Wednesday, November 10, 2010

[ZESTCaste] In job market, caste role reversal

http://www.livemint.com/2010/11/09180926/In-job-market-caste-role-reve.html?atype=tp

Posted: Wed, Nov 10 2010. 1:00 AM IST Published on page 13
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In job market, caste role reversal

Rapid globalization has altered the historical structure that allotted
well-paying jobs to the upper castes

Pallavi Singh, pallavi.s@livemint.com

Anil Kumar Mishra wears a sacred yellow thread around his torso,
effectively covered by his ash-blue uniform. While ushering in
visitors' vehicles in the basement parking of V3S shopping mall in New
Delhi's Nirman Vihar, he always hopes not to run into any acquaintance
from his village Shahabad in Bihar.

The yellow thread, he insists, can embarrassingly give him away.

Back home, this relic of religiosity is what shapes his identity—he is
the privileged Brahmin, the upper-caste Hindu whose primary role in
the Varna system is to worship the gods. In fact, this is what his
father Badrinarayan Mishra did all his life and survived on regular
doles from Hindu devotees during festivals.

Two of his younger brothers in Shahabad continue the family tradition,
but Anil says the vocation assigned to him by virtue of his caste
brought his family little money.

At 45, the college dropout is in a line of work which is considered a
lowly occupation for Maithil Brahmins—one of the highest ranking
Brahmins—in his village. He is a parking attendant, and by his own
admission, if he had enough education, he would be doing something
else. "Respect is very important in a job and everyone respects
priests. Position of a parking attendant is still better than that of
a security guard. No one gives him any respect, you know, and people
often address him lousily. I would never tolerate that. After all, I
am a Brahmin," he says, adding that people seldom violate his
instructions in the parking lot, which is at least not disrespectful
for his upper-caste lineage.

For thousands of years, caste has remained a superior marker and an
important identity in India for upper-caste Hindus such as Anil, but
rapid globalization and economic reforms in its wake may now be
reversing the historical structure that allotted the well-paying jobs
only to the upper castes and forbade them from taking up menial jobs.
"In India, one doesn't have a caste without any occupational identity.
But in a globalized world, much of the caste order has begun to
reverse itself primarily because of movement of low-caste Dalits from
farm to non-farm sectors such as industry, entry of multinational
firms with caste-neutral jobs and the subsequent race for money,
clearing the space for unemployed upper castes to step in," says
Chandra Bhan Prasad, Dalit writer, activist and author of Dalit
Phobia: Why do they hate us? Prasad is currently researching the
emerging trend of this role reversal in collaboration with the
University of Pennsylvania in the US.

A recent study by Prasad, Devesh Kapur, Lant Pritchett and Shyam Babu,
excerpted last month in the Economic and Political Weekly and reported
by Mint, reflected two significant changes in economic activity of low
caste community in Uttar Pradesh: More and more Dalits are working as
sharecroppers on farm land rather than as labourers, and fewer among
them are handling animal corpses, traditionally an occupation limited
to the community.

Prasad argues that such changes, reflective of a higher social status
for Dalits, have diluted the upper caste arrogance of Hindus
significantly. "Upper-caste Hindus are going through a great amount of
distress. For centuries, they have owned land, but in the post-reform
period, they suddenly realize that owning a television set or a mobile
phone is a much bigger social status than their caste superiority.
They feel threatened when they can't achieve them," he adds.

The growing importance of money in a free-market era is also
undermining the importance of caste by allotting more value to
material possessions instead of social status, Prasad says. "This
money-making phase is very similar to the wave of materialism in the
US in 1960s when the growing importance of money resulted in more
democratic relations between the whites and blacks. Even the upper
caste Hindus such as Brahmins and Rajputs are willingly taking up jobs
that they vehemently detest," argues Prasad.

Saroj Kumar Chaudhary, 18, perfectly understands the situation. He was
brought to Delhi from Madhubani in Bihar a year ago by a relative
after his father, a small-time farmer, began chiding him for his
constant demands for a mobile. A high-school dropout, Saroj landed a
scavenging job with the Centrestage Mall in Noida.

During the ten-hour shift at the mall, Chaudhary's primary task is to
keep its toilets clean for which he is paid Rs.4,800 a month. However,
in the slums of Loni in Ghaziabad where he now lives, he is known as
an attendant in a television showroom, a lie he deliberately sells.
"Everyone knows I am a Bhumihar Brahmin and no one expects me to do
such a dirty job," he says, admitting to his upper-caste identity
after repeated queries.

To Saroj's rescue are the modern tools of scavenging—a steel wiper,
toilet cleaning solutions and tissue papers—and for the "new-age
look", he also has a dark blue uniform with a cap similar to that of
his colleagues; even the work he does has what Chandra Bhan Prasad
calls a "caste-neutral name for a caste-loaded occupation":
housekeeping. "Multinationals have been instruments of change in this
regard; they have made scavenging appear caste-neutral. Brooms have
vanished and these men in the toilets look like professionals," Prasad
adds.

But it was neither the euphemistic name nor the modern tools for
scavenging that led Asha Devi to join the housekeeping staff at
Pacific Mall in Ghaziabad. Since migrating to Delhi from Etah district
in Uttar Pradesh seven years ago, Asha who is a Rajput, the warrior
caste, took up the housekeeping job a month ago, without telling her
husband, for the sheer shield of anonymity it offers. "I was working
as a maid in the bungalows of Noida before this. I would earn about
the same amount of money then too, but then, everyone around us would
know that I was washing utensils and sweeping floors in bungalows. My
husband wouldn't like that either, so how could I tell him I am
cleaning toilets now?" she says.

Asha's husband, who is an autorickshaw driver, picks her up after work
and she says she takes special care about what she wears after her
10-hour shift is over. "I take a bath and use a deodorant. Even
make-up. And, I almost every day remind my supervisor that he should
not tell my husband anything except that I dust off files in an
office,'' she says.

Alak N. Sharma, director of Institute of Human Development in New
Delhi, says the upper-caste migration from villages to bigger cities
and metros is growing at an exponential rate, especially in states
such as Bihar where individual landholding has shrunk over the years.

"Upper-castes who have traditionally held land over the years are now
finding it difficult to feed themselves. Earnings from agriculture
aren't enough anymore even as property partition in families keeps
reducing individual landholding. In fact, upper castes are migrating
more now than the lower castes are,'' Sharma says.

Many Dalits and even upper-caste Brahmins, especially in rural areas,
don't have a shot at a decent education—a must for the fastest-growing
areas of India's economy such as software development, medicine and
engineering. India's reservation policy, which reserves seats for the
scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and other backward classes in
institutions of higher education, haven't benefited the community
much, argues its critics.

Yet, reservations helped OBCs such as Naresh Yadav, who runs an auto
agency in Haryana's Faridabad, get college education and employment.
"After graduation, I worked in a call centre and saved money to start
this agency. Without education, would you expect me to come this far?"

Yadav's small-scale Yadu Auto today employs six drivers, out of which
two are Kayasthas, the merchant caste several ranks higher than the
Yadavs in Hindu caste order.

For a number of migrants, moving outside the state for work also works
as a symbol of upward social mobility and freedom from the repressive
caste hierarchy in the state. Only 42% of migrants working in rural
areas of Bihar would appreciate having a job in their native state,
notes a recent study on migration from the state by the Delhi-based
Indian Institute of Public Administration. "Out-migration for
employment sake has now become a craze. So much so that now staying at
village is equated with laziness among fellow villagers," says Girish
Kumar, co-author of the study.

Gore Lal Singh, a Rajput, owns five bighas of land (two hectares) in
his village in Allahabad district, dominated by members of his caste,
but he would continue with his job as a security guard at the Pacific
Mall in Ghaziabad than go back and till his land.

"I can't afford hiring (agricultural) labour for my land and if I work
myself, it will be looked down upon. So, I had to come here… But there
are many here who do even worse, you see, many who work as servants,
many who sell newspapers, many who do work they wouldn't go back home
and talk about," he says.

Many, like him.


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[ZESTCaste] Discrimination against Dalits rampant, says NGO

http://www.hindu.com/2010/11/09/stories/2010110960610300.htm

Karnataka - Mangalore

Discrimination against Dalits rampant, says NGO

Staff Correspondent

Activists allege that lands for SCs encroached upon


REALITY CHECK: Subodh Yadav (left), Deputy Commisioner, at a meeting
with police and other officials called to dicuss grievances of
Scheduled Castes, in Mangalore on Monday.\

MANGALORE: A survey of all villages in Belthangady taluk revealed that
untouchability still exists in various forms but not to a great
extent, said Rajeev Salian of Nagarika Seva Trust Guruvayanakere here
on Monday.

He was speaking during a meeting of the district vigilance and
management committee mandated under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled
Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Rules 1995. He said the survey of
4,167 houses in the taluk had revealed that people from Scheduled
Castes were still denied entry into the houses of upper castes.

He pointed out that students from these communities found it difficult
to gain access to higher education because of the donation menace. He
emphasised that there was a need for the Government to ask for an
audit of the implementation of various schemes.

Land

Several Dalit leaders, activists and others who attended the meeting
complained that lands reserved for Scheduled Castes by the district
administration had been encroached upon by others in several places.
Having done this, the local bodies claimed that land was not available
to give to people from Scheduled Castes when they applied for it.
Several others said that Dalits had not been given hakku patras (title
deeds) for several years.

Deputy Commissioner Subodh Yadav said that a land survey was under way
and that it was only partially completed at present, and said more
time would be required to complete the survey. He added that the
district administration could either attempt to ensure that the
encroached land was returned or to identify other suitable land to
give to people of Scheduled Castes. An activist made a request to Mr.
Yadav saying,"usually when other land is identified, it turns out to
be a hilly terrain. Please do not give us such land."


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[ZESTCaste] Dalit family beaten up by election candidate in Uttar Pradesh

 

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_dalit-family-beaten-up-by-election-candidate-in-uttar-pradesh_1462580

Dalit family beaten up by election candidate in Uttar Pradesh
Published: Friday, Nov 5, 2010, 14:41 IST
Place: Muzaffarnagar | Agency: PTI

Five members of a Dalit family, including a woman, were allegedly
beaten up by the gram pradhan and his relatives, on charges of casting
vote to a rival in the panchayat elections, police said here today.

The incident took place yesterday at Silajuddi village when
Ramswaroop, his wife Prakashi and their three sons -Rakesh, Shivam and
Sandeep - were beaten up by Ram Singh and his family members for
casting votes

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[ZESTCaste] Mayawati to revive township plan along expressway

 

http://sify.com/finance/mayawati-to-revive-township-plan-along-expressway-news-default-kljvEjhdfdi.html

IANS

Mayawati to revive township plan along expressway

2010-11-09 21:40:00

Lucknow, Nov 9 (IANS) The Uttar Pradesh government Tuesday announced
the revival of an abandoned plan to build a hi-tech township around
Tappal town in Aligarh district along the 165-km Noida-Agra Yamuna
Expressway.

The plan was shelved following violent protests August-September by
farmers demanding higher compensation for land acquired for the
township.

Cabinet Secretary Shashank Shekhar Singh said that the plan was being
revived in the wake of a popular demand by those very farmers who had
earlier raised objections to it.

'A delegation of 60 farmers from Tappal called on Chief Minister
Mayawati and pleaded for revival of the scheme, together with the
revised compensation package offered by the government, and the chief
minister has conceded their request', said Singh.

While presenting a group of farmers at a press conference, he said:
'The farmers were armed with affidavits sworn by as many as 500-600
farmers, who were keen on accepting the terms set by the government on
Sep 3 for acquisition of land,' he added.

'With the change in the farmers' stand, we have agreed to give them a
new package,' Singh said.

The revised terms do not permit acquisition without the express
permission of the land owner through a written agreement.

The price of the land will be finalized through a negotiated
settlement between the government and the land-owner, he said.

A handsome annuity at the rate of Rs.20,000 per acre for a period of
33 years, during which period there would be an annual hike of Rs.600
per acre, has been proposed, he said.

A farmer would also have the option to go for a one-time payment at
the rate of Rs.2.40 lakh per acre, he said.

A total of 2,500 hectare land was to be acquired for the development
of the expressway by Jaypee Associates. This included 500 hectares
each in Noida, Aligarh and Agra and 1,000 hectares in Gautam Budh
Nagar.

The expressway, which is expected to reduce the driving time between
New Delhi and Agra to just about 90 minutes, will pass through Gautam
Budh Nagar (Noida), Aligarh, Mahamaya Nagar (Hathras) and Mathura.

At least two people, including a farmer, were killed in police firing
in Tappal, the epicentre of the agitation, on the eve of Independence
Day Aug 15.

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