Latest News Update: Dec 26, 2011

Monday, December 26, 2011

[ZESTCaste] Dalits join anti-Anna chorus, dub fast anti-constitutional

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_dalits-join-anti-anna-chorus-dub-fast-anti-constitutional_1630433

Dalits join anti-Anna chorus, dub fast anti-constitutional
Published: Tuesday, Dec 27, 2011, 8:30 IST
By Alok Deshpande | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA

While anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare is all set to begin his
three-day fast in protest against the government's weak Lokpal bill,
certain groups in the city have dubbed the Gandhian's fast as
anti-Constitutional.

Protesting against Anna Hazare's fast, Namdeo Dhasal,
founder-president of Dalit Panther, demanded that the central
government should take action against Hazare who has been "promoting
disharmony in the nation."

Dhasal will be leading an anti-Anna protest march. The protesters will
meet Hazare on the first day of his three-day fast and give him a
memorandum requesting him not to go ahead with his fast.

"Anna's agitation and his demands are threat to our Constitution and
they are totally anarchist in nature. This Constitution has provided
us with safety and rights. Going against Constitution is going against
nation's interests. Why is the government taking such a defensive
stand against Anna and his team?" asked Dhasal.

He said the government should control Anna well in time.

"When we carried agitations and shouted against the government, there
was no delay in filing cases against us. But Anna seems to have no
control and is talking about revolt. There should be an action against
him," he said.

Starting their march from Bandra, the protesters will first visit Anna
at the MMRDA grounds and will then proceed to meet the governor.

Like Dhasal, National Campaign for Equal Opportunity (NCEO) is also
protesting against Anna's fast. NCEO conveyor Sunil Kadam, who
organised a three-day dharna in Azad Maidan against the Jan Lokpal,
said instead of curbing corruption Anna's Jan Lokpal will increase it.

"What guarantee does Hazare have that the new bureaucracy will be free
of corruption? Making new law is not an answer to corruption. Existing
laws should be implemented stringently," said Kadam, adding that
"there should be a demand to strengthen the judiciary to increase the
number of courts and also to improve the judicial procedure."

Republican Party of India (RPI) leader Ramdas Athavale on Monday made
it clear that though he is against corruption, he does not support
Anna's means of protest of blackmailing Parliament.

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[ZESTCaste] Letters to the Editor: Moulded caste

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Moulded-caste/892430/

Moulded caste
The Indian Express Posted online: Tue Dec 27 2011, 01:55 hrs
Moulded caste

* Shekhar Gupta's 'The caste of corruption' (IE, December 24) was
thought-provoking. If corruption charges on persons belonging to the
SC, ST and OBC categories are being pursued vigorously while charges
against those belonging to the so-called upper castes are not, it
needs serious deliberation. However, his mention that Justice Sachar
had pointed out that the number of Muslims in Indian jails is higher
than their proportionate share of the national population, seems
irrelevant in context because what Justice Sachar had probably
intended to highlight was that the said situation is due to the
lopsided development of the Muslim community.

— P.R.A. Nair, New Delhi

* This refers to 'The caste of corruption'. Caste plays a huge role in
our politics. Now, if it has forced Team Anna to toe the same line, it
proves no one can rise above caste politics. Team Anna also fears if
they speak against caste inclusion in the Lokpal bill, they might lose
support.

— Bal Govind, Noida

Vox mobuli?

* This refers to the editorial 'Satyagraha vs nuisance' (IE, December
26). One wonders if it's indeed reasonable to say nobody should
canvass on a bill when it has already been presented in Parliament.
When a case is being argued in court, it can do without discussions
outside. In the case of a bill, the people should be free to voice
their views in a democracy.

— Kishor Kulkarni, Mumbai

Weak law

* A toothless Lokpal bill will only perpetuate corruption. Anna Hazare
is being forced to renew his agitation again. For some strange reason,
the media is now against him. This time round, the courts may come
down on him too. If his agitation fizzles out, the corrupt will get a
shot in the arm.

— V. Rajalakshmi, Mumbai

Being mai-baap

* The mai-baap syndrome that obligates the state to feed the poor and
provide reservations to the backward and the minorities are both leaky
endeavours. About the latter, I should know as an ex-civil supplies
inspector. The idea that the state should feed the poor has been
exploded by Dipali Rastogi ('Patronising the poor, in perpetuity', IE,
December 23) and the need for reservations by Surjit S. Bhalla ('No
Lokpal, no reservations', IE, December 24). Tavleen Singh's column on
December 25 was another eye-opener. Instead of feeding the poor in
perpetuity, they should be taught how to earn their living with
dignity. Being fed by the state is humiliating. So is working in an
office or studying at an institution against a reserved seat.
Politicians should let go of their belief in being mai-baap. Their
blindness is caused by vote-bank politics.

— V.N. Arora, Faridabad

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[ZESTCaste] Govt to set up special mechanism at PMO for Dalits

http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=40076

Govt to set up special mechanism at PMO for Dalits

GANI ANSARI
KATHMANDU, Dec 27: The government on Tuesday decided to set up a
special mechanism at the Prime Minister's Office to deal with
increased violent incidents on Dalit people.

The Cabinet meeting also decided to provide Rs. 1 million to the
family of Manbir Sunar, a Dalit who was beaten to death in Kalikot for
allegedly touching the kitchen of upper caste family.

The incidents of beating up Dalit people for alleging them of touching
upper caste family's possession is on the rise in the country. On
Sunday, Maya Biswakarma, 27-year-old Dalit woman, was beaten severely
for touching a bucket water of a non-Dalit in Tanahun.

"The Cabinet decided to set up a special mechanism at PMO to deal with
such issues," deputy Prime Minister Narayan Kaji Shrestha said after
the meeting.

The government also decided to provide Rs. 25,000 to families to those
dying due to cold wave in Tarai region.

"Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) will receive Rs. 10 million
for construction of its new building," Shrestha said adding that the
government will provide Rs. 1.5 billion to Nepal Oil Corporation
(NOC).

Promotion and appointments

The cabinet decided to promote acting secretary at Ministry for Law
and Justice Bhesh Raj Sharma as secretary.

The government appointed Umesh Chandra Jha and Prachanda Raj Pradhan
as chairman and vice-chairman of the Nepal Law Commission.

Similarly, lawmaker Devi Khadka was appointed the co-ordinator of the
Prison Reforms Committee. Sunil Ranjan Singh, Ramesh Shrestha and
Bhagwat Chaudhary were appointed members of the committee.

Vice-chancellor of Tribhuvan University Hira Maharjan was appointed
member of the University Grant Commission along with Purbanchal
University vice-chancellor Maheshwor Man Shrestha, Prof. Shiva Sharan
Maharjan, Dr Bidhya Nath Koirala, Dr Mahendra Singh and Chiri Shova
Tamrakar.

The government also decided to terminate appointment of Tika Jung
Thapa, director of Institute of Foreign Affairs Studies, and Suresh
Yadav, chairman of Nepal Railway Company.

Similarly, the government also accepted resignation of Dr. Sudha
Sharma, secretary at the Ministry of Health and decided that the
ministry will now have only one secretary. Previously, the ministry
had two posts for secretaries.

Published on 2011-12-27 11:51:59

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[ZESTCaste] Nepal: Dalits shut down Palpa, obstruct highway

http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=40074

Dalits shut down Palpa, obstruct highway

REPUBLICA
(Updated)
PALPA, Dec 27: A Dalit organization in Palpa has called for strike in
Palpa district on Tuesday protesting the murder of Manbir Sunar.

Sunar was thrashed to death by locals in Jubitha-4, Kalikot for
intruding into a kitchen of non-Dalit a few days ago.

The strike enforcers are demanding Sunar to be declared a martyr, due
compensation to deceased family and stern action against the guilty.

United Dalit Struggle Committee has called for the strike and have
shut all academic institutions, marketplaces and shops of the
district.

Transportation services have come to a grinding halt. The strike
enforcers have been rallying on the road since morning to ensure a
total shutdown.

Meanwhile, various Dalit organizations have disrupted transportation
services in Damauli on Tuesday protesting the manhandling of a Dalit
woman.

The Dalit communities have vowed to carry on with their protest until
a stern action is taken against the culprits.

Maya Biswakarma, 27 of Nahala, Ghasikuwa-1, Tanahun was beaten
severely by Ajit Shrestha and his family accusing her of touching a
bucket of a non-Dalit on Sunday.

Biswakarma is undergoing treatment at Ratnahari Hospital in Damauli.

She has sustained severe injuries in her face, neck and hands. All
transports along with the passengers have been stranded on the road
since morning.

Published on 2011-12-27 10:21:35

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[ZESTCaste] Maya says no to two more ministers

http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Mayasaysnototwomoreministers/892499/

Maya says no to two more ministers
Express news service Posted: Dec 27, 2011 at 0343 hrs
Lucknow The ruling BSP has decided to deny tickets for the Assembly
elections to two more ministers — Transport Minister Ram Achal Rajbhar
and Minister of State for Ayurveda Daddan Mishra. However, neither of
them has been removed.

On Sunday, Chief Minister Mayawati had dropped Higher Education
Minister Rakesh Dhar Tripathi, Agriculture Education and Research
Minister Rajpal Tyagi, Backward Classes Welfare Minister Awadhesh
Kumar Verma and Minister for Home Guards Hari Om. All of them have
also been denied the party ticket.

Although there has been no official announcement, party sources said
at least 85 MLAs have been axed so far and the number may finally go
up to about 150, making it almost 75 per cent of the party's 200-odd
legislators.

They said the exercise has been undertaken on the basis of the
feedback collected by party co-ordinators from the field. "The
assessment is that there is an anti-incumbency factor against the
state government and voters are unhappy with the BSP MLAs in most
constituencies," a BSP leader said.

Party chief Mayawati's decision has surprised most of the MLAs who
have been axed, as many of them had been given the go-ahead and asked
to start preparing for elections. Also, Mayawati had stated repeatedly
at party meetings that no sitting MLA would be dropped, unless his or
her constituency had undergone major changes in the delimitation.

"It is nothing but betrayal. The party leadership kept us in dark
until the last moment,'' said one of the MLAs.

The dropping of Ram Achal Rajbhar from the list of candidates has
surprised many in the party. He was elected to the Assembly for the
fourth consecutive term in the 2007 elections and he is one of the
BSP's prominent faces in eastern UP. He has also served as party
coordinator in Uttarakhand. He is one of the very few BSP leaders who
got a ministerial berth in all four governments which Mayawati headed
in the state.

Although the party has decided to field his son Sanjay Rajbhar from
Akbarpur seat in Ambedkarnagar district, the denial of ticket to
someone like Ram Achal Rajbhar shows the depth of the leadership's
worries to fight the anti-incumbency factor, a party leader said.

Other sitting MLAs denied ticket include Pashupati Nath Rai from
Dildar Nagar in Ghazipur district, Ram Shiromani Sharma from Birapur
in Pratapgarh, O P Singh from Jaisinghpur in Sultanpur, Aditya Pandey
from Jahanabad in Fatehpur.

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[ZESTCaste] BSP swindling central funds: Rahul Gandhi

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_bsp-swindling-central-funds-rahul-gandhi_1630355

BSP swindling central funds: Rahul Gandhi
Published: Monday, Dec 26, 2011, 20:46 IST | Updated: Monday, Dec 26,
2011, 20:47 IST
Place: Sidhauli | Agency: IANS

Flaying Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati for corruption, Congress
leader Rahul Gandhi Monday said a 'magical elephant' in the state was
gobbling up central funds meant for the poor.

Addressing a rally here in Sitapur district on the third leg of his
election campaign, Gandhi said the Bahujan Samaj Party's (BSP)
election symbol, the elephant, was devouring government funds.

"This 'jaado ka haathi' (magical elephant) is eating the central funds
released for the benefit of poor people of Uttar Pradesh," he said.

He said the Congress-led central government had launched the ambitious
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) to
help the poor by releasing a massive sum of over Rs.60,000 crore.

Taking a dig at Mayawati's statement that MGNERGS had failed to
benefit the state, Gandhi said: "The chief minister is correct when
she says that it has not benefited the poor because she swindled the
major portion of the fund."

Claiming that he alone had raised issues related to farmers of Uttar
Pradesh in parliament, Gandhi said: "The chief minister has no time
for their suffering and instead prefers to grab their land to help the
rich and mighty."

Referring to Mayawati's helicopter rides, he said such exercises can
never project the true picture of the state.

"Development here has come to a grinding halt," he added.

Gandhi added that if the Congress was voted to power, he would change
the condition of the state in the next 10 years.

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[ZESTCaste] Maya's 'hungry' jumbo gulps Central funds, says Rahul Gandhi

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/2012-up-polls-rahul-gandhi-slams-bsp-chief-mayawati/1/166027.html

Piyush Srivastava Lucknow, December 27, 2011 | UPDATED 09:12 IST

Maya's 'hungry' jumbo gulps Central funds, says Rahul Gandhi

Rahul accuses the Maya govt of misusing the Centre's Bundelkhand package.

Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi once again played his
favourite trope of the elephant gobbling up all the funds allocated by
the Centre for the development of Uttar Pradesh, while targeting
Mayawati at a rally on Monday.

Starting the third phase of his election campaign at Gandhi Degree
College grounds in Sidhauli assembly constituency of Sitapur district,
Rahul said: "Chief minister Mayawati has rightly said that the
National Rural Employment Guarantee Act and Food Security Act are not
enough to help the poor in UP. She said this because her elephant is
so hungry that it swallows all the money released for the people of
the state by the Centre."

Equating the BSP's election symbol with rampant corruption in the
state, the Gandhi scion said: "It is a magical elephant. You know that
the normal elephants eat only leaves. But this elephant of Mayawati
settles for nothing less than bank notes. It gulps the money of poor
people. While I am busy talking about job guarantee to youth across
the country, the BSP's elephant is giving you the guarantee that it
will keep on eating the funds released under the scheme."

He also criticised the BSP chief for trashing the Food Security Bill.

"Mayawati says that the Right to Food is of no use. She is correct.
She is preparing her elephant to eat several thousand crores of rupees
which the Centre will send to implement the scheme. Her elephant will
not let the money reach poor people," Rahul said.

"I am fighting for poor people. We have given you NREGA, Right to
Information, Right to Education and now Right to Food.... Trust my
intentions when I say that I will change the state in five years and
completely transform it in 10 years. I can develop UP on the lines of
Delhi and Maharashtra. You trusted other political parties for 22
years and got nothing. Now trust me and leave every problem for me to
solve," he added.

Rahul denounced the BSP chief for being a 'drawing-room' politician.

"She didn't visit Bundelkhand when farmers were committing suicide nor
go to Bhatta Parsaul when the lands of the farmers were confiscated by
the government and the police opened fire. But I went there. Mayawati
looks at you from a helicopter and believes all is well. I also travel
in helicopters. But I come down to the earth and spend nights with
you," he said.

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/2012-up-polls-rahul-gandhi-slams-bsp-chief-mayawati/1/166027.html

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[ZESTCaste] 'I was one of India's unclean Dalits ... now I am a millionaire'

http://www.thenational.ae/news/worldwide/south-asia/i-was-one-of-indias-unclean-dalits-now-i-am-a-millionaire

'I was one of India's unclean Dalits ... now I am a millionaire'

Associated Press
Dec 27, 2011
Hari Kishan Pippal visits his Heritage Hospital, one of the largest
private medical facilities in the north Indian city of Agra.

AGRA, INDIA // As far back as he can remember, people told Hari Kishan
Pippal that he was unclean, with a filthiness that had tainted his
family for centuries. Teachers forced him to sit apart from other
students. Employers sometimes did not bother to pay him.

Mr Pippal is a Dalit, a member of the outcast community once known as
untouchables. Born at the bottom of Hinduism's complex social ladder,
that meant he could not eat with people from higher castes or drink
from their wells.

He was not supposed to aspire to a life beyond that of his father, an
illiterate cobbler. Years later, he still will not repeat the slurs
that people called him.

Now, though, people call him something else. They call him rich.

Mr Pippal, 60, owns a hospital, a shoe factory, a car dealership and a
publishing company. He has six cars. He lives in a maze of linked
apartments in a quiet if dusty neighbourhood of high walls and
wrought-iron gates.

"In my heart I am Dalit. But with good clothes, good food, good
business, it is like I am high-caste," he said.

Now, he points out, he is richer than most Brahmins, who sit at the
top of the caste hierarchy: "I am more than Brahmin!"

The vast majority of India's 170 million Dalits live amid a thicket of
grim statistics: less than a third are literate, more than 40 per cent
survive on less than US$2 (Dh7.34) a day and infant mortality rates
are dramatically higher than among higher castes.

Dalits are far more likely than the overall population to be
underweight and far less likely to get postnatal care.

While caste discrimination has been outlawed for more than 60 years
and the term "untouchable" is now taboo in public, thousands of
anti-Dalit attacks occur every year. Hundreds of people are killed.

The stories spill from India's newspapers: the 14-year-old Dalit
strangled because he shared his first name with a higher-caste boy;
the 70-year-old man and his disabled daughter burnt alive after a
Dalit-owned dog barked at higher-caste neighbours; the man run over at
a petrol station because he refused to give up his place in line to a
high-caste customer.

But amid centuries of caste tradition that can seem immutable, there
has been slow change.

In an extensive survey by the Centre for the Advanced Study of India
in the US at the University of Pennsylvania, researchers found that
Dalits living in concrete homes, not huts made from mud and straw, had
jumped from 18 per cent to 64 per cent between 1990 and 2007 in one
north Indian district.

Ownership of various household goods - fans, chairs, pressure cookers
and bicycles - had skyrocketed over the same period. The study also
found a weakening of some caste traditions, with, for example, far
fewer Dalits being seated separately at non-Dalit weddings.

While most Dalits still support themselves as rural labourers, there
is also a growing Dalit middle class, many of them civil servants who
have benefited from affirmative action laws.

"Caste is losing its grip," said Chandra Bhan Prasad, a Dalit writer,
social scientist and one-time Marxist militant who has become a
leading voice urging the Dalit poor to see the virtues of capitalism.

In a consumer society, Mr Prasad argues, wealth can trump caste - at
least some of the time.

Growing economies also foster urbanisation, he said, allowing
low-caste Indians to escape traditional village strictures.

Economic growth also means the traditional merchant castes are not
large enough to fill every job.

No one knows how many wealthy Dalit entrepreneurs have emerged since
India opened its economy in the early 1990s, sparking some of the
world's fastest economic growth. Hundreds certainly, maybe thousands.

They are also increasingly visible and the wealthiest have become
darlings of the Indian media, held up as proof that modern India is an
increasingly caste-blind society.

This is nonsense, said Anand Teltumbde, a prominent Dalit activist.

"These stories [about successful Dalits] sit well with the middle
class," said Mr Teltumbde, who is a grandson of BR Ambedkar, an
independence-era Dalit lawyer revered as a hero by Dalits across
India. "The entire world has changed ... but the number of well-off
Dalits is no more than 10 per cent. Ninety per cent of Dalits live a
dilapidated kind of life."

As for Mr Pippal, he finds himself uncomfortably in the middle of this
debate. He is a rich Dalit who thinks very little has changed for
India's outcasts, a man who credits his own success to hard work and
ego.

"From my childhood, I was thinking, 'One day I will be a big man'," he said.

Raised in poverty, he only made it through high school before his
father became ill, so he had to go to work pulling a rickshaw to
support the family. His first break came when he married a Dalit woman
from a slightly better-off family that owned a small shoe workshop.

Mr Pippal shifted the focus of his father-in-law's workshop,
concentrating on high-quality shoes and teaching himself languages -
English, Tamil, Punjabi, Russian, German - to sell his goods more
widely.

Today, he owns a 300-worker factory where 500 handmade shoes are
turned out every day, then packed into boxes already marked with
prices in euros and British pounds. The expensive ones retail for as
much as US$500 a pair.

He used his profits to start a small Honda dealership, then the
hospital. Immense profits are being made in India's private healthcare
industry, as the new middle class seeks alternatives to the
often-questionable care at most public hospitals.

Mr Pippal has proven himself a success. He is rich. He is greeted with
respect on the streets. His children went to good schools and grew up
with friends from across the caste spectrum.

Yet he believes he often remains, a figure of quiet contempt.

"These people are very bloody clever," Mr Pippal said of the
high-caste businessmen with whom he deals. "When there are profits to
be made, then everything [about his caste] is OK. But in their mind,
they're thinking, 'He is a Dalit'."

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[ZESTCaste] Central fund to buy equity in Dalit firms likely

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Central-fund-to-buy-equity-in-Dalit-firms-likely/articleshow/11261433.cms

Central fund to buy equity in Dalit firms likely
Subodh Ghildiyal, TNN | Dec 27, 2011, 04.55AM IST

NEW DELHI: Dalit Venture Capital Fund is the next big idea as the
Centre looks to roll out 'procurement quota' in government purchases
from small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The Fund would seek to buy equity in Dalit companies to provide
capital support as investment. The Centre is mulling creation of a
special purpose vehicle or a capital support system to help develop
entrepreneurs among scheduled castes and tribes. The fund is part of
the bouquet discussed in a meeting called by social justice ministry
with Dalit Chambers of Commerce and Industry (DICCI), and could be
created with contributions from both private business houses and
government.

According to sources, Planning Commission deputy chairman Montek Singh
Ahluwalia is seized of the idea and had done some loud thinking in an
earlier meeting. Rural development ministry's 'skill development
programme' is likely to be used to help SCs/STs get into small scale
manufacturing.

The ideas formed the core of the meeting convened by social justice
minister Mukul Wasnik with DICCI, also attended by RD minister Jairam
Ramesh and chairman of national commission for SCs P L Punia on
Monday.

It was to get a fix on how the recently promulgated "procurement
quota" was to be operationalized. The Centre recently decided that all
ministries would make 4% of their annual purchase from micro, small
and medium enterprises run by SCs/STs.

There have been apprehensions if dalit entrepreneurship was big enough
to absorb orders of the magnitude of 4% of total government purchase,
and if there is enough quality to compete with general business. The
Centre wants to use the first three non-mandatory years of policy
rollout to fill the entrepreneurial gap among dalits. It also wants to
use bodies like DICCI to register dalit enterprises that can be used
for purchases.

While 'procurement quota' is to be rolled out by ministry for SMEs,
sources said the social justice ministry wants to be part of the
process to ensure right inputs from dalit groups it interacts with on
welfare front. It has asked micro enterprises ministry to place social
justice secretary in the ministerial panel to oversee the process and
monitor and evaluate the results.

Congress had made "procurement quota" a crucial weapon in its
political quiver, with Rahul Gandhi flagging it in his speeches in
Uttar Pradesh campaign.

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[ZESTCaste] Political parties are trying to woo deras ahead of Punjab polls

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics/nation/political-parties-are-trying-to-woo-deras-ahead-of-punjab-polls/articleshow/11261040.cms

27 Dec, 2011, 04.02AM IST, Viney Sharma,ET Bureau
Political parties are trying to woo deras ahead of Punjab polls

CHANDIGARH: With Punjab polls just a month away, deras, groupings of
low-caste Sikhs, Hindus and Dalits, have become centres of pilgrimage
for all major political parties.

Describing themselves as a 'true social and spiritual organisations',
these deras are known to cast their franchise en bloc. Naturally,
parties are trying their best to woo them in a state where one in
every three voters falls in the scheduled caste category.

PPCC president Capt Amarinder Singh and People's Party of Punjab (PPP)
president Manpreet Badal are openly canvassing for support of the
deras. For the ruling party, Shiromani Akali Dal, seeking dera votes
is somewhat tricky. Although it's making frantic efforts to win them
over, it doesn't want to lose on the "panthic", or religious,
vote-bank comprising Shiromani Gurudwara Prabhandhak Committee voters
coming from rural Punjab.

But unlike the previous elections, these deras are playing truant. In
2007, Dera Sacha Sauda, one of the largest deras, boasting of 3
million followers, had come out openly in favour of Congress. This
time it's keeping its cards close to the chest, though.

"The suggestions of our 'Sangat' (followers) are being taken in
writing across villages. We are yet to decide whether we would support
a party or a candidate individually," says Ram Singh, a member of the
seven-member Sahad Sangat Rajnitik Wing. "Since many of our followers
are doctors and engineers, it's difficult to impose a decision."

The visit of Manpreet Badal, the estranged nephew of chief minister
Parkash Singh Badal, to Sacha Souda, has already divided the Sanjha
Morcha, an alliance of PPP, the Left and SAD (Longowal). While CPI has
welcomed it, CPM opposes the overtures.

Manpreet insists that his visit to the dera has nothing to do with
Punjab elections. "One is free to visit any religious shrine."

Congress claims being a secular party it takes along each and every
individual and sect. "Deras are respected as they provide spiritual
guidance. We pay our obeisance as a mark of respect. Neither the party
has sought any political support from any dera nor has any dera
pledged its support to the party," Capt Amarinder Singh said.
"Congress believes spiritual and political beliefs are two separate
things and must be kept separate."

A few months ago the chief minister had visited Dera Baba Jaimal Singh
of Radhasoami at Beas, 45km away from Amritsar. Although the CM's
office tried to keep his visit secret, dera officials later confirmed
it. His hour-long visit drew strong reactions from staunch SGPC
supporters and Sikh radicals, including the Damdami Taksaal. "Maybe,
Badal sahib just came to seek blessings before elections," said
Anirudh Joshi, a Dera official.

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[ZESTCaste] The C in Congress (Pratap Bhanu Mehta)

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-c-in-congress/892432/0

The C in Congress

Pratap Bhanu Mehta Posted online: Tue Dec 27 2011, 01:57 hrs

Should the Congress party be described as casteist and communal? This
is not merely a rhetorical question. It goes to the heart of the kind
of India the Congress has imagined.

Both caste and religious identities are social realities. They are
also the axes along which a range of deprivations are structured.
Despite progress, the marginalisation of Dalits in India remains
morally obscene. And we have produced a politics that increasingly
marginalised Muslims. Good social policy has to address these
realities. It will warrant affirmative action. The case made at the
time of Independence that reservations may be necessary for Dalits
remains strong; in the current paradigm it is unfair to deny backward
Muslims reservations.

But social justice has been reduced to mere political opportunism. The
price is being borne by the very groups we are trying to empower. The
negative consequences of our discourse on social justice are
immeasurable. First, a discourse of discrimination and oppression that
was specific to the history of Dalits has been hijacked by all kinds
of groups. So any discourse on social justice is now seen, not as
rooted in ethical imperatives, but in an open grab for power. The
specificity of morally appalling discrimination has been lost under
the fog of demands for representation. Second, reservations, in their
current form, have produced the worst of all worlds. They are a cheap
gesture that disguises the root causes of marginalisation. In
politics, they have diverted energies from addressing the root causes
of deprivation. If politics had the same unanimity over quality
education as it did over reservation, India would be a different
place. Third, they have perpetuated an interest in conflict. Lalu
Prasad's big crime in Bihar was not just that he kept it backward. It
is that the state encouraged violence so that caste polarisation would
remain a factor of mobilisation.

But there are other subtleties as well. Arguments that invoke merit in
the context of attacking reservation are bad faith arguments. The
problem is not necessarily that reservation is a deviation from
something called merit. It is that the only form of inclusion that the
state can come up with is one in which it is easy to mark groups like
Dalits as less competent. Reservation has, in the form it is
structured, increased rather than decreased prejudice. And everyone
has an interest in perpetuating this vicious cycle. There are other
subtle issues as well. The Indian private sector's record on inclusion
is very weak. But in an economy where labour laws are rigid,
informalisation rampant, educational institutions do not perform
signalling functions, Dalits will find it harder to get entry.

Take another issue which should concern us all. Muslim youth are often
unfairly and unconscionably targeted by the police. A lot of this may
have to do with discrimination. But it is equally likely that the
roots of this are the same as those that make custodial violence in
India so common: the weakness of the police force. Impunity in police
often has roots in weakness, not prejudice. When it does not have the
adequate means, social esteem is low and it is put under pressure,
police forces will do all kinds of things to be seen to get results.
So discrimination against Muslims will be better addressed, not by
reservations, but by police reform. It is not insignificant, for
example, that at the level of high courts, quantitative evidence,
judged by acquittal rates, suggests that minorities are not
discriminated against, once the case comes to trial. This same
judiciary has upheld every measure on reservation. But now we want to
give members of constitutional bodies a caste and a religion.

These are complex issues. But under the slogan that caste and religion
are realities in India, we want to straitjacket every issue through
the prism of caste and religion. Ashis Nandy once made the powerful
point that communalism was not about the "facts of religion". It was
about its self-conscious use as a political tool, often by people who
did not believe in it. Casteism, is also not about the fact of caste.
It is about the use of caste to make three claims. First, that people
have compulsory identities which they cannot transcend, ever.
Institutions should act as if no one can be more or less than their
caste. Second, the point of social policy is not to empower
individuals to escape the deprivations of caste, but to trap them in
it. Third, that the only possible test of the legitimacy of
institutions is if they mirror social reality, not if they transform
it into something better. All of the Congress's actions, from its
support of the methodologically dubious caste census to its policies
on reservation, suggest that it has become casteist in this sense.

It has also become communal in the sense that Hamid Dalwai so
presciently diagnosed decades ago. It perpetuates the idea of minority
as a political category, so that it can keep them in its place and use
them. And, in the context of the Lokpal bill, it has cynically used
them again. The Congress has ruled India for more than 50 years. But
if India is more unjust along caste lines, minorities are more
marginalised, surely the Congress is to blame. What is it about its
paradigm of politics that it can effectively help neither Muslims nor
Dalits? The caste parties may have narrow agendas; sections of the BJP
may be pathologically incapable of thinking beyond identity. But what
is the Congress's excuse?

The Anna movement has rightly been castigated for the morally obscene
use of the caste of children. Recently, it was reported that Rahul
Gandhi referred to Sam Pitroda's caste in an election rally. Is this
really the party of Jawaharlal Nehru or even Rajiv Gandhi? We ought
not to disguise the appalling realities of caste, where appropriate.
But using them in this way? Someone remarked on reading this story,
"Rahul ne to Sam Pitroda ki bhi jaat dikha di." Even if the intention
was benign there is a truth in this. Is it not appallingly diminishing
when we create an institutional culture where the first thing we want
to point to is someone's caste? I thought the idea of India was to
escape precisely this original sin. And now Lokpals, tomorrow judges,
all will be identified through caste.

Perhaps the Congress is in love with the "C" in its name. Corruption
was not enough. It had to become corrupt, casteist, communal and
cynical. India's tragedy is that there is no national level challenger
to this party that is diminishing us all.

The writer is president, Centre for Policy Research, Delhi
express@expressindia.com

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[ZESTCaste] Battle of three Dalit musketeers

http://www.thehansindia.info/News/Article.asp?category=1&subCategory=2&ContentId=28145

Battle of three Dalit musketeers

SHANKAR RAO, SABITA FIGHT TAKES AN UGLY TURN
Three Dalit musketeers have been keeping the people of Andhra Pradesh
of late fully engaged with their political antics.

Textile Minister P Shankar Rao has upped the ante in his fight against
corruption which he has been waging in his own inimitable way.
Motkupalli Narasimhulu, a former minister, and senior TDP leaders,
threatened to end his life by hanging at the Martyrs Memorial for the
sake of Telangana.

Manda Krishna Madiga, another Dalit leader with acknowledged
capabilities of mobilizing people for direct action undertook 'paada
yaatra' from Babu Jagjivan Ram's statue at Bashirbagh to the Ambedkar
statue at the Tank Bund in Hyderabad in Shankar Rao's support giving a
casteist dimension to the controversy.
The textile minister has been training his guns on Home Minister
Sabita Indra Reddy for some months.

He tasted success when his letter was taken suo motto as a petition by
the High Court which ordered a CBI inquiry into the affairs of Jagati
Publications and Obulapuram mining scam. This has encouraged him to
continue his fight against others who are perceived by him as corrupt.
The latest controversy involving the home minister is escalating by
the day.

Shankar Rao has publicly called the home minister a mother of a mafia
don. He alleged that Sabita and her family members have properties in
and around Hyderabad worth Rs 5000 crore and demanded that the chief
minister order a probe. He also threatened to approach the HC if the
chief minister failed to take action.

Sabita is known to maintain a studied silence whenever she was made a
target. When Bhanu, the prime accused in Suri murder case (who was
himself an accused in Parital Ravi murder case), was allegedly seen at
home minister's peshi and some allegations were repeated by her
detractors for months, she preferred to remain silent but for a couple
of brief statements to the effect that many people visit ministers'
peshis and she never met Bhanu.

In Obulapuram mining case, the CBI made her a witness, not an accused,
although most of the controversial decisions were taken when she was
minister of mines.

The CBI did not find any prima facie evidence to frame charges against
her. Even though the media made some noise about the two episodes, she
could get away unscathed without saying much in public.

But the public accusations being made by the textile minister are
acutely embarrassing for her. The home minister is understood to have
contemplated the idea of addressing a press conference and tell the
people that there is not a shred of evidence in the allegations being
made by Shankar Rao.

But she was advised by her well-wishers that her press conference
would be followed by a dozen press conferences by the textile minister
and the media would dutifully report whatever he had to say since he
is an important minister and a Dalit leader at that. More importantly,
his unconventional remarks make a good copy.

Even the chief minister has been hesitating to call the textile
minister and ask him to eschew from making allegations against a
Cabinet colleague.

When the home minister approached Kiran Kumar Reddy with a request to
intervene, the chief minister is understood to have advised her to
ignore the diatribe. Sources close to the home minister say that there
are many others in the Cabinet and the Congress party who are
indirectly supporting the textile minister for their own reasons,
jealousy being one of them.

Deputy Chief Minister Damodar Rajanarasimha, another Dalit leader, was
promised the weighty home ministry at the time of his elevation. He
would naturally be happy to see Sabita divested of the ministry
following a series of accusations.

Seniors in the Congress party are piqued at the fact that an
inexperienced lady has been allowed to remain home minister for almost
three years when the State has seen some of the worst crises in law
and order.

That is perhaps why no one in the party is prepared to give a damn
when a Cabinet minister is being damned. The fact that M M Jahangir,
an alleged rowdy-sheeter whom the textile minister is supporting, is
the land grabber and one Hanumantha Rao , a senior citizen, went to
the Supreme Court and got favourable orders declaring him as the
rightful owner of 5.5 acres of land, is not being articulated by any
one.

But the attack on Shankar Rao at NTR Nagar would surely create
problems for the home minister despite her repeated claims that those
who allegedly attacked Shankar Rao are not known to her or her son.
Manda Krishna Madiga has reportedly finalised his plans to sit on
dharna at NTR Nagar in order to uphold the self respect of Dalits. We
are surely going to hear more from Shankar Rao and Manda Krishna
Madiga on this aspect.

TDP leader Motkupalli Narasimhulu has been mounting a series of
attacks on the president of Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) K
Chandrasekhara Rao who is refusing to join the battle.

Narsimhulu has been purposely using harsh language with a view to
provoking the TRS chief into entering into a verbal dual with him.
Observers believe that he has the support of the Telangana Forum in
the TDP and the blessings of the party's chief N Chandrababu Naidu. It
is necessary to weaken KCR if TDP has to remain strong.

Though some people feel that the way the three Dalit musketeers have
been conducting themselves is not congenial to established democratic
traditions, nobody is prepared to stick his neck out since they are
Dalit leaders and the general public would be sympathetic to them.

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