst us also. Young girls were picked up. During the journey helicopters threw rotis for us along the way.” Mangat Ram states that this was a horrific time and one he wishes never to see again. Once they reached Punjab, his family was allotted some land in lieu of the land they owned in Pakistan. But the holding was substantially less and unable to practise agriculture as they used to back home, they finally moved to Delhi in search of employment. He joined the Railways where he worked as a grade one technician till his retirement in 1984 and continues to live in a semi-pucca refugee colony near Majnu ka Tila. With no government aid coming their way, “We are still waiting for our claim from the government!” he says. Ganga Devi, 80, also from Okara Mandi, lives in the same colony as Mangat Ram. “We came from Pakistan in 1947 and lived in a refugee camp at Red Fort before we got these huts allotted, for which we had to pay Rs 3 a month. We only got a ration card in the beginning and we did not get anything in comparison to other refugees. Women suffered a lot. I remember almost everything. They were murdered and thrown into wells. We did not come by train because we were told that you will be murdered in the trains. So we came walking all the way from Pakistan with the military. It took us around 3 to 4 days to reach Ferozpur (Punjab). But then we moved to the Capital as my husband got a job here.” Having arrived as teenagers, not much has changed for Ganga Devi and Mangat Ram. Mangat Ram complains that their “voices don’t reach up” and their grievances till today remain the same. He says they were criminal tribes under the British, and in a burst of anger he utters, “You know why we were criminals? Because we did not get education, nor were we allowed to go to temples, neither did we get services.” The experience of Dalit refugees vastly differs from those of the other refugees such as Punjabis, Sindhi and upper castes. While most of them have been able to rebuild their lives post-Partition, the condition of Dalit refugees remains the same. As author VN Dutta says, “the Punjabi refugee never looked back” perhaps the Dalit refugee still looks back and asks for compensation because like Mangat Ram, many others hope they could have succeeded at the pace at which the ‘upper’ caste refugees did. (The writer is a Research Scholar at Center for Historical Studies, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University) News Monitor by Girish Pant
Posted on: Sat, 19 Oct 2013 08:07:28 +0000
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