Wednesday, December 21, 2011

[ZESTCaste] Memorial melodrama

 

http://www.mid-day.com/opinion/2011/dec/221211-opinion-Memorial-melodrama.htm

Memorial melodrama
By: MiD DAY Correspondent Date: 2011-12-22 Place: Mumbai

The encroachment of the Indu Mills in Dadar by followers of Dr BR
Ambedkar has laid bare the impotency of the Centre and the State to
maintain the rule of law.

The followers have been camping on the premises, in a screeching
protest to demand the entire mill land to erect a memorial of Dr
Ambedkar, the architect of the Indian constitution. The glaring
unconstitutionality of the possession is lost on the so-called
followers, who have been criticised by the Bombay High Court for the
utter disregard they exhibited for the constitutional way and for the
consequences of their actions.

The court also minced no words in pulling up the Congress-led
government. The fact that nothing concrete has emerged for years
despite the state government's promise to develop the memorial has
rendered its pledge hollow. The incumbent rulers have long claimed the
backing of Ambedkar followers, and it beats one to answer why they
haven't been able to persuade the UPA government for allotting the
land.

Also, the state failed to gauge the mood of Dalit organisations that
caught it unawares with the takeover, indicating its poor intelligence
gathering capabilities. The all-round inefficacy shown in dealing with
the issue has reduced it to a political contest of claiming credit for
the memorial. After Anandraj Ambedkar led the forcible occupation,
Ramdas Athawale-led RPI made considerable efforts to steal the thunder
and turn it into its politico-ideological war.

Meanwhile, the court's rap to the Cong-NCP government has been like
water off a duck's back. Instead of heeding the HC's comments, the
ruling parties pandered to the Dalit vote bank and approved a
resolution for allotting the land. As the court noted, the Indu Mills
episode may set a precedent for similar events in the future.

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[ZESTCaste] Stop non-SC/ST/OBC persons from grabbing reserved jobs: Govt

 

http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/stop-nonscstobc-persons-from-grabbing-reserved-jobs-govt/940560.html

Stop non-SC/ST/OBC persons from grabbing reserved jobs: Govt
PTI | 05:12 PM,Dec 21,2011

New Delhi, Dec 21 (PTI) States have been directed to streamline the
system of verification of caste certificates to prevent non-SC/ST/OBC
persons securing jobs meant for the reserved category by producing
false certificate, Parliament was informed today. In its final action
taken statement on recommendations of Committee on the Welfare of
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes tabled in both Houses of
Parliament, the Government said it has also issued instructions that
wherever it is found that a government servant had furnished false
information to secure job, he or she should be removed from service.
It said instructions have also been issued from time to time that
verification of caste status of candidates, claiming to belong to SC
or ST, should be done at every important up-turn of an employee's
career so that the benefit of reservation goes only to the rightful
claimant. "The Department of Personnel and Training has sent letters
to chief secretaries of all states and Union Territories requesting
them to streamline the system of verification of caste certificates so
that unscrupulous non-SC/ST/OBC persons are prevented from securing
jobs meant for SC/ST/OBCs by producing false certificate," it said.
The department has started receiving information about persons who
have faced actions for securing employment on the basis of false caste
certificate, the Government said. Narrating various steps taken to
ensure that vacancies reserved for SCs and STs are filled by the
candidates belonging to these categories only, it said, "a general ban
has been imposed on de-reservation of reserved vacancies in case of
direct recruitment." (MORE)

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[ZESTCaste] "Instructions have been that in case SC/ST candidates do

 

http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/instructions-have-been-that-in-case-scst-candidates-do/940559.html

"Instructions have been that in case SC/ST candidates do
PTI | 05:12 PM,Dec 21,2011

not become available to fill up vacancies reserved for these
categories in first attempt of recruitment, a second attempt should be
made for recruiting suitable candidates belonging to the concerned
category in the same recruitment year or as early as possible before
next recruitment year so that backlog reserved vacancies is not
created," the Government said. "If, even after making such efforts,
the reserved vacancies are not filled, the vacancies are carried
forward as backlog reserved vacancies. Limit of 50 per cent on filling
up of vacancies by reservation in a year does not apply to such
backlog reserved vacancies," it said.

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[ZESTCaste] Dalit leader welcomes reservation in Lokpal

 

http://zeenews.india.com/news/nation/dalit-leader-welcomes-reservation-in-lokpal_748051.html

Dalit leader welcomes reservation in Lokpal
Last Updated: Wednesday, December 21, 2011, 21:30

New Delhi: Dalit leader Udit Raj on Wednesday welcomed the Union
Cabinet's decision to include reservation for SC, ST, OBC and other
weaker section in the ambit of the proposed Lokpal.

Raj, Chairman of All India Confederation of SC/ST Organisations, also
took a dig at Team Anna and said they should understand their
"weaknesses."

"They might have organised big shows at Ramlila ground and Jantar
Mantar but the majority of silent section of people is not necessarily
with them," he said in a release.

There is no doubt that Anna Hazare has aroused the consciousness of
the country on corruption but they should wait and watch what
Parliament is going to do, he said.

"After all, Parliament is the will of about 120 crore people and thus
they (Team Anna) should have faith in democracy," he said.

While welcoming the Government draft of Lokpal Bill which was approved
by Cabinet yesterday, he suggested that Lokpal selection panel should
not have more than two judges and that members from other fields like
journalism and education also be made part of the panel.

PTI

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[ZESTCaste] Scaling Caste Walls With Capitalism’s Ladders in India

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/22/world/asia/indias-boom-creates-openings-for-untouchables.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hpw

December 21, 2011
Scaling Caste Walls With Capitalism's Ladders in India
By LYDIA POLGREEN

PED, India — On his barefoot trudge to school decades ago, a young
Ashok Khade passed inescapable reminders of what he was: the well from
which he was not allowed to drink; the temple where he was not
permitted to worship. At school, he took his place on the floor in a
part of the classroom built a step lower than the rest. Untouchables
like him, considered to be spiritually and physically unclean, could
not be permitted to pollute their upper-caste neighbors and
classmates.

But on a recent afternoon, as Mr. Khade's chauffeur guided his
shimmering silver BMW sedan onto that same street in a village in the
southern state of Maharashtra, village leaders rushed to greet him. He
paid his respects at the temple, which he paid to rebuild. The
untouchable boy had become golden, thanks to the newest god in the
Indian pantheon: money.

As the founder of a successful offshore oil-rig engineering company,
Mr. Khade is part of a tiny but growing class of millionaires from the
Dalit population, the 200 million so-called untouchables who occupy
the very lowest rung in Hinduism's social hierarchy.

"I've gone from village to palace," Mr. Khade exclaimed, using his
favorite phrase to describe his remarkable journey from the son of an
illiterate cobbler in the 1960s to a wealthy business partner of Arab
sheiks.

The rapid growth that followed the opening of India's economy in 1991
has widened the gulf between rich and poor, and some here have begun
to blame liberalization for the rising tide of corruption. But the era
of growth has also created something unthinkable a generation ago: a
tiny but growing group of wealthy Dalit business people.

Some measure their fortunes in hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a
handful, like Mr. Khade, have started companies worth tens of
millions. With their new wealth they have also won a measure of social
acceptance.

"This is a golden period for Dalits," said Chandra Bhan Prasad, a
Dalit activist and researcher who has championed capitalism among the
untouchables. "Because of the new market economy, material markers are
replacing social markers. Dalits can buy rank in the market economy.
India is moving from a caste-based to a class-based society, where if
you have all the goodies in life and your bank account is booming, you
are acceptable."

Milind Kamble, a Dalit contractor based in the city of Pune in
Maharashtra State, said that out of the 100 or so members of the Dalit
Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in his city, only one was in
business before 1991.

"We are fighting the caste system with capitalism," he said.

An Immobile Society

Bollywood may love a rags-to-riches story, but historically India is
not a nation of Horatio Alger stories. Social and economic mobility
are limited, a product of India's layers of cultural legacies: the
Hindu caste system, the feudal hierarchies established by its many
invaders and the imperial bureaucracy imposed by Britain. The idea
that with hard work and determination, anyone could succeed found
scant purchase here.

Independence changed that somewhat. India's Constitution, which was
largely drafted by a Dalit, Bhimrao Ambedkar, outlawed the practice of
physical untouchability, which relegated Dalits to the bottom of the
social ladder and condemned them to low-status jobs, like leather work
and barbering.

It established affirmative action for Dalits and tribal people in
politics and government jobs and education. The practice of physical
untouchability, which prevented Dalits from walking on the same
streets as upper-caste people, drinking from the same wells or even
looking such people in the eye, has virtually disappeared, though it
remains in practice in some remote areas.

Dalits still lag behind the rest of India, but they have experienced
gains as the country's economy has expanded. A recent analysis of
government survey data by economists at the University of British
Columbia found that the wage gap between other castes and Dalits has
decreased to 21 percent, down from 36 percent in 1983, less than the
gap between white male and black male workers in the United States.
The education gap has been halved.

Another survey conducted by Indian researchers along with professors
from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard showed that the social
status of Dalits has risen as well — they are more likely to be
invited to non-Dalit weddings, to eat the same foods and wear the same
clothes as upper-caste people, and use grooming products like shampoo
and bottled hair oil.

For most of India's history after independence, the government was the
only thing that could improve the Dalits' lot. For nearly all Indians
but especially for Dalits, a government job, even a low-level one, was
the surest ticket out of poverty, guaranteeing education, housing, a
salary and a pension. Few in the socialist government or in India's
generally risk-averse society saw entrepreneurship as an attractive
option.

But that has started to change. Since 1991, when India's economy
opened to the world and began its astonishing growth trajectory,
hundreds of thousands of new businesses have been created, leaving an
opening for millions of people who never imagined that owning their
own business was even possible. A small handful of Dalits were
uniquely poised to take advantage.

Caste is a delicate subject in Indian life, spoken of only sotto voce.
The once strong connection between caste and occupation loosened long
ago, and generalizations are risky, but certain cultural affinities
remain.

Knowledge-based businesses like information technology have attracted
large numbers of Brahmins, the traditional learned caste. The business
castes tended to focus more on retail and wholesale trade than
manufacturing. Messy industries like construction are closer to the
traditional occupations of the lowest castes.

One Dalit businessman in Pune has turned the traditionally undesirable
work of pest control into a million-dollar company. Mr. Kamble made
his fortune in India's building boom. Dalits have started small
technology companies, installing networking equipment, while others
have set up factories to make water pipes and sugar.

"In this complex society, Dalits are turning disadvantage into an
advantage," Mr. Prasad said.

Starting From Nothing

Ashok Khade's rags-to-riches story stands out because of how
completely he transformed himself, with some luck and some help from
India's opening economy, from an illiterate cobbler's son to a
multimillionaire player in the booming oil services industry.

He was born in a mud hut in Ped in 1955, one of six children. His
parents were day laborers who toiled in upper-caste farmers' fields
for pennies. His father would often travel to Mumbai, then known as
Bombay, to work as a shoe repairman. He came from a family of
Chamhars, a caste at the very bottom of the Hindu hierarchy. Their
traditional job was to skin dead animals.

They were poor and always hungry. One day, his mother sent him to
fetch a small bag of flour on credit from a nearby flour mill so she
could cook flatbread for dinner. But it was the monsoon season and
Ashok slipped in the mud. The precious flour landed in a puddle.

"I came home weeping," he said. "My mother was weeping. My brothers
and sisters were hungry. There was nothing in the house."

But that hunger gave him drive. "That was my starting day," he said.

Mr. Khade got his first big break that year, when he won admission to
a school run by a charity in a nearby town. Away from the village and
its deeper caste prejudice, he thrived. Upper-caste teachers nurtured
him, and he strived to impress them.

But caste was not entirely absent. In the school's musty register from
1973, the year he finished high school, next to his name is his caste:
Chamhar.

All through school, poverty gnawed at him. Students had to provide
their own paper to write their exams, and one day he found himself
without even a few pennies to buy the necessary sheets of foolscap. A
teacher tore pages from the attendance ledger. Too poor to buy string
to tie the pages together, he used a thorn from a tree. None of it
mattered. He graduated near the top of his class.

Setbacks and Luck

Mr. Khade's elder brother, Datta, had managed to get an apprenticeship
as a welder at a government-owned ship building company, Mazagon Dock,
in Mumbai. He persuaded young Ashok to move to the big city. The tiny
room where Datta lived with relatives was already full, so Ashok slept
for a time under a nearby staircase on a folding cot.

Mr. Khade dreamed of becoming a doctor and studied at a local college.
But Datta, who supported the entire family, begged his younger brother
to drop out of school and start working. Datta helped Ashok get a job
as an apprentice draftsman at Mazagon Dock.

What seemed like a setback turned out to be a stroke of luck. His
flawless drafting skills and boundless appetite for hard work won him
promotions. In 1983, he was sent to Germany to work on a submarine
project.

One day, he saw the pay slip of one of his German colleagues, who
earned in one month more than Mr. Khade earned in a year. "I thought
about my family's needs," he said. "My sisters needed to get married.
I knew I could do better than working for someone else."

When he returned from Germany, he began laying the groundwork to start
his own company. The risk was enormous, and it was almost unheard of
to leave a steady job to start a company. But his two brothers were
expert offshore welders. They had good contacts from their years at
Mazagon Dock.

And the economy was changing after years of stagnation as the 1991
reforms began to reduce the bureaucracy's control of the economy and
stimulate growth. "It was obvious there was a chance to make a lot of
money," he said.

The brothers used their savings to finance the small subcontract jobs
they began with, and in 1993 they got their first big order, for some
underwater jackets for an offshore oil rig, from Mazagon Dock.

Mr. Khade's hunch was right, and his timing was impeccable. Faster
growth meant India's appetite for fossil fuels grew ever more
rapacious. His company, which builds and refurbishes offshore oil
rigs, has expanded rapidly and he is expanding to the Middle East. He
recently signed a deal with a member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi
to work on oil wells there, and he is building what will be India's
biggest jetty fabrication yard on the Maharashtra coast. He has 4,500
employees, and his company is valued at more than $100 million.

His two brothers are now in politics — one leads the Ped village
council, the other is a member of the state assembly, both holding
seats reserved for Dalits. Mr. Khade has bought vast tracts of land
around his village, the same plots where his mother, now 86, used to
work for upper-caste farmers for pennies a day. Now she dresses in
expensive silk saris, rides in a chauffeured car and wears gold
jewelry. The sons of upper-caste families now work for Mr. Khade's
company. By any measure he is a man who has made it, and big.

"An untouchable boy the business partner of a prince?" Mr. Khade said.
"Who would believe that is possible?"

Mr. Khade probably would not be in business with a prince had he not
attended a networking cocktail reception hosted by the Dalit Chamber
of Commerce and Industry at the five-star Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai
this year. There he met the Indian businessman who introduced him to
the Arab sheik, who helped him to globalize his company.

These kinds of connections are crucial to the nascent Dalit business
community. Because Dalit businessmen often lack the social connections
that lead to business ideas, loans and other support, a group of Dalit
entrepreneurs created the chamber in 2005. It aims to build those
networks so Dalit business leaders can help one another grow. The
group has about 1,000 members, all of whom run companies with an
annual turnover of at least $20,000.

It recently organized a meeting where Dalit businessmen pitched ideas
to Tata Motors, one of India's biggest car companies. Mr. Kamble, the
Dalit contractor, said that of the 10 companies that attended, 4 had
signed deals and 4 more were in negotiations. "There was a time when
people like us could not even approach a company like Tata Motors," he
said. "Now we go meet them with dignity, not like beggars. We are job
givers, not job seekers."

The group has persuaded the government to embrace contracting
preferences for Dalits like the ones that have helped businesses owned
by women and minorities in the United States. It also seeks to
persuade private companies to embrace affirmative action policies that
would create more jobs and business opportunities for Dalits.

Few Options for Women

Despite the success of men like Mr. Khade, a Dalit entrepreneur is
still much more likely to be a poor woman who has no choice but to
start a small, low-profit margin business because so few other options
are open to her, said Annie Namala, a researcher and activist who has
worked on Dalit issues. A survey completed this year of Dalit women
entrepreneurs in Delhi and Hyderabad found that most made less than
$100 a month from their businesses.

"These are basically survival enterprises," Ms. Namala said. "These
women would prefer a steady job, but no jobs are available so they
start a small business and work very hard with very little return."

Despite gains for some Dalits, a recent paper from the Harvard
Business School that used government data from 2005 found that even
after the economic liberalization, Dalits "were significantly
underrepresented in the ownership of private enterprises, and the
employment generated by private enterprises."

Even for those who have had wild success in business, social
acceptance has proved harder to attain. While wealth insulates them to
some degree from lingering caste prejudice, barriers remain even for
rich Dalits.

Names often reveal a person's caste, so one Dalit businessman who
installs solar water heaters changed his last name because he worried
that upper-caste people would not want a Dalit installing an appliance
associated with personal hygiene in their homes.

Even Mr. Khade, with all his wealth and newfound status, does not want
to offend potential upper-caste clients. His business card reads Ashok
K, leaving off the last name that reveals what he is: a Dalit.

Hari Kumar contributed reporting.


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[ZESTCaste] Atrocities on Dalit women go unpunished: Gujarat NGO

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_atrocities-on-dalit-women-go-unpunished-gujarat-ngo_1628588

Atrocities on Dalit women go unpunished: Gujarat NGO
Published: Wednesday, Dec 21, 2011, 20:30 IST
By Paras K Jha

If it is a crime to be born a woman in society, it is a bigger crime
to be born a Dalit woman. This, at least, is what a study by human
rights organisation, Navsarjan Trust, says.

While women are normally considered to be vulnerable to atrocities,
women belonging to Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) are
more prone to various crimes. The study shows that it is more
difficult for Dalits to get justice in the court of law for their
traumatic sufferings. The study indicates that in the cases of
violence by non-Dalits on Dalit women, no non-Dalit accused have been
convicted so far, and in cases of violence by Dalits on Dalit women,
there have been convictions only in six cases.

The study, 'Gender-Violence and Access to Justice for the Dalit Woman:
Final Report December 2011', was undertaken by Navsarjan Trust in
collaboration with Minority Rights Group International, London. It was
focused on three districts of Rajkot, Kutch and Bhavnagar. It covers
the atrocities cases on Dalit women registered from 2004 to 2009.

The data was collected by filing RTI applications with district
superintendents of police. Pointing towards the non-serious attitude
of police stations towards Dalit women facing atrocity, the report
says: "A low percentage of police stations responded to the request in
spite of fines that may be levied for non-compliance with the RTI Act.
Data was received from 41% of police stations for non-Dalit on Dalit
crime, 44% of police stations for Dalit on Dalit crime, and 49% of
police stations submitted Accidental/Unnatural Deaths data, from all
three districts."

Surprisingly, whatever data was received for the study shows a more
gloomy picture of delivery ofjustice to the victims. Of 889 registered
cases —185 cases of violence by non-Dalits and 704 cases of violence
by Dalits, only 6 cases (or 0.7% of the total) resulted in conviction
of the accused.

The report says, "Also significant is the absence of even one
conviction of a non-Dalit accused. Given that 50.27% of crimes by
non-Dalits on Dalits were of a grievous nature — cases that resulted
in death or grave physical injury to the woman — not one case has
ended in a conviction.Further, a full 50.5% of all cases remain
pending in the sessions' court. And the police stations did not
provide any information on the status of 32.7% of cases filed. In
other words, only 17% of all cases have reached court settlement or
judgment.

Talking about the study, Majula Pradeep, of Navsarjan, said:
"Non-Dalit accused often walk free from the cases because of political
and social clout they have. For instance, in Bhavnagar, a majority of
police personnel belong to a particular caste, so they don't take
seriously the complaints made by Dalit women. We will be submitting
our report to state government departments, advocating for the rights
of the Dalit women."


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[ZESTCaste] Mangalore: Love Triumphs over Barriers as Couple Tie Knot

 

http://www.daijiworld.com/news/news_disp.asp?n_id=125370

Mangalore: Love Triumphs over Barriers as Couple Tie Knot

Prof Narendra Nayak
President, Federation of Indian Rationalist Associations

Mangalore, Dec 21: This is the story of two young people in love, who
refused to be bound by restrictions imposed by society, caste system
and everything else, and listened only to their love-filled hearts.

Sandesh is a Pambada, a caste of dalits who are untouchables except
when they perform in Bhootha Kolas dressed in costumes and carry out
the associated rituals! The moment the costume is removed they become
untouchables.

Deepti belongs to a caste called Kottaris and is studying for her
masters in commerce while working at a mall. The rationalist
assocation has performed many intercaste, interreligious marriages but
the maximum opposition has been when one of the couples is a dalit! As
expected, Deepti's family was very much opposed to this match and
three days ago she fled home and started staying as a paying guest.

On Wednesday December 21, it was a tearful shivering young woman who
came to meet me, worried about her fate and that of her beloved. That
was because her family had arranged a match for her from her own
caste, a young man who was a relative of the head of a most feared
moral police of the Hindutva right wing. She was scared that his goons
were searching for her. In fact, all the documents needed for her
marriage were kept at the place where she used to work and she was
scared when the former colleagues told her that a close watch was
being kept on her locker by the minions of this man.

She had come to us for help with a middle aged lady whom we assumed
was her relative - but it was not! She was Sandesh's mother who had
come with her, out of love for her would-be daughter-in-law. By that
time a number of progressive organisations had been intimated and also
some very progressive minded journalists.

While we tried to get her documents from the place where she used to
work, some goons from there tried to follow her and then it was a ride
straight to the office of the commissioner of police, Seemanth Singh
who had instructed his office to give all help to the couple. By the
time we reached the office, ony Deepti's brothers were there and they
informed the police that they had absolutely no objection to her
marrying anyone of her choice.

So, in the evening one progressive minded priest Jayaram Bhat
performed their marriage in the presence of journalists and
progressive minded organisations like DYFI, Samudaya, AIDWA, Insurance
employees union and the Dakshina Kannada rationalist association. For
the last named, though religious marriages are not their cup of
tea,under some circumstances, particularly when registration has to be
done immediately this sort of ritual becomes necessary. We are very
happy that Jayaram Bhat has been co-operating with us from the past
two decades when there has been a need.

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[ZESTCaste] Wealthy Dalit businessmen share their journey

 

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/wealthy-dalit-businessmen-share-their-journey-159967

Wealthy Dalit businessmen share their journey

By Lydia Polgreen, The New York Times, Updated: December 22, 2011 11:48 IST

Ped, Maharashtra: On his barefoot trudge to school decades ago, a
young Ashok Khade passed inescapable reminders of what he was: the
well from which he was not allowed to drink; the temple where he was
not permitted to worship. At school, he took his place on the floor in
a part of the classroom built a step lower than the rest. Untouchables
like him, considered to be spiritually and physically unclean, could
not be permitted to pollute their upper-caste neighbours and
classmates.

But on a recent afternoon, as Mr. Khade's chauffeur guided his
shimmering silver BMW sedan onto that same street in a village in the
southern state of Maharashtra, village leaders rushed to greet him. He
paid his respects at the temple, which he paid to rebuild. The
untouchable boy had become golden, thanks to the newest god in the
Indian pantheon: money.

As the founder of a successful offshore oil-rig engineering company,
Mr. Khade is part of a tiny but growing class of millionaires from the
Dalit population, the 200 million so-called untouchables who occupy
the very lowest rung in Hinduism's social hierarchy.

"I've gone from village to palace," Mr. Khade exclaimed, using his
favourite phrase to describe his remarkable journey from the son of an
illiterate cobbler in the 1960s to a wealthy business partner of Arab
sheiks.

The rapid growth that followed the opening of India's economy in 1991
has widened the gulf between rich and poor, and some here have begun
to blame liberalization for the rising tide of corruption. But the era
of growth has also created something unthinkable a generation ago: a
tiny but growing group of wealthy Dalit business people.

Some measure their fortunes in hundreds of thousands of dollars, and a
handful, like Mr. Khade, have started companies worth tens of
millions. With their new wealth they have also won a measure of social
acceptance.

"This is a golden period for Dalits," said Chandra Bhan Prasad, a
Dalit activist and researcher who has championed capitalism among the
untouchables. "Because of the new market economy, material markers are
replacing social markers. Dalits can buy rank in the market economy.
India is moving from a caste-based to a class-based society, where if
you have all the goodies in life and your bank account is booming, you
are acceptable."

Milind Kamble, a Dalit contractor based in the city of Pune in
Maharashtra State, said that out of the 100 or so members of the Dalit
Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry in his city, only one was in
business before 1991.

"We are fighting the caste system with capitalism," he said.

An Immobile Society

Bollywood may love a rags-to-riches story, but historically India is
not a nation of Horatio Alger stories. Social and economic mobility
are limited, a product of India's layers of cultural legacies: the
Hindu caste system, the feudal hierarchies established by its many
invaders and the imperial bureaucracy imposed by Britain. The idea
that with hard work and determination, anyone could succeed found
scant purchase here.

Independence changed that somewhat. India's Constitution, which was
largely drafted by a Dalit, Bhimrao Ambedkar, outlawed the practice of
physical untouchability, which relegated Dalits to the bottom of the
social ladder and condemned them to low-status jobs, like leather work
and barbering.

It established affirmative action for Dalits and tribal people in
politics and government jobs and education. The practice of physical
untouchability, which prevented Dalits from walking on the same
streets as upper-caste people, drinking from the same wells or even
looking such people in the eye, has virtually disappeared, though it
remains in practice in some remote areas.

Dalits still lag behind the rest of India, but they have experienced
gains as the country's economy has expanded. A recent analysis of
government survey data by economists at the University of British
Columbia found that the wage gap between other castes and Dalits has
decreased to 21 per cent, down from 36 per cent in 1983, less than the
gap between white male and black male workers in the United States.
The education gap has been halved.

Another survey conducted by Indian researchers along with professors
from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard showed that the social
status of Dalits has risen as well - they are more likely to be
invited to non-Dalit weddings, to eat the same foods and wear the same
clothes as upper-caste people, and use grooming products like shampoo
and bottled hair oil.

For most of India's history after independence, the government was the
only thing that could improve the Dalits' lot. For nearly all Indians
but especially for Dalits, a government job, even a low-level one, was
the surest ticket out of poverty, guaranteeing education, housing, a
salary and a pension. Few in the socialist government or in India's
generally risk-averse society saw entrepreneurship as an attractive
option.

But that has started to change. Since 1991, when India's economy
opened to the world and began its astonishing growth trajectory,
hundreds of thousands of new businesses have been created, leaving an
opening for millions of people who never imagined that owning their
own business was even possible. A small handful of Dalits were
uniquely poised to take advantage.

Caste is a delicate subject in Indian life, spoken of only sotto voce.
The once strong connection between caste and occupation loosened long
ago, and generalizations are risky, but certain cultural affinities
remain.

Knowledge-based businesses like information technology have attracted
large numbers of Brahmins, the traditional learned caste. The business
castes tended to focus more on retail and wholesale trade than
manufacturing. Messy industries like construction are closer to the
traditional occupations of the lowest castes.

One Dalit businessman in Pune has turned the traditionally undesirable
work of pest control into a million-dollar company. Mr. Kamble made
his fortune in India's building boom. Dalits have started small
technology companies, installing networking equipment, while others
have set up factories to make water pipes and sugar.

"In this complex society, Dalits are turning disadvantage into an
advantage," Mr. Prasad said.

Starting From Nothing

Ashok Khade's rags-to-riches story stands out because of how
completely he transformed himself, with some luck and some help from
India's opening economy, from an illiterate cobbler's son to a
multimillionaire player in the booming oil services industry.

He was born in a mud hut in Ped in 1955, one of six children. His
parents were day labourers who toiled in upper-caste farmers' fields
for pennies. His father would often travel to Mumbai, then known as
Bombay, to work as a shoe repairman. He came from a family of
Chamhars, a caste at the very bottom of the Hindu hierarchy. Their
traditional job was to skin dead animals.

They were poor and always hungry. One day, his mother sent him to
fetch a small bag of flour on credit from a nearby flour mill so she
could cook flatbread for dinner. But it was the monsoon season and
Ashok slipped in the mud. The precious flour landed in a puddle.

"I came home weeping," he said. "My mother was weeping. My brothers
and sisters were hungry. There was nothing in the house."

But that hunger gave him drive. "That was my starting day," he said.

Mr. Khade got his first big break that year, when he won admission to
a school run by a charity in a nearby town. Away from the village and
its deeper caste prejudice, he thrived. Upper-caste teachers nurtured
him, and he strived to impress them.

But caste was not entirely absent. In the school's musty register from
1973, the year he finished high school, next to his name is his caste:
Chamhar.

All through school, poverty gnawed at him. Students had to provide
their own paper to write their exams, and one day he found himself
without even a few pennies to buy the necessary sheets of foolscap. A
teacher tore pages from the attendance ledger. Too poor to buy string
to tie the pages together, he used a thorn from a tree. None of it
mattered. He graduated near the top of his class.

Setbacks and Luck

Mr. Khade's elder brother, Datta, had managed to get an apprenticeship
as a welder at a government-owned ship building company, Mazagon Dock,
in Mumbai. He persuaded young Ashok to move to the big city. The tiny
room where Datta lived with relatives was already full, so Ashok slept
for a time under a nearby staircase on a folding cot.

Mr. Khade dreamed of becoming a doctor and studied at a local college.
But Datta, who supported the entire family, begged his younger brother
to drop out of school and start working. Datta helped Ashok get a job
as an apprentice draftsman at Mazagon Dock.

What seemed like a setback turned out to be a stroke of luck. His
flawless drafting skills and boundless appetite for hard work won him
promotions. In 1983, he was sent to Germany to work on a submarine
project.

One day, he saw the pay slip of one of his German colleagues, who
earned in one month more than Mr. Khade earned in a year. "I thought
about my family's needs," he said. "My sisters needed to get married.
I knew I could do better than working for someone else."

When he returned from Germany, he began laying the groundwork to start
his own company. The risk was enormous, and it was almost unheard of
to leave a steady job to start a company. But his two brothers were
expert offshore welders. They had good contacts from their years at
Mazagon Dock.

And the economy was changing after years of stagnation as the 1991
reforms began to reduce the bureaucracy's control of the economy and
stimulate growth. "It was obvious there was a chance to make a lot of
money," he said.

The brothers used their savings to finance the small subcontract jobs
they began with, and in 1993 they got their first big order, for some
underwater jackets for an offshore oil rig, from Mazagon Dock.

Mr. Khade's hunch was right, and his timing was impeccable. Faster
growth meant India's appetite for fossil fuels grew ever more
rapacious. His company, which builds and refurbishes offshore oil
rigs, has expanded rapidly and he is expanding to the Middle East. He
recently signed a deal with a member of the royal family of Abu Dhabi
to work on oil wells there, and he is building what will be India's
biggest jetty fabrication yard on the Maharashtra coast. He has 4,500
employees, and his company is valued at more than $100 million.

His two brothers are now in politics - one leads the Ped village
council, the other is a member of the state assembly, both holding
seats reserved for Dalits. Mr. Khade has bought vast tracts of land
around his village, the same plots where his mother, now 86, used to
work for upper-caste farmers for pennies a day. Now she dresses in
expensive silk saris, rides in a chauffeured car and wears gold
jewellery. The sons of upper-caste families now work for Mr. Khade's
company. By any measure he is a man who has made it, and big.

"An untouchable boy the business partner of a prince?" Mr. Khade said.
"Who would believe that is possible?"

Mr. Khade probably would not be in business with a prince had he not
attended a networking cocktail reception hosted by the Dalit Chamber
of Commerce and Industry at the five-star Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai
this year. There he met the Indian businessman who introduced him to
the Arab sheik, who helped him to globalize his company.

These kinds of connections are crucial to the nascent Dalit business
community. Because Dalit businessmen often lack the social connections
that lead to business ideas, loans and other support, a group of Dalit
entrepreneurs created the chamber in 2005. It aims to build those
networks so Dalit business leaders can help one another grow. The
group has about 1,000 members, all of whom run companies with an
annual turnover of at least $20,000.

It recently organized a meeting where Dalit businessmen pitched ideas
to Tata Motors, one of India's biggest car companies. Mr. Kamble, the
Dalit contractor, said that of the 10 companies that attended, 4 had
signed deals and 4 more were in negotiations. "There was a time when
people like us could not even approach a company like Tata Motors," he
said. "Now we go meet them with dignity, not like beggars. We are job
givers, not job seekers."

The group has persuaded the government to embrace contracting
preferences for Dalits like the ones that have helped businesses owned
by women and minorities in the United States. It also seeks to
persuade private companies to embrace affirmative action policies that
would create more jobs and business opportunities for Dalits.

Few Options for Women

Despite the success of men like Mr. Khade, a Dalit entrepreneur is
still much more likely to be a poor woman who has no choice but to
start a small, low-profit margin business because so few other options
are open to her, said Annie Namala, a researcher and activist who has
worked on Dalit issues. A survey completed this year of Dalit women
entrepreneurs in Delhi and Hyderabad found that most made less than
$100 a month from their businesses.

"These are basically survival enterprises," Ms. Namala said. "These
women would prefer a steady job, but no jobs are available so they
start a small business and work very hard with very little return."

Despite gains for some Dalits, a recent paper from the Harvard
Business School that used government data from 2005 found that even
after the economic liberalization, Dalits "were significantly
underrepresented in the ownership of private enterprises, and the
employment generated by private enterprises."

Even for those who have had wild success in business, social
acceptance has proved harder to attain. While wealth insulates them to
some degree from lingering caste prejudice, barriers remain even for
rich Dalits.

Names often reveal a person's caste, so one Dalit businessman who
installs solar water heaters changed his last name because he worried
that upper-caste people would not want a Dalit installing an appliance
associated with personal hygiene in their homes.

Even Mr. Khade, with all his wealth and newfound status, does not want
to offend potential upper-caste clients. His business card reads Ashok
K, leaving off the last name that reveals what he is: a Dalit.

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[ZESTCaste] Dalit journey of three generations

http://www.thehansindia.info/News/Article.asp?category=1&subCategory=5&ContentId=27320

Dalit journey of three generations

"This excellent book brings out not only the existential situation but
also the inherent potential of people to struggle and succeed against
all odds and obstacles. Such narratives serve as inspiration for other
members of the community to use education to overcome massive social
and economic impediments.

It holds out hope that it is possible to work your way up the social
ladder" said the Late Mr. S. R. Sankaran, IAS (Retired), in a foreword
to the book, "My Father Baliah", written by Dr. Y. B. Satyanarayana,
which has been published by Harper Collins India. This is a memoir
chronicled for three generations of a Dalit family.

The story begins from a small village, Vangapalli, in Karimnagar
district. It is a long journey stretching almost two centuries and it
was set by author's great grandfather, Narsiah, against struggles,
indignities, insults and all types of odds.

The summary of the story is to overcome the obstructions to continue
the struggle to achieve success in one's life. This story is a
reflection of thousands of dalit families moving from small villages
to cities and from slavery to liberty and these lives created history.

Professor Satyanarayana, teaching chemistry, had stayed away from
literary work, but after retirement started taking keen interest in
social studies that resulted in the writing of this memoirs straight
into English; it must be the first book in Andhra Pradesh. Long back
the novel, 'Malapally', came out and, recently, books like 'Panchamam'
by Devavrat from Rayalaseema, 'Antarani Vasantam' by Kalyan Rao from
Coastal Andhra and 'Kakka' by Vemula Yelliah have come up.

These novels vividly portray the lives of Dalits. But this is the
first book that narrates the life of a single Dalit family stretching
into three successive generations. Hitherto Marathi writers wrote such
memoirs.

The story continues only with a single family and it describes the
inhuman practice of untouchability, specifically in Telangana, on a
Madiga family, and the author's description is touching. The story
begins with the life of Narsiah from the first generation of the late
19th century.

Narsiah presents a beautiful pair of shoes, made from the hide of a
young calf which fits the Nizam's feet very well, and looking at the
silken well-crafted shoes, the Nizam gifts 50 acres; the landlord Dora
summons Narsiah, abuses him and confiscates 48 acres of the land
gifted to him.

Narsiah had a son, also named Narsaiah. Junior Narsaiah gets married
at the age of 14 years. The author beautifully describes every detail
of a marriage solemnized in untouchable families. Junior Narsiah's
wife is Abbamma. The son of Junior Narsiah and Abbamma is Ramaswamy,
alias Baliah; the story is based on him.

In those days, cholera used to kill many people in villages. On a day
people die in large number, including the parents of junior Narsiah.
This shocks the couple who leave the village; the Dora's son also
harasses them to take away the two acres of land they possess.

Meanwhile, Abbamma also dies of cholera. Narsiah, with his young son,
Ramaswamy, leaves the village carrying the dead body of his wife on
shoulders. Cremating the dead body of his wife, digging a pit on the
shore of a stream, sets his journey to the maternal uncles of
Ramaswamy.

There Narsiah gets a small job in the Railways and remarries when his
uncles force him. Even after his marriage, Narsiah pays much of his
attention to the motherless Ramaswamy. He even gets a railway job for
his son, and to get the job even changes his name to Balaiah. Baliah
shows more interest in getting education for his children. He
accomplishes his childhood dream of being literate through his
children.

This changes the entire direction of the Yelukati family of
Ramaswamy/Baliah. The children of Baliah go for higher studies in the
universities and become professors; one of them, Dr. Y. B.
Satyanarayana, is the author of this book. This has become possible
because of their migration from the small village.

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, the saviour of the untouchable communities and the
architect of the Indian Constitution, rightly says, "The Indian
village is the very negation of a republic. If it is a republic, it is
a republic of the touchables by the touchables and for the touchables.

The untouchables have no rights. They are only to wait, serve and
submit. In this republic, there is no place for democracy. There is no
room for equality. There is no room for liberty and there is no room
for fraternity."

Every village, as the author rightly points out, has the perfect Hindu
set-up with all the characteristic features as codified by Manu having
two types of dwellings, varna houses and avarna huts separated by
either a boundary or a well- maintained distance. Had Narsiah not
migrated from the village along with his son, the Yelukati Narsiah's
family even today could have been the victim of untouchability and
inhuman caste system.

In this memoir, vital issues like land, migration, education and
employment of Dalits are well narrated. Hazardous jobs in the railways
are always held by Dalits; they work to build the economy of the
country risking their lives.

In the memoirs the narration of a grave accident met by Baliah is the
reflection of thousands of Dalits who meet such accidents and many
times succumb to. This story reminds us of the village and the caste
structure as explained by Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar.


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