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Sunday, January 24, 2010

[ZESTCaste] Being called a Hindu is like an abuse to me: Dalit writer

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Being-called-a-Hindu-is-like-an-abuse-to-me-Dalit-writer/articleshow/5490479.cms

Being called a Hindu is like an abuse to me: Dalit writer

Meenakshi Sinha, TNN, 23 January 2010, 04:36am IST

JAIPUR: "Being called a Hindu is like a gaali (abuse) to me. I use
Valmiki as a surname because having one is almost a necessity these
days. If you just say Omprakash, it's not enough. People demand a
surname as they come from a certain mindset. Caste envelops every
aspect of life in India," said Omprakash Valmiki, leading Dalit writer
in Hindi, at the fifth Jaipur literature festival on Friday.

Valmiki was one of three speakers at the session, Outcasts: The Search
for Public Conscience with P Sivakami, Dalit novelist and political
activist from Chennai. Kancha Ilaiah, political science professor in
Osmania University, Hyderabad and author of the bestseller 'Why I am
Not a Hindu', was the third speaker. Ilaiah is an OBC by caste.

Sivakami maintained that upper-caste Hindus only have a caste
conscience and no public conscience. "They lack human conscience," she
said. Sivakami resigned from civil services after 29 years of service
to join the Bahujan Samaj Party in 2008.

Valmiki, author of celebrated autobiography Joothan (1997), maintained
that Dalits continue to be shunned in the realms of culture,
literature and the arts. "And that is despite 60 years of independence
and numerous laws guaranteeing their fundamental rights," he said. His
other works include three collections of poetry: Sadiyon ka santap
(The centuries-old anguish, 1989), Bas! bahut ho chuka (Stop it!
That's enough, 1997) and Ab aur nahin (Not any more, 2009).

Valmiki is currently working on two novels. One is based in Bihar and
the other on the Gohana episode in Haryana (2005) where homes of
Dalits were burnt. He is also working on a compilation of Dalit poetry
from across India.

"A casteist person cannot write Dalit literature. He will first have
to 'de-caste' himself, only then can he give the right picture. A good
Dalit writer hardly gets any visibility. In literature, Dalit
consciousness is not visible even in the writings of Ismat Chugtai,
Nagarjun or Premchand," said Valmiki.

While Ilaiah said Dalit literature is in its nascent stage, Valmiki
believed it has matured well in Gujarati, Marathi and Hindi languages.
"It's just starting out in Punjabi and Bangla," Valmiki said.

While sharing their angst at the way Dalits remain marginalised, the
writers maintained that a collective Dalit consciousness is the need
of the hour. Valmiki said that there's segregation in every village in
India and that Dalits are forced into ghettoes, to the western side of
the village where the sun's rays won't touch them. "Their homes are
mostly near drains or at the end of a river which is likely to swell
during floods hence making their homes the first to get washed away,"
he said.

Recounting discrimination of Dalits in Rajasthan, Valmiki recalled an
incident where in Rajasthan's village Chakwara, after Dalits managed
to gain access to the local lake, the caste Hindus started defecating
there and polluting it denying them access to it.

Valmiki said he doesn't need God because 'He' was not with the person
who's oppressed and pained. "Are we not his creation? He's
appropriated by those who conduct business in his name. "Saraswati is
no devi for me because when we were stopped from going to school, she
was not with us. For us God is Ambedkar and Buddha because they were
with us."

For Ilaiah, denouncing Hinduism was a necessity as he finds it
spiritually fascist. "I'm not a Hindu and I appeal to all brahmins
that if they read my book, please do so without self righteousness and
self pity. The idea is to put a sense of shame and guilt into them."

meenakshi.sinha@timesgroup.com

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[ZESTCaste] Community still facing discrimination: Mungekar

http://www.deccanherald.com/content/48156/welfare-sc-st-must.html

Community still facing discrimination: Mungekar
'Welfare of SC, ST must'
Bangalore: Jan 21, DHNS

Unless both the Centre and the State governments ensure effective
implementation of various programmes meant for uplifting the economic
condition of the members belonging to the Scheduled Castes, Scheduled
Tribes and minorities, the country will not be able to bring down the
poverty level, former Planning Commission member Prof B L Mungekar
observed.

Delivering a keynote address at the inauguration of a convention on
"Institutional Processes in New Development Paradigms" at the
Institute for Social and Economic Change, here on Thursday, he said
the members belonging to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes,
who constitute about 27 per cent of the country's total population,
are still facing discrimination.

It may be in terms of wages or education or health, they are not being
treated at par with others in many parts of the country. As a result,
there is unequal distribution of wealth.
This, according to Mungekar, is one of the key reasons for poverty
level to remain at a higher level for long time now, despite the
country achieving higher rates of economic growth. The Planning
Commission too has acknowledged that major weakness in the economy is
lack of inclusive growth.

"Though the percentage of population below the official poverty line
has come down from 36 per cent in 1993-94 to 28 per cent in 2004-05,
the rate of decline in poverty has not accelerated along with the GDP
growth. And the incidents of poverty among certain marginalised groups
like STs have hardly declined," Mungekar noted.

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[ZESTCaste] Bhim, Eklavya

http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?263871

dr bhimrao ambedkar
Bhim, Eklavya
From Ambavadekar to Dr Ambedkar, the shaping of India's Dalit icon
Smruti Koppikar
The Lawman's Heroes

Kabir Saint-poet an early influence.

Tukaram Saint-poet left a deep impression

Edwin Seligman Economist and mentor

James Shotwell Historian and a major influence

John Dewey Philosopher and Ambedkar's hero

***

In the west-facing corner of the first-floor library that
metamorphosed into the Ambedkar home is situated an angular room that
Dr Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar spent considerable time in while in Bombay.
The study opens out onto a balcony overlooking Dadar station, where
Ambedkar appeared occasionally to greet an eager crowd of supporters
gathered below. "I have heard him, pushing us all to study hard and
rise in life," recalls the white-haired Tukaram Londhe, a teenager
then who's spent decades here as attendant at 'Raj Griha', the
Ambedkar home in the ironically named Hindu Colony.

The balcony, the study, the winding staircase that leads to it, indeed
Raj Griha itself, is as nondescript as any other two-storey building
in the colony. It has seen better days. In the study, Ambedkar's
four-feet-wide table and personal chair are still in the position they
were through the 1930s, '40s and '50s. Two old chairs and a sofa
complete the seating. His C-shaped bookcase still holds the volumes
that he had leafed through. As one's fingers glide over the solid
table, it is not difficult to imagine Dr Ambedkar seated there,
writing and fine-tuning drafts of many a volume, drawing on his
memories and experiences.

Dr Ambedkar, as his grandson Prakash Ambedkar sarcastically remarks,
had a rich and large treasure of experiences and influences to call
upon, as he pushed millions of Indians, British rulers, the Indian
National Congress and Mahatma Gandhi into acknowledging the
dehumanisation of the untouchables. In October 1948, as he presided
over the Drafting Committee, he completed The Untouchables—Who Were
They And Why They Became Untouchables. The first copy still stands in
his bookcase. The dedication reads: "Inscribed to the memory of
Nandanar, Ravidas, Chokhamela—three renowned saints who were born
among the untouchables and who by their piety and virtue won the
esteem of all." Dr Ambedkar may well have been talking about himself;
beyond the obvious references, the inscription is a pointer to some of
his earliest influences.

The young Bhimrao through his childhood years in Dapoli and Satara saw
his father, a military officer, live as a devoted Kabirpanthi
advocating anti-idol worship who strangely insisted that his sons read
the Ramayana and Mahabharata every day. Bhimrao, in his unpublished
preface to The Buddha and his Dhamma, writes that he could not
reconcile the contradiction, though he soaked in the influences, just
as he could not comprehend why he was made to sit on the floor in a
corner of the school classroom, or had to go thirsty but could not go
to the common well, or boys in the classroom ran to "rescue" their
tiffin boxes the only time he went near it. Bhimrao Sakpal
Ambavadekar, his surname coming from his native village Ambavade,
learned to live with the injustices without even recognising them as
such, until later when he walked through the portals of Columbia
University. At the Satara school was a Brahmin teacher who left a
lasting impression—during lunch hour everyday he would quietly walk up
to Bhimrao to drop a part of his meal into the young boy's hands. "He
took so much fancy to the boy that he even changed his surname from
Ambavadekar to his own surname Ambedkar in school records...Ambedkar
gratefully remembered this teacher," writes biographer Dhananjay Keer.

Gautam Buddha came into Ambedkar's life rather accidentally. When he
completed his matriculation in 1907, his community wanted to
felicitate him as he was the first boy to do it, but his father would
have none of it. His father's friend and literary figure Dada Keluskar
prevailed. Keluskar even presided over the function and gifted Bhimrao
a copy of his book on Buddha's life, written for the Baroda Sayajirao
Oriental Series. Ambedkar recalls in an unpublished reference: "I read
the book with great interest, and was greatly impressed and moved by
it."

During his five years in Elphinstone College, Bombay, he met the
reform-minded Sayajirao Gaekwad III of Baroda who offered a monthly
scholarship and learned of a Mahar conference in Jejuri organised by
Shivram Janba Kamble, an early reformer. Incidentally, Gaekwad, much
to the chagrin of caste Hindu guests, sat and ate a meal with Ambedkar
there. All this left an impression on Ambedkar as he reached Columbia
University in 1913 as a post-graduate student where he formed the
intellectual connections and personal relationships that were to shape
much of his life's work.

"The best friends I have had in life were some of my classmates at
Columbia and my great professors, John Dewey, James Shotwell, Edwin
Seligman and James Harvey Robinson," wrote Ambedkar in the Columbia
Alumni News, December 1930. Of them all, he considered Prof Dewey, one
of the major philosophers of the 20th century, and Prof Seligman, a
well-known economist, as his hero and mentor respectively. When he
wrote his seminal work Annihilation of Caste in '36, he referred to
Prof Dewey "who was my teacher and to whom I owe so much".

For a boy who had to fight to be at school and was not permitted to
learn Sanskrit, he had an MA in Economics with Sociology, History,
Anthropology and Philosophy from Columbia University. This was a major
inspiration for him to study law as well as to go to LSE, says Prakash
Ambedkar. "And beneath it all was a strange mix of the mysticism of
saints and some strands of Marxist philosophy with Buddhist
humanitarianism. An original, perhaps unique, set of influences," he
adds. To this amalgamation, Ambedkar brought his study of law—he was
later the principal of Government Law College in Bombay and
established the Siddharth College of Law in addition to the Siddharth
College of Arts and Science through his People's Education Society—all
of which segued into his work, writing, indeed, his life. The stamp,
says Prakash, is there on the Constitution of India.

In Raj Griha, a part of which is now People's Education Society
premises with the Ambedkar museum and library, the sense of history is
still strong. Amidst his personal collection of books, letters and
photographs, especially in the study, the man's presence is palpable.
Two young men from Mahad, where Ambedkar broke convention by drinking
water from the public tank, stroll in. They solemnly pay their
respects at the bust. On their way out, they call out a greeting "Jai
Bhim," Ambedkar's greeting-cum-war cry to the millions who were not
permitted to say "Jai Siya Ram". Londhe smiles back with a "Jai Bhim"
of his own.

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[ZESTCaste] Urbanisation is changing relations between and within Nepali communities

http://nepalitimes.com/issue/2010/01/22/Nation/16734

Rural upheaval

Urbanisation is changing relations between and within Nepali communities

SUVAYU DEV PANT in PALPA

FROM ISSUE #486 (22 JAN 2010 - 28 JAN 2010)

KIRAN PANDAY
Caste relations are being transformed as urbanisation gathers pace in
the Palpa village of Hungi, a village on the banks of the Kali Gandaki
which is a microcosm of the country.

Hungi is remote, but it is no backwater. Proximity to a river ensures
that farmland is fertile and well-irrigated, so most people have
enough to eat. A few even have televisions.

"Nobody is starving here, there are only a couple of households
struggling. There's more than enough food to go around," asserts
Baikuntha Pant, a young returnee.

For generations, this relative prosperity sustained a division of
labour between the Brahmins, who occupied the fertile lowlands, and
the Magars, who lived high up in the adjoining hills. A few Brahmin
households owned most of the land and commissioned the Magars to work
the fields for a share of the harvest.

But much has changed with people leaving for the cities. The key
landowning Brahmin families have sold their property piecemeal to
finance investments in the city. Many of the buyers are Magars.

"Before, all my parents' neighbours were Bahuns, but the demographics
have definitely changed now," says Janak Raj Pandey, who works and
lives in Kathmandu.

With city jobs and farmland of their own, the Magars now have more
lucrative alternatives to working on Brahmin-held land. This has
closed income disparities between ethnic communities, and given rise
to a new, more diverse village elite. Inevitably, some people have
come to resent these changes.

"Look, there's the new rich," scowls my companion, gesturing to a
richly adorned Magar woman during a walk through the village.

For the most part, however, these changes have been received
peaceably. The bigger danger to social harmony comes from a different
angle. While income disparities between communities have narrowed,
those within them have widened. Many Magars buy property in the
lowlands with remittances from relatives working abroad. Those less
fortunate continue to toil high up in the hills.

"Life is still tough for me. I have two children and sometimes I
struggle to feed them. Before I would get some help from my
neighbours, but most have left for the lowlands," says Sujata (name
changed), whose husband works odd jobs in Kathmandu.

Among Brahmins, too, income gaps have widened between families with
children doing well in the cities, and those that rely solely on farm
income. The impact of these changing sources of income has been keenly
felt in the local school. As the value of education, in preparing
students for city jobs, has grown, enrolment figures have soared.

Urbanisation has benefited those communities with the means to take
advantage of it, leaving the marginalised out in the cold. Hungi's
experience is mirrored by the Nepali Living Standard Survey, which
shows that while the income poverty rate has dropped, income
disparities between communities have widened across the country.

Anthropologist Mukta Singh Tamang explains, "The poverty rate among
the mostly high-caste groups who live in or near urban centres and are
educated has declined more rapidly than the poverty rate among
communities in rural centres." Tamang attributes this in part to
rising remittances and low agricultural productivity.

With the 2011 census expected to reflect these changes, it's time the
government figured out how to make urbanisation work for everyone.

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[ZESTCaste] Fwd: CHITRALEKHA’s AUTO BURNS IN GOD’S OWN COUNTRY AGAIN AND YET AGAIN [1 Attachment]

<*>[Attachment(s) from Karthik Navayan included below]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Vasundhara Jairath <vasundhara.jairath@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Jan 24, 2010 at 2:00 PM
Subject: [YAM] CHITRALEKHA's AUTO BURNS IN GOD'S OWN COUNTRY AGAIN AND YET
AGAIN
To: youngactivists@lists.riseup.net

CHITRALEKHA's AUTO BURNS IN GOD'S OWN COUNTRY AGAIN AND YET AGAIN
Share<http://www.facebook.com/ajax/share_dialog.php?s=4&appid=2347471856&p[]=861570367&p[]=449760300178>
Today at 9:11am
"*All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. Everyone
is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in the universal
Declaration of Human Rights, without distinction of any kind, such as race,
creed, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national
or social origin, property, birth or other status. Everyone has the right to
life, liberty and security of person."
—Principle 1, ICPD Programme of Action

"They will not allow me to live"
- Chitralekha

Background

Many people would remember Chithralekha. She has been in the news since
December 30th 2005, when her auto rickshaw was burned in the middle of the
night allegedly by CITU workers whom she had been in conflict with. A few
citizen's initiative had helped her acquire an auto which was her sole
livelihood for the past one year. However a few days ago, she was allegedly
framed in a false case and taken to the police station and beaten up by
women police officers.

Chithralekha is a Dalit woman who lives in a small house on government
allotted land in a small village in Kannur district. Their house is the only
Dalit household at the extreme end of a village made up of well-settled,
middle-class OBC people. A visit to this area would tell us about the gross
historical injustice done to people like Chithralekha whom modern Kerala has
literally pushed to its very margins. From this area, Chithra managed to
study because she was extremely bright and because her mother – who is
accused of being the village sex-worker – underwent tremendous sacrifices in
order to help her daughter attain education. Yet, Chithralekha quit studying
after a while and later married Sreeshanth who is an auto driver and who
also belongs to the Thiyya community, which is an OBC community way above
Chithralekha's caste. This marriage out of her caste itself had angered many
and there were many local attempts to separate them.

However they did not give in and after her marriage to Shreeshanth she
learned driving and went on to buy an auto rickshaw - KL 13L 8527 - in her
own name under the PMRY loan scheme. The auto stand in Payyannur in which
Chithralekha wanted to drive her auto is controlled by the CITU, the trade
union that belongs to the Communist Party of India, Marxist (CPI (M)). The
CITU, like her own village, is also dominated by men belonging to higher
caste communities. Therefore, there was terrible resistance to her running
an auto from their stand. This was shown in the refusals and delays in
granting her a membership card and providing her a safe and supportive work
environment.

Soon this progressed to damaging her auto and Chithra lodged a police
complaint about this. For this Chithra was given a punishment by the Union
for taking the case outside the auto stand. Chithra refused to obey the
punishment and one of the auto drivers tried to run her over with his auto.
Chithra again complained to the police and this auto driver was taken to the
police station. However, the Union along with the local CPI(M) members
unleashed a terrible poster campaign against Chithralekha accusing her of
being a loose woman. This had immediate result and even in far away auto
stands a very legitimate struggle of a Dalit woman for an equal and just
working place became a case of loose morals and illegitimate activities.
Chithra lost all local support in the blink of an eye.

Soon on the midnight of December 30th 2005, Chithralekha's auto rickshaw was
burned. Many rumours were spread again saying that it was Chithra herself
who burned the auto which was her only source of livelihood!! However a few
citizen's initiatives within Payyanur helped bring this issue to the
attention of the media and also garner some support in organizing a Dalit
woman convention on behalf of Chithralekha. Many Dalit and Non Dalit
intellectuals participated in this meeting and it was decided here that
there should be an attempt to rehabilitate Chithra Lekha. This initiative
succeeded in procuring a rented auto for her. However, as they were unable
to make any kind of profit from this and could not pay the daily amount of
100rs, Chithra returned the auto to the committee members within ten days.
There was nothing done further to support Chithra even as attacks on their
family was increasing. This drove her to leave her home in Paynnur and stay
in hiding in a rented house in Thaliparambu.

It was at this point that a few people came to know about her situation and
they made this public through the internet by writing articles. Once the
issue came to public attention there was yet another citizen's initiative to
support Chithralekha. A Chithralekha rehabilitation committee was formed as
part of this, based in Kannur, and it was decided that they would help
Chithra procure an auto by raising some money by appealing to people all
over India. Chithralekha Rehabilitation Committee could mobilize well above
the targeted amount and raise Rs 1.5 lakh to procure and give her a new
auto. On 08-06-2008 she was given a new Bajaj diesel auto at a public
function attended by people like C K Janu.
Chithra had been slowly trying to get on with her life, though from the very
next day she and her husband were being attacked in various ways by the
local CITU. Meanwhile she also lost the case she had given against the Union
workers as her own brother failed to provide witness turning hostile under
the pressure of the party. Yet she had rebuild her house with the support of
some local Dalit activists and was fairly managing when suddenly she is
again been implicated in a police case.

The incident

On the morning of 20th January 2009, Chithralekha was about to park her auto
rickshaw in front of a medical shop to buy medicine for their son who was
stung by a honey bee. She was also accompanied by Sreeshkanth, her husband.
Mr Ramachandran who is an office bearer of the Autorickshaw Union of
Payyanur menacingly asked her to move her auto away from the parking spot.
She replied that she had the lawful permit to park and had every right to do
so.

An altercation followed between the couple and a few auto workers. After a
few moments, a police jeep arrived and bundled the couple to the vehicle.
They were severely beaten by the autoworkers even as they got into the jeep
and in presence of the police. When Chithralekha told the Inspector that her
valuables and cash were inside the auto rickshaw, the officer assured them
that that would be taken care of.
After reaching the Police Station, the couples were severely beaten again. A
woman police officer beat Chithralekha black and blue and her sari was
almost pulled off. Later, Sreeshkanth was taken to the hospital for a check
for intoxication; though Chithralekha also was compelled to get examined,
she protested and resisted the move, sensing that the police were acting in
a biased manner and they would get her booked for driving inebriated under a
false testimony by some doctor.

Chithralekha was later released but had to go to the hospital due to her
injuries. She has injuries all over the body and also in the lower stomach.
She is not only in great pain, but is also left almost alone without any
help from any one in questioning the actions of the union workers and the
police.
The police and CITU version of the story is that Chithralekha and husband
were drunk and that is why they had to be removed and beaten up!! The only
news item that came in one of the papers also gave this story, without even
giving the name of this woman who had been the cause of many public
intellectual debates in Kerala.

The moment she is accused of being drunk, all local support for her fades
away immediately and all protections of the law are denied to her and all
her human rights stand suspended. We have seen such a suspension of equal
rights happening in the case of Muslims accused of terrorism recently in
Kerala. This is being repeated in the case of Chithra Lekha also.

There is almost no media coverage about the whole issue and there is very
little support that Chithra Lekha has been getting at the local level.
Though there have been various attempts to contact many women and other
groups, by people outside Kerala, so far not a single concerned person in
Kerala has visited her or found out what is happening to her. In the
meantime she and her husband are in such a situation that they can only
surrender the auto to all those who helped her procure it as they are
finding it increasingly difficult to take on the CITU people without any
support.

Chithralekha Solidarity Group, Delhi, with inputs from K M Venugopal,
Payannur,*

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Sunday, January 24, 2010

[ZESTCaste] Being called a Hindu is like an abuse to me: Dalit writer

[ZESTCaste] Community still facing discrimination: Mungekar

[ZESTCaste] Bhim, Eklavya

[ZESTCaste] Urbanisation is changing relations between and within Nepali communities

[ZESTCaste] Fwd: CHITRALEKHA’s AUTO BURNS IN GOD’S OWN COUNTRY AGAIN AND YET AGAIN [1 Attachment]

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