Latest News Update: Dec 8, 2009

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

[ZESTCaste] Dalit outfits protest removal of Ambedkar's statue

http://www.ptinews.com/news/414161_Dalit-outfits-protest-removal-of-Ambedkar-s-statue

Dalit outfits protest removal of Ambedkar's statue

STAFF WRITER 19:49 HRS IST
Idukki (Ker), Dec 8 (PTI) A joint forum of Dalit organisations here
has called a dawn-to-dusk strike in the district tomorrow to protest
against removal of a bust of Dr B R Ambedkar in Kattappana near here.

According to the organisers, the bust was removed by Panchayat
authorities yesterday.

Authorities of the civic body, however, said it was put up in a public
land without the prior permission.

They said they had assured the protesters that the statue would be
reinstalled after completing the due procedures.

Leaders of local Dalit outfits, however, said the panchayat's action
amounted to insulting Ambedkar, the architect of the Constitution and
icon of depressed classes in the country.

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[ZESTCaste] Vibrant Gujarat? 98% Dalits have to drink tea in separate cups

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Vibrant-Gujarat-98-Dalits-have-to-drink-tea-in-separate-cups/articleshow/5312335.cms

Vibrant Gujarat? 98% Dalits have to drink tea in separate cups
Vijaysinh Parmar, TNN 8 December 2009, 02:02am IST

Ram Patra

SANAND (Ahmedabad dist): This is the taluka where Tata Motors has
parked its small car project. Nano has become a symbol of Gujarat's
pride and became a centre of attraction at the last Vibrant Gujarat
investment summit in January 2009.

But scratch the surface, and the scene is gloomy beneath this economic
boom in the state. Bhikhabhai Solanki, 50, a native of Lodariyal
village, has never shaken hands with non-Dalits in his life.
Bhikhabhai, an agricultural labourer, is Valmiki by caste - the lowest
of the socially downtrodden. "We are untouchables and nobody touches
us here," he says.

The farmer he works for keeps a tea-cup outside his house. Whenever
Bhikhabhai arrived for work in the morning or leaves after finishing
in the evening, tea is poured into the cup. Strangely, this form of
untouchability goes in the name of religion. These cups are called
'Ram patra'.

The practice thrives across Gujarat, without exception, and has been
documented extensively in a first-of-its-kind study on a large scale,
representing 98,000 Dalits across 1,655 villages in Gujarat. The study
has been carried out by Ahmedabad-based Navsarjan Trust with three
US-based organisations - the Kroc Institute for International Peace
Studies at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, Dartmouth College at
the University of Michigan and Robert F Kennedy Centre for Social
Justice and Human Rights, Washington, D.C.

"This has been going on for generations. The only change is that
earlier there used to be cups made of clay and now they are made of
steel," says Bhikhabhai. He confesses that drinking the tea offered by
his master does hurt his dignity. But then, he does not want to lose
his daily wage because he has to feed five other members of his
family. His daughter-in-law, Ambha, agrees. She points out that she
carries her own utensils to work, but the person who serves the
afternoon meal at the farm drops the food into the plate without
touching it.

In Lodariyal, Dalit women can't touch vegetables at the shop just to
sample them. Only once they pay up, and the money is kept on the side
and not handed over, the vegetables are flung into the hollow of their
saree. The tea stall owner gives tea to Dalits only in disposable
plastic cups. Others get it in ceramic cups.

According to the study, 98 per cent of the respondents said that
non-Dalits keep separate utensils at home to serve them food or tea.
The same discrimination goes only slight down to 96 per cent on farms.

Dalit rights activist Martin Macwan of Navsarjan Trust says: "In every
step of untouchability, the same concept is being applied - that of
purity. Gujarat has only tried to dignify an indignity by calling
these separate utensils as 'Ram patra'".

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[ZESTCaste] Massive Dalit rally demands separate electorate for Dalits

http://twocircles.net/2009dec08/massive_dalit_rally_demands_separate_electorate_dalits.html

Massive Dalit rally demands separate electorate for Dalits
Submitted by admin4 on 8 December 2009 - 2:04pm.
Indian Muslim
By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,

New Delhi: The National Confederation of Dalit Organisations (NACDOR),
which has about 1200 Dalit groups under its umbrella, has demanded the
Central Government to introduce separate electorate for Dalits,
Adivasis and women to ensure their real representation in Lok Sabha.

At a massive rally organized in New Delhi on December 5 NACDOR also
demanded constitutional amendment "to introduce reservation in Rajya
Sabha and make this mandatory to elect members of Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes as per their share in population in the state."

At the end of the daylong rally at Jantar Mantar, the group presented
a charter of demands to the Prime Minister.

Some major demands in the charter include 15% and 7.5% quota for SCs
and STs respectively in public sector undertakings, corporate and
private sectors; establishment of monitoring and vigilance committee
in each district to ensure proper implementation of Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities Act 1989); publication
of annual report by NHRC on violation of human rights of SCs and STs;
establishment of grain banks for food security in all Dalit and
adivasi villages; special housing scheme for Dalits all across the
country and representation of Dalits in Radio, TV and print media
through modifications in HR policies.

The NACDOR opposed restrictions on conversion and demanded religious
freedom to Dalits as well as all citizens of the country. "Religious
freedom is the corner stone of India's constitution and citizens are
free to choose any religion as and when they like. This fundamental
right of the people must be protected and all laws made to nullify
this freedom by different states must be repealed."

Another major demand of the group is proper compensation to SCs and
STs affected by climate change including changing patterns and
reduction of rainfalls, floods, droughts etc.

Mashkoor Alam, a youth from a Dalit Muslim community in Bihar and
attached with NACDOR for years, talks to TCN about his views on Dalit
issues.

"We are here to demand rights for Dalit communities in India
irrespective of their religion," says Mashkoor at the rally.

Asked if as a member of a Dalit Muslim community he demands
reservation for only Dalit Muslims or for the entire Muslim community,
Mashkoor says: The Sachar Report has already pointed out that the
whole Muslim community is marginalized but it is also true that a
section of the community has developed themselves. So what we are
demanding is that Dalit Muslims who have same profession as Dalit
Hindus, should also be given the status of Scheduled Castes – the
status enjoyed by Dalit, Sikh and Buddhist Dalits.

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[ZESTCaste] Rape, murder of Dalit: Couple arrested

http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Rape,+murder+of+Dalit:+Couple+arrested&artid=lommSssr8RE=&SectionID=mvKkT3vj5ZA=&MainSectionID=fyV9T2jIa4A=&SectionName=nUFeEOBkuKw=&SEO=

By Express News Service
08 Dec 2009 04:22:00 AM IST

Rape, murder of Dalit: Couple arrested

BALASORE: Nilagiri police in Balasore district cracked the sensational
rape and murder of a Dalit girl that took place in a temple last month
and arrested a couple today. They were produced in a local court which
remanded them in judicial custody.
Police said the accused Kalandri Das (38) and his wife Labanyamani
(35) had confessed to the crime. On November 14, the girl Swarnalata
Dalai (23) was found raped and murdered on the compound of a local
temple in Banpur village under Nilagiri police limits. According to
the police, Das, a native of Chhada village in Bhadrak district, had
been residing in Banpur village since long and working as a mason.
Though he was married earlier, he again tied the knot with Labanyamani
and had been a neighbour of the victim. "On the fateful day when the
girl was fetching water from the tubewell on the temple premises, Das,
who was drunk, then dragged her into the temple under construction and
raped her. Later the couple strangulated her to death," said SP Rekha
Lohani.
The incident created a sensation in the area when former MLA Chitta
Ranjan Sarangi demanded a Crime Branch probe claiming involvement of a
few students of a local technical school after the police dog entered
the school's hostel during the investigation.
Meanwhile, several Dalit leaders have demanded compensation to the
victim's family. Susil Kumar Singh, secretary of Adibashi Development
Sanskrutik Sanshad, has demanded Rs 1 lakh compensation to the
victim's family. "In 1995, a girl of general caste was gang-raped and
murdered in Nilagiri. Her family was then compensated with Rs 1 lakh
from the Chief Minister's Relief Fund," he said to drive his point
home.

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[ZESTCaste] Casting caste on the world stage

http://www.southasiapost.org/2009/20091031/focus.htm#4

Casting caste on the world stage

Bal Anand

IF the "shoonya" of "Ganit Shashtra" , the concept of "Zero" in the
"science of Numbers/Mathematics" has been often hailed as most
revolutionary contribution of 'ancient' India to the world
civilization, the code of "Varna Ashram Dharma", popularly called
"Jaati Pratha", ordained with scriptural Divine origins, has been
castigated as the single social catastrophe that has indeed 'zeroed'
and bedeviled the Destiny of India. This graded four fold division of
Hindu social polity with the entire paraphernalia of pugnaciously
dehumanising 'Untouchablity' towards a vast majority of those at the
bottom of social order was translated in the 16th century as the
'Caste' System by the Portuguese missionaries. Instead of seeking some
remedies to cure itself of the cancerous wounds of division in society
against resurgent Islam and determined Christian colonists, the caste
ridden Hinduism has been remarkably successful in 'polluting' the
'Foreign' Faiths too with notions of 'Purity' and 'Divine'
discriminations!

The modern era of Independence in 1947 A.D. for this ancient land was
heralded, most intriguingly, with the two "Untouchables" - the so
called Hindu Shudras and the finest products of 'Firanghi' education
ie Dr B.R. Ambedkar & Mr Joginder Nath Mandal, as the Law and Justice
Ministers of India and Pakistan respectively. Ambedkar was
instrumental in crafting the noblest document of governance of free
India incorporating comprehensive legal provision to to root out the
abominable caste based injustice to millions of Indians. Pakistan and
later Bangladesh have followed different paths of their own in their
governance and socio-economic development. The deeper civilizational
wounds of Caste based discrimination have, however, continued to bleed
across Indus, Ganges, Padma, Kaveri, Godavari and at the lofty heights
of Himalayas. So when on September 16, during the session of the UN
Human Rights Council in Geneva, Nepalese Foreign Minister Jeet Bahadur
Gautam chose to break ranks with 'Hindu Consensus', saying that his
country welcomed the idea mooted by the UNHRC document to involve,
"regional and international mechanism, the UN and its organs" to
complement national efforts to combat caste discrimination, the move
by the UNHRC was denounced by the Hinduttva elements as, 'an
irresponsible act of subverting Indian democratic and cultural
institutions...smacks of Church influence to undermine India's Hindu
heritage'! It was also interpreted as a blow to the official stand of
India to block mention of caste in the category of, 'discrimination
based on work and descent.'

Why has India been evasive and in a mode of denial on the issues of
caste based discrimination being raised in the fora of the UN? The
statement made by the Indian Delegate on August 8, 2002 in the
"Informal Discussion on 'Descent' in the Committee on the Elimination
of Racial Discrimination" is indeed perceptively revealing of a mind
set. Referring to 'the situation faced by a particularly vulnerable
section of our society', the Delegate hectors, "Our Constitution
recognises both the fact of this discrimination and of the imperative
of redressing the situation ... one of the first acts of the
Government when India became independent was to outlaw this abhorrent
practice (Untouchablity) ... ' The disappointment of those who wish
that 'our laws are better implemented' is shared adding, 'Transforming
a society that has evolved its customs and practices over millennia,
and has been shaped in turn by those practices, takes time.' It is
emphatically added that term 'descent' in Convention refers to 'racial
descent' and that the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are unique
to Indian Society and its historical process - and do not fall under
the purview of Article 1 of the International Convention on the
Elimination of Racial Discrimination (ICERD).

The eminent Indian and Western Sociologists and the increasing tribe
of scholar-activists of "Dalitology" have seriously engaged themselves
in 'unraveling' the roots and branches of this most puzzlingly unjust
practice of condemning such a large number of people to 'an
enslavement of soul, mind and body' attributed to birth in certain
social groups. The systematic effort by the British colonial
administration at categorisation and ranking of the entire Hindu
population within the theoretical Varna Scheme for the purpose of
decennial census since 1901 spurred a scramble for the reclaiming of
the Untouchable Castes through reform movements by Hinduism, Sikhism
and Islam and conversions by resourceful Christian missionaries. The
emergence of leaders of the caliber and vision of E.V.R. Naicker, Dr
B.R. Ambedkar, J.N. Mandal, etc. from within the ranks of so called
Lower Castes, not to speak of the far reaching Harijan agenda adopted
by Gandhi Ji altered the entire spectrum of the 'Jaati Pratha' of
Hinduism sustained since ages. Dr Ambedkar had to wage single handedly
the grimmest struggle to be the greatest emancipator in human history,
whatever the motivated Brahaman-scholars of the ilk of Arun Shourie
might write masquerading as historians. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
has indeed been a man of honour and integrity to compare caste system
to 'religiously' applied Apartheid.

Indians, beginning with Jawaharlal Nehru,have always had a fascination
and magnetic attraction towards the UNO and other multilateral forums
-the list of UN Pensioners bafflingly includes so many among the top
who's who of the government of India. India's experience of J&K in the
UN would, however, seem to have caused a deeper suspicion and a
pathological allergy for any matter concerning itself to be raised in
the UNO. Udit Raj of the Dalit based Justice Party has welcomed the
UNHRC move stating that Indian Government should have courage to
accept the reality of the problem and that global attention should
lead to an increase in aid and government spending to improve
opportunities for Dalits in India. The segregation of places of
worship on the caste lines by the Indians settled abroad and the
recent brutal murder of an 'Untouchable' 'Guru' Ramanand Dass in
Vienna, the city of harmony in the heart of Europe, sadly reflect
'globalisation' of caste, calling for international efforts too to
stem the tide of evil.

During the last two decades, the political fallout of the caste
conundrum on the character of the much touted 'largest democracy' of
the world, has been of nuclear proportions. The management of
caste-divides with a just & fair deal for those who have been
civilizationally demeaned and still remain woefully on the margins of
'shining India' has become the single greatest challenge for all those
engaged in the realisation dream of an egalitarian and caste
'castrated' India. Ravi Dass, the celebrated medieval cobbler saint
poet, has proclaimed:

Jaat paat ke pher Manh, urjh rahai sab log.
Manushta kun khaat huee, Ravi Dass jaat kar rog.
Jaat, jaat mein jaat hai, jiyon kelan ke paat.
Ravi Dass na manush jurh saken, jau tau jaat, naa jaat.
All are caught in the vice grip of castes.
Ravi Das, humanity has been finished, by the cancer of caste.
Caste, and caste within caste, like the barks of banana tree;
O Ravi Das,never would humanity be united, until the caste is cast out.

All those who love India to be united and strong would listen to what
the saint poet proclaimed centuries ago!

[The writer is former diplomat]

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