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Wednesday, February 15, 2012

[ZESTCaste] Uthapuram castes away ugly past

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-02-15/madurai/31062903_1_muthalamman-villagers-uthapuram

Uthapuram castes away ugly past
TNN Feb 15, 2012, 11.54AM IST

MADURAI: Tuesday's move by both dalit and non-dalit communities in
Uthapuram to withdraw cases filed against each other during the years
of animosity marks the success of a series of initiatives by the
police and revenue officials backed by villagers to break with the
past.

Representatives from non-dalit Pillai and dalit Pallar communities -
Marimuthu, Murugesan, Ponniah, Sankaralingam along with K Aadhimoolam
and Chinmaya Somasundar, who were coordinating the peace process said
that the 50-year-long caste issue between these two communities was
amicably settled on October 20, 2011 after an eight-point agreement
was signed between both parties.

As the first step, the temple entry was scheduled on November 10, 2011
where Pallars were taken into Muthalamman temple administered by
Pillais.

Now, they have asked the district police to withdraw cases filed
against each other because they are burdened with a series of cases
and struggling to lead a peaceful life, the villagers said. Murugesan,
leader of Pillai community said that what they need is a peaceful life
and welfare measures for the village. "We have approached the
government for the same, seeking welfare measures like construction of
road, bus shelter and other facilities which will aid the
reconciliation process," he said.

B Balanagadevi, DIG, Madurai Range and Garg, who addressed reporters
later said that the villagers have approached the police department
requesting to withdraw the cases pending against them.

"The villagers have requested us to withdraw the case pending against
them and we will expedite their request as per the regular procedure,"
Balanagadevi said.

Commenting on the road which was the major issue between the two
parties, Garg said that the people from both communities are using the
road after the agreement was signed. "They are demanding that the road
be widened for the vehicular movement and there are small
encroachments as well. We are taking the necessary measures to ensure
that the reconciliation process goes on smooth," he said.

Uthapuram residents' bold step to break caste barriers and build a new
community that subsumes age-old caste heirachies could serve as a role
model for other such villages.

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[ZESTCaste] Dalit trap: The undoing of Maya?

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Specials/Coverage/Assembly-Elections-2012/Chunk-HT-UI-AssemblyElections2012-UP-Strategy/Dalit-trap-The-undoing-of-Maya/SP-Article10-811544.aspx

Dalit trap: The undoing of Maya?
Varghese K George, Hindustan Times
Lucknow, February 14, 2012

"Mayawati's government has been as good or as bad as all governments
have been," Keval Singh says. After some initial
evasion, someone finally declares: "We had voted for BSP in 2007, but
not this time."

It is not unusual for a particular group to switch loyalty between two
elections, but the discontent among Kushwahas with the BSP in Saidpur
is illustrative of a huge tactical disadvantage that incumbent chief
minister Mayawati faces in constituencies reserved for Scheduled
Castes.

"It was in these constituencies that Mayawati had won the 2007
elections; and now, it is here that her rainbow social coalition is
threatening to unravel," says Rajesh Singh, a political scientist
based in Gorakhpur.

In 2007, it was in SC constituencies that the Brahmin-Dalit core of
Maya's social rainbow played out in its full strength — as no other
party could put up a Brahmin candidate, the community voted in full
strength for the Dalit put up by the BSP. Others gravitated towards
this combination easily and the victory was phenomenal — BSP won 62 of
89 SC seats, nearly one third of its total tally of 206.

As the Brahmins are showing clear signs of abandoning Mayawati, her
toughest battle is in these constituencies — where the candidate is
Dalit but there is no other caste strength to add on to it. The
increased militancy and consolidation among her core voters is
visible— but is evidently not good enough, as her own supporters
admit. "Dalits of all castes would mostly vote for BSP, but all others
will vote against it," says Manish Gautam, an articulate, 18-year-old
Dalit boy, who has been recently recruited by the Indian Air Force.

Until Mayawati's Dalit-Brahmin coalition trumped it in 2007, the
Samajwadi Party had been doing well in SC constituencies — in 2002
assembly election, the SP had 34, while the BSP had only 24. Between
2002 and 2007, the BSP's overall number of seats went up by 100%, but
its SC seats went up by 250%. In 2009 Lok Sabha elections — by when
already the rainbow coalition was weakening — of the total 23 seats
won by the SP, 10 were reserved.

While the SP is hoping such natural factors to play out, the Congress
has started 'Mission-85,' a special drive focusing on reserved seats —
four less than in 2007 — after delimitation of constituencies.

Led by IAS-officer-turned Congress MP BL Punia and young Dalit face
Ashok Tanwar MP, a special task force has been deployed in the SC
constituencies. "Dalit candidates are not well versed with techniques
of electioneering. We are supporting them in that," says Tanwar. "We
will get at least 40 of the reserved seats," claims Punia.

In Saidpur, the consolidation against the BSP seems to be favouring
the SP. The gainers can be different across constituencies; but there
appears to be only one loser.

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[ZESTCaste] Odisha urges AIIMS to depute a neurologist for Pipili victim

http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/odisha-urges-aiims-to-depute-a-neurologist-for-pipili-victim/963875.html

Odisha urges AIIMS to depute a neurologist for Pipili victim
PTI | 05:02 PM,Feb 15,2012

Bhubaneswar, Feb 15 (PTI) As health condition of the alleged dalit
rape and attempt to murder victim of Pipili continued to remain
critical, Odisha government had requested the All India Institute of
Medical Science (AIIMS), New Delhi to depute a neurologist for further
examination, official sources said today. The condition of the
19-year-old girl, who had been treated at the ICU of the SCB Medical
College Hospital in Cuttack since January first week, did not improve
despite best efforts of the doctors of the hospital, the state
government said in a letter to the director of the AIIMS. The girl,
who was in semi-coma stage, was allegedly raped and attempts were made
to kill her at Arjungada village under Pipili Police Station area on
November 28, 2011. She was admitted to the SCBMCH following an order
of the Orissa High Court. The state government also mentioned in the
letter that the director of National Commission for Scheduled Castes,
Dr Divakar Basak during his recentt visit, had called for the service
of a neurologist from the AIIIMS, New Dlhi for providing better
medical care to the victim. So far three commissions like NCSC,
National Commission for Women (NCW) and the State Commission for Women
(SCW) have separately undertaken probe into the alleged rape and
attempt to murder case involving the teenaged girl. The SCW, which had
submitted its enquiry report to the state government, blamed the
doctors for the worsening health condition of the dalit girl, while
NCSC director expressed his displeasure over the treatement of the
victim during initial days.

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[ZESTCaste] Dalit millionaires defy caste system

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/NB16Df02.html

Feb 16, 2012

Dalit millionaires defy caste system
By Sudha Ramachandran

BANGALORE - India's Dalits (former Untouchables), whose growing
electoral influence has been visible for some years, are beginning to
slowly reveal their economic muscle. A miniscule but expanding group
of first-generation Dalit entrepreneurs has thrown up some
millionaires.

This has triggered debate on the role that economic liberalization has
played in changing their fortunes.

According to the Dalit Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DICCI), there
are over 30 Dalit crorepatis (one whose net wealth exceeds a crore or
10 million rupees - roughly US$205,400) in the country.

While the number of crorepatis is exceedingly small especially since
there are around 170 million Dalits in India, the success

Dilbert
mute

stories - most of them are tales of rags to riches - indicate that in
the new India, Dalits can begin hoping to figure in Fortune's list of
millionaires.

Dalits are at the bottom of India's millennia-old caste hierarchy.
They have suffered intense discrimination for centuries, excluded from
education and public life and allowed employment only in "dirty" jobs
such as cleaning toilets, skinning cows, digging graves, etc. So dirty
were Dalits in the eyes of the upper castes that even the shadow of a
Dalit falling on an upper-caste person was considered to be polluting.

Consequently, Dalits lived far away from upper-caste settlements.
Dalit villages were located so that the air from there would not blow
into upper caste homes. They were not allowed into restaurants,
temples or other public places. They were forbidden from carrying
umbrellas, wearing footwear, shirts or sunglasses.

Although in 1950, Independent India banned the practice of
"Untouchability" ie the social, physical and political exclusion of
Dalits, and followed it up with the Prevention of Atrocities Act in
1989 and sought to improve literacy and economic well-being of the
community through quotas in education and government employment,
Dalits continue to suffer severe discrimination and are targets of
horrific violence unleashed by dominant castes.

Dalits constitute the overwhelming majority of India's poor,
illiterate and hungry. A mere 30.1% of Dalits are literate today
compared with the Indian average of 75%. Discrimination against Dalit
children in schools forces them to drop out; the Dalit dropout rate is
almost 50%. Dalits constitute the bulk of India's landless laborers,
its unemployed and underpaid. In India, cleaning of toilets is still a
task that only Dalits do.

It is the context of continuing exclusion and ill-treatment of Dalits
that makes the emergence and rise of Dalit capitalists all the more
spectacular.

In the two decades since India began liberalizing its economy, the
number of millionaires and billionaires in the country has grown
phenomenally. In 2011, India had 55 (dollar) billionaires, six more
than the previous year. Two Indians figure among the 10 richest in the
world.

The emergence of Dalit millionaires is a far more dramatic development
than that of millionaires in other communities. After all most of them
are first generation illiterates.

Take Ashok Khade, for instance. Born in a mud hut in Ped village in
Maharashtra, Khade belonged to a family of Chamars, a Dalit subcaste
that is among the lowest in the caste hierarchy. One of six children
of a poor, illiterate cobbler, Khade's childhood was the typical Dalit
story of exclusion.

As a young adult, he worked at the dockyard by day and studied for a
diploma in engineering by night, sleeping under staircases as he could
not afford to pay rent for a home. Today, the 56-year-old is a
millionaire, heading the $100-million DAS Offshore Engineering, an oil
rig engineering company with 4,500 people on its payrolls.

Most of the Dalit millionaires have similar stories tell. Their rise
to riches was against all odds.

By setting up their own enterprises and investing capital in them,
Dalit entrepreneurs are signaling that they are not averse to risk.
Several are unwilling to take a chance on discrimination by their
dominant caste colleagues. Aware of the reality out there, some have
changed or dropped their surnames if these reveal their Dalit origin.

The successful entrepreneurs now they want to help others in the community.

Some are hiring Dalits in their companies. They are also trying to
remove hurdles that they encountered when they were starting off as
aspiring entrepreneurs.

One such hurdle is access to capital. Although there are government
institutions such as the National Scheduled Caste Finance and
Development Corporation, that extends loans to Dalits, these loans are
small and given in installments. Besides, existing funding mechanisms
are largely against collateral. This means they are beyond the reach
of a large number of aspiring Dalit entrepreneurs, DICCI's chairman
Milind Kamble pointed out.

This prompted DICCI to set up a US$100 million venture capital fund
for Dalits last year that is scheduled to open up for business in a
few months. Several Dalit millionaires including Khade and Kamble have
contributed to this fund.

Another body which has pitched in to help aspiring Dalit entrepreneurs
is the Confederation of Indian Industry. Last year it agreed to work
with DICCI to increase sourcing of goods and services from Dalit
entrepreneurs by 10-20%.

The success of some Dalit entrepreneurs, their entry into the
exclusive millionaire club is often attributed to opportunities opened
up by economic liberalization.

A recent study by the Center for the Advanced Study of India of the
University of Pennsylvania covering 19,071 Dalit households in Bilaria
Ganj block in Azamgarh district and Khurja block in Bulandshahr
district (both in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh) found that
Dalit lifestyles have undergone "massive changes" since 1990.

In terms of asset ownership, for instance, between 1990 and 2007, the
proportion of Dalit households in the sample with a television set
jumped from 0.9% to 22% in Azamgarh and 0.7% to 45% in Bulandshahr.
The study found a "very substantial improvement in housing" with 64.4%
and 94.6% in Azamgarh and Bulandshahr respectively reporting they now
live in pakka (concrete) housing compared to 18.1% and 38.4%
respectively in 1990.

Many are unwilling to attribute the improvement in the Dalit situation
to economic liberalization. "Behavioral and lifestyle changes are
natural with time and circumstances," Vivek Kumar, sociology professor
at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, told The Mint, a
business daily.

Others argue that the Dalit situation has in fact worsened with the
state increasingly pulling out of health, education, etc since 1990.
Denied of subsidies and safety nets that were available pre-1990,
Dalits are running into huge debts to pay for healthcare or worse.

Analysts like P Sainath have drawn attention to economic
liberalization's impact for India's poorest, the bulk of who are
Dalits. This impact has been brutal especially for those in
agriculture, which is where most Dalits are employed. Over the past 15
years, over a quarter million farmers - most of them are likely to be
Dalits - have committed suicide on account of mounting debt.

Thus not all of India's Dalits have any reason to celebrate
liberalization. In fact the majority are not. The phenomenon of Dalit
millionaires after all is hardly representative of the Dalit reality.

While liberalization of India's economy has facilitated the emergence
of Dalit millionaires, the significant role of literacy and political
empowerment - the rise of Dalit politics coincided with liberalization
- cannot be ignored. A common feature of the Dalit millionaires is
that they have had some education.

While education provided the foundation, liberalization opened up opportunity.

Sudha Ramachandran is an independent journalist/researcher based in
Bangalore. She can be reached at sudha98@hotmail.com

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[ZESTCaste] Protest human sacrifice of a dalit worker

Protest human sacrifice of a dalit worker

NARABALI VIRODHI VEDIKE

BENGALURU

PRESS
STATEMENT

14 FEBRUARY 2012

The human sacrifice that took place at Thirumaladevara Koppa in
Ranebennuru taluk of Haveri district on 26 November 2011 has already
drawn the attention of the people allover the state. A 17 year old dalit
boy by name Basavaraja Kadimani was sacrificed to set right Vastu Dosha of
the house of Basavanagowda of the same village. Basavaraja was working
with Basavanagowda , a land lord. as a tractor driver. In fact almost all
the members of his family had worked for the land lord at one time or the
other in the past.

Nijalinga swamy, popularly known as Tatu Ajja of Niralagi near Gadag used
to visit Basavanagowda very often . Under his guidance the land lord had
already performed many rituals on various occasions. On 26th November,
2012 Basavaraja went to his master's place at night and did not return.
Next day early in the morning the members of his family, father, mother
and elder brother were informed by the police of Haligeri police station
that Basavaraja had been injured in a fight with Ninganagowda, the son of
Basavanagowda and had been hospitalized. The police took them not the
hospital, but to the police station where they told them that their boy had
been killed and not just injured. They were brought to a spot near their
village where they saw a gunny sack containing the dead body of Basavaraj.
The body bore marks of vermilion and turmeric . It also had a hole on the
forehead. An eye had been plucked out and a few teeth ere missing. The
parents and others suspected that it was a case of sacrifice and
complained to the police on those grounds. But the police did not register
it as case of sacrifice but continued to maintain that it was only a
murder . Later on the villagers also found traces of blood sprinkled all
over around the house. When the police opened the doors of the house nearly
50 days after the incident blood marks were also found inside the
building. Still the police were not ready to consider the angle of human
sacrifice in this case. Ninganagowda , the son of Basavanagowda had
surrendered to the police saying that he had killed Basavaraja.

Members of Peoples' Democratic Forum and Swabhimani Dalita Shakti visited
the village on 9th January 2012 met the villagers including the parents
and relatives of Basavaraja and also the police officer(Dy S P of
Ranebennuru) investigating the case. We found that in spite of the
evidence and complaint by the parents the police are not ready to consider
the angle of human sacrifice seriously. They have been insisting that it
was only a murder committed by Ninganagowda suspecting illicit relationship
between Basavaraja and his (Ninganagowda's) wife which on verificatio does
not sound credible. The people of the village and also various other
progressive elements of the area held a protest rally and demonstration at

Ranebennuru on 30th January 2012 to press the demand to consider it as not
merely a murder but as human sacrifice. It is only then that the sorcerer,
Tatu Ajja's role will be exposed. It is essential not merely to find out
the truth but also to prevent any recurrence of such superstitious
practices in future. But some how the police of Ranebennuru are not
prepared to move in that direction . This will only protect the sorcerer
and the head of the family Basavanagowda.

Already an application has been made to the State Human Rights Commission
and an appeal to the honourable governor of Karnataka has been submitted
through the Tahasildar of Ranebennuru.

Demands:

1)The police of Ranebennuru should take the complaint of the parents of
Basavaraj seriously and treat it as a case of human sacrifice.

2)In case of the local police failing to do so the case should be handed
over to the CBI by the state government.

3)The sorcerer Tatu Ajja and the head of the family Basavanagowda who was
responsible for the murder/sacrifice should be arrested.

3)Compensation should be paid to the family according to rules existing in
such cases.

Shivalingam

(Swabhimani Dalita Shakti)

Nagari Babaiah

(People's Democratic Forum)

Nagaragere Ramesh

(Peoples' Democratic Form)

Kranti Govind

(Swabhimani Dalita Shakti)

Ramadas Rao

(P U C L)

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Wednesday, February 15, 2012

[ZESTCaste] Uthapuram castes away ugly past

[ZESTCaste] Dalit trap: The undoing of Maya?

[ZESTCaste] Odisha urges AIIMS to depute a neurologist for Pipili victim

[ZESTCaste] Dalit millionaires defy caste system

[ZESTCaste] Protest human sacrifice of a dalit worker

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