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Monday, December 21, 2009

[ZESTCaste] Dalits welcome HC’s quota verdict

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Dalits+welcome+HC%E2%80%99s+quota+verdict&artid=B/HGeMrqvSM=&SectionID=lifojHIWDUU=&MainSectionID=wIcBMLGbUJI=&SectionName=rSY%7C6QYp3kQ=&SEO=

By Express News Service
21 Dec 2009 02:58:00 AM IST

Dalits welcome HC's quota verdict

CHENNAI: The recent judgment of the Madras High Court reaffirming
reservations in promotion for SCs/STs in Central Government services
till the level of General Manager has gladdened the hearts of the many
who had for long been deprived of this benefit.
Even though this was a constitutional right granted to them by Article
16 (4-A) of the 77th Constitutional Amendment Act 1995, this was not
implemented anywhere in India.
Justice Elipe Dharma Rao passed this judgment on December 9 on a
petition filed by E Kandeeban, Employee of Union Bank of India, in
1997 and along with SC/ST unions of four other banks (UCO Bank, Canara
Bank, Syndicate Bank and Central Bank). This is a long-drawn battle of
12 years with appeals and writs. Even when the Constitution bench of
the Supreme Court upheld the validity of Article 16(A-4) in 2006, it
remained only on paper.
The government had failed to implement the ruling by passing an office
memorandum to this effect.
Speaking at the meeting of the All India Confederation of SC/ST
Organization - Tamil Nadu Branch, Kanbeedan, a petitioner in this case
said, "At present reservation in promotion for SCs/STs is only from
peon to clerk and to entry level officer. Now this judgement takes the
reservation in promotion till scale 7, that it is up General Manager
(GM) in any government organization that includes both State and
Central government."
Christu Das Gandhi, IAS, Chairman of Tamil Nadu Energy Development
Agency (TEDA), and also a vocal voice for Dalits, said, "All this
while those who were supposed to implement were citing the 1991 Mandal
judgment that reservation for SC/ST ends with appointment and Article
16(4-A) is only an enabling Article not a mandatory provision, but
this judgment categorically changes all that, making it mandatory."
Though statistics were not available there were scores of Scheduled
Caste/Scheduled Tribe vacancies kept unfilled in all sectors, was the
strong voice that emerged at the meeting.

feedback@expressbuzz.com

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[ZESTCaste] Udit Raj agitation gets support in Mussoorie

http://www.garhwalpost.com/index.php?mod=article&cat=Uttarakhand&article=4879

Udit Raj agitation gets support in Mussoorie
Sunday, 20.12.2009, 11:52am (GMT+5.5)

By AJAY RAMOLA
MUSSOORIE, 19 Dec: RSD members have come out in support of Chairman,
All India Confederation of SC/ST Organisations, National President,
Indian Justice Party, Member, National Integration Council, Dr Udit
Raj, who has been fasting unto death at the Jantar Mantar in Delhi for
the last 4 days demanding reservations in the private sector and
enactment of the Reservation Act, abolition of contract labour system
in Government services - in the matter of recruitment from clerks to
safai karamcharis.
He also wants caste certificates issued by one state to be held valid
in all the states, the price rise to be checked, reservations in the
higher judiciary and Army be introduced, filling up of the back-log
vacancies be expedited, land be given to the landless and reservation
in government contracts be introduced immediately.
He also wants Dr Ambedkar's statues to be installed in all the NTPC
projects at prominent places.
The Rashtriya Seva Dal National Secretary Jabbar Bhai, speaking
exclusively to GP, here, extended full support of Dr Udit Raj.
Jabbar Bhai said that all these demands raised by him were of vital
interest to Dalits and to the nation. Jabbar Bhai also said that, if
need be, he would also go to Delhi in support of Dr Udit Raj's
agitation at the Jantar Mantar. Associations of SC-ST employees under
the banner of the Confederation as well as the Indian Justice Party
have been sitting on dharna since 19 November in Delhi.

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Sunday, December 20, 2009

[ZESTCaste] Dalit leader Kamble goes missing

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Dalit-leader-Kamble-goes-missing/556641

Dalit leader Kamble goes missing

Express News Service Posted online: Sunday , Dec 20, 2009 at 0137 hrs

Mumbai : Author and Former Bharatiya Dalit Panthers leader and Marathi
professor in the Mumbai University, Arun Kamble, has reportedly gone
missing from Hyderabad since December 14, where he had gone for a
function. Mumbai chief of the RPI, (Athawale faction) Gautam Sonawane
said Kamble had gone out of his hotel for a walk and had not returned.
Kamble's family has met Athawale and sought his help to find him, he
said. A complaint has been filed with Saifabad police station.

Kamble, 56, was a senior activist of the Dalit Panthers in '70s and
later formed the Bharatiya Dalit Panthers with Athwale after the
Panthers split on ideological issues.

Kamble was active during the movement to demand renaming of Marathwada
University after Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar.

Kamble is known for his books on Ramayana (in which he wrote about the
cultural conflicts), Ambedkar's conversion and the Dalit movement. He
had also been associated with V P Singh and had joined the Janata Dal.
He was once the Janata Dal state general secretary.

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[ZESTCaste] Kerala's So Called Dalit Terror: How A Dalit Minister Turns Against His Own Community

http://countercurrents.org/bhaskar171209.htm

Kerala's So Called Dalit Terror: How A Dalit Minister Turns Against
His Own Community

By B.R.P Bhaskar

17 December, 2009
Gulf Today

The fate of a set of proposals sent to the Kerala government by the
State Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Commission illustrates how
the political establishment scuttles efforts to address the problems
of the weaker sections.

The commission, headed by PK Sivanandan, a former IAS officer,
received on Oct.6 a complaint from VV Selvaraj, chairman of Dalit
Human Rights Movement, alleging police atrocities against the
organisation's supporters in Varkala. It also received a petition
signed by 536 Dalit women containing the same allegation.

The commission forwarded the complaints to the Chief Secretary, the
Director General of Police and the Secretaries to the Home and
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Welfare departments. It received
no response from any of them.

Varkala was the scene of a dastardly murder on Sept.23. The victim was
a person named Sivaprasad with no known affiliation. Within hours of
the murder, the police said DHRM members had killed him to proclaim
the organisation's strength.

Police swooped on Dalit colonies and arrested many DHRM workers.
However, it has still not filed a charge-sheet in the murder case.

On Oct.21, the commission visited Varkala and gathered evidence
directly from all concerned. It went to the Dalit colonies and spoke
to both supporters and opponents of DHRM. It found the police version
of events suspect and the testimony of DHRM supporters credible.

In the report, approved on Oct.29, the commission specially drew
attention to the evidence of two women. One of them was a pregnant
woman, who said police had taken her in a jeep and abandoned her on
the roadside. The other was the mother of Das, DHRM organising
secretary. She said the deputy superintended of police (DySP),
Attingal, had taken her son to the police station and tortured him
after a magistrate had remanded him to judicial custody.

The commission referred to the high-handed action of the circle
inspector in locking the house of an arrested person and walking away
with the key, denying his mother and sister access to their dwelling.

The key was returned to the family a day before the commission's visit
after the chairman took up the case with the superintendent of police.

During the visit to the Thoduve colony, noting the prevailing tension,
the commission's chairman directed the police superintendent to set up
a picket there to prevent anti-social elements from taking advantage
of the situation.

The report pointed out that if the police had taken adequate security
measures, the clash on Oct.27 in which several women were injured
could have been averted.

To put an end to the continuing strife, the commission suggested a
visit to the colony by a high-powered government team, preferably
under the leadership of the Chief Minister. It also proposed the
formation of a committee comprising officials and elected
representatives at the local level to maintain constant vigil.

The commission asked the government to order an impartial inquiry into
the charges against the police, keeping the DySP and the Circle
Inspector and Sub-Inspector of Varkala away.

The commission noted that many residents of Thoduve were living in
tenements put up on government land. It proposed that they be given
preferential treatment under the EMS housing scheme and rehabilitated.

Seven weeks have passed since the report was sent to AK Balan,
Minister for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Welfare, with
copies to the Chief Minister, the Home Minister and a host of
officials. So far there has been no action on the basis of its
recommendations.

Inquiries have revealed that Balan, who is himself a Dalit, turned
down the proposal for a visit to Thoduve by a team headed by the chief
minister, saying it was impractical. He termed the proposal for
rehabilitation of the colony residents also as impractical. He
effectively killed the proposal for an impartial inquiry into the
police conduct by referred it to the DGP.

The government's inaction reflects the ruling establishment's callous
attitude towards the problems of the Dalits, who have been victims of
discrimination for centuries. Since DHRM has been propagating the view
that all established parties have betrayed the Dalits, it has invited
the enmity of the entire political spectrum.

A campaign waged by DHRM has weaned away a large number of Dalits away
from liquor and drugs. It has endeared the organisation to Dalit women
but earned it the wrath of the drug mafia and those in its pay.-

Gulf Today, Sharjah, December 14, 2009

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[ZESTCaste] A study of inclusiveness in Indian polity

http://www.organiser.org/dynamic/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=323&page=22

Home > 2009 Issues > December 27, 2009

A study of inclusiveness in Indian polity
By Jayant Patel

Politics of Inclusion: Castes, Minorities and Affirmative Action, Zoya
Hasan, Oxford University Press, Pp 302, Rs 675.00 (HB)

India is one of the few countries in the post-colonial world to have
taken up the challenge of building an inclusive democracy in a highly
diverse, multicultural, multilingual and multi-religious society. The
establishment of democracy and universal adult suffrage in a
hierarchical society characterised by unprecedented social inequality,
deprivation and oppression has been a revolutionary principle, a bold
experiment in political affairs – perhaps the most significant in a
country. Nearly 60 years after Independence, India remains a major
success story in respect of democracy and social inclusion,
essentially due to the importance given to equality and social justice
as the cardinal principles of contemporary political life.

The author says that the government has taken measures like
reservations in government jobs for the OBCs in order to handle the
caste question. But she laments that over the last decade or so,
questions of inter-group equality and minority participation in the
economy and polity within the framework of governance and development
have not been adequately attended to. So she chooses to focus on
comparison of the disparate experiences of lower castes and religious
minorities and how these have shaped the politics of inclusion.

The first chapter of the book also examines the prevailing definition
of social backwardness and the criteria of affirmative action in the
context of evidence of disparity and deprivation of groups beyond
castes. It explores both the historical and contemporary contexts of
the strategies of inclusion. It says that an analysis of the situation
in terms of progress of minorities can be useful in assessing the
effectiveness of existing strategies and policies.

The book explores how the State in post-colonial India addressed the
question of discrimination and exclusion suffered by disadvantaged
groups, notably the Scheduled Castes and religious minorities. In
particular it explains the policy of framework in relation to these
groups and the divergences in policy and consequences of this for the
protection of the disadvantaged. It attempts to delineate the policies
as well as changes in the constellation of policies for these two
groups while arguing that the "well-being of minorities has suffered
due to a greater lack of attention to issues of institutionalised
inequality and deprivation than is commonly supposed."

It goes on to examine the extension of reservation to the OBCs and the
rationale of reservation in relation to the debate over the
desirability and flexibility of reservation to them. The book outlines
the political context of the mergence of the backward-caste
reservation issue in the 1970s and 1980s, culminating in the
implementation of the Mandal Commission recommendations on OBC
reservations from 1994 onwards. Another segment devoted to the field
of higher education in the context of the economic reforms and the
growing importance of technical and professional education in the new
economy.

The book concludes asking for a re-examination of the framework of
affirmative action in the context of the demands for substantive
equality of minorities. What the author wants is that since rapid
economic and social changes in the past 15 years along with failure of
economic growth to trickle down has led to increased inequalities, a
revision of the whole system with the Indian State addressing the
issues of under-representation and socio-economic disadvantage of
minorities.

On reading this book one gets the impression that the author is
essentially concerned with offer of greater political and
socio-economic powers to the Muslims, under the pretext of fighting
for the cause of other minorities.

(Oxford University Press, YMCA Library Building, Jai Singh Road, New
Delhi-110 001.)

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Monday, December 21, 2009

[ZESTCaste] Dalits welcome HC’s quota verdict

[ZESTCaste] Udit Raj agitation gets support in Mussoorie

Sunday, December 20, 2009

[ZESTCaste] Dalit leader Kamble goes missing

[ZESTCaste] Kerala's So Called Dalit Terror: How A Dalit Minister Turns Against His Own Community

[ZESTCaste] A study of inclusiveness in Indian polity

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