Friday, May 7, 2010

[ZESTCaste] Men who wrote the verdict

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Men-who-wrote-the-verdict/Article1-540754.aspx

Men who wrote the verdict

May 07, 2010
First Published: 22:15 IST(7/5/2010)
Last Updated: 22:17 IST(7/5/2010)


Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan was the first Dalit to hold
this high office.

Upon being appointed as a Supreme Court judge on June 8, 2000, the CJI
delivered some important judgments on constitutional issues such as
reservation for the OBCs in higher educational institutions.

Balakrishnan retires on May 11 and upheld the government's control
over pricing of gas in the Ambani brothers' dispute.


Justice P Sathasivam, who wrote the majority judgment favoring the
government, was enrolled as an advocate on July 25, 1973 at Madras.

As an advocate he argued civil cases, criminal matters, company
petitions, insolvency petitions, habeas corpus petitions.

He was appointed as the Madras high court judge on January 8, 1996 and
to the Punjab & Haryana High Court in April 2007. He was elevated to
the SC on August 21, 2007.


Justice B Sudershan Reddy differed with the bench hearing the case on
the issue of the legal status of the memorandum of understanding.

Unlike the other members, including the CJI, Justice Reddy said the
MoU has no sanctity and is not binding.
Justice Reddy was appointed as Andhra Pradesh high court judge in May 1995.

He was appointed as chief justice of the Guwahati High Court in
December 2005 and was elevated to the SC in 2007.


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[ZESTCaste] Dalits cremated, situation still tense in Hisar

 

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/dalits-cremated-situation-still-tense-in-hisar/113873-3.html

Dalits cremated, situation still tense in Hisar
Jyoti Kamal, CNN-IBNPosted on Apr 24, 2010 at 10:53

Hisar: Mirchpur in Haryana's Hisar has been simmering for the last two
days after a 17-year-old polio-stricken girl and her 70-year-old
father Tara Chand, both Dalits, were burnt to death by upper caste
Jats. Now the blackened walls, a disabled girl's cycle, charred
clothes are the mute witness to the horror story of 17-year-old Suman.
Angry villagers, initially, didn't allow the bodies to be moved. But
now the bodies have been finally cremated and some normalcy has
returned.

"What do I have left? Where do I go? My children are asking me to
bring them their father. Where do I get him from? Government has done
nothing to get us justice," says Tara Chand's wife Kamla.

"The Chief Minister has only given us assurances. He hasn't done
anything to get us justice," says Tara Chand's son Amar Pal.

Dalits from Hissar and other parts of Haryana also want cases
registered against a DSP, an SHO, a tehsildar and others. They claim
the police did nothing when Dalit houses were being burnt down. Cases
have now been registered against the police officials.

Dalit leaders are stroking the flames, saying Dalits are being
targeted by the powerful. The upper caste Jats say they are being
needlessly implicated.

"The SHO has been suspended. The guilty will not be spared," assures
Haryana Chief Minister BS Hooda.

Cases for murder and attempt to murder have been registered against 35
upper caste members.

Even though Suman and her father have been cremated, but the big
question everyone is asking is will Haryana move forward in time to
ensure fair play for all or will social disparities continue to breed
violence.

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[ZESTCaste] LJP supports caste-based census

 

http://www.ptinews.com/news/643769_LJP-supports-caste-based-census

LJP supports caste-based census

STAFF WRITER 18:27 HRS IST
New Delhi, May 7 (PTI) Supporting the demand for a caste- based
census, LJP today said government should undertake the exercise as it
will give a clear picture of the population of different castes living
in the country.

"Some castes say that they are 52 per cent, Some say they are 20 per
cent....There are several castes which have no mention in any list,
neither they are backwards nor Dalits. We demand census on caste
lines. There is no harm in it. Caste- based census was last done in
1931," LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan told reporters here.

Noting that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh assured the Lok Sabha today
that government would take a decision shortly in the matter, Paswan
said, "We will welcome the move if government decides to conduct
caste-based Census."

Paswan underlined that no system has damaged the country to the extent
the caste system has done.

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[ZESTCaste] Mayawati govt sacks over 1,000 doctors

 

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/mayawati-govt-sacks-over-1000-doctors/114798-37.html

Mayawati govt sacks over 1,000 doctors

IANS

Lucknow: The Uttar Pradesh government on Friday ordered sacking of as
many as 1,058 doctors for "absconding" from duty.

According to Principal Health Secretary Pradeep Shukla, the doctors
were "absent from their duties for months and even years".

"The decision to terminate their services was taken after we had made
all efforts to get across to them," he said.

The exercise to detect the errant doctors was initiated by the
Mayawati government more than a year ago, following which notices were
issued by the directorate of medical and health services to each of
the defaulters.

"When the notices failed to elicit any response from the doctors, the
medical and health services director general got these notices
published in different newspapers too; yet there was no response.
Hence we resolved to take the final step of dismissing them," Shukla
said.

"Some of the doctors were found to have drawn salaries for months
after they absconded from duty," he added.

"The government is in the process of undertaking a recruitment drive
to appoint 2,500 new doctors to meet the requirements of the state,"
Shukla said.

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[ZESTCaste] Chief Justice Balakrishnan’s Last Big Case

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/05/07/chief-justice-balakrishnans-last-big-case/

May 7, 2010, 8:05 PM IST

Chief Justice Balakrishnan's Last Big Case

By Tripti Lahiri
The Ambanis finally got a verdict from India's Supreme Court in their
gas pricing dispute, in no small part because Indian Chief Justice
Konakuppakatil Gopinathan Balakrishnan turns 65 on Wednesday, the
official retirement age. Chief Justice Balakrishnan, who was elevated
to the position in January 2007, was the first Dalit, a community at
the bottom of the caste hierarchy, to hold that position.

As chief justice he has presided over rulings in hundreds of cases,
with the Reliance verdict being one of the most widely watched.


AFP/Getty Images
Chief Justice Konakuppakatil Gopinathan retires next week. On May 7,
the chief justice signed off on a 268-page judgment written by Justice
B. Sudershan Reddy that quoted Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, father of
India's Constitution, and "Globalization and it Discontents" author
Joseph Stiglitz.

"The neo-liberal agenda has increasingly eviscerated the state of
stature and power, bringing vast benefits to the few, modest benefits
for some, while leaving everybody else, the majority, behind," said
the judgment. "Historically, and all across the globe, predatory forms
of capitalism seem to organize themselves, first and foremost, around
the extractive industries that seek to exploit the vast, but
exhaustible, natural resources."

Another judge on the bench, P. Sathasivam, wrote his own judgment,
declining to put his name under the long disquisition on neoliberalism
and market forces.

The verdict relied in part on something Justice Balakrishnan wrote a
couple of years ago in another case before he was in his current post.

"The people of the entire country has a stake in the natural gas and
its benefit has to be shared by the whole country," he wrote in 2004
in Association of Natural Gas & Ors. V. Union of India & Ors. "There
should be just and reasonable use of natural gas for national
development."

For more about the winners and losers from the verdict, read this post.

It's been a busy month for Chief Justice Balakrishnan, with some 11
cases disposed of, including a ruling that police cannot force
suspects to undergo questioning under the influence of "truth serums,"
or chemicals meant to lower their defenses.

The actress Khushboo was able to heave a sigh of relief after the
court last month dismissed criminal cases filed against the South
Indian star after she made some remarks in 2005 about the increasing
prevalence of premarital sex.

There have been some odd judgments too. In August 2009, the judge
stayed a lower court's ruling granting the permission sought by a city
administration to have a mentally retarded woman who had become
pregnant while at a government-run facility undergo an abortion. The
chief justice felt that was not in her best interests even though he
conceded that she might not be capable of caring for the child by
herself. An expert body told the court the woman's mental status
affected her "ability for independent socio-occupational functioning
and self-sustenance."

After these busy years, the chief justice must be looking forward to
the break. According to a speech he gave in 2009, the average Indian
judge disposes of 1,200 cases a year and has only about 25 minutes to
devote to each case (although it's safe to assume the Ambanis got a
lot more time than that).


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[ZESTCaste] Dalit Goddess English

http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/nation/dalit-goddess-english

8 May 2010
Dalit Goddess English
Can the enshrinement of English as a goddess help Dalits overcome
their hardships? Good question.


BY S Anand

Manu's dead at English Mother's door. / Knowledge is poor man's refuge
and shade / It's akin to comfort mother-made. —from Mother English,
Savitribai Phule, 1854

On 30 April, Bankagaon in Lakhimpuri Khiri district, Uttar Pradesh,
witnessed a shilanyas (foundation laying) that was radically different
from the one witnessed in Ayodhya in 1989. The Nalanda Public School,
a modest private initiative in the village, played host to a ceremony
where the foundation for the first ever temple to 'Dalit Goddess
English' was laid. The Chief Priest was a suit-clad Chandra Bhan
Prasad, who describes himself as a 'self-trained anthropologist and
social psychologist'; and the mantra chanted was 'A-B-C-D…'

After a few crisp speeches—in Hindi—emphasising the need for English
among Dalits and other oppressed groups, a 30-inch bronze idol was
installed, and a song composed by teachers of Nalanda soared over the
din made by a noisy generator (electricity is scarce in UP): London
sey chalkar aayi, yeh Angrezi Devi Maiyya/ Computer-wali Maiyya, hai
Angrezi Devi Maiyya/ Hum sabki devi maiyya, jan-jan ki Devi Maiyya …
(She hails from London, this Goddess English/ She reigns over
computers, she's everybody's goddess).

Dalit Goddess English (DGE), sculpted by artist Shanti Swaroop Baudh,
is modelled on the Statue of Liberty, with a pen in her raised right
hand, books in her left. She sports a floppy hat and is perched atop a
computer. Compared with heavy-bosomed Hindu goddesses, DGE has almost
no sign of breasts.

The genesis of this new goddess lay in an unlikely birthday party for
Thomas Babington Macaulay on 25 October 2004 hosted in Delhi by
Prasad, author of Dalit-Phobhia: Why Do They Hate Us? Macaulay,
villain of the nationalist movement who both the RSS and Left love to
hate, was first crowned an icon by Prasad and his friends in 2000 when
they issued a list of 'Dalit Icons of the Millennium'. Macaulay got to
rub shoulders with Ambedkar, Phule and Vasco da Gama. Many self-sure
radicals, liberals and secularists were aghast.

To understand this, and in order to not dismiss Prasad's gesture as
performative excess with a subtext of hyperbole and comic irony, one
must unlearn Brahmanic versions of history that pass as 'nationalist',
and see why Dalits and Shudras (OBCs) did not historically have an
adversarial approach to British presence or the values embedded in
their modernity project.

PANDEY VS PHULE

Three years before Mangal Pandey triggered off a mostly upper caste
mutiny against the East India Company's forces, more for offence
caused to caste and religious purity at the prospect of sinking one's
teeth into a bullet greased with cow's and pig's fat, Savitribai Phule
(1831–1897) wrote a poem called 'Mother English'. She was lucky to be
married to Jyotirao Phule (1827–1890), the Aristotle of Shudras and
Atishudras, a neglected radical thinker who offered a spirited
critique of Brahmanic nationalism's rather convenient anti-British
posturing. Unlike reformers of his time, Phule, despite an enforced
child marriage to nine-year-old Savitri, educated his wife, opened
schools and wells for Dalits, adopted an abandoned child of a Brahmin
child widow, started an orphanage for similar Brahmin orphans, and
made his wife a teacher at a school for Dalit girls. Savitribai was an
equal partner in Phule's Satyashodak Samaj when she wrote her poem.

Phule, who was exposed to English education and was inspired by Thomas
Paine's Rights of Man, thought it more useful to engage the British in
dialogue on issues of justice and equality than Dwijas ('twice borns')
who believed in their natural superiority and an innate lowliness of
Dalits. Phule saw the relationship between Dwijas and
Shudra-Atishudras as one between the coloniser and colonised, and felt
the enslavement of Shudras was worse than 'negro slavery'.

Meanwhile, in the Madras Presidency, where The Hindu was founded in
1878 to defend the right of 'natives' to be appointed as judges,
Dalit-run newspapers took a contrarian view. Tamilan, edited by
Panditar Iyothee Thass, in a 1908 news item titled 'Power of District
Magistrate for Indians', argued that such positions should not be
given to Brahmins: 'If we give the power of District Magistrate to
these people, they will employ the people of their caste and cheat
common Hindus. Those who call themselves 'higher caste'… regard even
the British as inferior to them. They don't have intellectual,
physical, economic or even numerical strength. They have only the
strength that comes from calling themselves people of high caste.'

In this tradition, Periyar EV Ramaswamy in the South (who mourned 15
August 1947 as a 'dark day' that Brahmin-Bania forces wrested power)
and BR Ambedkar, too, preferred to negotiate with the British than
seek their outright ouster. On the question of English, in 1953,
addressing students of a college he founded in Aurangabad, Ambedkar
said: "I do not believe any other language in India, including Hindi,
can be used instead of English in schools and colleges."

It is this legacy that Chandra Bhan Prasad draws upon and unleashes a
contrapuntal symbolic challenge to Mayawati's statue obsession. After
two years of commemorating Macaulay's birthday at his residence in
Delhi, in 2006 Prasad decided to bestow DGE with a form. First, a
colour poster was unveiled. On 25 October 2009, the bronze statue
emerged at a party in India International Centre, the intellectual hub
of the capital. "Once you sculpt a figure of a goddess, you need a
temple for her," says Prasad, explaining what led him to the
shilanyas. "Even when they say they are not Hindus, the religious
practices of Dalits overlap a lot with popular Hinduism. Even where
Dalits converted to Buddhism, it's mostly the men who visit the Buddha
Vihara and contemplate an abstract religion devoid of ritual. The
womenfolk easily seek comfort in popular goddesses. They need birth or
marriage rituals. Besides, in a family, it is important to convince
the mother of the empowerment that English will ensure her children.
This is best conveyed once English becomes a Dalit goddess."

In Bankagaon, there are no government schools that offer education up
to Class 12 in a 10-km radius. A few boys do manage to trudge the
extra mile, but girls are not sent, especially not Dalit girls. The
Nalanda School came up as a private initiative of Amar Chand Jauhar,
who charges Rs 550 annual fees and provides schooling up to 'inter'.
Says Shiva Shankar Lal Nigam, principal of Nalanada, "We are supposed
to teach English here from Class 6. But few of us know how to even
speak it. I have an MA in English from MJP Rohilkhand University in
Bareilly, but cannot speak even a sentence in English." In such a
setting, won't practical English teaching do a better job than a
temple for DGE on a budget of Rs 5 lakh?

'A SECULAR DEVI'

"An event like this attended by a thousand villagers will create a
buzz in and around the village. I am an atheist who has had to concoct
a secular Devi out of English so that people get animated by the
pursuit of English. By next year, we'll also ensure that special
English teachers are recruited by the school. The point is to first
get Dalits to aspire to English," says Prasad, sipping Teacher's
Scotch over tandoori chicken in Shahjahanpur later that night. The
local invitation for the Bankagaon event, a Hindi leaflet distributed
through the village, serves an ominous warning: 'In 20 years from now,
without English you won't find employment even as a chaprasi or a
driver… the temple for Dalit Goddess, English, will help inspire you
to learn English.'

In its sixth year now, the English project has hit the dusty road,
moving on from the shock-and-awe administered in Delhi, where Prasad
gleefully extends an annual invite to "gym-goers, organic-food eaters,
late-night daters, cattle-class enthusiasts, also fatalists, naysayers
and Luddites." (Naysayers are apparently those who give their dogs
English names, speak to them in English, and yet want Dalits to
preserve local bhashas.) At his Macaulay parties, guests ranging from
political psychologist Ashis Nandy, social historian Gail Omvedt, and
the British High Commissioner, to the president of the Dalit Indian
Chamber of Commerce and Industry are asked to chew on the full text of
Macaulay's infamous 1835 'minute', and DGE posters are sampled with
mutton, chicken, fish and good booze. Nandy is a regular; though
vehemently opposed to Prasad's views, he says he is taken in by the
very audacity of the idea.

Prasad argues that few people have read more than a couple of
oft-cited lines from the minute: 'A single shelf of a good European
library is worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia', or
'We must at present do our best to form a class who may be
interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of
persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in
opinions, in morals, and in intellect.' These lines, Prasad says, have
been repeatedly quoted out of context to demonise Macaulay, who was
actually waging a battle with Orientalists who indulged the teaching
of Sanskrit and Arabic—elite languages to which the oppressed had no
access. Once you resist balking at Macaulay's shocking belief in the
'intrinsic superiority of Western literature', a reading of the minute
makes it clear that Macaulay was also fighting maulvis and pandits and
sought to curb the Company's spending on Sanskrit colleges and
madrassas: 'What we spend on the Arabic and Sanscrit colleges is not
merely a dead loss to the cause of truth; it is bounty-money paid to
raise up champions of error.'

Prasad's lament is that while Marxists, themselves 'Macaulay's
children', portray the British Lord (who also oversaw the Indian Penal
Code) as an enslaver who sought to replace all native languages with
English, they don't tell you that he also argued: 'The worst of all
systems was surely that of having a mild code for the Brahmins, who
sprang from the head of the Creator, while there was a severe code for
the Sudras, who sprang from his feet. India has suffered enough
already from the distinction of castes.'

Marcus Wood, Professor of English at University of Sussex and author
of three books on slavery who witnessed the Bankagaon event, is not
too convinced: "The Prasadian construction of Macaulay as an advocate
for the democratisation of English as a revolutionary agent for social
levelling in India came as a massive shock to me."

What seems to have missed Prasad is that the English that is sought
and taught today—an instrumental American Business English, a tool of
capitalism—is not the English that Macaulay, with his fondness for
Milton, espoused in the 19th century. Wood thinks the way the link
with the British Empire is prioritised in the DGE movement may not
only be dangerous, but dubious; however, "The sheer energy generated
around this phenomenon on the ground, in that Dalit village, gave me
pause for irrational thought."

In Bankagaon, a DGE temple will come up by 25 October. But just as my
sceptical mind tells me the worship of Lakshmi does not yield wealth,
mere worship of English Maiyya won't make one speak the language; nor
will it make up for the exclusion of Dalits from elite centres of
learning.

Anand is a Delhi-based publisher of Navayana


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[ZESTCaste] Demand for caste Census raised again

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/67958/demand-caste-census-raised-again.html

Demand for caste Census raised again
By B S Arun

The Centre's indicati-on that it is open to caste census has
emb-oldened the political parties favouring it.


The demand for caste-based census has its origin in the insistence of
internal reservation for Other Backward Classes in the Women's
Reservation Bill, which has been passed by the Rajya Sabha.

When the Bill was passed in March in the Upper House, the government
refused to entertain the demand saying that for internal reservation
to become a reality, there has to be caste census and it cannot happen
because preparations for the general Census were over.

The issue of caste census has been raised again by political parties.
OBC leaders, such as Lalu Prasad and Mulayam Singh Yadav, raised it in
parliament and subsequently, a cabinet meeting was called to discuss
it. There was no unanimity in the cabinet regarding the issue and
prime minister Manmohan Singh was believed to have sought wider
discussion and consultation on the subject.

The Census in India was first conducted in 1881. What India is using
for various purposes now, be it reservation in education, employment,
elections, etc, the basis is the 1931 Census when the last caste-based
census was held under the then viceroy Lord Irvin.

Fear of dividing the society

Independent India never entertained caste-based enumeration as the
framers of the Constitution felt that it would only further divide the
society. Thus, whether it was the Mandal Commission or to make out
estimates of the population of OBCs and upper castes, the government
depended upon the figures arrived at by the National Sample Survey
Organisation (NSSO).

When V P Singh announced reservation for OBCs, he relied on the Mandal
Commission's recommendations, which calculated that OBCs comprised
some 52 per cent of the country's total population and used the figure
to recommend 27 per cent reservation for this category in government
jobs and educational institutions.

Many analysts believe, with growth in population, this has come to be
revised which can happen only through a new caste census. The supreme
court has ruled that reservation cannot exceed 50 per cent although
several state governments have increased quota benefits to more than
65 per cent.

The NSSO, in Round 2003, concluded that the non-Muslim OBC population
was 32 per cent while the National Family Health Survey figure pegged
it at 30. The census, of course, continues to count the Scheduled
Castes and the Scheduled Tribes population in the country.

It is in this backdrop that the Union cabinet took up the issue on May
4. The meeting saw sharp divisions with home minister P Chidambaram
and finance minister Pranab Mukherjee speaking up against caste-based
census. While both felt that census was already underway and it cannot
be disturbed, the home minister is understood to have argued that the
enumerators lacked the sociological sensitivity to record and classify
the population on the basis of caste and sub-caste.

The supporters of the caste census were said to be of the view that
caste was indeed a reality and it cannot be wished away and it was
time for the government to accept it; that caste census was required
for implementation of different schemes and employment programmes for
the OBCs. Some were of the opinion that the Census was not the 'right
mechanism' for determining the caste data.

Referring to the issue, Union law minister M Veerappa Moily said:
"After 1931, no caste-based data was prepared and the Centre also does
not have any caste-based data of its own. The government depends upon
the states for it." Though Moily acknowledges that it might be too
late to incorporate it in the Census, he argues that caste census will
not lead to divisions in society since caste system has existed for
long.
"Before we give benefit to people, we need to find out who are the
people who should benefit. Caste system has been here for ages. Caste
system has remained even where there was no enumeration".

The government has indicated that it is open to the idea and this has
emboldened the pro-caste census parties further. As the Lok Sabha
erupted on May 3 demanding it, it was not just OBC-dominated parties
such as SP, RJD or JD(U), which sought caste census, but the BJP and
Left parties too joined the demand.

Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Sushma Swaraj said census was
the best source to collect information on the 'poor' which will serve
as an estimate for laws like the Food Security Act. "But there is no
column for it. In fact, there is a column for nationality which will
help the intruders," she added. The Left, which lays emphasis on
'class' over 'caste,' lent its voice to the clamour. Basudeb Acharia
of CPM said as much. Gurudas Dasgupta of CPI agreed with it though he
pushed for an all-party meeting.


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[ZESTCaste] OBC leaders bat for caste census, question 50% ceiling on quota

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/OBC-leaders-bat-for-caste-census-question-50-ceiling-on-quota/articleshow/5899710.cms

OBC leaders bat for caste census, question 50% ceiling on quota

TNN, May 7, 2010, 01.46am IST

NEW DELHI: It needed the blunt wisdom of former prime minister H D
Deve Gowda to put the matter in perspective. A caste census was
needed, he said, as it would determine whether the current 50% ceiling
on reservations imposed by the Supreme Court could be sustained at all
or needed to be breached.

The "humble farmer", in one of his rare appearances in Lok Sabha, and
even rarer on the front row next to that doughty caste warrior Lalu
Prasad, said the rising aspirations of backward castes could not be
accommodated within the 27% OBC quota that had been fixed post-Mandal.
"It cannot be done... the ceiling is not realistic," he said.

Deve Gowda has never really shied from being upfront about his quota
politics but it was Lalu who stole the show with his vintage mix of
humour and aggression. He advised a BJP MP who interrupted him of his
plans to pray that he be reborn a Yadav in Bihar. "Did not Krishna
tell Arjun that the soul is eternal," the RJD chief asked.

It was time, said Lalu, that "hamari counting ho jaye". A proper
headcount of OBCs would really set into motion delivery of social
justice to those who have been on the sidelines of society for
hundreds of years. Though he imbued it with a degree of mystery, there
was not much doubt about what Lalu thought the results of a caste
census would be.

The undertone of the caste debate that drew support from every corner
of the House with even CPI veteran Gurudas Dasgupta acknowledging the
"reality" of caste, was highly political as OBC heavyweights saw a
census as the launchpad for more agressive backward mobilisation.
Their target was clearly the SC's 50% bar which has withstood poltical
pressure while frustrating the political class's efforts to enhance
quotas.

For leaders like Lalu, JD(U)'s Sharad Yadav and Samajwadi Party's
Mulayam Singh Yadav, quotas are perhaps as reflexive as waking up but
interestingly, with no party immune from the pressure of backward
politics unleashed by the Mandal revolution, virtually the entire
House supported caste census.

It was left to BJP -- not to differ -- but add the party agenda for
indentification of illegal immigrants to the debate though it fielded
OBC leader and former Maharashtra deputy CM Gopinath Munde to argue in
favour of a caste census. Munde made the point well and received a
round of applause from RJD and SP benches.

The Yadav duo of Mulayam and Lalu sought to make the debate their
show, cheering on those who supported a caste census. It was left to
former SP man-turned-Congress MP Beni Prasad Verma to take a dig at
"OBC chieftains". He pointed out that social revolts had thrown up the
Yadavs as well as BSP leader Mayawati. "A census will tell how many of
us are there," the Kurmi leader said, in an obvious crack at Yadav
domination.

In his inimitable style, Lalu pointed out that with surveys of all
manner of wildlife being conducted ranging from "tigers to peacocks",
he did not see why caste should not be enumerated. He said it was not
too late to include caste in the current census. "The forms are not
printed, if they are, tear them up," he said.

Mulayam stressed that getting caste certificates was an uphill task at
present. But if caste is enumerated, benefits would accrue faster.
Perhaps looking to ameliorate his image as "anti-woman" due to his
opposition to the women's bill, the SP chief rose at one point to call
for a 50% quota for women in medical and engineering colleges.

Congress's Sandeep Dikshit said the census should include sub-castes
while also mapping other indicators like property and goods. NCP's
Sameer Bhujbal said OBCs were not getting their dues and TDP leader
Nama Nageshwar Rao said the census must not miss out the homeless.
More than one speaker alluded to reports of a division in the Cabinet
on the caste census.

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[ZESTCaste] Caste census sees political consensus

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/Caste-census-sees-political-consensus/articleshow/5900802.cms

Caste census sees political consensus
7 May 2010, 0401 hrs IST,ET Bureau

NEW DELHI: The Cabinet may have been unable to hammer out a consensus
on the demand for caste-based census, but the issue saw a rare
unanimity being
displayed in the Lok Sabha on Thursday, with parties rising above
ideological distinction to seek a head-count on the basis of caste
identities.

The oneness in the views of political parties in the Lok Sabha is
likely to exert pressure on the Manmohan Singh government to go in for
caste-based census. OBC parties such as the Samajwadi Party and Janata
Dal (United) and former Union minister Beni Prasad Verma, a former SP
stalwart who now adorns the Congress benches, warned of a major social
upheaval if the demand was not accepted.

While SP supremo Mulayam Singh Yadav warned those going against the
`majority view' of getting into trouble, JD(U) president Sharad Yadav
described caste system as a ``volcano ready to erupt if the government
fails to take steps to uplift the downtrodden.'' And Mr Verma talked
about a `rebellion' on the lines of what had taken place in the
post-Mandal era in the 90s, ``which had given birth to leaders such as
Mulayam Singh ji, Lalu Prasad ji and even Mayawati ji.''

``When the government can count the number of trees and nullahs in the
survey, what is the problem in adding a column to include castes in
the ongoing exercise,'' Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav asked while
participating in the debate on the demand for caste-based census.

The SP leader said he was happy that the issue of inclusion of castes
in the census exercise was discussed by the Cabinet on Tuesday.
``While some supported the idea, there were some who opposed it. It is
because of our mentality (that the idea was opposed),'' he said. In a
veiled attack on those who reportedly opposed the move in the Cabinet
meeting, he said, ``one day, people will come to know who supported
and who opposed the move.''

Likening caste to "garbage", he said in a bid to cleanse it, the
makers of the Constitution have made provisions to provide special
opportunities for the deprived. His views were endorsed strongly by Mr
Sharad Yadav. ``Be it good or bad, caste system in India is a reality,
where injustice is meted out to the downtrodden at every step,'' he
contended, adding, ``The system of caste in India is worse than
apartheid, where the distinction was merely on the colour of the skin.
Here, the discrimination leads to exploitation at every stage,'' he
said.

He said even political parties distribute tickets based on castes.
``It is unfair that you still do not want castes to be included in
census,'' the JD(U) leader protested. The BJP's deputy leader in the
Lok Sabha, Mr Gopinath Munde too said that caste was a reality which
just could be obliterated. ``I went for an inter-caste marriage, and
yet my caste identity remains as strong as before,'' the former
Maharashtra deputy chief minister, who's himself an OBC, said.


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[ZESTCaste] 23 get jail for dalit massacre

 

http://www.hindustantimes.com/23-get-jail-for-dalit-massacre/Article1-540386.aspx

23 get jail for dalit massacre
Prashant

Ara, May 07, 2010
First Published: 00:37 IST(7/5/2010)
Last Updated: 00:38 IST(7/5/2010)

A court on Wednesday convicted 23 persons and acquitted 30 others
accused of killing 21 Dalits in Bhojpur in 1996.
First Additional District and Sessions Judge Ajay Kumar Srivastava
will pronounce the jail terms on May 12.

On July 11, 1996, suspected activists of Ranveer Sena, a private army
of landlords, massacred 21 Dalits at Bathani Tola, Sahar block,
Bhojpur district, adjacent to Patna. About 70 supporters of the Sena
had attacked Bathani Tola and killed 21 people, police records say.

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