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Wednesday, June 16, 2010

[ZESTCaste] Bad hair days after caste bar

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100616/jsp/nation/story_12570927.jsp

Bad hair days after caste bar

- A trim too few here, too many there
G.C. SHEKHAR
Chennai, June 15: Price of caste arrogance: an unkempt look with
crumpled clothes and overgrown beards and hair.

All because the majority Thevars of Irunjirai, located 80km from
Madurai, had warned the village's lone dhobi not to press Dalits'
clothes.

The dhobi has shut shop and fled the village of 130 families and so
has the barber, fearing the same diktat from the Thevars.

"Now we have no choice but to travel by bus to the nearest town to get
a haircut or shave. Almost no one here bothers to get his clothes
ironed any more," rued K. Paandi, a Thevar.

A. Periasamy, the dhobi, said: "The Thevars had asked me not to iron
Dalits' clothes or else they would boycott my shop."

When he still went ahead and ironed a Dalit farmer's shirt, the matter
was dragged to the village panchayat which issued Periasamy a warning
last January "to respect the majority sentiment".

That scared barber Maarimuthu too into turning away his Dalit customers.

"Since the Thevars outnumber all other communities put together in the
village, I could not afford to antagonise them," Maarimuthu said.

But when the Dalits complained to the Virdhunagar district
administration, revenue officials told the barber and dhobi if they
refused to serve the Dalits, they would be booked under the SC/ST act
for discrimination.

So the duo decided to move to the nearby town of Thiruchuzhi after
informing the officials in writing that neither wanted to do business
at Irunjirai.

When the matter came to the notice of Virdhunagar collector Siji
Thomas, he got the revenue authorities to appoint a barber and a dhobi
as government-nominated representatives at Irunjirai.

The barber was given the necessary tools and the dhobi an ironing box
(coal-fired) and a cart for pressing clothes. Both were given sheds by
the government to carry out their trade in the village.

But the Thevars would have none of it and boycotted the two
"outsiders", who too moved out in no time.

But the Thevars appear not to have learnt any lesson. Village headman
V. Murugesan, a Thevar, blamed the Dalits for "blowing the issue up"
and complaining to the district administration.

"The panchayat was ready to resolve the issue amicably but once the
district authorities started arm-twisting our barber and dhobi, they
moved out. And our villagers refused to support outsiders plying their
trades here."

The Dalits are not complaining. "For the past six months we had to
take a bus to get a shave or haircut. Now even the Thevars have to do
the same thing. It's all their own doing," said Gurusamy, a farm
worker.

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[ZESTCaste] Valmikis, Jats clash after bike hits buffalo

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Valmikis-Jats-clash-after-bike-hits-buffalo/articleshow/6052406.cms

Valmikis, Jats clash after bike hits buffalo

TNN, Jun 16, 2010, 03.28am IST

HISAR: After the fight over a dog between dalits and upper caste Jats
in Mirchpur village, a new clash has erupted in a different locality
of Hisar: this time, it's a buffalo that hit two Valmiki youth riding
a motorcycle.

According to sources, Narender and two Valmiki youth were crossing a
locality in Suryanagar, Hisar, on their motorbikes on Monday when they
collided with a buffalo belonging to a taxi driver, Singara Singh. It
sparked off a fight between Singara and the Valmiki youth.

Soon, the Valmikis came out in strength and allegedly pelted the
houses of Singara and his brother Najara with stones.Witnesses said
there was an exchange of fire between the two groups. As there was no
let-up in the clash, SP Hisar, Subhash Yadav and SDM Amardeep Jain
rushed to the area.

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[ZESTCaste] Nepal: Kin refuse to perform last rites of a man having affair with Dalit woman

http://www.nepalnews.com/main/index.php/news-archive/2-political/6854-kin-refuse-to-perform-last-rites-on-a-man-having-affair-with-dalit-woman.html

Kin refuse to perform last rites of a man having affair with Dalit woman

Wednesday, 16 June 2010 11:52

Tension shot up between people from "Dalit" and "Non-Dalit" community
in Palpa distict on Tuesday after members of a family refused to
cremate the body of one of their own kin for having an affair with a
Dalit woman.

The body of Narayan Bahadur Rana, 60, of Mujhung-8 was abandoned in
the streets as his brothers refused to perform last rites on him as
per the Hindu tradition. Rana had died on the way while returning home
after a treatment at the Palpa Mission Hospital on Tuesday morning.
His body was left in the road until late evening as his own family
members refused to claim the body.

The non-dalits in the locality have even warned Rana's son that they
would socially ostracize him if he performs last rites on his father's
body.

Later a team of police had to reach the village lying 24 kilometers
away from district headquarters Tansen to mediate in the dispute
between the local Magar and Dalit community.

Narayan Bahadur Rana was engaged in a extra-marital love affair with a
local Dalit woman some 20 years ago. However, the brief love affair
fell as a curse upon him as people from his own Magar community and
other non-Dalits ostracized him for having liaison with a woman from
Dalit community.

Rana had been refused entry in his own house by his family members
after the incident so that he had been living separately since.
nepalnews.com

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[ZESTCaste] Mayawati joins Jat's water war on jobs

http://www.financialexpress.com/news/mayawati-joins-jats-water-war-on-jobs/634061/

Mayawati joins Jat's water war on jobs
Agencies
Posted online: 2010-06-15 11:30:31+05:30

LucknowEven as Jat leaders in Uttar Pradesh on Monday decided to call
of their agitation demanding quota for the community in government
jobs, Chief Minister Mayawati supported their demand saying they
should be included in the list of backward class at the national
level.

"Though Jats have been included in backward category list in UP, this
has not been done at the national level. Our party and government is
of the view that the community should be included in this category
nationally," the UP Chief Minister said in a statement here .

However, she said the Jats should not have blocked water supply to
Delhi to press for their demand saying disrupting water supply during
summer is not justified on human grounds.

They should go to Delhi and present their demand to the Centre
peacefully and not resort to any method that causes inconvenience to
people, she said.

"The method adopted by the Jat community to press for their demand of
inclusion in backward category at the national level was not justified
as it causes inconvenience to the people," Mayawati said.

"The Jat community should go to Delhi and present their side
peacefully in a disciplined manner as UP has no role in this issue,"
the CM said.

The agitation by Akhil Bharatiya Jat Sangarsh Samiti (ABJSS) in
Muradnagar in Ghaziabad since last night had hit water supply across
the national capital from the Upper Ganga Canal.

However, they suspended their agitation after talks with government officials.

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[ZESTCaste] The mind business (Kancha Ilaiah)

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/75598/mind-business.html

New education mantra

The mind business
By Kancha Ilaiah

Since reality is a perceptional problem, there is no one reality, but
many realities that occur to our senses at the same time.

The socio-psychological school of research and training is fast
growing across the world—particularly in the USA and Europe. This
school is focusing on mind change and personality development. The
modern technology is pushing people into enormous amount of stress.
Mind is the most critical organ that needs updating and training so
that it can adopt to changes that pose challenges. In this context the
psycho-analytical schools are working on several mind adjustment
agendas that are gaining a lot of importance.

Recently I was in Seattle, Washington state where there is an
institute called the Pacific Institute. It is working on developing a
mind change curriculum and disseminating it through lectures, videos
and other teaching aids. The co-founder of this institute is Lou Tice,
a psycho-analyst. He has developed a curriculum for training the
people to focus the mind on adapting to changes of life.

Lou Tice's training has acquired global attention in government
circles, education institutions, corporate companies and teachers who
believe in helping to develop a focused mind and achieving higher
targets or to develop a mind to 'bounce back' from failures.

About 15 members of the Truthseekers International group, including
this author, recently visited his institute for three days. He took us
by his jet to his ranch located in a beautiful valley of mountains on
the borders of USA and Canada. Living at this ranch was itself is an
experience.

To our pleasant surprise, he not only offered a free flight in his
luxurious small jet aircraft, but he and his wife Diane Tice were with
us all the three days. At 74, Lou Tice takes each session for four
hours at a stretch to teach the principles of mind change. His
teaching was a treat.

He starts with a detailed explanation of fundamental principles as to
how the mind perceives things. He takes the participants through a
journey of conscious, sub-conscious and creative sub-conscious process
of mind. He says that the fundamental problem of mind is formulating
pictures and translating those pictures into reality.

Since reality is a perceptional problem, he says, there is no one
reality but there are many realities that keep occurring to our senses
at a time. Because of scotomas ( mental black spots) some times many
minds do not perceive what they see. Overcoming scotomas is possible
only through a systematic training of the mind.

The mind change principles are based on the cognitive science and
social psychology. Lou Tice applies them to day-to-day process of
perception and explains quite lucidly that human beings' perception of
reality is based on his/her status and confidence levels.

Overcome backwardness

As an Indian group we were interested to learn how the caste mind
could be changed and a country like India could overcome the
backwardness; we were keen to locate that theory in Indian caste
context. I discovered that his teaching focuses more on achieving
targets in business and executive operations.

Social inequalities and training of mind to overcome such inequalities
is, though not part of his teaching exercise, he thinks that once the
lower castes of India overcome their low esteem they do not tolerate
iniquitous treatment.

If we apply his theory to our context one could, perhaps come to a
conclusion that the upper castes and lower castes suffer from several
scotomas, hence cannot perceive what they see around them as reality
and also its changeability.

At yet another level though the caste or the structures of
subordination of social forces are conditioned by social violence and
the theory of scotomas may not explain it. Lou Tice, however, thinks
that if his principles of 'mind change' are made part of Indian school
curriculum and the children of the oppressed castes are made to
overcome their inferior status they would move from a position of
caste to castelessness. But that is not an easy proposition. However,
it is good that India tries this curriculum.

For every thing he tries to find out solutions through his theory of
mind change, thus undercutting the role of violence in change.

All theories involve a principle of mind change in one form or the
other. For example, even Marxism also deals with mind change but that
change is seen as possible through a mass struggle against oppression.
Lou Tice operates within the capitalist paradigm of socio-psycho
analysis and does not approve of violent transformation or mass
action. His theory of mind change is individualistic. Though Mahatma
Phule and Ambedkar were not cognitive psychologists they too wanted to
change the Indian social system through a process of mind change.

Perhaps India should operate at two levels of mind change—-individual
and collective. Though Lou Tice recognises the role of collective
consciousness he does not approve of mass action—agitations, strikes
or of violent wars. If a modern theory produces a model for peaceful
transformation, we should welcome it. After all there is nothing that
science cannot achieve.

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Wednesday, June 16, 2010

[ZESTCaste] Bad hair days after caste bar

[ZESTCaste] Valmikis, Jats clash after bike hits buffalo

[ZESTCaste] Nepal: Kin refuse to perform last rites of a man having affair with Dalit woman

[ZESTCaste] Mayawati joins Jat's water war on jobs

[ZESTCaste] The mind business (Kancha Ilaiah)

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