Saturday, January 22, 2011

[ZESTCaste] Caste of millions

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/2ecabe4a-24e3-11e0-895d-00144feab49a.html?ftcamp=rss#axzz0gHpWWEBQ

Caste of millions
By Pankaj Mishra

Published: January 21 2011 22:03 | Last updated: January 21 2011 22:03

The culmination of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai

Makers of Modern India, by Ramachandra Guha, Harvard University Press,
RRP£25.95, 512 pages

The Rediscovery of India, by Meghnad Desai, Bloomsbury, RRP£25, 512 pages

India: A Portrait, by Patrick French, Allen Lane, RRP£25, 448 pages

EDITOR'S CHOICE
The search for eternal life in John Gray's 'The Immortalization
Commission' - Jan-21Mind games - Jan-14Soldiering on - Jan-07India is
the "most interesting country in the world". Or so the Indian writer
Ramachandra Guha asserts in the prologue to his new book Makers of
Modern India. You might think Guha would say that: he has written
several books on the subject, including India After Gandhi (2007), a
history of postcolonial India. But he may be on to something. India is
one of the world's oldest continuous civilisations; its diverse
communities live in several centuries at once, generating multiple and
contradictory narratives. Where else can you find a naked Hindu
mendicant pulling a truck with his penis and suave tycoons buying
blue-chip companies in the US and Europe, even as militant communists
occupy and administer large parts of the country?

Strangely, the notion of India that is increasingly commonplace in the
west, which these three books address in different ways, floats well
above the singularities, oddities and contrasts that make the country
so interesting. According to the west, India is a vibrantly democratic
country full of confident tycoons, adventurous entrepreneurs and
friendly English speakers, which will counterbalance vaguely menacing
China and assist the economic recovery of the west.

For decades, India was seen in the west as poor and spiritual.
Suddenly, it appears to be increasingly rich and materialistic. This
India 2.0 version is animated, of course, by the demands of the
moment, by politicians as well as businessmen desperately looking
eastward for expanding markets. Needless to say, it ignores the
particularities of India's political and economic reconstruction: for
instance, the radical Indian experiment with electoral democracy in a
poor and irrepressibly diverse country.

Only multiethnic and newly democratic Indonesia has come close in
recent years to matching India's complex conflicts and tensions. Guha
enumerates no fewer than five revolutions – urban, industrial,
national, democratic, social – occurring simultaneously in the country
today. His new book also attempts to locate the intellectual sources
of these transformations. Following up on India After Gandhi, Makers
of Modern India anthologises the speeches and writings of 19
influential thinker-activists who, according to Guha, had a "defining
impact on the formation and evolution of the Indian Republic".

Readers in the west will find some familiar personalities here,
including Gandhi himself, Jawaharlal Nehru, India's secular and
liberal-minded first prime minister, and Rabindranath Tagore, the
Bengali poet and Nobel laureate. But they will also encounter much
less well-known and equally distinguished figures, such as BR
Ambedkar, the articulate spokesman of formerly untouchable Hindus, or
Dalits, and the main architect of India's extraordinary constitution
that in 1949 bestowed equal rights upon all its citizens.

As an anthology of Indian political debates, Makers of Modern India
makes for instructive reading. But Guha's commentary doesn't quite
clarify just how the luminaries included in his book made modern
India. These fiercely iconoclastic figures are not easily herded into
an official intellectual pantheon of the Indian Republic; many of them
might recoil from their supposed handiwork. In any case, India as we
know it today is not so much the imperfectly realised dream of its
supposed founding fathers as a contingent product of history, which
stumbled into existence in 1947 burdened by the original sin of
partition.

It was British imperialists who gave continent-sized India its
political cohesiveness and built most of its administrative
structures; their hasty departure and the bloody creation of Pakistan
determined postcolonial India's trajectory more enduringly than the
ideals of Gandhi or Nehru, which are derided, if not forgotten, in
India today. Gandhi's preoccupation with rural economies and
grassroots social reform was ignored by his own disciple Nehru, who
invested disproportionately in heavy industries and top-down
modernisation.

Other noble dreams of collective emancipation and glory, too, were
compromised by the many exigencies of postcolonial nation-building.
The colonial state, with its aloof bureaucracy and repressive
apparatus, was retained, and radical new institutions of universal
adult franchise and social welfare uneasily grafted on to it. Not
surprisingly, torture and extrajudicial execution remain as
commonplace a feature of contemporary India as free and largely fair
elections, and the red-taped state still struggles to provide
effective education and healthcare.

The hierarchies underpinning India's older cruelties of caste and
gender have also survived the egalitarian proclamations of the
constitution; universal franchise has yet to lead to a civil rights
revolution. Dalits are still being lynched and raped by upper-caste
feudal lords, and thousands of women burnt to death for bringing
insufficient dowries, even as Dalit and female politicians move into
the highest offices in the land. Indeed, Ambedkar's battle against the
inequities of the caste system has had the strangest afterlife.

Beneficiaries of en bloc voting by previously subordinate groups, a
generation of low-caste leaders has now enjoyed political power in
India's most populous provinces. Accused of corruption and
incompetence, they have ended up advancing group claims and identities
rather than individual rights for all. The most conspicuous of the new
profiteers of caste is Mayawati, the Dalit chief minister of Uttar
Pradesh's 180m citizens. She has amassed a great personal fortune; her
penchant for solitaire diamonds and huge statues of herself has
further undermined the state's investment-starved economy.

Why has democracy enshrined rather than effaced caste divisions in
Indian society? Meghnad Desai, Labour peer and professor emeritus at
the London School of Economics, argues in his new book The Rediscovery
of India, an opinionated but always interesting history, that India is
a "modernised conservative society" rather than the "modernist
rational one" of Nehru's dream. If liberal democracy based on the
rights of the individual has shallow roots in India, this is at least
partly due, Desai claims, to Nehru's post-partition all-consuming
obsession with India's national unity and territorial integrity.

Desai grew up in post-1947 India; he has an instinctive understanding
of the imperatives of postcolonial consolidation that greatly
constricted decision-making in the early years of the Indian republic.
Deploring the isolationist economic policies of Nehru, he is,
nevertheless, alert to the political context in which they were
formulated. He describes persuasively how the proud Indian resolve to
create a self-sufficient industrial economy turned into an unhealthy
aversion to international trade.

Desai is aware, too, of the political turmoil unleashed by India's now
globalised economy: how by distributing its benefits narrowly, it
expands the population of the disenchanted and the frustrated, often
making them vulnerable to populist politicians. He describes how the
corporate group Tata was forced to relocate its original factory for
Nano cars by a politician (all set now to be the next chief minister
of West Bengal) cannily exploiting the fear and despair of farmers,
who could not see an "alternative to cultivation during their
lifetime".

Old narratives about India are defunct, Desai argues. But then the new
ones, especially those circulating in the west, often obscure more
than they reveal. Never mind that more desperately poor people – 421m
– live in India today than all of sub-Saharan Africa, and that nearly
half of the country's children suffer from malnourishment. The new
western accounts of India speak of the tycoons of Bangalore and
Mumbai; they hail an India rising, finally, to the consumer capitalism
that is apparently the summit of human civilisation, if not the
terminus of history.

Patrick French's book India: A Portrait, subtitled The Intimate
Biography of 1.2bn People, is the most eloquent restatement yet of
this thesis. It applauds Indian democracy – Mayawati comes in for
special mention – but the book's true heroes are the Indian
entrepreneurs who liberated themselves from Nehru's old protectionist
economy and who now seem ready to emancipate the rest of India as
well.

Interviewing these businessmen, French is strikingly able to
individualise them, illuminating large sociopolitical shifts in the
process. Still, French, an acclaimed literary biographer of Francis
Younghusband and VS Naipaul, is never more engaging than when he
ventures into ordinary Indian lives.

Shocked by a press report about a menial labourer called Venkatesh,
who had been chained to his place of work, he travels to south India
to interview him. He is appalled by the living conditions of workers
constructing a fancy condominium in Bangalore. A visit to Kashmir
brings him face-to-face with the everyday brutality of India's
military occupation of the valley. In these chapters, French potently
recreates the experiences of many foreign visitors to India, who,
preparing themselves for a vibrant democracy, are disconcerted to
encounter its hollowed-out forms: rampant corruption, widespread human
rights abuses, degradations of class and caste, and the hatred laced
with fear of the very affluent for the very poor.

More reportage of this kind would have anchored India: A Portrait,
which flits distractingly between journalism, history, analysis, bold
prophecy and large generalisations. Unfortified by first-hand
experience, French too often succumbs to the overworked templates of
foreign journalists in India. Corruption in India, he concludes
quaintly, is caused by "poverty and social imbalance". But the recent
Commonwealth Games fiasco and subsequent scandals reveal how some of
India's most prominent businessmen, politicians, bureaucrats and
journalists together plunder such national resources as land, oil and
gas, and mines.

Though surprised by the resurgence of militant communists today in a
vast swathe of central India, French foregoes any close examination of
the scramble for precious commodities or of the accelerated
dispossession, in recent years, of forest-dwelling tribal peoples and
farmers alike. Nearly 800m Indians still depend on agriculture for a
living. Yet the quiet catastrophe in rural areas – the poisoning of
cultivable land, spiralling debt, and the suicides of tens of
thousands of farmers in recent years – is absent from India: A
Portrait.

French does talk at length to a man with a farming background but the
latter turns out to be an employee at a California-style vineyard. The
member of a poor tribal community, he leads French into upbeat
speculations about the "democratisation of wine drinking" in India.
But the collapse of water tables is a more pressing concern for
hundreds of millions of Indians in rural areas, who are very far from
imitating the consumption patterns of middle-class Europeans and
Americans. The task of even adequately educating India's large and
growing youth population is daunting enough, not to mention creating
labour-intensive jobs in manufacturing and services and making urban
economic growth environmentally sustainable.

India: A Portrait generally avoids these larger challenges confronting
India today. Like many recent accounts of the country, it is suffused
with the mystical faith that a small but "dynamic" Indian minority of
producers and consumers will somehow accomplish social as well as
economic change. French hails shampoo sold in cheaply priced sachets
as a "a major feat of democratisation", since previously poor people
can "now aspire to the pleasure of having shiny hair and softer skin".

But cheap beauty aids are unlikely to compensate India's impoverished
for a heavily privatised healthcare system that, according to a new
report in medical journal The Lancet, pushes 39m Indians below the
poverty line each year. The unilinear discourse about the
boisterousness of Indian markets and democracy – one that excites
audiences at Davos and Aspen – cannot easily accommodate any
potentially complicating facts.

Thus, French's admiring account of Mayawati's rise skips over the
allegations of corruption, persecution of other low-caste groups and
her manic self-love. One misses, too, in India: A Portrait,
urban-oriented though it is, any quickening sense of India's popular
middle-class cultures.

This is a pity. For there is an India that is indeed rising, reflected
most gaudily by billionaire businessman Mukesh Ambani's new 27-storey
home in Mumbai as well as Mayawati's statues of herself; these are
aspiring as well as already privileged new classes with inordinate
cravings for wealth and fame, and very fragile self-esteem. Some of
the best literary writing about India in recent years – Suketu Mehta's
Maximum City, Aravind Adiga's Man Booker-winning The White Tiger – has
plunged us into this teeming universe of Gatsbys and Babbitts with
euphoric desires, resentments and fears. French's book heralds without
really describing India's own jazz age – the particular exuberance,
tawdriness, cruelty, and melancholy that continue to make India, if
not quite how its "makers" saw it or its new western admirers predict,
the most interesting country in the world.

Pankaj Mishra is author of 'Temptations of the West: How to be Modern
in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tibet and Beyond' (Picador)


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[ZESTCaste] NAC seeks inclusion of SCs/STs in ambit of food security law

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/NAC-seeks-inclusion-of-SCs/STs-in-ambit-of-food-security-law/articleshow/7338515.cms

NAC seeks inclusion of SCs/STs in ambit of food security law
TNN, Jan 22, 2011, 05.16am IST

National Advisory Council has asked the government to provide highest
priority to the inclusion of SC/ST families among beneficiaries of the
proposed food security legislation.

The Sonia Gandhi-led council decided on Friday to write to the rural
development ministry, urging it to include the socially vulnerable
section in the 'priority group' in the BPL survey to be conducted by
the ministry.

The council's draft legislation has recommended providing 35kg
foodgrain — rice, wheat, millets — at Rs 3, Rs 2 and Re 1 per kg to
the group.


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[ZESTCaste] Dalit woman gangraped by five men

 

http://www.ndtv.com/article/cities/dalit-woman-gangraped-by-five-men-80788

Dalit woman gangraped by five men

Press Trust of India, Updated: January 21, 2011 15:46 IST

Kanpur: A Dalit woman was allegedly gangraped by five men following
which a case has been registered in this regard, said the police.

The victim, resident of Baraijhal village, went missing on January 15.
She was found in an unconscious state near Bhauti area on Thursday
night by her family members, who then bought her to the police
station.

The victim has alleged in her FIR that Lalla Agnihotri, resident of
the same village, and four unidentified men gangraped her, said the
police.

A case has been registered against five persons for allegedly
assaulting the Dalit woman, said the police.

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Investigations are under way and efforts are being made to nab the
accused, the police added.

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[ZESTCaste] Church shows disrespect to two Dalit youth

 

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/church-shows-disrespect-to-two-dalit-youth/740590/

Church shows disrespect to two Dalit youth

Agencies Posted online: Fri Jan 21 2011, 17:46 hrs
Thrissur : The Joint Christian Council (JCC) urged authorities to take
action against the vicar of the Maramon Saint Joseph's Catholic church
and the bishop of Vijayapuram diocese, for showing 'disrespect' to the
bodies of two dalit youths.
The council is a confederation of 12 Christian organisations in Kearla.

Its General Secretary, Joy Paul Pudussery, said in a statement here
that the dalit Catholic youth, M M Rajan had died on Jan 10 and his
relatives were 'compelled' to keep the body for 10 days at the
mortuary as the church authorities did not show readiness to bury the
body in the Church's cemetery by performing religious rites.

The church had refused to perform the last rites as he did not attend
sunday mass and had not receivied Holy communion, he said.

Pudussery demanded compensation for the mental stress by the
deceased's kin following disrespect shown to the body, from the
Church. Showing disrespect to the body was a a criminal offence, he
said.

He also demanded a probe into the reason for burying the body of one
Biju from nearby Kaacheri under the Catholic Archdiocese here, at the
Lalur public crematorum in July last year. Biju had died on July 11,
last at nearby Kaacheri and the vicar of the Catholic Church allegedly
refused to permit a church burial as his name did not figure in the
family card.

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[ZESTCaste] Dalit woman, whose daughter stripped for stealing, released

 

http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/dalit-woman-whose-daughter-stripped-for-stealing-released/543552.html

Dalit woman, whose daughter stripped for stealing, released

PTI | 01:01 AM,Jan 22,2011
Kanpur, Jan 21 (PTI) A dalit woman whose minor daughter was stripped
by a boutique owner here has been released from jail after police in
its probe found that claims of theft against her were false.Police
gave clean chit to the mother-daughter duo, who were accused by a
boutique owner of stealing rings.A local court yesterday ordered to
release the woman.The minor was released on January 17 on bail.The duo
were found innocent after a probe into the complaint by the boutique
owner Shalini Gujral who accused them of stealing rings, Circle
Officer Samir Saurabh said. The mother used to work as domestic help
at Gujral's house in Seesamau area.The minor Dalit girl was allegedly
kept in illegal confinement and stripped in the presence of two women
by the boutique owner. A few days ago, when the girl visited Gujral's
house, the woman accused her of theft and allegedly confined her with
the help of two other women and stripped her after tying her hands and
legs. The woman set her free when she cried and strongly protested,
the victim had claimed in a statement before the police.On January 16,
the boutique owner lodged a complaint against the mother-daughter duo
at Fazalganj police station claiming that they had stolen two rings
from her house. The next day, the police arrested the two, and a court
sent the mother to jail while releasing the girl on bail due to her
minor age.

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[ZESTCaste] Supreme Court to examine quota benefit to Dalit converts

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/article1108895.ece

New Delhi, January 21, 2011

Supreme Court to examine quota benefit to Dalit converts
PTI

The Supreme Court on Friday decided to examine the issue of extending
reservation to Dalit Christians and Muslims under the category of
Scheduled Castes, six years after the issue was brought up before it.

The Court sought the views of the National Commission for Scheduled
Castes (NCSC) and the National Commission for Religious and Linguistic
Minorities (NCRLM) saying important Constitutional issues arise from a
bunch of petitions on the issue.

A Bench of Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia and Justices K.S. Radhakrishan
and Swatanter Kumar also appointed senior advocate T.R. Andhyrujina as
amicus curiae to assist the Court in the matter in which the petitions
have been filed both in favour and against extending the benefit of
reservation to Dalits who have converted to other faiths.

The Bench said some questions need to be examined on the issue in the
context of the President's Order of 1950 which identified the castes
to be brought under the reservation policy and posted the matter for
hearing on February 24.

It said the first question that is required to be examined is whether
the "Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950", which says that no
person other than those who profess the religion of Hinduism, Buddhism
and Sikhism will considered as Scheduled Castes is void and in
violation of Article 14, 15, 19 and 25 of the Constitution.

The second question is whether a Scheduled Caste person belonging to
religious faith other than Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism are entitled
to the benefit of reservation.

The third question that has to be answered is whether exclusion of
other religions from "Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950" is
valid or not.

The "Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950" lists 1,108 castes
across 25 states in its first schedule which are benefited by
reservation policy.

During the last hearing, the Bench had termed the issue as "sensitive"
and "important" and had said it might refer the matter for examination
by a larger bench, if required.

It had said it would also examine the meaning of 'caste' in terms of
Articles 16(4) and 15(4) of the Constitution which deal with
reservation in state jobs and empowerment of socially and
educationally backward classes and ensure that none of the interested
groups is left out from being heard.

The bench had said it would bring the issue in public domain by
putting it on the Supreme Court's website.

The Court was informed that during the previous hearings, the Centre
had said it would study the report of a commission which examined the
issue of granting Scheduled Caste status to Dalit Christians for
extending benefits of reservation to them.

The Centre had said it would go through the report of the NCSC before
presenting the Centre's view on the issue.

The NCSC has come out with its report after going through the
recommendations of the NCRLM headed by former Chief Justice of India
Rangnath Misra.

The petitioners submitted that the matter has been pending since 2004
and has sought an early hearing on the issue.

The court had in January 2008 said there was no urgency in the matter
as the Presidential order of 1950 has been challenged.

The Centre had in June 2007 maintained that the NCRLM in its report
had found substance in the points raised for granting Scheduled Castes
status to Dalits who have converted to Christianity.

The bench said the issue is sensitive as it would also have to see
what would happen if religious conversion was due to extraneous
reasons, that is, only to secure the benefits of reservation.

"That is why, we want to understand the meaning of caste. It is a very
important issue and proper understanding of the meaning of caste is
needed," the bench had said.

Advocate Prashant Bhushan, appearing for the NGO, Centre for Public
Interest Litigation, which had first filed the petition on the issue,
submitted if Dalits within Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism can be
extended the benefit of reservation, there should be no reason why
Dalits converted to other religions too should not be accorded the
benefits.

He had said that despite adopting other religions like Christianity,
Dalits continued to be saddled with same socio-economic disabilities.

Solicitor-General Gopal Subramanium, who maintained that the
government was examining the issue, had said Dalits converting to
Islam have also sought reservation and were still carrying the same
stigma.

There are petitions opposing the plea for granting reservation to
Dalit Christians on the ground that there has been no concept of caste
in Christianity.

The PIL had said as reservation was available to Dalits in Hinduism,
Buddhism and Sikhism, there was no reason why Dalit Christians should
be deprived of the benefit.

The CPIL had contended that paragraph three of the President's
"Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950" was coming in the way of
granting SC status to Dalit Christians.

The NGO had submitted that it was the right time the court strikes
down the order requiring all Dalits to belong to a particular religion
if they were to avail the reservation benefits as it goes beyond the
mandate of Article 341(1) and violates the fundamental right
guaranteed under the Constitution.

All India United Christians Movement for Equal Rights had said the
Congress government had in 1996 brought a Bill in the Lok Sabha to
amend para three of the "Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950"
for extending reservation benefits to Dalit Christians.

The CPIL had claimed that social standing of Dalits, even after
converting to Christianity, has not changed and they have to face
discrimination even in churches.

The NCRLM, which had prepared its report after visiting various
states, had examined whether the SC converts suffer from social
disabilities like untouchability even after embracing Christianity.

The demand for granting SC status to Dalit Christians has been opposed
in several quarters, including the SC/ST Commission which contended
that they cannot enjoy two rights — that is of minority and SCs.

The CPIL had contended that the earlier court rulings were given on
the basis of scanty material and claimed the petitioners had
"overwhelming" material to support their claim for reservation for
Dalit Christians.

Citing a 2005 ruling of the Supreme Court, where it was said that even
if a tribal converted to Christianity, he or she could still avail the
reservation benefits as his/her status as ST remained unchanged, the
CPIL had said the same law should be applicable to Dalits after their
conversion.


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[ZESTCaste] Protest by Khap panchayats continues

 

http://english.samaylive.com/regional-news/haryana-news/676481159/protest-by-khap-panchayats-continues.html

21 Jan 2011 11:12:20 PM IST More

Protest by Khap panchayats continues

Talks between Mirchpur residents and Haryana Power Minister Randeep
Surjewala on Friday failed to resolve the seven-day protest blockade
with the Khaps remaining firm on their demand for a fresh probe into
the killing of two Dalits last year.

The meeting was held between the representatives of Maha Khap
Panchayat and Surjewala and former Union deputy minister Jaiparkash.

After the meeting, though the Khap representatives seemed inclined to
accept the government's proposal for a CBI
probe, the protesters rejected it.

Convenor of the Khap Suresh Koth said efforts were on to convince the
protesters.

The protesters claimed that the state government was not taking any
step on their demand for a fresh probe on the plea that the matter was
before the Supreme Court.

The villagers, who are on a sit-in dharna at Julani village near Jind
railway station, also blocked roads to Gohana in Sonipat district, and
Bhiwani and Hansi in Hissar district.

Members of the pre-dominant Jat community have been sitting on the
tracks at Julani village near Jind railway
station since January 15, disrupting railway traffic on the
Jind-Jakhal section of the Delhi-Ferozepur route.

Police personnel have been deployed in strength to ensure maintenance of peace.

The villagers are protesting against the booking of 98 members of
their community in the case relating to the killing of 70-year-old
Dalit Tara Chand and his 17-year-old daughter Suman in April last
year.

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[ZESTCaste] Traders, dalits hold protest

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/131172/traders-dalits-hold-protest.html

Traders, dalits hold protest
Hassan, Jan 21, DHNS:

Shifting of KSRTC bus stand has hit autorickshaw and taxi drivers


The traders of old bus stand closed their shops and staged a protest
in Hassan on Friday urging the authorities of KSRTC to open the new
bus stand only after providing facilities to the commuters.

They contended that sudden shifting of the bus stand had hit traders,
autorikshaw and taxi drivers and more importantly the commuters. The
business in the surrounding areas of the old bus stand runs into lakhs
of rupees. Besides, it was centrally located. After shifting the bus
stand the business has dropped by nearly 70 per cent. The general
public was also facing hardship to reach the new bus stand.

They demanded that the new bus stand should be commissioned only after
providing all the facilities. After that all the city buses and
moffusil buses should be operated from the old bus stand. The traders
should be allowed to do their business even at the new bus stand.

In the morning, they went in a procession and submitted a memorandum
to the revenue authorities. Later, they came near the N R Circle and
tried to divert all the KSRTC buses towards the old bus stand which
was prevented by the cops.

Encroachment

In another protest, The dalits, under the banner of Dr B R Ambedkar
Yuvaka Sangha, staged a dharna near the deputy commissioner's office
in Hassan on Friday, against encroachment of the land belonged to them
by the Upper castes at Agalahalli in the taluk.

They claimed that the deputy commissioner, tahsildar and police have
failed to act upon the complaint lodged in this regard. The land
belonged to Gowramma, Ramegowda and Siddamma have been encroached upon
by the Upper Castes and have constructed houses. This had obstructed
their movement.

When this matter was brought to the notice of the authorities
concerned, MLA H S Prakash had convened a peace committee meeting and
had directed the revenue authorities to take steps for the removal of
those encroachments. Subsequently, the department conducted a survey
which proved that the land belonged to the dalits were now under the
possession of the Upper Castes. Despite the survey report, no action
was taken for the removal of encroachments. They have warned of
boycotting the SC/ST meeting to be held on January 28 if no suitable
action was taken in this regard.

The tahsildhar, Mathai who came to receive the memorandum from the
agitators, returned after the agitators raised slogans against him. He
was not allowed to say anything regarding the steps taken by the
revenue department in this regard.

Later, MLA Prakash volunteered to hold discussion with them. Although,
he promised to make the spot visit on Saturday and take steps, the
agitators spoke in an objectionable manner, which irritated him. He
too left the place in a huff.


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[ZESTCaste] UP govt dominated by criminals: Punia

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/allahabad/UP-govt-dominated-by-criminals-Punia-/articleshow/7335553.cms

UP govt dominated by criminals: Punia
TNN, Jan 21, 2011, 08.32pm IST

ALLAHABAD: The state government in Uttar Pradesh is dominated by
criminals and anti-social elements and headed by the Bahujan Samaj
Party (BSP) supremo and state chief minister Mayawati, said Congress
MP and chairman, National Commission for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled
Tribe, P L Punia while speaking to newspersons here at the Circuit
House on Friday.

He added: "`Jungle raj' is prevailing in state and maximum atrocities
are perpetrated on dalits and funds sanctioned for the upliftment of
dalits by the Centre are instead channelised for other purpose by
state governments. Tough steps would be taken in this regard by the
Centre.

Putting forth his views on the issue of reservation in private sector,
Punia said majority of public sector undertakings have been taken over
by private sector companies who are withdrawing the system of
reservation for those belonging to SC/ST category. Infact reservation
should also be extended for them in the judiciary.

He further said that the UPA government was focussing on protecting
the interest and rights of dalits in Uttar Pradesh given the rising
number of incidents of exploitation of dalits in the state. In this
connection he has toured Gorakhpur, Banda and Kanpur to send a message
among the people that the Central government is standing firmly behind
them.

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[ZESTCaste] SC ready to test reservation demand for dalit Christians and Muslims

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/SC-ready-to-test-reservation-demand-for-dalit-Christians-and-Muslims/articleshow/7335516.cms

SC ready to test reservation demand for dalit Christians and Muslims
TNN, Jan 22, 2011, 05.17am IST

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday framed questions to test the
validity of the demand based on the Ranganath Misra Commission
recommendation for inclusion of dalit Christians and Muslims in the
scheduled caste list to avail quota in education and jobs.

A Bench comprising Chief Justice S H Kapadia and Justices K S
Radhakrishnan and Swatanter Kumar posted for February 24 final hearing
on petitions challenging the Presidential Order of 1950 limiting
reservation to dalits among Hindus, Sikhs and Buddhists.

It also made the national commissions for minorities and scheduled
castes parties to the pending petitions, issued notices and asked for
their responses. The SC commission has said it had no objection to
reservation given to dalit Muslims and Christians but had asked the
Centre to ensure that it did not carve out quota for them from the
existing 15% for SCs.

The government had said that any change to include dalits, who
converted to Christianity and Islam -- both religions not recognising
any caste-based division -- had to be left to Parliament and could not
be done by courts.

Petitioner Centre for Public Interest Litigation (CPIL) argued through
advocate Prashant Bhushan that the SC list should be prepared based on
socio-economic conditions rather than on people's religion.

He asked: "How is it that a dalit Hindu, Sikh or a Buddhist is
eligible for reservation but not a dalit Christian or Muslim? Is this
not discrimination on the basis of religion which is prohibited under
the Constitution?"

He said the Presidential Order of 1950 had originally envisaged
reservation for dalit Hindus alone. In 1959, it included dalits from
the Sikh community and then in 1990 Buddhists.

The questions framed by the highest court were:

* Whether a provision in Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950,
saying "no person who professes a religion different from Hinduism,
Sikhism and Buddhism shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled
Caste" is unconstitutional and void?

* Whether the existing reservation benefits to Scheduled Caste people
professing a religion different from Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism
can be diluted by extending them to dalit Christians and Muslims?

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[ZESTCaste] Newspaper employees set to get 2.5 times hike in basic pay

http://www.hindu.com/2011/01/01/stories/2011010158361900.htm

Newspaper employees set to get 2.5 times hike in basic pay

Wage Boards for journalists, non-journalists submit report

It recommends that the retirement age be fixed at 65

The Boards propose a variable pay of 35 per cent

— Photo: PTI

REVISING PAY STRUCTURE:Justice G.R. Majithia (left), Chairman of the
Wage Boards for working journalists and non-journalists and other
newspaper employees, submitting recommendations to Labour Secretary
P.K Chaturvedi in New Delhi on Friday.

New Delhi: The Wage Boards for working journalists and non-journalists
and other newspaper employees submitted their recommendations to the
government on Friday, recommending 2.5 to 3 times hike in basic pay
and fixing the retirement age at 65.

The revised basic pay has been computed after merging the existing
basic pay, the dearness allowance and the 30 per cent interim relief
already granted besides 35 per cent variable pay, said Chairman of the
Wage Boards Justice G.R. Majithia.

The recommendations have been proposed to be implemented from January 8, 2008.

Taking into account the concept of grade pay introduced in the Sixth
Pay Commission, the Boards introduced 'variable pay' for all employees
working in newspaper establishments and news agencies.

Consequently, the Boards proposed a variable pay of 35 per cent.

This will be implemented from July 1, 2010. "As per the
recommendation, current basic pay would rise by 2.5 to 3 times," a
Wage Board official said.

According to an official of the Wage Boards, the basic pay at the
entry level could be anywhere around Rs. 9,000 while the basic pay
drawn at the senior level could be around Rs. 25,000 in a category 1
media house.

Permanent tribunal

"We have also proposed establishment of a permanent tribunal to
redress grievances between employers and employees," Justice Majithia
said after presenting the recommendations to the Labour and Employment
Secretary Prabhat Chaturvedi.

The recommendations would be examined by the Ministry before they are
tabled before the Union Cabinet for approval, Mr. Chaturvedi said.

The Boards also recommended that the dearness allowance shall be paid
by-annually with effect from July 1 and January 1 every year and the
rate of neutralisation for determining the DA would be 100 per cent of
the basic pay for all groups of employees.

It recommended revision of house rent, transport, and night shift
allowances, the Chairman said.

It has been recommended that the HRA be paid at the rate of 30 per
cent, 20 per cent and 10 per cent of the basic pay to employees posted
in areas defined as area X, Y and Z respectively.

Similarly, transport allowance at the rate of 20 per cent, 10 per cent
and five per cent shall be paid by newspaper establishments to its
employees posted in respective areas defined as X, Y and Z
respectively.

The hardship allowance has been recommended at Rs. 1000 for employees
working in hilly areas.

"The employees working in the newspaper establishment of classes I and
II and classes III and IV shall be paid medical allowance at the rate
of Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 500 per month per employee respectively. But no
medical allowance shall be paid to employees who are covered by the
Employees State Insurance Corporation."

News agencies with a revenue of over Rs. 60 crore have been put in the
same place as top rung newspapers following the Boards'
reclassification of news papers and news agencies. Consequently, PTI
has been put in the top spot with UNI in the second slot.

The Boards were constituted three years ago for the purpose of fixing
or revising rates of wages in respect of working journalists and
non-journalists and other newspaper employees. — PTI


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[ZESTCaste] Three-decade-old struggle by Dalits to retrieve land continues

 

http://www.hindu.com/2011/01/20/stories/2011012053460700.htm

Tamil Nadu

Three-decade-old struggle by Dalits to retrieve land continues

D.Karthikeyan
----------------------------------------------------------
Members of VCK have planned fast unto death from today

Chief Minister urged to intervene and retrieve the land
----------------------------------------------------------

MADURAI: It has been more than three decades since the land originally
meant for Adi Dravidars of Vandiyur Theerthakadu village were
encroached by caste Hindus. The Madras High Court has twice ordered
the eviction of encroachments and relocation of Dalits in the
identified lands.

The 349 Dalit families, who were living on the Vaigai riverbed, were
allotted 9. 73 acres of land (Old Survey No 260/2A, 260/2B New Survey
No.112/2A, 2B) by the Tamil Nadu Adi Dravidar Welfare Department on
March, 3, 1979. The families were handed over pattas on December 12,
1995.

However, the land was encroached by caste Hindus and even after a
series of protests, dharnas and petitions by Vidhuthalai Chiruthaigal
Katchi (VCK) and other Dalit organisations, the encroachments were not
removed. The encroachers, meanwhile, formed a residents' welfare
association (RWA) and thwarted all attempts made by the Dalits to make
the administration remove their encroachments. Members of VCK filed a
writ petition in the High Court, which, on October, 30, 2008, ordered
the removal of encroachments within six months and locate the Dalits
in Vandiyur.

The Revenue Divisional Officer's report following the court direction
says that only 11 pattas were purchased from Adi Dravidars and houses
were built on them and kept under occupation. However, 231 houses were
built without pattas and occupied by way of encroachment and the total
extent of land occupied by persons other than Adi Dravidars is 3.03
acres. In the absence of any action to remove the encroachments, the
RWA went on appeal in the Madras High Court. On October 22, 2010, the
High Court ordered the district administration to relocate the
encroachers in the 3.87 hectares of land identified by them at
Sakkimangalam and if they refused to move evict them in accordance
with law. The Principal Secretary and Special Commissioner, Land
Administration, were also issued copies of the order.

VCK has been organising various protests at many places and also in
front of the Collectorate but there is no appropriate action from the
administration. Party president and Member of Parliament Thol.
Thirumavalavan wrote a letter to the District Collector citing the
details of the court proceedings and requested him to take necessary
action.

Members of VCK organised a protest on January 10 in front of the
Collectorate demanding the removal of encroachments. In continuation
of their protests, they have planned to organise a fast unto death
from Thursday. A. Muthamizh Pandian, rural district treasurer and
coordinator of Vandiyur Theerthakadu Land Retrieval Struggle
Committee, said that Dalits had been denied their fundamental right to
have a decent living. He said that Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi
should intervene and retrieve the land meant for Dalits.

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