Latest News Update: Aug 9, 2010

Monday, August 9, 2010

[ZESTCaste] India’s low-caste still “untouchables”

http://rt.com/Top_News/2010-08-09/india-untouchables-dalits-discrimination.html

India's low-caste still "untouchables"

permalinke-mail story to a friendprint versionPublished 09 August, 2010, 07:22

In the traditional Hindu society, caste prejudice is illegal but it is
still an issue for many, especially when it comes to the "ritually
impured."

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Propeller The so-called Dalits, or "untouchables," are not allowed to
get involved with the upper caste in any way.

It is a problem that's been simmering, but now Soni Devi says it's
fast reaching the boiling point. She is a newly-appointed cook in this
primary school in Jaanipur. She is there to prepare the
government-funded midday meal.

But despite Soni's best intentions, some of the students turn their
noses up at her culinary creations, because she is a Dalit. In
traditional Hindu society, only upper-caste cooks are allowed to cook
community meals.

"Some upper-caste children don't want to eat food made by me," she
said. "Their parents consider the food polluted by my touch. What can
I do? I'm here to make lunch in this school. I treat the children here
just like my own kids."

120 million children across India receive a mid-day meal every working
day, in the largest school lunch program in the world. But when the
Education Ministry decided to send Dalit cooks to village schools,
where the majority of pupils are upper-caste Hindus, many found that
too hard to swallow.

"The mid-day meal can entice poor parents to send their children to
school. The kids look forward to it. But there are some parents who
don't want their children to eat food made by low-caste people and
have removed their children from here, and also threatened us as
well," said school principal Ram Kumar Pathak.

Meet the Singh family, a member of the upper caste Rajput community.
They refused to allow their 10-year old son Parmanand to continue
studying in a school which they felt didn't respect their customs, and
pulled him out immediately.

"We are upper caste. We believe strongly in the caste system. We
cannot eat food made or touched by somebody from a lower caste. That's
why we moved our child from this government school and put him into a
private one," Parmanand's mother Gita Devi explained.

Activists say this kind of reaction demonstrates the difficulty in
eradicating the caste system. Discrimination on the basis of caste is
illegal in India, but the practice is still entrenched in rural areas,
where the kind of work you do, and who you can eat with, is largely
divided along caste lines.

"We low-caste people are treated like dirt," said low-cast villager
Umi Devi. "The upper castes order us about, they tell us, 'Stay on one
side, wash the utensils, sit there'-- anything to humiliate us. They
want us to remain low and never rise up."

As for the government, it is most willing to bridge social divisions
and says legal action will be taken against villagers who oppose Dalit
cooks in schools.

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[ZESTCaste] Dalits cry foul over MLA attack on VC

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/chennai/dalits-cry-foul-over-mla-attack-vc-146

Dalits cry foul over MLA attack on VC

August 9th, 2010
DC Correspondent Share Buzz up!Tirunelveli, Aug. 8: The struggle of
the dalits against the DMK regime further intensified following the
alleged attack by DMK MLA Malairaja on the dalit vice-chancellor of
Tirunelveli Anna University Kaliappan during the varsity's first
convocation here on Saturday.

Citing the recent suspension of C. Umashankar, a dalit IAS officer
known for his probity, dalit leaders are accusing the DMK government
of deliberately targeting the community.

Complaining that Mr Kaliappan deliberately did not give him proper
information about the university's first convocation function, Mr
Malairaja, who is also a syndicate member of the university, and his
supporters picked up a quarrel with Mr Kaliappan and attacked the
vice-chancellor and the physical education director. The incident is
said to have occurred an hour prior to the arrival of deputy chief
minister M.K. Stalin for the convocation.

However, there were no eyewitnesses to the incident as it happened
inside the closed office room of the vice-chancellor.

Mr Kaliappan complained about the attack to Mr Stalin who rebuked the
MLA. Subsequently, Mr Malairaja and his supporters boycotted the
convocation. The vice-chancellor, who was said to have been pacified
by chief minister M. Karunanidhi himself, did not respond to phone
calls from this correspondent.

Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, the director of Manitha Urimai Kalam and
a dalit activist, Mr Barathan said he has contacted leaders of various
outfits of the community and major political parties to wage a
democratic fight against the DMK.

He said the ruling party had made repeated onslaught against dalit
officers starting with minister Suresh Rajan and his men attacking
tahsildar Janarthanam in Kanyakumari in 2007, the recent suspension of
Mr Umashankar, a native of Tirunelveli, and now the assault on Mr
Kaliappan.

Mr Kathir, director of Evidence, stated that his organisation was
exploring the possibility of filing a PIL against politicians
responsible for attacks on dalit officers.

However, Mr Malairaja is said to be trying to entice leaders of the
Pallar community (a dominant dalit sect in the south) against the
vice-chancellor, who belongs to the Sermar community, a minority sect
in the SC fold in Kanyakumari.

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[ZESTCaste] Boy found dead, honour killing suspected

http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/boy-found-dead-honour-killing-suspected/217528.html

Boy found dead, honour killing suspected

PTI
Muzaffarnagar, Aug 9 (PTI) In a suspected case of honour killing, a
Dalit boy was poisoned to death allegedly by the girl's family
members, who were opposed to their relationship. Satbir (24), in love
with Puja (21), was found dead yesterday in Saherji village, police
said. The victim's brother Rajesh has alleged in his complaint that
Satbir was poisoned to death by Puja's family members for tarnishing
their image, Deputy SP Anand Kumar told PTI. Satbir's body had been
sent for postmortem to ascertain whether it was a case of suicide or
murder, he said.

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[ZESTCaste] The agony of the hereditary turks

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/opinion/comments--analysis/The-agony-of-the-hereditary-turks/articleshow/6278871.cms

The agony of the hereditary turks
9 Aug 2010, 0713 hrs IST,C L Manoj,ET Bureau

As if Omar Abdullah's contribution alone were not enough, now we have
the collective 'GenNext intervention' from Delhi on J&K! Right when
the country's youngest chief minister has squandered away, in a matter
of a year, the hope and optimism the last two successful Assembly
elections and the subsequent political process had generated in J&K,
around 40 young members of Parliament, cutting across party lines,
issued a joint appeal, urging the agitating Kashmiri youth to join the
negotiation table. On the face of it, their resolve indeed is
praiseworthy. But the problem lies in an uncomfortable question; about
the political and social credentials of these MPs, barring a few
exceptions, to be the true representatives of the youth of democratic
India and their credibility to command the respect and trust of the
country's aspiring and struggling youngsters, from Kanyakumari to
Srinagar.

Before going to the fault-lines in these young MPs' political makeup,
one should look at the backdrop and timing of their 'peace move'. It
took almost two months of agitation and nearly 50 deaths on the
streets of Kashmir for Omar to realise the basics of politics and
governance; that in a democratic system, the true leaders have to
remain constantly in touch with, and reach out to, the people and not
remain like a king in an ivory tower especially when outbursts of
popular discontent are on display.

It was only after the cultivated 'bright kid' image of Omar was razed
down, ironically , by the very (stone-throwing) youth of his home
state through 24×7 reality TV shows, that he thought it fit to visit a
hospital to see the injured. It was exactly on 'Omar's day out' that
his young friends in Parliament chose to launch their own 'peace
mission'. It is a different matter it took some experienced political
brains in Delhi and the octogenarian Syed Ali Shah Gilani in Srinagar
to provide the battered young CM a temporary relief.

In short, in their two-month silent watching of Kashmir crisis and
their final decision to venture out, Omar and his young friends put up
a perfect display of synchronised reflexes. Did these young MPs snap
out of their collective slumber to see their own potential future in
Omar's total disconnect with the youth of his state?

The plot only thickens when you consider that these so-called young
turks had neither been shaken nor stirred by a series of recent events
that had special significance for India's youth. Many young couples
are being hounded or hacked to death in the name of 'honour killings'
or 'upholding the caste pride' by hoodlums. But none of us had the
privilege of seeing these young MPs, supposedly champions of India's
youth, issue an appeal for reason or launch a movement against caste
authority. Instead, one of them vowed to take 'the khap panchayat
cause' to the PMO!

We recently saw a young Dalit girl being made to wash toilet at the
school where she studied, leading to her suicide, and how a social
boycott forced the Uttar Pradesh government to abandon its plans to
employ Dalit cooks in schools. But none of this pricked the conscience
of these 'young and progressive' MPs.

The nation is also witnessing an animated debate on how to tackle the
Maoist problem, especially when many young men and women of the
neglected social sections are joining the radicals' bloody war against
the state. Have you heard our Gen-Next MPs air their views on the
matter? They also suffer no bout of collective anger when the
Commonwealth Games, meant to boost the spirit of Indian's sporting
youth, has turned out to be a mega show of corruption and
mismanagement.

But, then, it is no accident that these young MPs who display their
collective agony over their friend Omar falling flat on his GenNext
nose, remain indifferent to the real issues and causes of the Indian
youth. Because, they, like Omar, owe nothing to India's youth, or
their aspirations for becoming what they are; MPs, ministers, chief
minister and tomorrow's rulers. They have made it big not because they
have risen from a genuine youth movement or political process or by
charming the voters with some exceptional talent.

They owe their rise to just two factors: the powerful political
families to which they belong to, and the way they systematically and
collectively degenerated our democratic system into hereditary rules
that ambush the genuine youth activists, snuff out their political
careers and leave voters with no genuine choices.

And the fact that most of the national and regional parties, including
those that harp against the 'dynastic Congress', have started
accepting family raj and started churning out their own Hereditary
Turks is posing amajor threat to the democratic process.

As Srinagar revealed the disconnect between Omar and the youth on the
street, no wonder his true cohorts in Parliament too felt the heat.

------------------------------------

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