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Friday, June 11, 2010

[ZESTCaste] Nepal: SC fiat to address Dalits' concern

http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php?headline=SC+fiat+to+address+Dalits%60+concern&NewsID=246612

SC fiat to address Dalits' concern
Last Updated : 2010-06-10 10:41 PM
The Himalayan Times - Saved Articles(s)

Ananta Raj Luitel

KATHMANDU: The Supreme Court today directed the government to
constitute a special committee to find in what context the words
chhota and bada are used in the preamble of the Country's Code (Muluki
Ain).

A three-member full bench of Chief Justice Ram Prasad Shrestha,
Justices Prem Sharma and Bharat Raj Upreti issued the directive in
response to a two-year-old public interest litigation.

The Office of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Ministry of Law and
Justice, the Ministry of Federal Affairs, Constituent Assembly and the
National Dalit Commission were given a year to come at a conclusion
after conducting a substantial study.

The preamble states that promulgation of the code was required to
provide justice to all chhota and bada equally, as the holy books
"were not sufficient to do so."

Dalit advocate Ratna Bahadur Bagchand, who is now appellate court
judge, had stated in the PIL that use of words chhota and bada in the
preamble code violated the spirit of the interim constitution that has
abolished caste based discrimination. He claimed that such words were
nothing but a stigma on the lower caste people.

"Historic importance of the promulgation of the code may be lost by
removing these words. A substantial study should be done to find in
what context these words were used. Only after that the court will
decide whether to remove these words or not from the code," the bench
observed.

Stating that removing the words based on an assumption will be
inappropriate, the bench also directed the authorities to find what
should be done if the words were removed from the Muluki Ain.

It directed the authorities to include a historian, a sociologist, a
culture expert, a legal expert and an expert on caste-based system in
Nepal in the special committee.

The bench directed that the study should unearth whether the words
were used to address the the historic caste based system or were used
in some other context.

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[ZESTCaste] Three included Sarpanch booked for Dalit’s murder in Punjab

http://www.punjabnewsline.com/content/three-included-sarpanch-booked-dalit%E2%80%99s-murder-punjab/21131

Three included Sarpanch booked for Dalit's murder in Punjab

Punjab Newsline Network
Friday, 11 June 2010
TARN TARAN: Sawinder Singh, sarpanch of Pandori Sidhwan village, his
two sons and another villager have been booked for the murder of a
Dalit of the same village.

The victim identified as Charanjit Singh (60), an ex-serviceman, had
been missing since June 6 from his village. The decomposed body of
Charanjit was found from under the bridge of a canal in Thathgarh
village, 6 kms from his village, yesterday.

The Chabal police on the statement of Jaskarnjit Singh, son of
Charanjit, registered a case under section 302 and 34 of the IPC
against the accused. Jaideep Singh and Raju, two sons of the sarpanch,
and one Raja of Mannan village are the other accused.

Charanjit was also a property consultant. Jaskarnjit in his statement
to the police said his father after receiving a call from mobile phone
99146-48431 on June 6 went to somewhere on his bike but did not
return.

It is learnt that the sarpanch had been facing a trial in a case under
the SC (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, which has been filed on the
complaint of Charanjit. The case was in its final stage in a local
judicial court.

SSP Preetpal Singh Virk that raids had been conducted to nab the accused.

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[ZESTCaste] Mayawati dissolves all BSP district, city units

http://sify.com/news/mayawati-dissolves-all-bsp-district-city-units-news-national-kgkv4cjhaaj.html

Mayawati dissolves all BSP district, city units

2010-06-10 21:30:00
Last Updated: 2010-06-11 00:43:58

Lucknow: In a sudden move, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and Bahujan
Samaj Party (BSP) president Mayawati on Thursday dissolved all
district and city units of the party, including the 'bhaichara
samitis' (social harmony committees) meant to promote her 'social
engineering'.

While senior party leaders were tight-lipped on the issue, insiders
claimed that the move was a part of the exercise to revamp the party
and prepare it for the 2012 state assembly elections from now itself.

Having announced earlier this week to keep her party out of all
bye-elections in order to keep her partymen focused on the next
assembly polls, Mayawati again told her supporters: 'Your goal should
now be 2012.'

Addressing a marathon meeting of party MPs, legislators and other
important functionaries, including district coordinators, here, she
sought to impress on them that a complete revamp of the state BSP was
necessary.

Opposition attacks Mayawati move on local bodies polls

'This move is aimed at reinforcing the party right down to the
grassroots level,' she said.

The bhaichara samitis, formed before the 2007 state assembly polls,
were believed to have accomplished their purpose of wooing a section
of the upper castes into the ambit of the otherwise essentially
Dalit-oriented BSP.

Mayawati also announced suspension of district level demonstrations to
mark the BSP's protest against what she termed the 'step-motherly'
treatment by the central government, as also against the
'unprecedented price rise'.

'The demonstrations will remain suspended until Sep 1,' she said,
indicating that the re-organisation of the district-level units would
be completed by then.

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[ZESTCaste] Who’s afraid of caste census? (Kancha Ilaiah)

http://www.asianage.com/opinion/who%E2%80%99s-afraid-caste-census-158

Who's afraid of caste census?

Jun 11th, 2010 -- Kancha Ilaiah

Ever since the Centre announced that it would collect data on various
castes during the ongoing Census, the media has created a hue and cry
saying that this would harm the nation and open a Pandora's Box of
caste conflicts. On the other hand, those who seek caste enumeration
are of the view that this would clear the cobwebs and deliver proper
data on other backward classes (OBCs) that will help implement
reservation policies and welfare schemes better.

The collection of caste data was not a decision taken by the
government on its own. The OBC leadership across the country has
demanded it and the Supreme Court advised the Centre to go for such a
Census to ensure that an accurate population database was made
available.
Let us not forget the fact that even at the time of the 2001 Census
there was a strong demand for caste census. The then deputy Prime
Minister L.K Advani, in fact, went on record to say that caste data
would be collected. But Right-wing academic forces — particularly a
group of sociologists and anthropologists — advised the Bharatiya
Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government not to go for
such an enumeration as it would go against the interests of the ruling
upper castes and communities.
It should be noted that the opposition to caste data has been coming
from upper castes that still control the levers of power. The lower
castes have never opposed such a proposal.
It is fallacious to argue that society would get further divided if
the population of each caste is known to the policymakers and to the
public.
Caste culture is all around us. In the dalit-bahujan discourse, the
upper castes are being shown as constituting less than 15 per cent.
This could be totally wrong. Even within the lower castes there are
several false claims about numbers. Every caste claims that it is
numerically the strongest and keeps asking for its "rightful" share.
How to tell them that their claims are wrong? When caste has become
such an important category of day-to-day reckoning it is important to
have proper data at hand to tell communities that they constitute this
much and cannot ask for more than their share.
It is true that we cannot distribute everything based on caste. But
caste census is the right basis for statistics such as literacy rate
and issues like the proportion of representation. Once we cite the
Census data there cannot be any authentic opposition to that evidence.
The upper caste intelligentsia is afraid that once detailed data on
number of people in lower castes is available it would become a major
ground for asking for accurate proportional representation in certain
sectors, such as education and employment.
For example, once the caste data is available, the 50 per cent limit
on reservations imposed by the Supreme Court could be questioned on
the basis of numbers. This would in turn help in sustaining the
overall system of liberal democracy. The system of democracy would
only get deeper with the discourse of numbers.
Democracy is in effect a system of numbers unlike communism, which
does not deal with numbers while institutionalising a government. In a
democracy, the governing system is institutionalised through an
electoral process and in such a system the people must be counted from
all angles — sex, race, religion, caste and so on. In a democracy
based on numbers, any section of society can come to power.
Based on the counting on the basis of religion, Hindus have realised
that they are the majority. And because of that understanding they
have claimed power. When Mahatma Gandhi suggested that Muhammed Ali
Jinnah should be made the first Prime Minister in order to avoid
Partition, Jawaharlal Nehru and Sardar Patel put forth the argument
that India was a Hindu-majority nation and would not accept a Muslim
as its first Prime Minister. Where did the notion of Hindu
majoritarianism come from? It came from numbers.
With the same logic what is wrong if women, cutting across religious
divides, count themselves, and organise themselves to come to power?
They constitute about 50 per cent of the population and if they want
to fight for gender democracy, they too can come to power. So should
there be a demand for abolition of gender enumeration, too?
If caste census is done, the India democracy would thrive on the firm
support of the lower castes who keep hoping of getting their share
based on their numbers. The upper castes may feel desolate with the
system of democracy itself, if this shift begins to take place. They
might call such a shift "castocracy". But would they call a state or a
nation being ruled by women "womenocracy"?
Cognitive social psychology says all such theories are constructed on
a convenience known as "comfort zone". If brown upper castes live in
white societies they see brown bashing but black bashing remains
hidden in their blind spots. In white societies the browns are not in
their comfort zone but in India they are and do not want to see the
other's "discomfort zone".
Many upper caste intellectuals say that caste was a construction of
the colonial census system. They talk as if caste never existed before
the British started an enumerative process. By their logic we should
come to the conclusion that before the British enumerated people based
on religion, there were no religions in India. There are many such
blind spots in India and that is why we still remain backward in
theories of knowledge.
Let all castes — not just OBCs — be counted for strengthening our
democratic system. I know that even mine is a blind-spot theory but it
may have the effect of an antidote.

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[ZESTCaste] Caste in doubt

http://www.economist.com/node/16319821?story_id=16319821

The Indian census and caste
Caste in doubt
The perilous arithmetic of positive discrimination
Jun 10th 2010 | Delhi

Asking some uncomfortable questionsSIXTY years after India's
constitution banned caste discrimination, Hinduism's millennia-old
hierarchy retains a tight grip. Lonely-hearts ads in the newspapers
are classified by caste and sub-caste. Brahmins, at the top, dominate
many professions. There are still hundreds of "honour killings" by
which families avenge inter-caste marriages and liaisons. Caste
discrimination is still drearily evident in the wretched lives of
dalits, formerly "untouchables", who remain India's poorest and least
educated people. It is not surprising, then, that India is considering
the inclusion of caste in its ten-yearly census, the next of which is
due in 2011.

The proposal has caused a storm of controversy. India has not counted
caste in its census since 1931. Many argue that its inclusion would
buttress a system that independent India's first leaders railed
against. The Congress party, which led the independence struggle,
struck caste from government forms and has resisted calls for a
nationwide caste count.

However, now heading a coalition government, Congress needs the
support of smaller parties, including a number of caste-based groups
that have sprung up in recent years, to push through important
legislation. A system of affirmative action has given caste greater
potency. In 1990 "reservations" in government jobs and university
places for dalits were extended to a group of castes slightly
higher-up the pecking order, the "Other Backward Classes" (OBCs).
Reservations are based on data from the 1931 census. Caste politicians
are not alone in arguing that this makes a nonsense of the system.

Counting caste in the census, however, would be difficult, or even
impossible. Besides the four main varna, or castes, India has
uncounted thousands of sub-castes, few of which census officials will
recognise. More worryingly, the count would surely lead to a flood of
demands for more reservations; already, the government is battling
quota demands from non-OBC castes, Muslims and Christian converts from
Hinduism—and a call for reservations to be extended to India's private
sector.

Six decades of reservations have done little to better the lot of
low-caste Indians. But recent economic growth has been more
transformative. As millions have moved to urban areas in search of
work, they have left the rigid social groupings of their villages for
the relative anonymity of cities, and swapped hereditary trades for
jobs in which family background is largely immaterial. Many Indians
are becoming caste-blind, and marrying across caste lines. Anidhrudda,
a 30-year-old software engineer in Kolkata (Calcutta), says his
inter-caste marriage was no big deal. But even he concedes there are
limits. If he had married a dalit, he says, "my family would not have
been able to face society."

The Economist Newspaper | Asia

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Friday, June 11, 2010

[ZESTCaste] Nepal: SC fiat to address Dalits' concern

[ZESTCaste] Three included Sarpanch booked for Dalit’s murder in Punjab

[ZESTCaste] Mayawati dissolves all BSP district, city units

[ZESTCaste] Who’s afraid of caste census? (Kancha Ilaiah)

[ZESTCaste] Caste in doubt

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