News RSSEnding caste discrimination with toothpaste & shampoo
Originally published as “Shampoo & social equality”, By Ila Patnaik, The Financial Express, Aug. 15, 2010.
Economists have tended to focus on expenditure patterns, consumption and income to assess poverty and inequality in rural India. Within these categories, the debate among economists normally focuses on the average consumer or the one living below the poverty line. This approach fits well with methods for studying changing inequality in most countries. However, it ignores the most important aspect of rural India—the inequality created by the caste system. A focused study of Dalits finds that the growth of the market economy has ushered in a reduction in caste and social inequality with an impact more fundamental and far reaching than the changes in average income or expenditure patterns. Dalit well being, when measured by personal consumption patterns, practices around social events, personal relationships across castes and expansion into non-traditional economic activities and occupations, shows rapid improvement in the market reform era in contrast to previous decades.
A study by Devesh Kapur, Chandra Bhan Prasad, Lant Pritchett and Shyam Babu, titled Rethinking Inequality: Dalits in Uttar Pradesh in the Market Reform Era, presents results from a study of Dalits in two blocks of Uttar Pradesh— Azamgarh district in east UP and Bulandshahar district in west UP. The survey was designed and implemented by members of the Dalit community and all Dalit households in the Block responded to questions about social practices and conditions important to them currently and in 1990.
The study finds that there have been major changes in the grooming, eating, and ceremonial consumption patterns of Dalits, signaling their higher social status by adopting higher status consumption patterns. The study starts the analysis of social changes with what might seem not social, but apparently trivial consumer items: the use of personal grooming products such as toothpaste, shampoo, bottled hair oil. When Dalits are treated as social inferiors, then they also can appear in society with lower standards of personal appearance. Change in grooming is seen as an assertion of social aspirations. The study finds massive shifts in the use of the three personal grooming products. Almost none of the respondents recalls using these in 1990, while today over half of the people in both blocks report someone in the household using each of the three items. Dalits who used none of these three items went down by 80%. The use of toothpaste and shampoo rose from near zero levels to over half the respondents using these products today.
The study shows the shifts in diet among Dalits, as some foods with low social markers, which were the community’s main sources of calories, have practically disappeared and new items—spices and vegetables —have appeared. One example is drinks made from sugarcane or hardened molasses. These are high-calorie drinks that provide energy for manual labour. As these were often provided by landlords for their workers in the field as part of the wage, they came to be associated with agricultural labour and low social status. This has mostly disappeared from Dalit consumption baskets in these two blocks. Tomatoes and packaged salt, which were uncommon in Dalit diets in 1990s, are now part of regular consumption items.
Second, respondents report changes in the accepted behaviors between castes, with rapid erosion in discriminatory processes. By and large in these blocks, Dalits are less likely to be seated separately at weddings, they no longer are expected to handle the dead animals of other castes, there is a noticeable increase in births in Dalit households that are attended by non-Dalit midwives, and non-Dalits increasingly accept hospitality in Dalit homes.
None of these practices were common in 1990s.
Third, there have been large shifts in the pattern of economic life, both away from and within the villages. There has been a considerable increase in migration to distant cities to work. Nearly half of Dalit households have a member working in the cities. In the villages, Dalits have shifted into professions such as tailors, masons, and drivers, and businesses such as grocers, paan shop owners. Agricultural relations have changed such that almost no Dalits participate in bonded economic ties (halwaha) and fewer Dalits work as agricultural labourers on upper caste lands. Dalits now are much more likely to contract in factors from high caste groups (say tractors, land) than sell their labour to them.
Many other dimensions of social practices have also seen impressive improvement. In the 1990s, it was almost unheard of for non-Dalits to accept drinks or snacks if they visited Dalit households, which, in a culture of hospitality, excludes Dalits from reciprocal relationships. By 2007, in more than half of the villages, non-Dalits would accept drinks or food on visits. Another traditional practice was that only Dalits would lift the dead animals of the non-Dalits. Enumerators recorded whether dead animals of non-Dalits were lifted by ‘only Dalits’, ‘mainly non-Dalits’, ‘equally’, or ‘no one’. In the western block in the 1990s, in three-quarters of the villages only Dalits lifted the dead animals of non-Dalits. By 2007 this was only true of 5% of villages.
Social inequalities based on caste still remain an important aspect of Indian reality. But the changes accompanying the growth of a market economy offer a growing sense of empowerment and opportunity that can help change the face of rural India.
—The writer is a professor at the National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, Delhi
Posted on: August 16, 2010
Dalit Literature Flourishing
“The rise of ‘Dalit lit’ marks a new chapter for India’s untouchables”, By Andrew Buncombe, The Independent (UK), June 30, 2010.
Ajay Navaria, a writer of novels and short stories, cannot help but laugh as he reflects on the nature of his “other” job teaching Hindu ethics and scripture at a leading university in Delhi. The 39-year-old is a Dalit, a so-called “untouchable”, and little more than a generation ago, for him to have even been discussing Hindu texts would have been an offence that could have cost him his life. The fact that he now teaches them brings a smile to his face.
“Fifty years ago it would have been a crime. I think about this and think that if I had touched those scriptures I would have been killed,” he says, perched in a booth in a decaying coffee house in Delhi’s once grand Connaught Place. “But democracy has given me power. It has given power to the depressed classes and helped to make a more modern society.”
In his own way, Navaria is at the spearhead of a quiet cultural revolution sweeping India’s literary establishment. Having long been confined to writing only in their own, local languages and largely ignored by the literary mainstream, Dalit authors are now being swooped on by some of the country’s biggest publishers, such as Radhakrishna Prakashan which is translating their work into Hindi, the lingua franca of northern India and beyond.
Novelists, poets and writers of short stories are receiving both exposure and opportunity in the market-place that they have never before received. There are Dalit magazines, Dalit literary forums (there are two competing groups in Delhi alone) and Dalit workshops. And as further proof of the rising importance and clout of “Dalit lit”, Mr Navaria was this year a guest at the influential Jaipur literary festival, an annual gathering and networker’s paradise of Indian and international air-kissing types.
Indian society can sometimes seem harsh or even brutal. Nowhere is this more evident than in its caste system, a centuries-old hierarchy of categorisation based on ancient Hindu teachings that groups people into one of four main castes (and thousands of sub-castes). Traditionally, the caste someone belonged to decided where they would live, what job they would do and even what they would eat. People outside of these groups were considered unclean and not true Hindus, fit only for tasks such as cleaning toilets, making leather and sweeping the roads.
Dalits have suffered centuries of abuse and even today, despite legislation to protect them and an increasingly urbanised society, they are still the victims of widespread prejudice, discrimination and violence. A recent report by the Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front, a coalition of human rights groups in southern India, revealed a bewildering degree of discrimination, both in scale and form.
Among the various abuses detailed by the authors of the report, Dalits were not allowed to use a mobile phone in the presence of upper-caste people. They were also prevented from having their clothes washed, permitted only to drink tea from coconut shells while squatting on the floor, barred from entering temples, forced to eat faeces, raped and burned alive.
Yet Dalits total more than 150 million people – around 20 per cent of India’s population – and the realisation has slowly come that with such critical mass, this community could have considerable leverage. In India’s largest state, Uttar Pradesh, low-caste voters have on three occasions elected a Dalit chief minister, Mayawati Kumari.
The size of the population has also been a factor in the emergence of Dalit literature as publishers have woken up to the potentially massive market. As Navaria says: “They are doing their business, they are not missionaries. If they get a profit, they will do it. If they do not, then they won’t.”
A key figure in the emergence of low-caste writing is Ramnika Gupta. She is not a Dalit but she produces a quarterly magazine, Yuddhrat Aam Aadmi, devoted to previously marginalised writers. She estimates that she and her team of just three full-time assistants have published around 1,500 Dalit writers from across India over the last two decades. Large publishers regularly go to her for information about new talent. She helps on the condition that the publishers agree to produce a paperback edition that is affordable for ordinary people, in addition to the standard hardback run.
In the first-floor drawing room of her home, which also serves as her office, she noted that Dalit writers never lacked subject material. The highly influential writer and Dalit leader, B R Ambedkar, she explained, had said it was essential that low-caste people had their own literature and that they wrote about their own lives.
Mrs Gupta, who has herself written dozens of books on Dalit and tribal people’s issues, said of the caste system: “India’s culture discriminates. It’s a state of exploitation. Everyone thinks ‘He is lower than me’ or ‘I’m superior’. What we are trying to say is that we are all equal and if anyone is weak, we can help them to rise.”
Dalit writers say the emergence of low-caste literature has taken place alongside a broader growth of consciousness and activism, particularly in urban India. While in rural India, caste remains all-pervading, in cities many of the signs and signals that identify a person’s caste have vanished. In cities, too, Dalits are better organised to stand up for their rights.
“There is a growing consciousness that is emerging. People are now better educated and they all get to know about their rights,” said Anita Bharti, a long-time writer and activist who heads a Dalit literary forum that meets every month in Delhi.
Literature, said Ms Bharti, has an important role to play in the ongoing struggle by Dalits to end discrimination. While abuse of low-caste people still happens, “they can now write about it. Also, people realise that Dalits have been mistreated in the past and that there is a need to bring Dalit literature to other people.”
Navaria, who is now working on his second novel, agrees. When he wrote his first novel, Udhar Ke Log (People From That Side), he had no doubt that the main antagonist would be a middle-class, urban Dalit. The story tells of the various ways in which his low caste affects his life, including being rejected by his lover – herself a sex-worker – when she discovers he is a Dalit. “I chose to write about Dalit consciousness. I have felt myself treated like this many times,” he says.
One of his most painful, burning experiences was as a schoolboy of 12 or 13 when scholarships were being offered to Dalit pupils. His teacher walked into the classroom and asked any low-caste pupils to stand up so that their names could be taken down. “I never stood up. I went to the head teacher later [to apply for the scholarship],” he recalls. “You feel so ashamed. One friend said to me ‘You don’t look like a Dalit’. I asked him, ‘What do you think a Dalit looks like?’”
Navaria rejects the suggestion that by writing about purely Dalit issues and by knowingly organising themselves as Dalits, this new generation of writers is actually reinforcing caste divisions, rather than breaking them down. “If there are divisions in society, how can there not be divisions in literature? Publishers are not promoting these divisions but are reflecting them,” he says. “Caste is very important. You cannot imagine India without caste. If a person says they are a Hindu, then they will have a caste.”
One breakthrough these writers have yet to make is getting published in English. Partly that is because the writers prefer to work in a medium that their main audience can understand. But Ms Bharti and others say that getting the attention of the “elite” English-language media is still a challenge.
Navaria says he sees many obstacles ahead, but that he has the energy to overcome them. “Writing is not my profession, it’s my passion,” he says, as he finishes his coffee, Delhi’s warm yellow sun slipping from the sky. “I cannot even sleep if an idea is in my head. For two or three nights, I cannot sleep until it’s completed. It’s a duty to the society.”
Posted on: August 4, 2010
Young Dalit woman abused in Mumbai
Originally published as “Dalit girl paraded naked in Mumbai”, Times of Inda, July 10, 2010.
MUMBAI: Cases of attacks on dalit women aren’t confined to rural India. Last month, a young dalit girl was stripped and paraded in a southern Mumbai locality. The local police has arrested 10 women and two men and slapped them with cases of atrocities. However, Sharada Yadav, the main accused, is out on bail.
Said senior police inspector Rajan Bhogale: “All the suspects named by the victim, including Sharada Yadav, were arrested in the case. We charged them under the Prevention of Atrocities Act. But Sharda Yadav was granted bail by the court.” The 22-year-old dalit girl Mita Kamble (name changed), who was stripped and dragged out of her house at Darukhana, Reay Road, by a mob of mostly women, said: “They all shouted that dalits like me should not live in this area. They kept hurling abuses on me.”
What led to the incident was Mita’s brother allegedly abused a five year old girl.
Posted on: July 15, 2010
The Indian census and caste
Caste in doubt: The perilous arithmetic of positive discrimination
Jun 10th 2010 | Delhi
The Economist
Asking some uncomfortable questions
Sixty 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.”
Posted on: June 23, 2010
2010 US Government Trafficking Report: India remains at Tier 2 Watch List
NEWS RELEASE
June 14, 2010
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton released the 2010 Trafficking in Persons Report today at 10:30 a.m. at United States Department of State in Washington, D.C.
In the 2010 Report, India remains at the Tier 2 Watch List rating for the 7th consecutive year.
What does this rating mean? From the report: The Government of India does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so, particularly with regard to the law enforcement response to sex trafficking. Despite these efforts, the Indian government has not demonstrated sufficient progress in its law enforcement, protection, or prevention efforts to address labor trafficking, particularly bonded labor; therefore India is placed on Tier 2 Watch List for the seventh consecutive year.
The states of Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra gained recognition for their efforts to prosecute sex traffickers. From the Report: During the reporting period, the Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh state governments dramatically improved law enforcement efforts against sex trafficking.
In fact, Andhra Pradesh has produced one of this year’s nine TIP REPORT global heroes: Sattaru Umapathi.
Sattaru Umapathi, the anti-human trafficking officer of the Crime Investigation Department for the state of Andhra Pradesh, has led numerous interstate and intrastate rescue operations across India. Officer Umapathi has played a key role in rescuing victims and arresting traffickers; he has contributed to multiple convictions, leading to sentences ranging from four to 14 years’ imprisonment. He also forged partnerships with NGOs across the country and implemented UNODC anti-trafficking protocols in his state police department.
Officer Umapathi has changed the mindset of his state’s law enforcement community by teaching officials to stop treating trafficking victims as criminals. He has organized judicial conferences and addressed a colloquium in New Delhi, helping educate the judiciary about the need to treat victims with empathy. Officer Umapathi argued for application of the more stringent sections of Indian law in trafficking cases, such as laws related to minors in prostitution, import of foreign girls, and unlawful compulsory labor. He successfully implemented a rescue protocol that included the payment of $220 as interim relief for trafficking victims. Thanks to Officer Umapathi’s dedicated efforts, Andhra Pradesh is becoming a model for other Indian states fighting human trafficking.
The entire report is at http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2010/index.htm
Posted on: June 14, 2010
What is your caste? Potential census question exposes sensitive divide in Indian society
NEW DELHI — Bollywood’s biggest star has an answer ready if census workers ask about his caste: “Indian.”
“My father never believed in caste, and neither do any of us,” Amitabh Bachchan wrote in his obsessively followed blog.
Comments like Bachchan’s are common in modern India, which prides itself on how it has transcended some of its most rigid traditions — and those beliefs are being heard more often as the government debates whether the national census should delve into caste.
But Joseph D’Souza doesn’t believe such talk for a moment.
“There’s a lot of lip service to saying ‘I’m an Indian first,’ and ‘I don’t believe in caste,’” said D’Souza, a prominent campaigner for dalits, as India’s “untouchables” at the very bottom of the caste system are now known.
“When it comes to sharing power, to interaction, to sharing social status, low-caste Indians are very much marginalized,” he said, arguing the census could provide firm data about the vast divisions.
India’s census, being held in stages over the next year or so, delves into the wealth, living conditions and other personal details of the country’s 1.2 billion people. But still undecided is one question — “What is your caste?” — that has infuriated much of India’s elite, energized caste-based political parties and left in doubt millions of government jobs and university slots.
The debate has also made very clear that caste, the Hindu custom that for millennia has divided people in a strict social hierarchy based on their family’s traditional livelihood and ethnicity, remains a deeply sensitive subject.
“The biggest issue (with the census) is the inability of India to come to terms with this really ingenious form of discrimination,” D’Souza said.
Bachchan, who has dominated Bollywood for decades, proudly says his family has married across India’s vast geographic spectrum — with a Bengali, a Sindhi, a Punjabi and a Mangalorean. But D’Souza notes that none of those relatives are low caste and that the movie industry has not one dalit star.
The question’s fiercest backers include India’s most powerful caste politicians, who believe they could use the census data as fodder for votes and government funding.
Its bitterest opponents include much of the establishment. “At one stroke, it trivializes all that modern India has stood for, and condemns it to the tyranny of an insidious kind of identity politics,” Pratap Bhanu Mehta, a prominent Indian commentator, wrote in the Indian Express newspaper.
The last Indian census that measured castes was in 1931, when colonial Britain still ruled.
The founders of modern India — nearly all high caste — were, at least publicly, staunch believers in a caste-blind society. While many would have been aghast if one of their children had married a dalit, they also fought hard for dalit rights.
Most felt that counting caste sizes in a census reinforced a tradition they wanted to fade.
It’s an argument still heard today.
“No one denies that there are a lot of problems in India, that there is social discrimination,” said Barun Mitra, who runs a New Delhi-based research center. But “this process of identifying caste with a census is unlikely to help.”
Like many critics, he also worries about the rise of the caste-based politicians.
“What purpose would it serve by drawing and redrawing the identity one more time, particularly when it is politically motivated?” he asked.
In recent decades, some of the sharpest edges of caste traditions have been softened by urbanization and economic growth. Inter-caste marriages are now fairly common, and there are powerful low-caste politicians and businesspeople.
But caste also remains a deeply felt part of Indian life. Brahmins, the highest caste, still dominate everything from politics to journalism. Caste-specific marriage advertisements are newspaper staples. Studies show low-caste Indians and dalits face daily challenges for decent schools, medical care and jobs.
“Caste is part of every social agenda, every political agenda,” said Shaibal Gupta with the Asian Development Research Institute. “Even when someone is considering a neighborhood, caste is an important consideration.”
But caste calculations have become far more complicated, with jobs and university slots reserved for lower castes and a new generation of politicians learning to use their lower-caste backgrounds to create massive vote banks.
Laws give specific breakdowns of those reserved positions, but since the numbers are based on the 1931 census, their accuracy is questioned. And protests have been violent as caste leaders try to have their group’s status officially lowered to be eligible for reserved jobs and school slots.
For some opponents, complexity alone makes caste an impossible census question. While there are just four main castes, there may be more than 20,000 sub-castes. Then there are the sub-sub-castes, clans and a multitude of other variations.
But for proponents like D’Souza, such arguments prove the necessity of the question. In a country where caste is so important, he asks, how can India not know the facts?
“You can’t hide it and put it under the carpet and say caste is not there,” he said.
By: TIM SULLIVAN
Associated Press
http://www.sfexaminer.com/world/what-is-your-caste-potential-census-question-exposes-sensitive- divide-in-indian-society-95006229.html
Posted on: May 27, 2010
Failed program starves Dalits in Bihar
Originally published in The Hindu, by Shoumojit Banerjee.
GAYA: With the National Democratic Alliance government in Bihar playing cowboys and Indians with the Centre over the number of BPL (below the poverty line) families in the State, Gaya’s hunger deaths proffer a sober reality check to the government consistently serenading its schemes for the Maha Dalit community.
Three years ago, 14 members of the Bhuiyyan community (a Maha Dalit sub-caste) from a village in Gaya’s Mohanpur block died after eating the rotten meat of a dead goat. The reason for this desperate act was non-availability of grain in the village for long.
Fast-forward two years to the Dobhi block, where more than six starvation deaths were reported. All the victims belonged to the Bhuiyyan-Musahar sub-caste and their names did not figure on the BPL list.
Similarly at Tetua tola, populated with 150-odd Bhuiyyan-Musahar families, barely 69 villagers have their names on the BPL list. A mere 14 received some part of the benefits of the old-age pension scheme. Hardly any of the villagers was given the yellow Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) card that would entitle them to 25 kg of grain at subsidised rates.
Gaya’s hunger deaths reached their climax last month with the death of Congress Manjhi of Manan Bigha, who had been ailing for the past three years. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis six months ago and he died on April 14 — too ill and too weak to work.
Authorities attributed his death to an illness and not to starvation. A Maha Dalit though, Manjhi also did not figure on the BPL list.
In each instance, the kith and kin of the victims were given a token one quintal of rice after their deaths. This, understandably, was to calm the frayed tempers.
“Till date, there have been more than 100 hunger deaths in Bihar, with 26 of them having occurred in Gaya alone. Every single one of them smacks of incredible bureaucratic-political torpor,” says Rupesh, state advisor to the Supreme Court Commissioner.
According to activists like him, very little has changed for the Bhuiyyans in the last 2,500 years.
At a Jan Sunwai (public hearing) organised this Wednesday by activists of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties and Koshish, a right to food organisation, a thousand-odd Bhuiyyans took part, braving the scorching heat, for making their voice heard after a very long time.
Not one of them had consistently been given food grains on their BPL ‘red’ cards since June 2009, while barely a dozen were ever issued with AAY cards. “Even in States with dismal human rights records, there has been at least some advancement. But here, there has been very little progress,” said Harsh Mander, special commissioner of the Supreme Court and jury member at the hearing.
Noting that “there is a systematic breakdown in Bihar’s Public Distribution System,” he said: “It is vital for the district administration to get the anganwadi centres in working order if the Bhuiyyan-Musahar communities are to get any relief in the near future.”
Mr. Mander pointed out: “In case of hunger deaths, there is a long time period during which the victim has consistently survived on a low ration of food grains. When the autopsy is performed, there will remain bare traces of morsels.” The Human Rights Commission ruled that there was no need to submit a post-mortem report for hunger deaths.
“Unless there is a mechanism to control corruption at delivery, it will not make any difference to the government switching to cash transfers from the PDS,” says Father Jose of the PUCL’s Bihar unit.
Posted on: May 24, 2010
Gates help for Musahar village
May 11: The champion of the “mouse” from America will adopt a village of rat-eaters in India.
Microsoft chairman and philanthropist Bill Gates will tomorrow make his maiden visit to Bihar in sweltering weather and adopt impoverished Gularia village on behalf of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which focuses on health and learning.
The village, 180km northeast of Patna, is populated by the Musahars, one of the lowest Dalit sub-castes whose name means “rat-eater”. The landless community principally survived by hunting rodents for centuries but nowadays many Musahars work as farm hands although rats continue to form a part of their diet.
“Bill Gates has decided to adopt the village to improve the villagers’ socio-economic condition. His foundation will open a health centre in the village,” said Sudhanshu Kumar, district police chief of Khagaria.
Foundation sources would not reveal what other plans Gates has for Gularia in Khagaria district that lacks drinking water, schools, hospitals or electricity.
Gates’s visit is unusual because of its timing — day temperatures are now well over 40 degrees in the heartland. The American, one of the world’s richest men, toured Amethi this afternoon with Rahul Gandhi in temperatures above 42 degrees, seven weeks after his wife Melinda had visited Rae Bareli and committed Rs 250 crore worth of health programmes for Uttar Pradesh.
A Rahul aide claimed: “After going back, Melinda, we have learnt, had warned Bill Gates about the scorching Indian summer that she had faced in March, but he still decided to come in May, when it’s worse.”
Sources said Gates had chosen Gularia for adoption after receiving reports from the “field officers” of his foundation and other NGOs.
Khagaria district is home to the highest number of Musahars, whom chief minister Nitish Kumar has included in his “Maha-Dalit” category as a community that needs urgent development.
During his day-long visit, Gates is scheduled to meet Nitish in Patna to discuss pro-poor schemes and offer help to improve medical facilities.The software icon will arrive in Gularia by helicopter, an official said. “Tight security arrangements have been made. His schedule is being kept under wraps.”
Gates today flew down to the Fursatganj airstrip in Amethi and reached Bahadurpur village by car, accompanied by Rahul, traversing a dusty, rough road. As they stepped out, a gust of hot wind raised a cloud of dust around the VIP visitors.
Over 300 women associated with self-help groups welcomed the foreigner guest, who asked them how they cared for pregnant women and lactating mothers and infants.
The women spoke of the challenges they faced but expressed confidence about meeting them. The self-help groups impart healthcare to women and children, provide basic medicines and manage minor welfare projects.
Gates praised the women’s efforts and then turned to his favourite subject: the computer as a window to the world.
“How do you teach your children?” he asked. “Do you use computers to educate your children?”
Rajkali Devi, 27, said yes, the village children learnt to use computers from a very early age. “Sir, your goal and ours is the same in some ways. Like your organisation, we too spread awareness and try to fight poverty,” she added.
The American’s face lit up as he listened to the interpreter.
Nalin Verma and Tapas Chakraborty
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100512/jsp/nation/story_12439668.jsp
Posted on: May 12, 2010
Dr B R Ambedkar Chair set up at Columbia varsity
WASHINGTON: Columbia University has instituted a Dr B R Ambedkar Chair at its law school and two Professor Jagdish Bhagwati scholarships with support from the Indian government.
The chair, at the Columbia University Law School in honour of Ambedkar, one of the university’s alumni, has been instituted to mark the 120th birth anniversary of the chief architect of the Indian Constitution on April 14.
Indian-American economist Jagdish Bhagwati, a professor at Columbia University and senior fellow in International Economics at the Council on Foreign Relations, is well known for his research in International Trade and for his advocacy of free trade.
Welcoming the initiative to set up the chair, Indian Ambassador Meera Shankar said it commemorates one of the great leaders of India in the 20th century who is also remembered today as a symbol of social change and a vigorous advocate of social justice.
In an address April 1 at the University in New York on “Democracy and Pluralism in India”, Shankar stressed that India stands out as a developing country with a pluralistic democracy, which has become increasingly robust.
The “Indian Constitution became an instrument not only for freedom, but also for empowerment; a means not merely to guarantee and protect, but also to transform,” she said. It also “provided a framework to not only accommodate India’s diversity, but to also enable social groups that were on the periphery of society and on the margins of power to participate fully in the nation’s political and economic processes”.
The democratic process in India with free elections where each vote counts and counts equally has strengthened the political forces, which promote equity and inclusiveness, Shankar said.
“As the economy has grown and modernised and as the regions across the country are getting increasingly integrated and interlinked, the avenues for all groups have increased, though ensuring that growth is inclusive remains a key national challenge and priority,” she said.
India looked ahead with a sense of confidence based on the progress we have achieved, our experiences and the lessons we have learnt over the past six decades, Shankar said.
Posted on: April 13, 2010
Police officer suspended for failing to protect Dalits during village conflict
A police officer was suspended on Monday for failing to contain the caste conflicts in Lakshmisagar and Basavana Shivanakere villages in Chitradurga district.
Bharamasagara sub-inspector of police Rajashekar was suspended for not providing adequate protection to the villagers, Chitradurga SP Labhuram said.
DNA had reported about one of the conflicts that had started after a woman allegedly helped a Dalit boy elope with a girl from the Nayaka community in Lakshmisagar in January.
Bhagyamma, a Dalit woman, was stripped naked and beaten up by a group of men, allegedly from the Nayaka community, on January 17. Later, her house was also allegedly set on fire.
On February 19, Bhagyamma came to Bangalore seeking justice. She said about 30 to 40 men from the Nayaka community had barged into her house on the morning of January 17. “They came to our house around 8 am. They beat me up for more than two hours and stripped me,” she said. “They then dragged me by my hair to the panchayat office. No one, except panchayat member Rajanna Sidappa came to my rescue.”
Bhagyamma said that after the incident, around 11 am, she and her husband were taken to the Bharamasagara police station, where they were kept till the evening. She underwent treatment at a government hospital in Chitradurga for more than four days, she said. Two accused were arrested, but they were released on bail, Bhagyamma said.
Labhuram said caste trouble in the region had erupted in February, too, during a village festival in Basavana Shivanakere village. The situation worsened since there were not enough policemen, he said. The cause for the conflict was the alleged misappropriation of funds in a temple.
S Sivalingam, state president of Swabhimani Dalit Shakti (SDS), an organisation working for Dalit empowerment, said the conflict took place on February 26.
“The village festival is observed every year at the Basaveshwara temple on February 25, 26 and 27. This year, on February 26, members of the Nayaka and Bhovi communities alleged misappropriation of temple funds. The funds are handled by the temple committee headed by people of the Lingayat community,” he said. Angered by the allegation, Lingayat men beat up Nayaka and Bhovi community members with machetes, he said.
“Policemen were withdrawn on February 26. Bhovis and Nayakas were beaten up after that,” a villager, who did not want to be named, said.
“Now, only women stay in the village, as Nayaka and Bhovi men have left out of fear,” Devaraj, a state committee member of SDS, said.
“We have demanded an inquiry into the misappropriation of money and also adequate protection for people in the village.” He said suspending the police officer was not enough. The villagers should be given protection so that they could return to the village safely, he said.
By Senthalir S
Daily News & Analysis newspaper (DNA)
March 9, 2010
http://www.dnaindia.com/bangalore/report_si-suspended-for-caste-conflicts_1357008
Posted on: March 11, 2010
End to another discrimination against Dalits
VIRUDHUNAGAR: At last, the Dalits of Irunjchirai village in Virudhunagar district have got a salon and a washerman to serve them. Now, they need not travel 7 to 15 km to get these services.
The silent suffering of the Dalits due to discrimination by caste Hindus for years has come to an end after a youngster, S. Gurusamy, stood up against them and sought legal intervention in 2007 to stop the social boycott.
After District Collector Sigy Thomas Vaidhyan admitted to discrimination of Dalits in the village, the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court directed her to set right the problem at the earliest.
When the administration felt that village hairdressers and a washerman could not be forced to serve the Dalits too, it opted for an alternative – to set up common facilities to serve all.
On Wednesday, Aruppukottai Revenue Divisional Officer A. Ganesan inaugurated both the facilities, named after Thanthai Periyar, near Irunjchirai bus stop. Mr. Gurusamy was a proud man to get the service of a hairdresser at his village for the first time.
Besides the RDO, Tiruchuzhi Tahsildar T.R.D. Santhi, police officials and village leaders were present when the villagers of different castes availed themselves of the services.
Mr. Ganesan expected that Irunjchirai, despite earning a bad name in the past, could become an example of social equality for other regions in the days to come.
Ms. Santhi said the district administration, with the help of some donors, was able to get a shop and other paraphernalia for the salon and a cart for the washerman.
Housing facility
Efforts are on to provide permanent housing facility for the hair-dresser, S. Shanmugaraj, and washerman, I. Muthu, who have come from neighbouring Ramanathapuram district.
The washerman would soon take up washing of clothes of villagers after settling down.
“I have a feeling of having achieved independence (for our people). I am happy with the action taken by the officials. I wish things changed here for the better in future,” said Mr. Gurusamy.
Dalits had to travel either to Narikudi or Veeracholan even for a haircut for their children or to get their dresses pressed. “Only recently did the village become free of two-tumbler system and we are now allowed to walk wearing chappals,” he added.
S. Sundar
The Hindu
Feb 11, 2010
http://www.hindu.com/2010/02/11/stories/2010021156850300.htm
Posted on: February 11, 2010
Dalits hurt the worst in floods
‘Dalits worst hit in floods’
The Hindu
Feb 05, 2010
http://www.hindu.com/2010/02/05/stories/2010020560100500.htm
HYDERABAD: Discrimination against Dalits, insidious during normal course of life, becomes more pronounced in the aftermath of natural calamities. Despite forming the highest ratio in deaths and property loss, Dalits remain the last to get relief and rehabilitation. This fact has found one more echo in last year’s floods in five districts.
According to a comprehensive study and report by National Dalit Watch—AP for Relief and Rehabilitation with Dignity, Dalits were the worst hit during the floods, partly due to their deprived status and partly due to apparent discrimination and apathy by the officials.
The study was conducted through 13 NGOs including Sakshi Human Rights Watch, Dalit Bahujan Shramik Union, M.V. Foundation, and COVA which were part of the forum. In all, 1,090 residential areas in 308 flood-affected villages were surveyed, with emphasis on parameters such as losses suffered by Dalits, equitable distribution of compensation, dignity during relief measures, and discrimination.
According to the study, scheduled castes constituted 38 per cent of the affected families, 55 per cent of the dead, and 50 per cent of those who lost or suffered damage to their houses. 28 per cent of the Dalits lost crop in their own land while those losing in leased land formed 27 per cent.
Though compensation was given to lessee farmers, many did not get it owing to absence of written agreements, said R. Venkat Reddy, national convenor of M.V. Foundation. The ratio of Dalits losing cattle was very high in all districts.
Protection from drowning is one more concern, as over 45 per cent of the Dalits in Mahabubnagar district did not get any shelter, and the number was high in Kurnool too.
“Usually, SC colonies are located in low-lying areas, which makes them all the more vulnerable. We demand that Dalits be given highest priority in rehabilitation and be allowed to select their plots first,” said G. Narsimha, from DBSU.
Majority of the Dalits from Mahabubnagar district remained the last in knowing about the calamity, getting relief and compensation, and being rehabilitated. Quite a few families migrated in search of livelihoods, the report stated.
In many villages, Dalits complained that SC colonies were the last to get relief material. NGO relief too was usurped by the upper castes. Many names went missing from the victims’ lists made by officials, especially so in the instances where the victims did not return to the village immediately. Officials refused to include them afterwards.
Mr. Reddy also drew attention to the plight of Dalit children, especially girls, who dropped out from schools. He urged the government to award grace marks to the flood-affected children in Matriculation exams citing their traumatised condition. V. Nandagopal, convenor of the forum, demanded a study by the government to identify the reasons for caste-specific deprivation during calamities, and measures to rule out the same.
Posted on: February 5, 2010
Dalits see learning English helps break them free from the caste system
Dalits see English as social leveller
Times of India, 16 January 2010
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Dalits-see-English-as-social-leveller/articleshow/5449 983.cms
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court may have touted English as the flagbearer of knowledge economy but the role of the Queen’s language as a “social leveller” is witnessing a renewed push for English education among weaker sections.
Six decades after independence, there is a newfound zeal among intellectuals that English will not only equip SCs/STs for “new economy jobs” but also aid them in breaking free from the pernicious caste system.
The love for English as the new lingua franca is visible. In her fourth tenure as CM of UP, Mayawati made English compulsory in primary education in the state. While importance of foreign language in a globalised world is valid for all, the SC leader’s decision could be seen as flowing from her icon Ambedkar’s thoughts.
Her move stands out in the face of opposition from well-heeled rivals who see it as “cultural subversion”. SP chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and MNS leader Raj Thackeray have made a strong pitch for mother tongue over English.
Their opposition contrasts with acceptability of English among dalits. “If some people have to join the process of modernity, they have to learn the tricks of the trade. English is one of them,” says Vivek Kumar, a faculty in JNU and a keen follower of dalit trends.
Chandrabhan Prasad, who celebrates the birthday of Macaulay on October 25 in respect for the man who introduced English education, plans to put English in the pantheon of dalit gods. “I will build a temple to English in a school of a dalit this year,” he told TOI.
The pro-English mood has its roots in Ambedkar who saw “English” and “urban landscape” as the twin tools for social liberation. For him, English was the game changer – before its advent, dalits saw their destinies as “preordained” which later they saw as “man made”.
The foreign language is seen as the catalyst in social transition. Educationist Bhalchandra Mungekar says, “Jobs create vertical and horizontal social mobility while caste, which is immobile, played an ascriptive role. With English came new skills and the system is fast becoming achievement-oriented.”
Posted on: January 20, 2010
The Prejudices are on the increase against Dalits.
NEW DELHI: In what could raise serious concerns over the working of the 60-year-old reservation system to uplift the dalits, Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan on Sunday said caste prejudices had not come down against the dalits.
Reflecting on his journey from a dalit boy to the post of CJI, Justice Balakrishnan said it had not been an easy road for him. Asked whether in the present day, a similarly placed dalit boy would have a smoother journey, the CJI said, “It will still be difficult.”
Speaking to TOI, Justice Balakrishnan said, “The prejudices are on the increase. It may not be visible on the surface, for the prejudices are more sophisticate now.” This remark from the CJI puts in question the efficacy of the current system of reservation for Scheduled Caste population through the Presidential Order of 1950 to compensate them for the centuries of oppression at the hands of upper castes.
But the CJI was not bitter as he looked back on the eve of completing three years in the top post, just five months away from his retirement. “I have suffered caste prejudices. But at the same time, so many people have helped me irrespective of their caste,” he added.
In fact, the Supreme Court in April 2006 had issued notices to the Centre and all states on a PIL filed by an NGO — ‘National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights’ (NCDHR) — citing 20 common instances of indifference of police and authorities that had rendered the SCs and STs (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, a dead piece of legislation. The PIL had sought as many as 28 different directions for the proper implementation of the 17-year-old Act.
Posted on: January 11, 2010
Dalit Teenager Becomes Dalit Rights Activist
On a summer night in 1992, life changed suddenly for Bhanwar Meghwanshi. Devoted to the Ramjanambhoomi movement, the Dalit teenager had prepared kheer and puri for some VHP sadhus invited to his home in south Rajasthan’s Bhilwara district. The sadhus arrived in a tearing hurry, didn’t eat, but got the food packed. A day later, a friend took Meghwanshi to a place outside the village where they had thrown the food. “I learnt later that they ate their dinner at a brahmin’s house, about 3 km from my village. And I realised that while I was ready to die for Ayodhya, they were not even willing to eat at my place,” he recalls. He wrote an article in a local newspaper, ‘Why I don’t want to be a Hindu’, and shut the Hindutva door forever. Such moments of truth abound in Meghwanshi’s life: he was thrown out of Ram Vilas Paswan’s Dalit Sena in 1998 after penning the article, ‘Ram Vilas Ya Bhog Vilas’. Now 34, he is much his own man, often waging uncompromising battles for Dalits over temple entry and land rights. His workshops on legal, human and constitutional rights have helped Dalit youth assume leadership roles in 65 villages. “They are no longer afraid to raise their voice against caste oppression, ask uncomfortable questions,” says Meghwanshi. In parts of rural Rajasthan, that’s almost revolutionary.
What makes Meghwanshi’s brand of activism special is his sense of society, his ability to see the big picture. His organisation, Dalit Adivasi Evam Ghumantu Adhikar Abhiyan (Dagar), founded in 2006, chronicles and highlights Dalit contributions to history: Bhilu Rana Punja’s role in rescuing Rana Pratap in the 1576 battle of Haldighati and Keerat Bari’s part in saving Prince Udai Singh’s life. For him, empowerment is also about locating your place in society.
Meghwanshi’s first big battle as an activist happened at Suliya village, near Bhilwara. The 1,000-year-old Chamunda Mata temple was traditionally supervised by a Dalit priest, but in Oct 2006, Gujjars threw him out, and stopped Dalits from going in. The three month-long movement to reclaim the temple ended with 5,000 Dalits, including many women, entering its premises.
“That victory gave Dalits confidence that we can win too,” recalls Meghwanshi, a bunkar (weaver) by caste and his village’s first Dalit graduate. Again, in Rajsamand district, a Dalit got back five acres of land after a 15-year battle, spurring thousands of Dalits illegally stripped of their land.
Dagar is now active in six districts of Rajasthan – Rajsamand, Udaipur, Chittor, Bhilwara, Alwar, Pali – with a presence in another seven. “By 2010, we plan to have its imprint in every Rajasthan district,” says Meghvanshi, who owns 35 acres of land and does not accept any funding from anybody. “We want the organisation to be a people’s movement, not an NGO.”
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Class-action-/articleshow/5404784.cms
Posted on: January 4, 2010
No temple entry for Dalits in Gujarat
No temple entry for dalits in Gujarat
Vijaysinh Parmar
Times of India
Dec 7, 2009
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/No-temple-entry-for-dalits-in-Gujarat/articleshow/5308 970.cms
AHMEDABAD: Sunday was Dr B R Ambedkar’s death anniversary, ‘Nirwan Diwas’ as Dalits call it. At the lowest level of the society, Gujarat is not happy. Untouchability still exists in various forms in Gujarat.
In a first-of-its-kind study on a large scale, representing 98,000 Dalits across 1,655 villages in Gujarat. It comes out that 97 % respondents feel they have ‘no entry’ at certain places in their own villages, including a temple or where a religious ceremony is taking place.
Mahatma Gandhi himself wrote about the problem of untouchability in Gujarat when he set about establishing a base in Ahmedabad. He said in his writings that when he insisted on keeping a Dalit (‘Harijan’ as he insisted on calling them) in his ashram here, people started shying away. Even sponsors developed cold feet and funds started drying up. Bapu put his foot down and had his way.
Almost 95 years later, Gujarat is still not listening to the Mahatma even as the world tuned in. The bar for Dalits is felt at not only temples but also ‘satsangs’ and ‘kathas’. At these religious events, not being able to sit on a cot/chair with other upper castes has been clearly established as a sign of untouchability.
The study has been carried out by Ahmedabad-based Navsarjan Trust with three US-based organizations — the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, Dartmouth College at the University of Michigan and Robert F. Kennedy Centre for Social Justice and Human Rights, Washington, DC.
“This is the first study on such a large sample size and we covered 99 forms of untouchability that are still practised in villages. There are 12,500 villages in Gujarat where Dalits live. We have covered 1,655 of these villages and around 11 per cent of the total Dalit population,’’ says Manjula Pradeep, director of Navsarjan Trust.
During the study, the researchers did not find a single village where no form of untouchability is practised, giving an unnerving idea about the extent of the problem in a state which is home to Mahatma Gandhi. Ahmedabad-based social scientist Prof Ghanshyam Shah, a retired professor from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, who has studied the problem of untouchability in detail, also assisted in the research.
Prof Shah says, “Dalits face untouchability at religious places the most because the concept of untouchability has been centered around religion and ‘purity’. It may seem for urban middle classes that many things have changed, but the ground reality is harsh till today.’’
Posted on: December 8, 2009
Indias Supreme Court says government should end caste system
Originally published as “Six get life for massacring Dalits”, IANS (via CNN-IBN), Dec. 6, 2009
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/six-get-life-for-massacring-dalits/106568-3.html
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has sentenced six upper caste men from Uttar Pradesh to life terms for killing seven Dalits 30 years ago.
Sentencing the six men after reversing their acquittal by the Allahabad High Court, a bench of Justice Dalveer Bhandari and Justice A K Patnaik said: “Unfortunately, the centuries-old Indian caste system still takes its toll from time to time. This case unfolds the worst kind of atrocities committed by the so-called upper caste (Thakurs) against the so-called lower caste caste in a civilized country.”
“It is absolutely imperative to abolish the caste system as expeditiously as possible for smooth functioning of rule of law and democracy in our country,” the bench said in its verdict, which was delivered Friday but released Saturday.
In September 1979, a horde of around two dozens Thakurs descended on a Dalit settlement in Lahori village of Fatehpur district and kidnapped eight members of a family, hacked them to death and threw their bodies into the Ganga river.
The case was registered on the statement of a woman member of the family who survived a murderous bid on her.
The case was registered after she wrote to then prime minister Indira Gandhi and Dalit leader and former deputy prime minister Jagjivan Ram as the police dilly-dallied in booking the offenders.
Though the Fathehpur trial court had convicted 18 people for the offence, the Allahabad High Court had acquitted them all, giving them the benefit of doubt. The Supreme Court, however, reversed the acquittal of six of the accused.
“In the instant case, the accused persons belonging to Thakur caste literally butchered seven totally innocent persons belonging to the Harijan caste and to wipe out the entire evidence of their atrocities, after shooting they were thrown in the river Ganga where currents were very strong.
“Out of seven, even the bodies of five persons could not be recovered,” said the bench.
The Dalits murdered were identified as Jasodiya, Ganga, Tulsi, Deo Nath alias Madan, Din Dayal, Sukhlal and Shripal. One person survived the incident.
The apex court ordered Uttar Pradesh government to forthwith arrest the six men.
The six convicted were Mathura Singh, Udai Bhan Singh, Dhirendra Singh, Munna, Ram Niwas Singh and Vijay Karan Singh.
Posted on: December 7, 2009
Dalits say No to an age-old practice
Dalits say no to age-old practice in Narsinghpur
By Ritesh Mishra
Daily Pioneer
Nov. 24, 2009
http://www.dailypioneer.com/218020/Dalits-say-no-to-age-old-practice-in-Narsinghpur.html
Bhopal: Hundreds of Dalits living in the nearby villages of Gadarvara in the Narsinghpur district are suffering from discrimination and threat from the upper castes for saying no to an age-old malpractice.
The Ahirwars of Madgula, Nander, Devari and Tekapar villages had been picking up dead animals for ages. Lately however, the community members felt that because of their role, they were being discriminated against and looked down upon by the upper caste villagers. Hence, three months ago the community stopped picking up the dead animals.
Following this decision, the upper caste villagers, consisting mostly of Rajputs and Lodhis, wreaked havoc on the Ahirwars. They have been stopped from using public handpumps and roads falling in the area of the upper caste villagers.
Hari Singh of Devri village said the people of their community are only moving on the State roads since they had been stopped from using the roads in the areas of the upper caste villagers. He further ruled that there was only one general store in the village, and the Arihwars could not go even there. “The upper caste villagers are not giving back our grain sacks which are with them just because we have taken the decision not to pick up the cattle corpse,” he said.
Singh, who has done his masters in History from Jabalpur University further said even though he was educated, he was being discriminated against on the grounds of the traditional work of his caste. He felt humiliated everywhere. “All hand pumps except one are in their area and we are prohibited to take water from there,” he said.
Lal Singh of Tekapar village said three months ago they had decided not to pick up the dead animals. Since then, the upper caste villagers have started their oppression. He further said the upper caste included Rajputs and Lodhi, who are continuously exploiting the Ahirwars.
He said, “About two weeks ago, they threw a dead cattle in front of our house and abused us. They had closed their way for about 15 days after we opposed picking up the dead cattle.”
Ramesh Ahirwar of Nander village said after his community people took the decision not to up pick up the corpse of cattle, the upper caste villagers issued threats. “It was only when we submitted memorandum to the police and administration that the upper caste villagers stopped their ill-treatment,” he said.
Even though the Ahirwars of Devri and Tekapar have been living in misery for the past three months, the police say their problems have been solved. SHO, Sai Kheda, Asif Iqbal, said the police had got some complaints about three months ago and they took suitable actions. The police along with SDM, DSP and ASP visited these villages and all grievances were redressed.
He said the police have also provided toilets in some villages since the people of Ahirwar community were prohibited to go for natural call in the fields of upper caste. “We have not received any complaint for the last three months,” he said.
Similarly, SP, Narsinghpur, Kumar Ashish said initially there were some complaints and the police did its best to redress their grievances since it was a sensitive issue. The police have not received any complaints for the last few months and the Ahirwars are living in peace.
But the Ahirwars of Devri and Tekapar continue to lead a miserable life. The members of Nagrik Adhikar Manch and Yuva Samvad had visited the Nander, Madgula, Devri and Tekapar. They found that the Ahirwars were being ill-treated and threatened by the upper caste villagers.
Posted on: November 24, 2009
Woman murdered for marrying Dalit in Tamil Nadu
Woman murdered for marrying Dalit in Tamil Nadu
Original published as “Woman murdered for marrying Dalit in Tamil Nadu”
CHENNAI: In a gruesome honor killing, a 21-year-old woman was brutally murdered by her father and relatives in Tirupur district of Tamil Nadu on Wednesday for marrying a Dalit youth.
Sripriya, who belonged to the backward Kallar community, had fallen love with A Badhrakali, while she was doing an internship for her B.Ed course.
The couple eloped and got married in Salem on September 29. Police and relatives said Sripriya’s father Srinivasan and two relatives came to Madathukulam, near Udumalpet in Tirupur district, on Wednesday. The newly-wed couple was staying with Badhrakali’s sister in Madathukulam. Srinivasan asked Sripriya to come to Trichi to visit her mother who was ill.
‘‘She refused and told them she would decide after her husband returned home. They left quietly,’’ Badhrakali’s brother-in-law Chandrasekar said. ‘‘Then the two relatives returned. When my wife Rani and a neighbor questioned them, one man threatened them with a knife while the other stabbed Sripriya,’’ said Chandrasekar. Sripriya was stabbed on her neck, breasts and abdomen.
Posted on: November 10, 2009
Justice given for 1997 murder of Dalits
Originally published as “A shot in the arm,”
On October 22, the Supreme Court hit the nail on the head by upholding the life sentence awarded to 17 persons in the Melavalavu massacre case of 1997. Six Dalits, including the president of the local panchayat, K. Murugesan, were murdered by a mob of caste Hindus in an act of intolerance to empowerment of the oppressed. The Melavalavu case had sent shock waves across the country, much like the Keezhavenmani carnage of 1968 in which 44 Dalits were charred to death.
In 1996, the hostility of caste Hindus of Melavalavu village in Madurai district towards Dalits intensified after the local panchayat was designated as a reserved local body. The caste Hindus, mainly those belonging to the Ambalakarar community, adopted devious methods to disrupt the elections as they were not prepared to put up with a panchayat headed by a Dalit. They let loose terror, forcing the Dalit nominees to withdraw from the contest. When fresh elections were held, they resorted to booth-capturing, which warranted a re-poll. Although Murugesan was elected, he was not allowed to function freely. He faced constant threats from his detractors.
Finally, on June 30, 1997, when Murugesan, along with a few other functionaries of the panchayat, was returning to his village from Madurai after a meeting with government officials in pursuance of their demands, the caste Hindus attacked the bus in which they were travelling. The victims, who tried to flee, were hacked to death. Murugesan was beheaded.
Although 40 persons were cited as accused, the trial court on July 26, 2001, convicted 17 of them, including “accused No.1” Alagarsamy for offences under Section 302 (punishment for murder) read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) and/or Section 149 IPC (unlawful assembly). The judgment was confirmed by the High Court through its verdict on April 19, 2006.
Filing appeals before the Supreme Court, Alagarsamy and others contended that the whole prosecution case was liable to be discarded on the basis of “irregularities” pertaining to the first information report (FIR). They also contended that the trial court had convicted them on the interested and discrepant testimony of the prosecution witnesses even as the FIR book itself could not be traced and the names of many persons in the case did not figure in the FIR. The appellants also argued that the first report sent by the Tahsildar of Melur to the District Collector and the Collector’s report to the Secretary, Public (Law and Order), did not mention the names of the accused.
However, a Supreme Court Bench comprising Justices V.S. Sirpurkar and Deepak Verma dismissed the appeals. The court also pointed out that the non-mention of names in these reports would be of no consequence as the officers were only informing the higher-ups.
“Considering the unprecedented nature of this prosecution, the chaos that it caused in the otherwise peaceful life of the village and the enormousness of the whole affair, the number of persons murdered, the number of witnesses collected and the enormousness of the investigation, we cannot blame the investigating agency and the prosecution for not being able to trace out the FIR book…. In our opinion, that circumstance, by itself, will not persuade us to throw the whole prosecution case,” the apex court observed.
“In fact, barring the aforementioned argument regarding the FIR, no arguments were led before us, assailing the evidence of the eyewitnesses, as also the injured witnesses and the other corroborating circumstances relied on by the courts below,” it pointed out.
The court also agreed with the comment of the High Court that there had been an attempt to win over the prosecution witness-1, Krishnan, after the cross-examination. Krishnan was declared hostile at the fag end of his cross-examination, it noted.
“We are convinced that the findings of the trial court and the appellate court are correct… in law. We find that there is no merit in the appeal and it deserves to be dismissed. It is accordingly dismissed,” the apex court said in its order.
The court order is a shot in the arm for those fighting for the empowerment of the oppressed.
Posted on: November 6, 2009
UN's Caste Declaration riles India
DELHI – The United Nations Human Rights Council’s (UNHRC) recent decision to declare discrimination based on the caste system a “human-rights abuse” – thereby acknowledging centuries of bias against the world’s estimated 200 million Dalits (untouchables) – has evoked a sharp reaction from India.
The UN decision came about despite robust opposition from the Indian government and its aggressive lobbying to get the council to delete the word “caste” from its draft. Instead, the UNHRC is now set to ratify draft principles that recognize persecution of Dalits worldwide.
No other country has opposed the move as vehemently as India. This is because the UNHRC declaration has a special relevance to India and its 65 million Dalits – the largest for any single country.
This sizeable demographic is considered “unclean” in India by the upper castes who regard their presence, and sometimes even their shadow, as polluting. It is in this regard that the UN draft pledges to work for the “effective elimination of discrimination based on work and descent”.
What most weakened India’s case in the UNHRC was Nepal’s acquiescence to the move. Wresting the opportunity, the council has now called on India to follow Nepal’s example even as New Delhi feels this amounts to “international interference” in a sensitive internal matter.
There’s no denying that the issue of Dalits – who occupy the lowest rung of India’s well-entrenched caste pyramid – is a virtual tinderbox in the country. Despite India’s increasing literacy levels, mounting economic wealth and growing geopolitical heft, the benefits of national prosperity haven’t quite percolated down to low-caste Indians, who are ostracized by mainstream society.
Despite over six decades of independence from British rule, Dalits are still discriminated against in all aspect of life in India despite laws specifically outlawing such acts. They are the victims of economic embargos, denied basic human rights such as access to clean drinking water, use of public facilities, education and access to places of worship.
Even constitutional laws, modeled on those framed by the Confederate states in America during the reconstruction period after the Civil War to protect freed black American slaves, have never been enforced by the Indian judiciary and legislature, which are dominated by high castes.
This is indeed ironic as one of this century’s most recognizable global icons – Mahatma Gandhi – was an Indian who crusaded tirelessly against discrimination based on caste or gender. He ensured that the founding fathers of the Indian constitution made special provisions to grant India’s Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other Backward Castes special privileges like reservations (up to 33%) in jobs and educational institutes.
So why is there such a hue and cry in India over the UNHRC move? According to experts, the brouhaha has as much to do with politics as with economics and human rights. First, it is not in favor of vested political interests to eliminate the caste system in India as Dalits form a lucrative vote bank. In fact, in a country of a billion-plus population, it would be foolhardy to fritter away this attractive political constituency that dominates large swaths of India.
The prime example is India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh (population: 190 million) which has 403 electoral constituencies. Though there are no official figures available, it is estimated that the country’s largest number of Dalits – probably half – reside here. The results are clear; currently the state is ruled by the powerful Dalit-dominated Bahujan Samaj Party, helmed by its redoubtable chief minister Mayawati, who was ranked by Forbes magazine in 2008 at 59 on its world’s most powerful women list.
In 1995, at age 39, Mayawati was the youngest politician elected to the post of chief minister and was also the first Dalit to head a state government. She may well trail-blaze again as India’s first Dalit prime minister as she goes about building an alliance with India’s Brahmins, augmenting the Dalits’ pan-India footprint. (In June, Meira Kumar was elected the first Dalit woman ever as parliament speaker.)
Still, there’s no denying that Mayawati is more an aberration rather than the rule in India. So will the UNHRC move help get Indian Dalits’ global attention followed by aid from bodies like the European Union? Dr Udit Raj of the Dalit-based Indian Justice Party has welcomed the UN move and feels it will focus the international spotlight on the issue provided the “Indian government has the courage to accept there’s discrimination”.
It is unlikely that a single UN resolution will radically change the landscape of social realities in India. Perhaps even the UNHRC is aware of this fact. Can its declaration be a tool to harass India then? Is it a clever ploy to keep the ambitious country on a leash in view of its abysmal human-rights record? The idea could be to push India to be answerable for discrimination based on work, descent and gender.
Some good has already come out of the UNHRC exercise, albeit indirectly. Rahul Gandhi, the architect of the ruling Congress Party’s general election victory in May, has launched a recent drive to uplift Dalits. He is visiting Dalit homes across Uttar Pradesh and has ordered his party members to recalibrate their welfare programs in favor of Dalits. However, many see the Gandhi scion’s move as a larger political game plan to erode Mayawati’s base in Uttar Pradesh.
In other words, the UNHRC declaration is a sword that will cut both ways for India. While it will definitely focus international attention on the issue – and hopefully lead to increased government spending to improve opportunities for Dalits in the country – it has simultaneously underscored the country’s feudalistic and discriminatory ethos. It is this that India is most sensitive about as it tries to wrest center stage in the new global regime.
Neeta Lal is a widely published writer/commentator who contributes to many reputed national and international print and Internet publications.
(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved
Posted on: October 21, 2009
UN to treat caste issues as Human Rights violation
If the recent genome study denying the Aryan-Dravidian divide has established the antiquity of caste segregations in marriage, the ongoing session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva looks set to recognize caste-based discrimination as a human rights violation. This, despite India’s opposition and following Nepal’s breaking ranks on the culturally sensitive issue.
Nepal has emerged as the first country from South Asia—the region where untouchability has been traditionally practiced—to declare support for the draft principles and guidelines published by UNHRC four months ago for “effective elimination of discrimination based on work and descent’’—the UN terminology for caste inequities.
In a side-event to the session on September 16, Nepalese minister Jeet Bahadur Darjee Gautam said his county welcomed the idea mooted by the UNHRC document to involve ``regional and international mechanism, the UN and its organs’’ to complement national efforts to combat caste discrimination. This is radically different from India’s stated aversion to the internationalization of the caste problem.
Much to India’s embarrassment, Nepal’s statement evoked an immediate endorsement from the office of the UN high commissioner for human rights, Navanethem Pillay, a South African Tamil. Besides calling Nepal’s support “a significant step by a country grappling with this entrenched problem itself,’’ Pillay’s office said it would “like to encourage other states to follow this commendable example’’.
The reference to India was unmistakable especially since Pillay had pressed the issue during her visit to New Delhi in March. Pillay not only asked India to address “its own challenges nationally, but show leadership in combating caste-based discrimination globally.’’ The granddaughter of an indentured labourer taken to South Africa from a village near Madurai, Pillay recalled that in 2006, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had compared untouchability to apartheid.
Adding to India’s discomfiture, Sweden, in its capacity as the president of the Europeon Union, said, “caste-based discrimination and other forms of discrimination based on work and descent is an important priority for EU.’’ If this issue continues to gather momentum, UNHRC may in a future session adopt the draft principles and guidelines and, to impart greater legal force, send them for adoption to the UN General Assembly.
The draft principles specifically cited caste as one of the grounds on which more than 200 million people in the world suffer discrimination. “This type of discrimination is typically associated with the notion of purity and pollution and practices of untouchability, and is deeply rooted in societies and cultures where this discrimination is practiced,’’ it said.
Though India succeeded in its efforts to keep caste out of the resolution adopted by the 2001 Durban conference on racism, the issue has since re-emerged in a different guise, without getting drawn into the debate over where caste and race are analogous.
Posted on: September 28, 2009
Conference held in Bangalore calls for tolerance at Chikkamangalur
The Christian conference organised by All India Christian Council (aicc) and the Christians Churches Associations at Shakom AG Church, Undedasarahalli, Chikkamangalur in Karnataka on 20 August 2009 was attended by leaders from different communities and also denominations such as the Pentecostals, the Brothern, Baptists, the Catholics, and Good Shepherd Community Church (GSCC).
Congress District President ML Murthy said, “The universal man is one who wishes good of others. It is therefore wrong to sow seeds of poison among people of different faiths just for the sake of power.” He called upon Christians not to keep silence over such divisive politics, and to come out in favor of nation building activities.
CPI District General Secretary B Amjad praised the Christians for their peace loving quality and lamented that people of all religions, including Hindus, were falling victims to the disruptive activities of communal elements. BSP district president KT Radha Krishna said some sections could tolerate the rise of Dalits and minorities, and they were therefore out to foment trouble in the name of religion.
AICC National General Secretary Dr Sam Paul said under section 298 of the Indian Constitution, it was forbidden to disrespect people of other religious faiths. But systematic attack was being carried out against Christians.
Some pastors and bishops appreciated the aicc’s initiative of organizing such encouraging and helpful programs for all communities. Bishop CS John said, “aicc is doing a great job and we are very grateful.”
Posted on: September 17, 2009
After 60 yrs of Independence, untouchability alive and kicking in India
More than 60 years after Independence, untouchability is alive and thriving in India’s hinterlands. Pockets of social change have been but mere drops in an ocean of casteism and prejudice. This was borne out in a survey by National Law School, Bangalore, which was reported recently. Following this, TOI correspondents did a reality check in eight states across India. Dalits are still segregated with little access to temples, water sources and upper caste areas. And ironically, even in Radhanagar in Hooghly district, the birthplace of social reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy, there are separate crematoria for Brahmins and non-Brahmins. And in a bizarre case in Waganagere village in Gulbarga district of Karnataka, 120 Dalit households were forced to draw water from their well even after a dog fell in and died. During festivities, not only are they served food separately, but they have to bring their own plates and tumblers. Gulbarga, incidentally, has 126 cases registered under the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act 1989 and the Protection of Civil Rights Act 1955, the highest in Karnataka. In UP, almost every village has a chamar toli, a place segregated for them. Dalit children are made to sit separately in schools. In Malasa village in Kanpur Dehat, though the post of gram pradhan was reserved for scheduled castes, it has been lying vacant as no Dalit has the courage to contest the election, fearing backlash from the dominant Thakurs. And when they do, as two Dalits did last year, their candidature was rejected because no one, not even Dalits, seconded them during the filing of nomination papers. Uniquely in UP, untouchability is practised by Dalits too. In Rajasthan’s Dholeria Shashan village near Pali, newcomers are interrogated and if they are scheduled castes, entry is tough. They also cannot pass upper caste houses wearing footwear or headgear, says poet and writer Vinod Vithall. Segregation is also blighting the next generation. In Rajpur tehsil, 60 km from Kanpur, Thakurs withdrew their children from a primary school after a Dalit cook was employed to prepare mid-day meals. D Shyam Babu, senior fellow, Rajiv Gandhi Foundation, says authorities often turn a blind eye to caste atrocities. Acts which protect the lower castes aren’t implemented either. The National Commission for Scheduled Castes in Chandigarh admitted that it receives 3-4 complaints daily. Ajmer district police reportedly has recorded 360 cases pertaining to SCs/STs over the last 18 months. In UP, over two dozen such cases were filed in the last six months. But Dalits have now started asserting themselves. ‘‘In Tamil Nadu, upper castes are now at the receiving end after two decades of virulent clashes. In Punjab, thanks to the Green Revolution and prosperity, most Dalits have a good lifestyle,’’ says Balwinder Singh Sidhu, a government official, though there are pockets of discrimination. Individuals have made a difference too. Tamil Nadu inspector general Pratheep V Philip has started a social justice tea party where the police provides tea to villagers and counsels them against discriminating Dalits. Two months back in Alwar, a Brahmin invited Dalits to his daughters wedding. In rural Bengal, says social scientist Amal Mukhopadhyay, inter-caste marriages too are taking place
Posted on: September 10, 2009
Many Hues of Untouchability
LUCKNOW: The post of the gram pradhan at Malasa village of Bhognipur block in Kanpur Dehat has been lying vacant for decades. Though reserved for
the Scheduled Castes (SC), no Dalit could ever muster courage to contest panchayat elections here, fearing backlash from the dominant Thakur community for whom a Dalit village head is intolerable. Last year, when two Dalits dared do the impossible, their candidature was rejected. Reason: No one, including from their own caste, came forward to propose and second their candidature, as required for filing nomination papers.
In Rajpur tehsil, 60 km from Kanpur, Thakurs have withdrawn their children from the Banwaripur Basic Primary School after a Dalit cook was appointed to prepare mid-day meal here. When TOI team visited the school early this week, only 26 out of 62 students were attending classes and having the mid-day meal. All of them were Dalits. The remaining—mostly Thakurs—have stopped coming to school in order to avoid food prepared by a Dalit cook.
These are only two examples of different manifestation of untouchability still prevalent in UP. In every village one can find a “chamrauha” or “chamar toli”, a segregated place for Dalits. Their wells and handpumps are separate and so are their temples. Even in the schools, Dalit children are made to sit separately. And what is perhaps unique to north India, particularly UP, is that untouchability is not only practised by the upper castes but has percolated down to Dalits as well. There are various sub-castes among Dalits and higher ones in the hierarchy do not share `roti-pani aur beti ka rishta’ with those in the lower category.
At Haddiganj in Barabanki, 30 km from the state capital, `Hadbinnas’ face discrimination within their Dalit fraternity. Considered lowest sub-caste among Dalits, Hadbinnas make living by collecting bones and flaying hydes of dead animals. Dalit communities like cobbler, which enjoy higher position in the sub-caste hierarchy, do not share table with `Hadbinnas’, forcing them to make separate arrangement for their children.
Says Prof DM Diwakar, Giri Institute of Development Studies, “The condition of Dalits will not change till they stop untouchability among themselves.” In fact, he added, UP’s problem is the deep-rooted feudal mindset which does not allow social democracy to germinate, leading to discrimination at all levels. “But changes, though superficial, have generated some awareness among dalits, as a result they have started asserting themselves, resulting in the backlash from upper castes. Hence, what is visible as rise in incidents of atrocities on Dalits is actually the outcome of friction between lower and upper castes,” he said.
In the past six months alone, according to police records, over two dozen cases of Dalits being targeted by upper castes for violating `old social order’ have been reported from various parts of the state. Last month, one Jagrup, a Dalit at village Naheli in Kanpur, was thrashed by the upper caste men for drawing water from public pond. Sudhir, a Dalit, was assaulted by the priest when he entered a temple in Auraiya. Dalits in Behrampur were assaulted when their cattle strayed into the fields of upper caste. In Kathawara village, Lucknow, Dalits cannot hold marriage celebrations and festivities like upper castes.
The problem in urban areas and educational institutes is found in a different form. Dalit students were attacked by upper caste counterparts for allegedly taking admission in a `vedic learning’ course in the Sampoornanand University in August 2008. A survey conducted by All India Democratic Women Association (AIDWA) in Lucknow revealed that 80% Dalit women faced discrimination while working in upper caste households. “They admitted that though upper caste families employ them as house maids, they are served on different plates which they have to wash separately after eating,” said AIDWA secretary Madhu Garg.
Posted on: August 17, 2009
Supreme Court objects to state's anti-English policy - asian age
SC objects to states’ anti-English policy
Age Correspondent
New Delhi
July 21: The Supreme Court on Tuesday took exception to those state governments which were trying to impose the mother tongue as compulsory medium of instruction in schools, and warned that this could be counter-productive for students. It said teaching the mother tongue to children should be left to their parents.
The remarks of the three-judge bench — comprising Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan and Justices P. Sathasivam and B.S. Chauhan — came while it was hearing the Karnataka government’s appeal seeking a stay on the state high court’s order quashing its decision to make Kannada the only medium of instruction in government and private schools from Classes 1 to 4.
The bench said if the mother tongue was the only medium of instruction, they (students) will be “ineligible for even clerical jobs.” It rejected the argument of senior state government counsel P.P. Rao, who quoted experts to claim that teaching the mother tongue at an early age was essential for intellectual and cultural development of the child.
“Parents are ready to pay Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000 to get their children admitted to English-medium schools. This is the real state of affairs. They do not want to send them to schools (teaching) their mother-tongue,” the bench observed.
Further, the court held, if the mother tongue was imposed on students, it would worsen the problems of those in villages. “Students from villages (won’t be able to) compete with their peers in urban areas,” the bench said.
Posted on: July 22, 2009
Wall Street Journal on DFN schools and recent graduation
Originally published as “It’s Time for India to Teach in English”, by Paul Beckett, Wall Street Journal (online only), July 1, 2009.
[Editor’s note: The article refers to Operation Mercy India Foundation. This is the same as OMCC (Operation Mercy Charitable Company). OMCC is the title more widely known in the communities of India and OMIF is simply the official registered name in India’s government records.]
By the middle of next month, almost 90 schools across the country will open their doors for a new year of teaching to about 18,000 predominantly Dalit schoolchildren. Their parents will pay tuition of 100 rupees a month to get their kids – and this is the key – an education in English.
The organizers, known as the Operation Mercy India Foundation, have been expanding the program since the mid-1990s. Earlier this year, their Good Shepherd English Medium Schools reached a major landmark: The graduation of the first 45 Class 10 students – nine from Sivakasi in Tamil Nadu, 17 from Jeedimetla near Secunderabad in Andhra Pradesh and 19 from Agasand near Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh.
There’s also a training program in Hyderabad to ensure a steady supply of qualified, English-speaking teachers. The dropout rate of students in the schools is just 0.7%.
Yet, inexplicably – or perhaps all too explicably—no prominent, elected Dalit politician has championed this cause. “Dalit politicians should have and could have taken a lead on this issue but they have not,” says Joseph D’souza, international president of the Dalit Freedom Network, one of the organizations involved in the program.
In fact, much of the political class remains opposed to English medium education supposedly because they fear the loss of local culture and language. It’s more believable that it’s because an ill-equipped population of voters is a malleable population of voters.
Let’s take the cultural argument. India has taken countless outside influences and made them her own by imprinting on them her unique and wonderful stamp. There is no reason, aside from a misplaced post-Colonial chippiness, that prevents India doing the same with English on a national scale.
Consider India’s flagship outsourcing and information technology industry. Does anyone say we should discourage the industry because its management practices, corporate culture and clients are American? No, because it has become a distinctly Indian business, admired around the world, that is now being replicated by other countries that want to make it their own. It is an industry that doesn’t just use English but depends on it for its very survival. Are the people who work in call centers who are fluent in English but may converse in a local language outside the office any less Indian as a result?
Moreover, there already is a strong tradition of English-medium education in some parts of India – in many of its private schools, Catholic schools, military schools and colleges. So to suggest that there is some cultural imperative that says local language must be the only medium for teaching, in effect, poor children sounds like the kind of patronizing attitude that can sometimes be heard in the (frequently English-speaking) drawing rooms of New Delhi.
It’s akin to saying that India’s villages are full of “poor but happy sons and daughters of the soil” who shouldn’t be “corrupted” with the vulgarities of satellite TV. Of course, for everyone else to be so corrupted with the joys of Twenty20 cricket and 24-hour news is absolutely fine.
Lest anyone doubt the benefits of learning English fluency, it was telling last week that Pearson, the London-based media and education company, invested $30 million as part of a push into vocational training in India. A big part of it, said Vivek Govil, CEO of Pearson Education in India, involves teaching English “because it increases employability.”
“People who know English get better paid, better jobs and progress faster,” he added. That is something parents might take as a motto in deciding on a school for their children.
If for no other reason, English should be widely used as the chief teaching language because it is the language chosen by the elite for the education of their offspring. A decent definition of inclusion – the new government’s mantra – might be: To provide the same opportunities for the masses that are enjoyed by the rich. English-medium education fits that bill. It would have the added benefit of filling up all those seats set aside in universities for the underclass which now are vacant because there aren’t enough candidates with the English skills to occupy them.
Indeed, not widening access to education in English risks highlighting the hypocrisy among those responsible for setting education policy – something that Mr. D’souza notes was a motivating factor in the Good Shepherd schools.
“We have been articulating that India and its power brokers, consciously or unconsciously, deliberately or not, have a double standard policy in education,” Mr. D’souza says. “The upper castes and the powerful and the rich have no problem getting westernized and English-educated.”
Fortunately, there is already some movement in a positive direction in some states. Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh in particular have made recent strides in making English the language of school, or at least one of the languages that school is taught in from an early age. Tamil Nadu may follow suit. Others should do the same and fast.
If there was lesson from the last election, it is that India’s voters want politicians to push development and provide them with prospects for moving up and out. The success of the Good Shepherd schools shows there is so much demand for English-medium education that those with almost nothing will pay what little they have to give their kids a chance. (Note: despite their rather Christian-sounding name, the schools run state-approved curricula and open only in areas where they are invited by local Dalit leaders.)
New Delhi can’t issue an edict to compel the states to enforce English-language teaching in schools. But Kapil Sibal, the government’s point man on education, has spoken loudly of his determination to shake up the system. Providing incentives for states to adopt English—and disincentives for states that don’t—would be a good place for him to make his mark.
—Paul Beckett is the WSJ’s bureau chief in New Delhi
Posted on: July 1, 2009
In son's death, Dalit couple breaks an ancient taboo
Originally published as “In son’s death, Dalit couple breaks an ancient taboo”, by S. Raju, Hindustan Times, 28 June 2009.
Badheri Ghogho (Saharanpur): The parents of a dead dalit infant in a remote Uttar Pradesh village donated his eyes, making him the youngest such donor in the country.
Lucky, the four-month-old son of Satyapal Singh, 28, a tailor, and Meenakshi, 25, of Budheri Ghogho village, 140 km north west of Delhi, died from high fever late on Tuesday night.
The Dalit couple was overcome with grief, but at the insistence of Satyapal’s elder brother Harpal, 30, they immediately got in touch with Dr Ashok Jain and his wife Kusum, who run the Roshni Eye Bank in Saharanpur, about 100 km away.
“It was a difficult moment for us but we decided to keep our son alive by donating his eyes,” said Meenakshi, who had studied up to Class 10.
Apprehending controversy and opposition from other villagers, the family requested Dr Jain to remove Lucky’s corneas before daybreak.
In doing so, they not only gifted vision to an eight-year-old girl and a 55-year-old man, but also helped break several centuries-old social taboos.
In caste-conscious UP, Dalit organ donors are still a rarity. Then, there is a widespread belief among villagers that cornea donors are born blind in their next birth.
“I extracted the corneas in the wee hours of Wednesday and transported them to the Meerut Eye Bank,” said Dr Jain.
“It was really difficult to extract corneas of such a small child,” said Kusum, a paramedic trained to extract corneas from donors. Before Lucky, the youngest cornea donor was a two-year-old child in Pune.
Thereafter, Dr Sandeep Mittal, principal and head of the department of ophthalmology at the Meerut Medical College, and his team successfully transplanted Lucky’s corneas to Khushboo, 8, a student of Class 3, and Ram Prakash, 55, a farmer. They had both an eye each.
In Meerut, both the recipients struggled for words to thank Satyapal and Meenakshi. “I’ll remain in their debt all my life. I want to meet them personally to express my gratitude,” said Khushboo’s mother Meera Sharma, a homemaker.
Ram Prakash, a farmer, too, wants to do something for Lucky’s parents.
This is second time in five months that the extended Singh family has donated eyes. In February, Harpal, a social activist, had convinced his in-laws to donate his mother-in-law’s eyes after her death.
Posted on: July 1, 2009
Croissants and breaking Dalit oppression
Excerpts from “Malgudi Coffee Shop and other stories”, by Mari Marcel Thekaekara, Infochange News & Features, June 2009.
Twelve dalit girls are baking bread and cakes at a Mysore café. At La Boulangerie in Chennai, dalit youth are baking French delicacies and supplying them to 5-star hotels. These ‘tasty’ experiments are about breaking the vicious circle of oppression and making a political statement.
If you work among or even merely read the reports on the current status of adivasis, dalits, sanitation workers or street children they seem pretty bleak and hopeless.
Nevertheless, change has happened. In this column I want to talk about a few experiments which lifted my spirits and are, to me, a sign of hope in a generally bleak scenario. A sign that the tide can turn.
The first is a project with young girls from the safai karmachari community. The safai karmachari, or balmiki community, is at the very bottom of the caste hierarchy. Even other dalits practise untouchability towards this group. They are condemned by birth to do the lowliest of tasks—clean human excrement, move animal carcasses, work in morgues.
The odds against them are daunting. Also, centuries of oppression and discrimination have led the community to believe they are only capable of sweeping, making and selling brooms, and similar traditional occupations that society has allowed and expected them to undertake. In most cases, this attitude stems from bitter experience. In rural areas, villagers who know their caste origins will not buy anything from them. So they fall back on safe, traditional occupations.
In Mysore, my husband Stan and I were on the board of the Green Hotel, a beautiful hotel that employed a lot of staff from underprivileged backgrounds. The profits went into supporting local charities. The idea of a coffee shop had been on the agenda for a while. Why not get balmiki girls to run it? And so we did. It was not easy. There was suspicion and mistrust.
Training began, and within a week these balmiki girls who lived in the Mysore [Karnataka state] slums and knew barely a smattering of English were reeling off words like ‘cappuccino’, ‘café latte’, ‘quiche’ and ‘croissant’ with panache.
The Malgudi Coffee Shop opened on February 2, 2009, with much fanfare. The press was extremely supportive of the idea and gave us wonderful reviews. The girls were nervous on opening day, but they charmed the guests nevertheless. They were a visual treat, dressed in traditional Mysorean long flowing skirts in burgundy and sunshine yellow. And the girls were delighted to be on local television and on the front pages of the major dailies.
What’s really interesting though is that in barely three months, several of the girls can bake bread and cakes. They’ve learnt by helping and watching the baker. No theory, no tests. They’ve made bread without supervision and it’s the best in Mysore. They have proved that, given a chance, anyone is capable of anything.
Employing 12 dalit balmiki girls is no big deal. What’s important here is that the girls become role models. That they show others that anything is possible. And that they will never clean toilets like their mothers and fathers did. We’ve broken the mould.
Another story about breaking barriers is the La Boulangerie school in Chennai [Tamil Nadu state]. Alexis de Ducla, a 20-something-year-old French lad, was inspired by Fr Pierre Ceyrac, a legendary French Jesuit who has lived in India for most of his 92 years. “Do something useful with your life. Come to India and work with the poorest of the poor, with dalit youth,” Fr Ceyrac urged Alexis in Paris. Mesmerised, Alex obeyed. He came to Chennai and started the La Boulangerie school to train young dalit boys to bake the French way. Their products are bought by five-star hotels and Chennai’s more discerning foodies. Tucked away several twists and turns off the main Anna Nagar Road, it attracted people who drooled at the thought of genuine French patisserie, authentic croissants, melt-in-the-mouth quiches, real French vol-au-vents. The shop has moved since, to a more accessible place, and its popularity has grown.
The recruits, mostly dalits because this school is for the poorest of the poor, are given intensive training beginning with basic classes in English, Tamil and general subjects before proceeding to baking and pastry-making. Many of the trainees are absorbed in five-star hotels.
One of the boys was sent to France after 18 months to fine-tune his patisserie skills. He was so good that he was offered a job at a five-star restaurant in Paris. He turned it down. His heart was in Chennai, and his loyalty to La Boulangerie came first. Imagine a young dalit boy from Tamil Nadu baking croissants and pastries in Paris for the French! To me that is the height of perfection. And it excites me that someone finally provided an opportunity for dalits to strive for excellence and achieve it. To prove they are capable of anything.
In all these places, it’s the spirit, the determination that makes them more than just another eating place. If change is to come, we must continue breaking barriers, creating new spaces for the oppressed and the socially excluded.
These new ventures are, of course, a drop in the ocean. But many drops do an ocean make.
Posted on: June 26, 2009
Poll of North Indian schools shows Dalit discrimination
Originally published as “Dalit kids cannot use school loo but have to clean them”, by Akshaya Mukul, The Times of India, 25 Jun 2009.
NEW DELHI: The study conducted by the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights-Dalit Arthik Adhikar Andolan and supported by UNICEF shows that discrimination of various kinds plays a big role in the high dropout of Dalit children from schools. The report was given to UNICEF on Wednesday.
The study conducted in 41 primary schools, 36 middle schools and 17 secondary schools in Nalanda district of Bihar, Hardoi in Uttar Pradesh, Jodhpur in Rajasthan and Beed in Maharashtra examined various facets of discrimination, right from going to school, in the classroom and in the mid-day meal.
The report says physical access to schools is the biggest problem for Dalit children. In Bihar, UP and Rajasthan, most of the schools are situated in the dominant caste localities and Dalit children have to travel on an average half-an-hour to reach school. In the case of middle and high schools, Dalit children have to travel almost 3-4 kilometers in all the states. It is only in Maharashtra that Dalit children do not have to travel that far. But here too, the schools are located in dominant caste areas.
Asked why they came late to school, Dalit children gave various reasons including household chores, school distance, inability to keep track of school time and also the fact that they had to wait for other friends to go in a group due to fear from dominant caste children. In the school, it was found that participation of Dalit children was minimal. The morning assembly was invariably always conducted by upper caste children. In the class, Dalit children were made to sit at the back and in some schools of Bihar on the barren floor while mats were given to upper caste children. Even the notebooks and homework of the Dalit children were not checked by teachers.
As per the report, Dalit children in UP [Uttar Pradesh] were also assigned menial caste-based tasks like cleaning the yard, filling up water buckets and cleaning the toilets. This led to other children treating them badly and considering them inferior. And what was shocking was that Dalit girl children were seldom allowed to use toilets. Dalit children are kept out of even functions like Independence Day.
In Maharashtra, the dalit children look up to B R Ambedkar as their role model but schools does not have his photograph though there are photos of other national leaders.
In secondary and higher secondary school, the survey found that teachers promote private coaching. But many Dalit
children dropped out as they could not afford private classes. The report said that many Dalit children were beaten up because they were always late and ‘don’t behave properly’ in the class.
Posted on: June 26, 2009
Dalit teenager dies after hospital refuses treatment
Originally published as “Dalit teenager dies after hospital refuses treatment,” IANS, June 15, 2009.
Lucknow, UP: A Dalit teenager in Uttar Pradesh died Monday after a government-run hospital allegedly refused to admit him, police said.
“Anil Kumar, 18, who had suffered burn injuries after being electrocuted was reportedly denied treatment by the doctors in a hospital in Hamirpur district Monday,” Superintendent of Police Suryanath told IANS over phone.
The kin of the deceased alleged that the doctors asked them to take away Kumar, as the hospital was not meant for treating “lower caste patients”, he added.
A high-level enquiry has been initiated into the case to probe the role of doctors, who have been accused of denying treatment to the Dalit teenager.
“A three-member committee, including the Hamirpur chief medical officer (CMO) has been constituted following the directions of the district magistrate,” Suryanath said.
“The committee members have been directed to submit the enquiry report within two days on the basis of which necessary action would be taken against the hospital staff,” he added.
Hamirpur is some 300 km [186 miles] from Lucknow.
Posted on: June 23, 2009
Dalit boy's academic brilliance helps village get electricity
Originally published as “Brilliant boy brings electricity to village”, By Rajesh Behera, Daily Pioneer, 8 June 2009.
Kendrapara, Orissa: Though it may seem hard to believe, residents of a far-flung seaside village in this part of the State are now poised to reap the benefit of electricity. Courtesy: The academic brilliance of a poor Dalit boy.
The State Government goaded by academic success of Ramakanta Sethy has drawn up a project to electrify Talachua village under Rajnagar tehsil.
Since the dawn of the Independence, electricity has always eluded Talchua, a predominantly fishermen-inhabited village and a prominent marine fishing hub of the district.
Ramakanta, son of a daily wager, had made the village proud after he had ranked 16 in the Class XII examination.
A drop-out from the local school, he had taken a break from studies to take up cattle grazing to support his parents. His fish trader uncle however spotted his talent and took him to Balasore. His academic hiatus ended. Since then he never looked back. He excelled scoring nearly 80 per cent marks in Class XII exam, the result of which was published recently.
Ramakanta is a native of Talachua village under Rajnagar Block in Kendrapara. His father, Arabinda Sethi, is a farmer and mother Subhadra is a home-maker. He has three siblings.
Overwhelmed by the success of the Dalit boy, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik had recently felicitated him at the State Secretariat.
Later Energy Minister Atanu Sabyasachi Nayak evinced personal interest in the electrification of Talchua after the boy made a fervent request before the CM for electrification of his village.
CESU authorities are going to electrify the village in a month, said Nayak.
The electrification of the said village was on CESU’s agenda. But the success story of the Dalit boy has definitely spurred the Government to take up the project on a priority basis, Nayak added.
A task force constituted for the project has already submitted its estimate. We are planning to electrify the village by June-end. Over 300 families would be benefited once the project gets complete, Nayak, who represents Mahakalpada Assembly seat of the district, concluded.
Posted on: June 19, 2009
Study from Tamil Nadu shows most Temples still discriminate
Orginally published as “Dalits still at the receiving end in matters relating to temples: study”, By D.Karthikeyan, The Hindu, June 15, 2009.
MADURAI: Temples continue to be spaces for oppression and resistance and remain a major source of caste clashes, a study has found.
Dalits are at the receiving end in issues like entry to temples and right to participate in festivals and they face stiff opposition and attack from caste Hindus, according to the study conducted recently by Evidence, a Madurai-based non-governmental organisation, in the southern districts of Madurai, Tirunelveli, Virudhunagar, Sivaganga and Dindigul to unearth discriminatory practices in temples.
The various forms of discriminatory practices that are reported to have taken place in these sacred spaces include clash over serving of annadhanam to a Dalit and untouchability in cattle donation; Dalits were prevented from donating cattle.
Eighty-five panchayats were chosen for the study, which found that 69 temples among them remained inaccessible to Dalits.
In 72 temples, Dalits were allowed to enter but prevented from entering the common place of worship.
Fifty-four temples did not allow their temple cars to enter the streets of Dalit colonies and areas.
In 52 temples Dalits were not given the equal honour of having the headscarf. Thirty-three temples did not allow them to pull the temple car. In 64 temples Dalits were not allowed to perform rituals and also denied chance for cultural performances during festivals. In the recent past, temple clashes were the starting point for attacks and murder of Dalits.
In Senthatti village near Sankarankoil in Tirunelveli district, it was over the celebration of Muppidathi Amman temple festival. During the Paramakalyani Siva Saiva Nathar temple festival, three Dalits of Keezhambur near Ambasamudram in Alwarkurichi police limits were killed.
In its recommendations, the NGO said that Section 3 (1) (14) of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities Act) 1989 should be invoked in cases of atrocities such as denial of worshipping rights and temple entry. The State government should present a White Paper on the attacks against Dalits during festivals.
Monitoring committees
District-level monitoring committees should be formed to take preventive action.
A mechanism should be worked out to abolish caste-based discrimination under the Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department.
Posted on: June 19, 2009
Vienna clash may put caste in global spotlight
Originally published as “Vienna clash may put caste in global spotlight”, by Subodh Ghildiyal, Times of India News Network, May 26, 2009.
NEW DELHI: Caste fingerprints on the sensational Vienna shootout among Sikhs could result in renewed international pressure for recognition of caste-based discrimination as a global concern, with many hinting at a revived clamour for treating casteism as racism.
The ghost of Durban conference in 2001, where India fought back a determined and coordinated bid by NGOs to recognise casteism as racism, may raise its head again. Only this month, Indian government is said to have rebuffed a fresh offensive from Scandinavian countries underlining their stand on caste-race parity.
The move came in the run-up to two-day review of Durban racism conference last month, taking India by surprise. The Indian stand on the controversial issue has been that while caste system is a form of discrimination, it could not be equated with racism. It has cited its constitutional commitment against casteism as proof of its credentials.
But dalit lobbies say that Vienna bloodshed has blown holes in the argument that caste was an Indian phenomenon, firmly showing that it had spilled out on global platform along with the diaspora. Says Vivek Kumar, who teaches sociology in JNU, “Caste has moved beyond India with Indian diaspora as the latter does not move as individuals but takes its cultural baggage along. There is growing evidence that caste is showing its face in other countries.”
Dalit groups concede that not much may change on the issue immediately as Indian voice is influential in global fora. But, they add, growing evidence of presence of caste on global platforms, like incidents in Vienna, would put pressure on India. “We will raise the issue through NGOs across the world,” said Ashok Bharti, who runs National Conference of Dalit Organisations.
The intra-Sikh violence is reported to be a perennial point of conflict as Ravidasi Sikhs have floated their own gurudwaras, attracting hostility from upper caste Sikhs. The hotbed is Europe, Canada and UK. The problem could be serious in future owing to sheer numbers. An estimate puts Sikh population in UK between four to five lakh [400,000-500,000], of which one-third are said to be dalits.
Sources said caste was getting recognition as an issue outside India. There is a strong demand from sections of dalit diaspora in UK, Canada and US that governments enact laws to deal with caste-related crimes as with race-related crimes. These are countries with huge Indian-origin population, including Sikhs. In UK, Caste Watch has been formed to detail cases of caste-related crimes.
For India, the pressure from Vienna could be serious in the wake of post-Durban Conference pressure that casteism falls in the category of work and descent and was akin to racism. Massive pressure from NGOs in Durban Conference on Racism in 2001 was resisted by India. However, the UN Council on Human Rights appointed special rapporteurs to report on caste discrimination in India.
Posted on: May 27, 2009
Dalits desperate for drinking water, uppercastes monopolise well
Originally published as “Dalits desperate for drinking water, uppercastes monopolise well”, Deccan Herald, May 24, 2009.
Hundreds of dalit families in Salgunda village, Sindhanur taluk [Karnataka state], are desperate for water as untouchability is still in practice in the village.
The common wells in the village are reserved only for the upper castes and the dalits are forbidden from drawing water from the well.
The dalits have to wait for long hours before a member of the uppercaste takes pity and pours out a couple of pots of water for them. That too it can happen only if the dalits beg them with all humility and not otherwise.
Sometimes the dalits have to sit for the entire day before someone takes pity and pours out a pot of water and sometimes we go without a single pot of water says Durugamma.
Though untouchability is banned, it is only on paper as the tahsildar [tax officials], social welfare officials and even the police officials have turned a blind eye to the inhuman attitude of the uppercastes in this village.
Many a conscientious citizens do express the negligent attitude of the village administration in taking action against such practices. But nothing has been done so far to eradicate it.
Temporary supply
Four months ago there was an outbreak of gastro-enteritis in the village and the entire population had to be treated at the Salagunda primary health centre, public and private hospitals. The gram panchayat and Panchayat Raj officials made temporary arrangements to supply water and did not bother to think of permanent solution to the problem.
Rs 8 lakh in bank
Under the Employment Guarantee programme, an amount of Rs 8 lakh [800,000 rupees or $16,000] has been reserved for providing drinking water to the village. The Gram Panchayat officials announced a year ago that a piece of land has been purchased for the construction of a tank. However there is no progress on the project till now.
The villagers are of the opinion that the in-fighting between the leaders and their selfishness is the reason for the project not taking off.
A group of youth and organisations have come together to stage a protest against the negligent attitude of the officials on May 25. They are planning to gherao the gram panchayat office, demanding immediate action.
Posted on: May 25, 2009
Court gives justice to Mumbai Dalits
Originally published as “12 yrs on, justice for Mumbai Dalit colony”, Hindustan Times, 8 May 2009.
Nearly 12 years after the controversial police firing in a Mumbai suburb, a fast track court on Thursday sentenced the then State Reserve Police Force (SRPF) Platoon Commander Manohar Kadam (56) to life imprisonment for causing homicidal deaths of 10 Dalits in the firing.
The Dalits were part of a mob protesting against desecration of Babasaheb Ambedkar’s statue in Ramabai Nagar in Ghatkopar, a northeastern suburb of Mumbai on July 11, 1997.
Ad-hoc Judge SY Kulkarni handed the maximum punishment, considering the large number of victims, and that the firing was ordered without assessing the situation and violated mandatory norms.
Judge Kulkarni found that Kadam had ordered firing within 10 minutes of his reaching the scene and did not try to resort to a cane-charge, teargas shelling or firing in the air.
The impact of the killing was such that Dalits, who form roughly 12 per cent of the state’s population, voted to defeat the Sena-BJP alliance government in the 1999 elections. The alliance has not returned to power since.
What incensed Dalits was the way the then Chief Minister Manohar Joshi (Sena) and Home Minister Gopinath Munde (BJP) had defended the firing — arguing that the police resorted to firing as the mob was about to torch a nearby oil tanker.
“It is delayed justice but it will surely help the Congress-NCP build faith among the Dalits,” said Ratnakar Mahajan, Executive Chairman of the State Planning Board.
BJP leaders Munde and Nitin Gadkari did not comment on the verdict.
The court discarded the ‘gas tanker’ theory put forth by Kadam and the then ruling Shiv Sena-BJP combine. According to the officer, the mob, which had already set some vehicles on fire, was moving towards the tanker standing on the Eastern Express highway. Kadam said it was at this moment that he ordered his platoon to open fire, sensing danger of the mob setting the tanker ablaze and affecting the entire area within 10 km of the tanker’s periphery.
Posted on: May 21, 2009
India May Be the Epicenter for Human Trafficking
Originally posted by Paul Bernish at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center on Wednesday, May 13, 2009, at 8:20 a.m.
The numbers, reported from a conference in India on human trafficking, literally defy belief: more than 1.2 million children in India are caught up in human trafficking as child prostitutes. Worse, as many as 100 million people in India — soon to be the world’s most populous country — are involved in trafficking-related activities.
The shocking statistics confirm what many human rights activists long have contended: that if there’s a “ground zero” for contemporary slavery, it is the Indian sub-continent. Grinding poverty, ancient tradition, and a religious caste system that divides society into “haves” and “have nots,” are all contributing factors.
Why so many child sex slaves? According to a report three years ago by Save the Children India, business is booming for male clients who prefer 10- to 12-year-old girls. The soaring number of prostitutes believed to have contracted HIV in India’s brothels has helped give India the second-largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the world, just behind South Africa. Yet the trafficking of women from Nepal, Bangladesh and from the rural areas of India into the brothels of the big city is a blight that has gone largely unnoticed amongst India’s politicians and police forces, according to a 2006 article in The New Internationalist.
Such a dismal human rights record poses an awkward dilemma for the United States, which desperately needs to court India as a bulwark of democracy in a region increasingly under threat by extremist groups such as the Taliban. Yet a democracy that either condones trafficking or turns its back on contemporary slavery is hardly a model to emulate, and American policy advisers continue to struggle as they attempt to forge stronger ties to India and, simultaneously, condemn India’s inability to control trafficking within its borders.
Posted on: May 13, 2009
Study Confirms Caste Discrimination in Schools
Originally published as “Apartheid funded by the Indian tax-payer”, Hindustan Times, by Salil Mekaad, May 5, 2009.
In an era when one set of Indians is manning the world’s knowledge back-office with distinction, another set of children — in Madhya Pradesh, which the ruling BJP often showcases as a “model state” – has to face such discrimination and humiliation. Everyday.
This Indian version of apartheid is taking place in schools and childcare centres run by the government, and in schemes funded by the tax-payer’s — in other words, your – money.
They are forced to sit in separate rows, bring utensils from home or given food in plates marked boldly with permanent ink to distinguish them from the rest. According to a survey on social discrimination conducted by Jansahas, an NGO, and Unicef, in 24 villages across four districts – Ujjain, Sheopur, Katni and Jhabua – in Madhya Pradesh, more than 63 percent of Dalit children are subjected to caste discrimination while being served mid-day meals in government schools.
They are forced to sit in separate rows, bring utensils from home or given food in plates marked boldly with permanent ink to distinguish them from the rest.
The Mid-Day Meal Scheme, funded by the government, is the world’s largest school lunch programme and covers 120 million children. Ironically, one of the key objectives of the scheme is to increase socialisation among children of different caste groups.
“As many as 40 percent of Dalit students facing discrimination were given mid-day meals in plates specially set aside for them,” Jansahas activist Ashif Sheikh told Hindustan Times.
While some were asked to bring utensils from home, most were served their mid-day meals on leaf plates. Non-Dalits, however, were served on metal plates.
The survey found that most teachers were insensitive to the discrimination against Dalits because of caste-based traditions being followed in rural areas, he said.
In a majority of the schools surveyed, Dalit students were not allowed to sit in the front row. As many as 78 percent of school-going Dalit students were backbenchers or forced away from the front row and subjected to casteist abuses.
And 79 percent of such students were compelled to clean the schools. In some schools, this chore was given only to Dalit girls.
The survey found that the Anganwadi scheme, a government-sponsored mother and childcare scheme catering to children in the 0-6 age group, also discriminates against Dalits. About 59 percent of Dalits said they desisted from sending their children to the local anganwadi facilities.
The victims claimed that Dalit children were not allowed to enter the anganwadis and were forced to accept nutritional supplements outside the building.
The survey concluded that caste discrimination is one of the prominent reasons for the absence of Dalit children from school.
Posted on: May 6, 2009
Some Dalits vote for first time
Originally published as “Dalits, STs vote for first time”, The Hindu, April 24, 2009.
HYDERABAD: Thanks to the strict enforcement of law by the electoral and police officials, Dalits and Scheduled Tribes [ST] in 49 villages in Chittoor district [of Andhra Pradesh state] exercised their franchise for the first time since Independence on Thursday.
Disclosing this to reporters here, Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) I.V. Subba Rao quoted a report sent by Chittoor Collector in this regard. Five villages—Kalicherla, Patooru, Siddavaram, Kothkaadapalli and Paapepalli—under Chandragiri Assembly segment were among those in which Dalits and STs exercised franchise for the first time.
In another incident at Koratamadi village in Nandyal Parliamentary constituency, the CEO intervened and ensured that Dalits, STs and other weaker sections cast their votes following a complaint that they were being prevented from doing so.
Following yet another complaint to the electoral authorities, police arrested some persons and booked cases against them for assaulting and preventing 400 Dalits from voting at Thundur in Bhimavaram constituency.
The CEO said that a similar case was also reported from Kadapa district.
Posted on: April 24, 2009
Dalit political candidate found dead
Originally published as “IJP candidate’s murder a mystery”, by Pervez Iqbal Siddiqui, Times of India, April 18, 2009.
[Editor’s note: The dead politician was running for election under the Indian Justice Party. This party was formed by Udit Raj, a Dalit leader who has worked with DFN, as a platform for social justice for Dalits. It is one of the few competitors to Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party which is currently in power in the state of Uttar Pradesh.]
LUCKNOW: On March 30, Indian Justice Party (IJP) candidate from Jaunpur Bahadur Sonkar informed the district magistrate (DM) Aparna Upadhyay of being threatened to withdraw from the elections. With no help from the authorities, he produced evidences at a press conference on April 6 claiming that circle officer (CO) Ditendra Chowdhary was pressurising him to skip the fray. On April 13, his body was found hanging from a tree near his house. Within the next 24 hours, police said Bahadur committed suicide. However 72 hours later, police are yet to answer some basic queries which question their suicide theory.
This despite ample evidence to strongly suggest that not only Bahadur was murdered but an intelligent attempt was also made to plant evidence which could portray victim’s younger brother Suresh as the prime suspect. But the police appear to have conveniently overlooked this evidence for reasons best known to them.
For a quick recap: Bahadur’s body was found hanging from a babool tree, nine feet above the ground, about a furlong from his house. Ante-mortem injury on the head and a ligature injury on the neck were found during autopsy. The post-mortem report deduced the cause of death as “asphyxia as a result of ante-mortem injuries”.
Neither circumstantial evidences, nor the post-mortem report remotely suggest that Bahadur hanged himself to death. On the contrary, there are a series of elements which suggest that he did not.
Firstly, despite Bahadur having named the CO who was supposedly pressurising him to quit elections, no efforts have been made yet to confirm if the allegations hold water.
Next, Bahadur’s body was found hanging from a tree nine feet above the ground. Why would a person planning suicide hang a loop 14.5 feet (9 feet plus his own height 5.5 feet) and then climb up all the way to hang himself instead of choosing a lower branch to hang the rope from. Next, there was nothing at the scene of crime which could have been used by Bahadur to reach the 14-feet-plus-high knot. So, how did reach there?
When confronted with the query, SP Jaunpur V K Dohre instead came up with a question. “Why wound anyone hang him 9 feet above the ground even if we assume that he was murdered?”
Thirdly, the post-mortem report clearly states that the victim had suffered ante-mortem injuries on his head and a ligature injury on the neck — a common factor in suicide cases.
Posted on: April 20, 2009
Will Dalits be allowed to vote in India?
Originally published as “Dalit poll body to ensure Dalits cast their vote” in The Times Of India, April 15, 2009.
PATNA: In its bid to ensure justice to the Dalits and their participation in the election process, the National Dalit Human Rights Campaign, is collaborating with other human rights groups to launch and run the National Dalit Election Watch to monitor through independent volunteers whether the Dalits are being allowed to cast their votes or not during parliamentary polls in Bihar.
Bihar is among 13 states in the country where the state level units of the National Dalit Election Watch (NDEW) is functioning having already identified the super sensitive booths where its volunteers would ensure that there is no encumbrance in Dalits’ casting their votes, said convener of Bihar unit of NDEW Mahesh Prasad (retired IAS).
Prasad along with social activist Sudha Verghese and others told mediapersons here on Tuesday that NDEW’s 648 independent observers are working in 35 parliamentary constituencies in 28 districts, 137 blocks and 578 panchayats to keep a tab on 750 super sensitive booths in Bihar.
On election days, during four phases of parliamentary polls, the NDEW’s observers would inform the state level control room on phone regarding the incidents of Dalits being stopped from casting their votes. They said that for the first phase of the poll, 245 volunteers have been given training to keep a tab on 227 booths. For the rest three phases in the state, volunteers have been selected and they would be given training to keep a tab on all the polling booths to ensure casting of votes by all the Dalit voters, Prasad said.
After the elections are over, the NDEW would send suggestions to the Election Commission for bringing out amendments in the electoral process to ensure casting of votes by the Dalits, he said.
Prasad said that the NDEW had in its survey found that in the past, 18 per cent of the Dalits were stopped from casting votes at polling booths in rural areas, 50 per cent of them were influenced to vote for certain candidates and eight per cent were made to stand in separate queues to cast votes.
Posted on: April 15, 2009
Court defends reputation of poor and lower castes
Originally published as “Court ruling challenges India’s caste system” by Dean Nelson in the Telegraph, , March 17, 2009.
An appeal court judge in Jammu and Kashmir decided that all Indians were worthy of respect and entitled to a good reputation regardless of their wealth or social status.
The ruling amounts to a direct challenge to India’s caste-focused society in which attacks on ‘untouchables’ or dalits because of their ‘polluting presence’ are common.
There are cases of dalits killed for daring to drink water from the same well as their caste ‘superiors’ or to complain when their daughters are raped.
Against this background, the ruling has been hailed as revolutionary.
Mushtaq Ahmed Mir, an unemployed man from Kupwara, decided to sue the Kashmiri newspaper Tameel-i-Irshad after it published a false report claiming he was a defendant in a murder case. He had asked the judge to waive the court fee in the case because he was too poor to pay it.
The judge threw out his case with a ruling that the poor did not have reputations which could be damaged in newspaper reports.
“When the plaintiff is not even in a position to pay the lawsuit fee, he cannot seek damages for defamation, ” Judge Nazir Ahmed Fida said. “The dignity of a person of low integrity will not be lowered further in case his name appears in a defamatory piece of news.”
Mr Mir’s lawyer said he was shocked by the decision, made despite the judge’s acknowledgement that the news report was untrue, and launched an immediate appeal.
In his appeal ruling, High Court Judge Muzaffar Hussain Attar reprimanded the original trial judge and said his ruling had been “offensive to conscience.” “The respect and reputation of a person is not dependent upon how much wealth he has accumulated,” he said. If only the rich were entitled to respect “a great disservice will be done to society,” he added.
Supreme court lawyer Zafar Shah last night welcomed the ruling which he said had narrowed the gap between the equal rights promised to every Indian in the country’s constitution and the reality where “the respect and dignity of a person is determined by [his] economic and social status.”
Leading social commentator Pavan K Varma said the ruling heralded “the beginning of change.” “To say that someone who is poor can’t have status reflects the mindset of another century, but old attitudes die hard. That the appeals judge threw out the ruling means there’s a beginning of change. I’m not surprised that [the judgment] was overruled. That’s the significance. Caste is now standing on its head,” he said.
Dalit leader Dr Udit Raj however said while the ruling was “revolutionary” and a “symbolic victory” for the poor and low-castes, the reality in India was closer to the original trial judge’s ruling.
“It’s impossible for the poor, minorities and low castes to get justice. The trial judge should be dismissed, but his ruling is closer to reality. There is some way to go before dalits get the respect they’re entitled to under the constitution. Our people are hypocrites,” he said.
Posted on: March 25, 2009
Dalits reduce hunger and injustice in Bihar
Originally published as “Grain Banks”, By Kanhaiah Bhelari, The Week, March 22, 2009 issue.
Six years ago, some Dalit women in Maner Telpa village in Bihar were discussing a way out of their plight. They were being tortured and humiliated by the rich and feudal lot for failing to return food grain they had borrowed in times of desperation. All of a sudden, an idea struck them—save food grain during harvest season and distribute it among the needy during September and October, the months of acute food shortage.
Thus was born Grain Bank. And at age six, the concept has spread to 60 villages in five districts-Patna, Bhojpur, East Champaran, Muzaffarpur and Samastipur. “They happen to be Laxmis as well as ‘home ministers’,” said a man, appreciating the women who operate these banks.
Deokali Devi had an ugly experience with some people, who hurled vulgar abuses at her when she failed to return five kilos of rice. But that was three years ago, before she joined the bank. Those bad days are over. Deokali last September borrowed 40kg of rice from the bank. She has to return it in March 2009 with an interest of eight kilos. “There is a one-kilo interest on every five kilos,” said Sudami Devi, secretary of the bank. This year, 14 women have borrowed from the bank in Maner Telpa.
Starting with a small stock, the bank turned wealthy in October 2004 when the NGO Pragati Gramin Vikas Samiti donated Rs 5,000 to purchase food grain and two steel containers. “We began with 55kg in 2002. With the help of the samiti, the bank got a stock of 711kg in 2004. And now it has 1,560kg of rice as capital,” said Punam Devi, one of 26 members of the samiti in Maner Telpa. One container is kept at Sudami Devi’s house and the other at the house of Fulwanti Devi, the president of the samiti’s local unit. Each container can hold 920kg.
Some 50 families belonging to Musahar caste in Nisarpura village used mud containers to store rice. The samiti in 2004 donated two containers and 700kg of rice. “It had already accumulated 70kg,” said Deo Kumari Devi, president of the samiti’s unit in the village. “This year, the bank distributed 1,300kg of rice among 39 families.”
The bank has emboldened the villagers to fight injustice and keep off the fields of landlords who pay them very low wages. “We were being paid a mere 3kg of rice for 10 hours of toil. Our demand was only for 5kg, which they denied, forcing us to stop work,” said Siyamati Devi, secretary of the samiti in Nisarpura village.
Pradeep Priyadarshi, chief of the NGO, said the Dalit women no longer had to go from door to door begging for food. “They just need to come to the bank,” he said. But he does not take all the credit for the good times. “The bank was their idea. We just motivated them with financial assistance.”
The bank is helping the women settle a few old scores, too. Vinay Singh, who borrowed 40kg of rice last year, was asked to return 60kg. “We charged him 50 per cent interest because he used to charge us the same rate when he was financially sound,” said Deokali. But it does not charge even a grain from extremely poor women. Besides, the bank has been donating food grain to needy families in the event of death. Those with physical disabilities are given rice free of cost. “I feel proud that the women in my constituency have started such banks,” said Ramkripal Yadav, MP from Patna, who belongs to the Rashtriya Janata Dal.
Most remarkably, the state government is considering adoption of the concept. Said Pradeep, “An IAS officer approached me recently to know the details.” If the government sets up such banks, the downtrodden will never have to beg the rich for a square meal.
Posted on: March 20, 2009
A Dalit change maker
Originally published as “Change Makers Inc” by Shobhita Naithani in Tehelka Magazine, Vol. 6, Issue 10, March 14, 2009.
By the time Benjamin Kaila had turned 10, experience had taught him what it meant to be a dalit: that touching an upper caste was sacrilege. As a student of Class 5, Kaila had accidentally tapped the hand of an examiner who had come to inspect the school. What followed was severe cane-whipping by the inspector.
Three decades later, Kaila’s elder son, Paul, is the lead designer for the Robotics team in his school in Los Angeles and his younger son Andrew, wants to be a paleontologist — career prospects unheard of at a time when Kaila would have to walk for miles, through passages used for defecation and dumping of dead animals, to reach his Telugu-medium school in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district.
So when Kaila, 47, moved to the US in 1999 with his family, the software consultant decided to help students who were bright but belonged to socially, educationally, and economically backward communities (especially dalits). In 2003, with the help of two friends in Hyderabad, he started the Ambedkar Scholarships in the memory of his parents.
To begin with there were two scholarships of Rs 5,000 each, for Dalit students who passed class 10 with first class marks. The following year, the number of scholarships went up to 23. In 2007, 99 students were awarded the scholarship. This year, the number will cross 100. Applicants are judged on the basis of merit, economic status and an essay, with a preference for children from government schools and a 50 percent reservation for girls. For students, the scholarship offers not only financial, but moral support as well.
Panga Ramesh, 20, the son of a daily wage labourer is now studying medicine at Osmania Medical College, Hydera – bad. “My mother earns Rs 200 a day. It was with the scholarship that I could afford my Class 12 books,” says the 2005 awardee.
Like his parents, both elementary school teachers, Kaila, as a child, decided to be an educator. “I had seen that, as teachers, my parents were respected — however little — despite being dalits,” he says. So after a BSc from a Guntur college, Kaila enrolled himself for a Bachelor in Education diploma. At 26, Kaila moved to Hyderabad for a computer course. “It was this trip that turned my life around,” he recalls. A relative gifted him a copy of Dalit icon BR Ambedkar’s biography. Prior to that episode, Ambedkar was known to Kaila as only the ‘Father of the Constitution’. After reading Ambedkar, Kaila says he became “selfless”. An association with the Bahujan Samaj Party followed. He met Kanshi Ram and started a Telugu Bahujan Welfare Society while working in the IT industry. He quit and moved to the US in 1999.
Since 2003, Kaila has added several small projects to the ongoing scheme. Scholarships have been extended to children from scavenging families, microloans to those looking to start a small-scale business, financial help to victims of caste atrocities and awards to Dalit trendsetters. In 2007 Kaila registered an NGO, Friends for Education International in US.
As Kaila prepares for the sixth Ambedkar Awards ceremony, scheduled for April 2009, he recalls: “My grandfather used to burn dead bodies at the cremation ground. I tell my children that had I not educated myself, I would have done the same and it would have been passed down to them.” But the reality is that Kaila is a changemaker and will continue to transform lives.
Posted on: March 16, 2009
Oscar winner Pinki to campaign for National Dalit Front
Orginally published by Daily News & Analysis, March 7, 2009.
Mirzapur: Recently floated political coalition National Dalit Front has roped in eight-year-old Pinki Sonakar, protagonist of the Oscar winning documentary Smile Pinki, as their election “mascot”.
The eight year old will campaign for the coalition that includes the Indian Justice Party (IJP), the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) the Gondwana Party and the Republican Party.
The coalition feels that Pinki would prove to be a perfect representative for the marginalized sections of the society, and wish that her Oscar-wining-luck would rub upon them.
“She is famous now and that will benefit the party, no doubt. Also, we want to promote her, we want her to have a bright future. Otherwise like other children of award winning films and films like ‘Salaam Bombay’, she would be left to live a pathetic life,” said Udit Raj, president of Indian Justice Party. [Editor’s note: other news reports said that Pinki is from the same Dalit sub-caste as Dr. Udit Raj and that he gave her a cash gift during his visit to her home.]
The National Dalit Front (NDF) will hold a function in New Delhi on March 15.
Megan Mylan’s short film Smile Pinki, which won the Oscar for the Best Documentary Short Subject, is tale of a six-year-old girl who becomes a social outcast because of a cleft lip.
The 39-minute documentary traces Pinki’s journey from being ostracized to being surgically treated in a bid to lead a normal life.
Posted on: March 9, 2009
Two Dalits hacked to death in Tamil Nadu
Originally published by CNN-IBN, March 7, 2009.
Sankarankoil (Tamil Nadu): Two Dalits were hacked to death by unidentified assailants following a dispute apparently over offering worship in the local Muppidathy Ammam temple in Tirunelveli district.
The group of unidentified persons hacked one Dalit, K Paramasivan (27), when he was going to his village on Friday night, police said on Saturday.
Another Dalit, E Easwaran (55), who was coming in a motorcycle with one more Dalit Suresh, was also found hacked to death.
Suresh somehow managed to escape from the scene.
The dispute started over offering worship in the temple, belonging to Konar community, started last year, officials said.
Posted on: March 9, 2009
Gujarat teachers sentenced for raping Dalit student
Originally published as “6 Gujarat teachers get life term for gang raping Dalit student”, Press Trust of India, March 6, 2009.
Ahmedabad, Gujarat: Six teachers of a college in Patan near here were awarded life terms by a special court for gang raping a 19-year-old Dalit student today, a year after the incident had led to public outrage in Gujarat.
Manish Parmar, Mahendra Prajapati, Ashwin Parmar, Kiran Patel, Suresh Patel and Atul Patel were pronounced guilty by Additional Sessions Judge S C Srivastava at Patan, about 125 km from here in north Gujarat.
The judge imposed a fine of Rs 4,000 ($77) on each of them and said failure to pay the amount would invite additional six-month imprisonment.
The court also directed the convicts to pay Rs 10,000 ($192) each to the girl, a student of the Primary Teachers’ Training College (PTC), as compensation.
The incident at the state government-run college in Patan came to light on February 4, 2008 after the victim told her parents and relatives that she was repeatedly raped by the teachers over a period of six months.
The girl comes from a poor background and was a resident-student of the college.
She was threatened by the teachers that they will not give internal marks to her and fail her if she did not give in to their sexual advances, police had said.
Posted on: March 9, 2009
Ahead of India's elections, attacks on Dalits rising
Originally published as “Ahead of polls, attacks on Dalits on the rise”, By Shubhangi Khapre, Daily News & Analysis, Feb. 25, 2009.
Mumbai: The recent attacks on Dalits and other backward classes (OBC) [in Maharashtra state] is being seen as an attempt by the dominant Maratha caste to suppress the voice of Dalit/other backward classes for having opposed reservations for the Marathas.
In Beed, two women were paraded naked in their village while an activist was brutally beaten up for raising his voice when talking to so-called upper caste leaders. In Parbhani, an old dalit woman was killed over a land dispute and on Tuesday, a young Dalit boy was killed in Aurangabad for allegedly teasing an upper caste girl.
The Bharip Bahujansamaj Party (BBP) chief, Prakash Ambedkar, blamed the rise in attacks on the Maratha’s demand for reservations. “The police’s inaction in the Marathwada region is promoting attacks against the Dalits,” he claimed.
He charged the state government of deliberate inaction against those committing the atrocities. “At Shrirampur, OBC activists who merely attended a political rally were arrested for promoting caste conflict, but when Maratha activists pelted stones at the chief minister’s aircraft, the police did not arrest a single person. Such administrative prejudice encourages further attacks,” he added.
The Congress is banking on the support of the Dalits, who form 10.5% of the electorate, to win the elections, and such attacks might hurt the party. Congress leaders are quick to blame the NCP, whose member is the home minister that is responsible for law and order, for failing to curb the attacks.
Arjun Dangle, a Dalit writer who is associated with the Republican Party of India (RPI), said, “The state has set up the Atrocities Committee to tackle attacks against Dalits after the Khairlangi killings in 2006. But till date, this committee has not been empowered.”
Posted on: February 27, 2009
Hope for Dalits in one south Indian village
Originally published as “Real Heroes: An IITian’s pursuit of a stronger India”, CNN-IBN, Feb 24, 2009. Watch the short video here.
He’s managed to bring out his entire village from caste and ignorance into education and self-sufficiency.
It’s a lesson learned early. Fight caste discrimination with education. At a village school in Koothambakkam, a predominantly Dalit village [in Tamil Nadu], young boys and girls are getting a chance at their future and helping them realise their dream is Rangaswamy Elango, an IITian [India’s MIT], a mechanical engineer and Koothambakkam’s most beloved Sarpanch.
The first technical graduate from Kuthambakkam, Elango was picked up from the campus in 1982 by Oil India. But Elango quit his job and resumed links with his roots.
Elango says, “I thought of making use of this and find a solution to my villages’ problems.”
Elango stood for the Panchayat elections and won.
He feels that the the Panchayat is the right tool for making real development.
Apart from encouraging education, Elango developed small scale industries that make kerosene stoves, energy conserving lamps, first aid kits, all in Kuthambakkam.
In the year 2000, the Panchayat constructed this Samatuvapuram or township of equality in a village with strong caste divisions, stand 50 twin houses, with one Dalit and one non-Dalit family each. Now, even fights are fought together.
It’s this unity that has been Elango’s biggest success. At the Gram Sabha, every question is answered, every complaint redressed, and every success shared.
Elango’s goal is to see a strong self reliant villages from which would emerge a stronger India.
Posted on: February 26, 2009
Dalit government employees face discrimination
Originally published as “Study on Dalit employees reveals discrimination”, by Mohamed Imranullah S., The Hindu newspaper, 18 February 2009.
MADURAI, TAMIL NADU: A majority of Dalit Government employees, including sweepers, teachers and even doctors, are facing discrimination at workplace, according to a recent study conducted by Evidence, a human rights organisation here.
The study claimed that they were “humiliated, intimidated, isolated or subjected to other kinds of emotional torture” by their colleagues and higher officials. The discrimination at workplace also affected their familial life.
A. Kathir, Director of Evidence, said that the project was undertaken by collecting data from 77 government servants of whom five were women. Only those who agreed to affix their signatures in the questionnaires were included in the study.
Employees of education, highways, revenue, health and other departments in Cuddalore, Villupuram, Vellore, Salem, Dharmapuri, Pudukkotai, Tiruchi, Thanjavur, Nagapattinam, Madurai, Theni, Dindigul, Sivaganga and Tirunelveli were interviewed.
A 33-year-old orthopaedician in a Government Hospital at Cuddalore had told that he was asked to treat only Dalit patients. Fellow doctors and other staff members also commented before him that beneficiaries of reservation were always incompetent.
Similarly, a 48-year-old schoolteacher from Vellore said that he was ill-treated by the headmaster who often made fun of him in the presence of other teachers. He claimed that many caste Hindu students did not respect him.
Of the 77 interviewees, 75 agreed that they were subjected to caste discrimination. Thirty eight per cent said that they were victimised in service-related issues, while 30 per cent said that they were humiliated for their physical appearance.
Plaints with rights panel
Forty seven government employees had lodged complaints with their higher officials or the National/State Human Rights Commission. But only four of them managed to get a solution to problems faced by them. Thirteen had approached courts.
Thirty Dalits stated that trade unions, particularly those meant for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, had supported them in seeking justice. Further, out of the five women, three said they were subjected to gender discrimination.
The only consoling factor the study found was that 49 interviewees did not face caste discrimination in their localities as against 34 people who claimed that they were discriminated both at their workplace and surroundings.
Posted on: February 19, 2009
UN Investigator Upholds Civil Rights for Dalits of All Faiths
Joint press statement by DFN partner, aicc, and CSW originally posted here. DFN International President, Joseph D’souza, also serves as president of the aicc.
Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) and the All India Christian Council (aicc) are welcoming the newly-released report of the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief, Ms Asma Jahangir, on her mission to India in 2008.
The report notes “the religious diversity of India and the positive impact of secularism” but warns that a “system of impunity emboldens forces of intolerance” and that extremist groups advocating religious hatred “have unleashed an all-pervasive fear of mob violence”.
Ms Jahangir visited India from 3-20 March 2008. She held numerous meetings with civil society, including one in Orissa state after the anti-Christian violence of December 2007, which was organised by CSW partner, the aicc.
The Special Rapporteur’s report further articulates concern over state-level anti-conversion laws “used to vilify Christians and Muslims”, and recommends that they be “reconsidered since they raise serious human rights concerns”. It also calls for an end to religious discrimination in the eligibility of Dalits for the affirmative action system of reservations in public sector education and employment. Its other areas of concern include the socio-economic status of Muslims, shortcomings in the recognition of the Sikh, Jain and Buddhist religions, religious freedom in Jammu and Kashmir, and religion-based personal laws.
Dr Joseph D’souza, aicc President, said: “The Special Rapporteur painted a balanced and authentic picture of the state of religious freedom in India, and she accurately represented many of the concerns of Indian civil society. The increasing violence against religious minorities by religious fundamentalists urgently warrants this level of attention. We appreciate her incisive analysis of the key issues of concern, especially the damage of anti-conversion laws on a rich tradition of religious tolerance, and the unequal treatment of Dalits from different faiths. We call upon the government of India to take this report and its recommendations seriously.”
Alexa Papadouris, CSW Advocacy Director, said: “We welcome the Special Rapporteur’s detailed engagement with many of the most critical issues affecting religious freedom in India. The widespread impunity which has followed several large-scale outbreaks of violence against religious minorities, most recently against Christians in Orissa but previously against Muslims and Sikhs, has been a particularly visible challenge to religious freedom.
“This report echoes the calls from within India for these and other concerns to be addressed properly and comprehensively. Together with the Special Rapporteur, we recognise the immense challenges of governing as large and diverse a nation as India. However, we urge the government to engage fully with all the recommendations in this report, as a demonstration of their commitment to India being a land of freedom and opportunity for all her diverse citizens, regardless of their religious identity.”
For further information or to arrange interviews with CSW or the aicc, contact Theresa Malinowska, Press Officer at Christian Solidarity Worldwide or visit http://www.csw.org.uk/.
CSW is a human rights organisation which specialises in religious freedom, works on behalf of those persecuted for their Christian beliefs and promotes religious liberty for all.
The aicc (www.christiancouncil.in), birthed in 1998, exists to protect and serve the Christian community, minorities, and the oppressed castes. The aicc is a coalition of thousands of Indian denominations, organizations, and lay leaders.
NOTES TO EDITORS
1. The report of the Special Rapporteur is accessible via the UN website. It is scheduled to be presented at the tenth session of the UN Human Rights Council in March 2009.
2. Following the Special Rapporteur’s visit, Orissa saw the worst outbreak of communal violence against Christians in the history of post-Independence India, which included forcible conversions to Hinduism. The violence was sparked by the assassination by unknown assailants of Swami Lakhmananda Saraswati, local figurehead of the extremist Hindu nationalist group, Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), on 23 August 2008, and resulted in the deaths of at least 70, with more than 50 still unaccounted for. At least 50,000 were forced to flee their homes, amidst widespread destruction of property and churches.
3. The last visit to India by a UN Special Rapporteur on religious intolerance was in December 1996.
ENDS
Posted on: February 10, 2009
My life cleaning Delhi's sewers
Originally broadcast on “From Our Own Correspondent”, Saturday, 7 February, 2009 at 1130 GMT on BBC Radio 4.
India may be spending billions on its high tech space programme but its spending on sewers is decidedly low tech and deadly, reports the BBC’s Rupa Jha.
I will never forget the sight of that thin short man, wearing nothing but cotton underpants, strapped into a harness arrangement, disappearing down into a dark manhole beneath the streets of my home city.
The diameter of the hole was so small that he bruised himself while slipping down.
Inside was a dark well, full of sewage, with giant cockroaches sticking to the wall.
Before he climbed in I asked him his name. I was really surprised when he answered flamboyantly, “Rewa Ram – Son of Khanjan.”
I thought: “He must be educated, seems to speak some English.” But when I asked him, he said: “No. I’m a complete illiterate.”
When I looked down that hole into the drains of Delhi, the smell was overwhelming. Down below, he was coughing, trying hard to keep breathing.
He was struggling to clear a blockage with his bare hands.
Dizzying smell
All of a sudden, a pipe protruding into the drain above his head started spewing out water and human faeces that poured over his body.
I began to feel dizzy just looking down into this mess.
My nostrils were filled with that obnoxious smell, a bit like of rotten eggs. I wanted to vomit. I felt weak and wanted to run away from the smell.
I was born and brought up in India and for the past 15 years I have lived in Delhi, the capital city of one of the world’s most rapidly growing economies. I am a member of the growing, upwardly mobile middle class.
I suppose I represent the “roaring Tiger” India, but I am regularly shocked and surprised when I see the struggle for dignity that so many face here.
Literally beneath the glitter of the big city lies a vast network of these dark drains, where so many Rewa Rams are struggling with toxic gases and human waste. They suffer disease and discrimination in return for cleaning the city’s sewage system.
Deadly job
Rewa Ram is just one of thousands of sanitation workers in India who work hard to keep the cities, towns and villages clean.
Most of them come from the community of lower caste Dalits as they are known, or untouchables.
Health experts working in the field told me most of these workers would die before their retirement because of the poor health and safety conditions they work in. Their life expectancy is thought to be around 10 years less than the national average.
Dr Ashish Mittal, an occupational health consultant, did a survey of the working conditions of sewage workers.
He told me most of the workers suffer from chronic diseases, respiratory problems, skin disorders and allergies. He said they are constantly troubled by headaches and eye infections. I am not surprised.
Rewa Ram was pulled out when he started feeling dizzy from the toxic fumes in the manhole.
They were thick with a mixture of methane and hydrogen sulphide, both considered potentially fatal by the health experts.
He needed water to clean himself, just a splash on his face could have made him feel better.
His colleagues started banging on doors of the rich neighbourhood where he was working. Nobody opened their gate.
Ancient sewers
Human rights activists and trade unionists I have talked to ask a simple question. If the government of India can spend billions on its space programme, if Delhi can reach all its targets for the beautification of the city in time for the 2010 Commonwealth Games, including an underground train system, then why can’t the sewage system be modernised?
Why does it still rely on sending practically naked men down below the streets to clear the drains with their bare hands, being exposed to noxious gases which could take them to a premature grave?
I put these questions to the authorities.
The reply? “We are trying our best.”
It did not really feel good enough after what I had seen.
The law courts have passed several orders banning human beings from going into the sewage system unless it is an emergency.
In Delhi it looks as if every day is an emergency in the sewers.
Smell of death
I asked Rewa Ram, still breathless and covered with the sewage from the drain: “How do you feel about having to do this work?”
With folded arms, he replied: “I am not educated, I come from a very poor family of untouchables. What else can I expect?
“At least I have a government job and I am able to feed my children. I get into this hell everyday but then this is my job.
“I live smelling death, but it is fine.”
But is it fine? Why should he expect so little just because he comes from a lower caste and is not educated?
How can our so-called civil society be so indifferent to the millions like him? I, for one, am left feeling guilty.
Posted on: February 9, 2009
Tsunami relief bias against Dalits
Originally published as “Relief and bias”, by S. Viswanathan, Frontline, Vol. 26 – Issue 3, Jan. 31-Feb. 13, 2009.
“WHEN the tsunami took its toll four years ago, it did not discriminate against any particular section. But the State discriminates against certain sections of survivors on flimsy grounds when it takes up relief and rehabilitation work. We don’t understand why it is so.”
This is what J. Swapna Sundari, a Dalit woman activist in Tamil Nadu, had to say to the People’s Tribunal about the state’s discrimination against Dalits, the Scheduled Tribes, minority communities and sections of women in the rehabilitation of the tsunami-affected. Swapna Sundari, who is also the president of the Chennai Coastal Dalit Women’s Federation, told the tribunal that Dalits and people belonging to minority communities had been living with fish workers for generations in nine settlements on the Marina in Chennai, from Nochikuppam to Srinivasapuram.
Their predominant livelihood activities, she said, related to fishing. “They sell fish, repair fishing boats, mend fishing nets or serve as domestic helps. Some Dalits even accompany fish workers in their fishing operations. In short, these non-fishing people have been dependent on fish workers for their livelihood,” she said. According to her, they had to stay close to the fishing community because of the very nature of their occupations.
Discrimination against Dalit victims was evident even during the initial stage of the rescue and relief operations. Dalits and people belonging to minority communities complained that relief articles, financial assistance and medicare facilities did not reach them. “This kind of discrimination continued all along,” Swapna Sundari said. “We still face discrimination in the State’s housing package. The officials took our applications too for new houses, but later told us that only fishermen were eligible for in situ houses,” said Swapna Sundari. They were told that non-fishermen families would be accommodated in tenements constructed by the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB) in the suburbs of Chennai. So three months after the tsunami, the first batch of non-fishermen families, numbering about 3,000, reluctantly occupied newly constructed houses at Semmanancheri and Kannagi Nagar, both 20 to 25 km away from their old habitats.
Three years later, 322 more Dalit families in Chennai were uprooted from their old homes, located near the sea, and asked to move to Kannagi Nagar. Their resistance was of no avail. Sadly, this happened on a rainy day in January 2008. The dislocation disrupted the studies of many school-going children in these families and forced them to drop out.
Now thousands of non-fishermen families are resisting the move to relocate them in distant places. Seeing the difficulties faced by Kannagi Nagar and Semmanancheri residents in commuting to their workspots, they are worried about the serious threat to their livelihood. “We, Dalits and fish workers’ families, have been living in harmony for generations. Why should the government separate us now?” wondered Swapna Sundari.
Women are also among those neglected and discriminated against. The design of the houses for tsunami victims has not considered their need for privacy. Single women (both spinsters and widows) and households headed by women have reportedly been denied their right to a new house. Many Dalit families have been left out of the enumeration and were consequently denied relief and rehabilitation benefits.
K. Stephen Raj, a tailor, gave a detailed account of this inhuman treatment in his affidavit and deposition before the tribunal. He said that the government had attempted to evict them from their original habitats even before the tsunami struck; it did not succeed thanks to the people’s resistance. Taking advantage of the fear created in the minds of the people in the wake of the tsunami, the government, he said, had succeeded in making them move to houses, constructed long before the tsunami for resettling slum-dwellers in Chennai.
A casual visit to the housing complex at Kannagi Nagar, where the families of Stephen Raj and others evicted from Thideer Nagar on the Marina now reside, will convince one about the horrible and unhygienic living conditions detailed in the affidavit. The small twin-houses with a common toilet, together measuring less than 200 sq feet (far below the international standards in respect of rehabilitation), cannot accommodate more than two adults and one child in a house. These houses have been constructed in the backyard of a row of slightly bigger houses, each with a separate toilet; the row of houses are divided by a one-metre-wide dirty lane.
Stephen Raj told Frontline that when they were forced to leave their original homes, the officials had given them the impression that their new houses would be given to them free of cost. But on arrival at Kannagi Nagar, they were asked to make an initial payment of Rs.1,200 per family and pay a “rent” of Rs.250 a month. Until the payment was made, they were forced to live in the open. And, only about 200 of the 3,000 allotted houses had power connections. Each family was asked to pay about Rs.5,000 as deposit to get power supply.
Stephen Raj showed cracks on the walls and leaks in the ceiling of many houses, which made life miserable during the monsoon. “Water supply is also inadequate,” he said. The nearest hospital is 2 km away. The dislocation also forced many children to drop out of school. A major problem these people face is the time and money spent to reach their workplaces.
“There is no way of finding a job in our neighbourhoods, because prospective employers there want us to produce a no-objection certificate from the local police station. More than anything else, this stigma is humiliating,” he said.
Complaints of discrimination in respect of relief and rehabilitation have been brought to the notice of the People’s Tribunal by representatives of Irulars (a Scheduled Tribe) and Dalits from other tsunami-affected areas such as Nagappattinam and Pudukkottai districts, and from Puducherry.
Posted on: January 28, 2009
Rajasthan town casts out casteism
Originally published as “Alwar casts out casteism”, by Ashish Sinha, Dec. 22, 2008, Mail Today.
Stepping inside a temple for the first time, they were no longer the veiled Dalit women of Alwar.
Instead, they all held their heads high as yet another bastion of Manuwadi Hinduism fell in this Rajasthan town on Sunday morning.
Upper caste members, who had shunned these Dalits because of their “dirty” job of cleaning latrines, became enthusiastic witnesses to the change that swept Alwar as scores of scavengers were allowed to enter the local Jagannath Temple.
But the cherry on top came when these “untouchables” dined with the same upper caste people who did not even let them enter their houses. Till recently, sharing food with them was a “sin”. In fact, despite their differences, Gandhi and Ambedkar had held that dining together was the only way to break the caste system that has bogged down Hinduism since time immemorial.
The women were forced to hide behind veils not because they wanted to, but because if they moved without it, people would identify them as the women who carried the night soil.
“None of us was happy. But we had to do this work because it was the only way we could earn for our families. We all wanted to do something other than this, but we had no other option,” recalled Lalita Chamar. “Nobody would let us enter their houses.
We felt humiliated,” she added.
The credit for bringing about this ‘revolution’ goes to Sulabh International, an NGO. It took the organisation more than two years to make it happen.
The NGO knew it had an uphill task on its hands but went ahead nevertheless.
Sulabh International started a vocational training centre, Nai Disha, in the town for Dalit women. The ‘students’ were paid a stipend of Rs 1,500 each month.
The money came as a relief to the women, who no longer had to worry about earning their daily bread. In a few months, the women became adept at making papad, pickles and noodles, which were then sold at the local market. Nai Disha, in fact, has now become an important supplier of the items prepared by these women.
Earlier this year, 36 women from Nai Disha travelled to New York where they were invited by the United Nations. The world body was impressed by their story of uplift.
The trip also included a memorable day when the women, dressed in their traditional best, sashayed on the ramp with some leading Indian models.
On their return home, they met President Pratibha Patil who praised their determination to fight against a social evil. Later, they also met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.
Sulabh International holds that such experiments need to be conducted in several parts of the country because, despite strict laws, the practice of untouchability continues to thrive in some form or the other.
“We want these women to become the role models of not only the local society but the entire country,” Sulabh International head Bindeshwar Pathak said.
Politics, no doubt, has become the most important tool of empowering the Dalits these days, especially in north India. The rise and rise of Mayawati, these women said, is a good example.
“But everyone cannot enter politics, it does not provide you roti (bread). I think political efforts for our uplift should continue but other efforts such as the one made here, should go on simultaneously,” said Sheela, an erstwhile scavenger who was all smiles after entering the Jagannath Temple for the first time.
Posted on: January 16, 2009
Dayal Wins Human Dignity Award
Read full article at Joseph D’souza’s blog:
Dr John Dayal has won the Maanav Adhikaar Paaritaushik (Human Dignity Award) in memory of Professor M. M. Guptara. Dr Dayal has spent his life in investigating, and then helping individual cases of human rights abuse, as well as struggling against structural human rights abuse aimed at whole groups (such as Dalits, Muslims and Christians), and fighting organized human rights abuse – for example in Vadodara and in Orissa. At a time in our nation’s history when we have been struck down from the heights by the current global crisis as well as by the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, it is important not only to celebrate the strengths and beauties of the various cultures in our country, but also to recognize individual efforts to cleanse our country of its evils.
“Over several decades, and at the cost of his own health and finances, Dr Dayal has helped people regardless of ethnicity, gender, economic status, religion or any other criterion. That is something surely worth celebrating,” said Professor Prabhu Guptara.
Recognizing that the award is only a token, the Guptara family deeply appreciates Dr. Dayal’s lifetime of exceptional efforts and service to our country.
Posted on: December 15, 2008
Dalits in Gujarat say their dead have no place to rest in peace
Original article from ExpressIndia.com by Shubhlakshmi Shukla.
Banaskantha Runi, nearly 25 km from the Rajasthan border, is a village that has always acted as a breeding ground of politicians. Although the village has seen a lot of development, the Dalits have a different story to tell. Their main complaint—they do not know if their dead are actually laid to rest.
Unlike high-caste Hindus, who have well-developed crematoriums, thanks to the Rs 5 lakh grant under the Panchvati Yojana of the state government, Dalits from nine separate categories still follow their age-old custom of burying the dead. But their burial ground has been encroached upon by the village high school that has left little space to bury the dead. The story is similar in over 60 villages under Dhanera taluka of Banaskantha district.
Varsha Ganguly, who heads the Ahmedabad-based Behavioural Science Centre (BSC), said: “The divide is evident, even in the eyes of the government. The reason: in the Hindu religion, last rites are always understood as cremation. The government has not even cared about regularising burial lands for Dalits.”
The divide exists everywhere in the state. According to the BSC, there are nearly 18,100 villages in Gujarat; of these around 5,000 have no legal burial ground for the Dalits.
Bharat Dhabi, a resident of Runi said: “They have funds for the upper castes—those who cremate their dead—but not for our community. We have been using the burial ground for a century now.”
He added, “Runi Gram Panchayat had allotted around 8.5 acres of land to Matrushree Vidyalaya—a private high school. However, the school authorities have encroached upon nearly 1.5 acres.”
Elsewhere, in Ruppur village under Chanasma taluka of Patan district, Valji Patel of the Council for Social Justice recounts how a Dalit burial ground located there was taken over by the Nirma trust. Incidentally, Karsan Patel, the founder of Nirma, belongs to this place, said Patel.
Even as Dalits have been burying their dead for such a long time now, it is not regularised by the state government. As a result, the land is now considered a wasteland, Patel said. Interestingly, the price of burial lands at Ruppur has increased. The reason: with the construction of a national highway connecting Chanasma and Patan, around 1.5 acres of Dalit burial land came to the front.
“Settlements were made between the Gram Panchayat and the trust, and the land was given to the latter, last year, to develop a garden,” Patel said. He added: “We started a 30-day agitation at the collectors office and also filed a petition in the high court, last year.
Inquiry was ordered against the district collector. Land, however, was not allotted. Instead of the piece of land lying adjacent to the highway, a small patch in the interior of the village was given to the Dalits .”
The institute has now taken this matter to the Supreme Court, said Patel.
Despite the fact that the Revenue Department had passed a Government Resolution in September 1989 to consider 1972 as the year for earmarking land for burial, nothing seems to have been done so far.
“Apart from the Revenue Department, the Dalits have to approach the Health Department also to regularise land for burial, but this provided the decaying bodies do not spread any disease. Quite ironically, Gram Panchayats in several villages have allotted residential land that are in close proximity to burial lands,” said Manu Pandya, a local volunteer associated with BSC.
In Odha village of Banaskantha district, the Gram Panchayat has allotted a residential zone just adjacent to the previously existing burial ground.
Leela Solanki (40), a widow from Odhav village witnessed a gory scene when the body of her three-year-old son was accidentally exhumed by the plough of a farmer from the Patel community. “My husband was alive when the incident happened a few years ago. He died a few days later,” she said.
Fakir Vaghela is the state’s Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment of SCs and Socially and Economically Backward Classes. He also holds the portfolio of Sports and Youth and Cultural Activities. Although Vaghela is aware of this problem faced by the Dalits, he was unaware of the status. P Panneervel, Principal Secretary, State Revenue Department, was not available for his comments.
The reality, at the end of the day, is that the tale of woes of the Dalits does not seem to have an end right now. When asked about this, Leela said: “My son, Mahesh, and I work as farm labourers. We get two bags of wheat in lieu of our work on which we have to survive for a few months. I have to fill my stomach before I can fight for the dead.”
Posted on: December 1, 2008
ATTACK IN MUMBAI: DFN PARTNERS - DFN and OM INDIA PERSONNEL SAFE
All Dalit Freedom Network (DFN) partners with Operation Mobilization (OM) India and their personnel, friends and associates are safe after a night of terrorist attacks in the city of Mumbai on India’s west coast left dozens dead and hundreds injured.
Starting at approximately 8:30p local time, multiple coordinated bombings and shootings occurred in high profile places across Mumbai throughout the night. 5-Star hotels, hospitals, train stations and taxicabs were hit. For the first time in recent history, it seems foreigners (specifically American and British citizens) were the prime targets, some even being taken hostage (but released later). Sadly, the historic Taj Mahal hotel near Mumbai’s Gateway to India was bombed and was still burning in the morning hours.
News is still emerging as to the extent of damage, injuries and loss of life, as well as the nationality of those injured or killed. The American and British Embassies have not yet put out any statements or cautions for their citizens traveling within India.
OM India confirms that its Indian personnel plus its international friends are safe. OM and its associate International Bible Society and Send the Light (IBS/STL) were hosting several meetings with author Philip Yancey. Those meetings have now been canceled, but those visiting for the meetings are safe.
International friends are operating with caution and avoiding high profile places for the time being.
Questions may be directed to Dalit Freedom Network:
Sincerely,
The Dalit Freedom Network Team
Dalit Freedom Network
in association with OMCC / aicc / SC-ST Confederation
Posted on: November 27, 2008
Can Love Conquer Caste?
Can Love Conquer Caste?
By Emily Wax, Washington Post Saturday, November 22, 2008
NEW DELHI—She was a gutsy student leader known for hunger strikes and provocative street theater at universities across the country, exposing the plight of India’s beleaguered lower castes. He was a worldly gadfly with a passion for ending nuclear proliferation and exposing environmental crimes.
They fell in love in Iraq nearly 18 years ago while campaigning for peace before the Persian Gulf War. Their romance bloomed, and within three months they were engaged.
But their marriage a year later ushered in another war: In tying the knot, they openly defied India’s deeply entrenched taboos against inter-caste marriage. Anita Pharti, now 42, came from the Dalit caste, still known as untouchables, the lowest in India’s social order. Her husband, Rajeev Singh, 45, is a Rajput, traditionally a landholding caste that had for centuries ruled over Pharti’s peasant community.
“My family was completely aghast,” Singh recalled, sitting with Pharti in their cozy living room, where they have helped clandestine inter-caste couples elope. “My father said he wouldn’t let it happen. But I felt so sure about Anita. We were able to fight back. But we were the lucky ones. Many still get murdered for this.”
Even though India legalized inter-caste marriage more than 50 years ago, newlyweds are still threatened by violence, most often from their families. As more young urban and small-town Indians start to rebel and choose mates outside of arranged marriages and caste commandments, killings of inter-caste couples have increased, according to a recent study by the All India Democratic Women’s Association.
In the past month, seven so-called honor killings have targeted inter-caste couples. In the latest incident, a Hindu youth in Bihar was beaten by villagers this week and thrown under an oncoming train because he sent a love letter to a girl of a different caste. The attacks continue despite decades of government decrees intended to dismantle the bulwark of caste, which is widely seen as the glue of traditional Indian society but is considered among the most corrosive features of the emerging new India.
“The recent rise in violence actually shows that the younger generation—especially women—are slowly gaining individual freedom in marriage. But the older generation still cling to the old ways where marriage is still a symbol of status, not emotional love,” said Shashi Kiran, a lawyer in India’s Supreme Court who married outside her caste and is handling several honor-killing cases. “It shows a society still in transition and wrestling with deep change.”
As part of a controversial incentive for inter-caste couples to marry, the government recently began offering $1,000 bonuses. That’s nearly a year’s salary for the vast majority of Indians. Smaller cash payments first started in 2006 after a Supreme Court ruling in which judges described several high-profile honor killings as acts of “barbarism” and labeled the caste system “a curse on the nation.”
“The government is again deeply concerned over the low rate of conviction and high rate of acquittal of those people involved in incidents of atrocities on people belonging to lower castes,” said Meira Kumar, the minister for social justice and empowerment, who is from a lower caste. “This is not the only way to end the caste discrimination, but one has to start somewhere.”
B.R. Ambedkar, the country’s most famous Dalit leader and chief architect of the Indian constitution, called for an end to caste consciousness more than 60 years ago. He promoted inter-caste marriage as the most practical way to blur caste lines and render them irrelevant.
Despite India’s egalitarian veneer, there remains an invisible separation between the country’s upper and lower castes that lasts from birth to death. Meals are rarely shared between Brahmins and Dalits, the top and bottom brackets of the caste system, which also….click here to read full article and see photo.
Posted on: November 24, 2008
Yes, we can!
From the Times of India, 16 November, 2008. To read full article, click here
Beyond business
When I told people that I was working on a book, they assumed it was a memoir of my business career, or my take on management strategy. They looked quizzical (and were probably alarmed) when I said that I was writing a book on India. Businessmen, after all, do not usually make good public intellectuals. I console myself that I am but an accidental entrepreneur, who if he had not walked into the office of the charismatic N R Narayana Murthy in late 1978 in search of a job would probably have at best languished in a regular nine-to-fiver while living in a New Jersey suburb, taking the daily train to Manhattan.
The way I see it, the fact that I am not a specialist of any particular stripe, whether in history, sociology, economics or politics, may actually give me a broader viewpoint on our most significant issues. At a time when our arguments are so polarized, what we need might indeed be an avid amateur, and someone who can avoid the extreme ends of the debate.
While this is a book on India, this is not a book for people fascinated with Indian cinema and cricket — I would not be able to add very much to either topic, colourful as they are. Instead, I have attempted to understand India through the evolution of its ideas. I think that no matter how complicated, every country is governed through some overarching themes and ideas — an intricate web of shared, core beliefs among a country’s people is, after all, what unites them.
The ideals of French nationalism, for instance, the notion of the United States as the land of opportunity and the emphasis on ‘harmony’ in Singapore were all dominant ideas that shaped the economic and social policies of these countries.
India in particular, for all its complexity, is a country that is as much an idea as it is a nation. The years of colonialism have meant that India has not evolved through a natural arc; disparate regions were brought together by the ideas, good and bad, of British administrators and Indian leaders. My first glimmer of the power of these ideas came when I was five years old. I understand this in hindsight, of course. One day my father bundled all of us into his Austin motorcar and drove us to a rally.
It was 1960, the Congress session was being held in Bangalore, and we were there to see the charismatic Jawaharlal Nehru. As a towering leader of our independence struggle and the country’s first prime minister, his stature both within the country and outside was immense — to a whole generation, he was synonymous with India. My memory of standing on the sidelines, caught up in the large crowd and waving at this thin, intense man is an unforgettable one.
Growing up in those days, it was very easy to believe in the idea of a nurturing government and public sector. A paternal, socialist state would own companies which would create wealth and the wealth would be used for the betterment of society. Why allow wealth to be created in private hands where it would probably be used for nefarious purposes? It all made perfect sense. The logic of it, especially coming from the benevolent patriarch Nehru, appeared unimpeachable. My father,.....click here to continue reading.
Posted on: November 21, 2008
BBC Interview of Dr. Joseph D'souza
Dr. Joseph D’souza – President of All India Christian Council and International President of Dalit Freedom Network was interviewed on BBC, which was broadcasted last week.
The interview is available by clicking here.
Posted on: November 19, 2008
Caste clash rocks Law College
By Gokul Vannan
13 Nov 2008 04:41:00 AM IST
Click here for original story
CHENNAI: Three students were seriously injured in a violent caste clash that broke out between two groups of students at Ambedkar Law College on Wednesday.
The students waged a pitched battle, even as a posse of policemen waited outside the gates and news photographers clicked pictures.
Knives, iron rods, wooden logs and tubelights were freely used by the clashing students. The police remained silent spectators, waiting for a call from the college principal for help.
Tension has been running high inside the campus since October 30. According to police sources, a few Dalit students objected to the institution being referred to as just ‘government law college’ without the pre-fix ‘Dr Ambedkar’ in posters put up inside the campus by students from a caste Hindu community.
It degenerated into an ugly skirmish and police advised the principal to look into the matter and set up a peace committee. The efforts of the college authorities and the police to bring unity among the students were in vain.
Since it was the first year Dalit students who confronted seniors on the poster issue, the latter allegedly vowed not to allow them to sit for the examination.
On Wednesday, trouble started when the caste Hindu students tried to prevent freshers of the Dalit community from appearing for the semester examination. As a group waited with lethal weapons inside the college to attack the junior students, a few seniors escorted them inside the examination hall. Suddenly, the armed group attacked the Dalit students. Chitirai Selvan (21), a fourth year student, sustained serious injuries in the ear and back of the head and was admitted at Stanley hospital. A group of Dalit students retaliated.
In the attack, Arumugham (20), a third year student, was injured and brought in a semi-conscious state to Government General Hospital. Ayyadurai (20), a second year student, sustained injuries to his right hand, forehead and leg. A third year student, Bharathi Kannan, was injured in both hands, forehead and thigh.
Finally, the principal called the police, who rushed in and chased the students away.
The police filed a complaint with the police naming Gubendran, Ravindran, Chithiraiselvan, Manimaran, Vetrikondan, Prem Kumar and Ravi Verman. Three of them were taken into custody by the police.
Posted on: November 13, 2008
The audacity of hope
Original article from The Times of India by Shobhan Saxena
Hope is a tricky word. It never guarantees anything, but it makes the world go round. Hope was the only possession of the skinny lad with dark skin and a funny name, starting with B, when he arrived in New York, wondering if America had a place for him, too. During his years at Columbia, as he majored in political science, the young man learnt a few important lessons from some American greats. Emerson taught him that “consistency is a virtue of an ass”. From Abe Lincoln, he learnt that freedom is worth dying for.
As he pored over history books, he became sad and angry. And he came out of the campus craving for Change — not just for himself but for his people who hadn’t been free as long as he could remember. The name of this man was Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, and the year was 1913. Barack Obama came out of the same university with the same degree 70 years later, with the same mantra on his lips: Change.
As he gets ready to assume the most powerful office on this planet, a few sceptics are wondering if Obama is a product of the Black movement for civil rights. To be fair, he has never claimed that legacy. He is not the son of a descendant of those Africans who were abducted from their land and sold as slaves in the New World, where they shed sweat as whips lashed and bloodied their skin.
Obama might have avoided invoking names like Malcolm X in his stump speeches for practical reasons, but the blacks see him continuing the lineage of King, X & Company. But, they aren’t the only ones who look up to him; the Dalits of India, too, see Obama as a symbol of Black Power, a phenomenon they closely identify with. After all, America’s black movement has had a great influence on the Dalits’ fight for their rights.
So impressed was Ambedkar with Lincoln that when he launched a political party for Dalits, he called it the Republican Party of India — his tribute to Lincoln, the GOP leader who fought for ending slavery in the US. “Like Dalits in India, the blacks in US also faced discrimination in public transport, schools and jobs. When Ambedkar saw this, he could empathise with them and he supported their struggle,” says Chandrabhan Prasad, Dalit activist and writer. “Even after he came back to India, Ambedkar kept following the black movement in the US.”
The fifties were feverish — for blacks in the US and Dalits in India. Fired up by the speeches of Martin Luther King Jr, the blacks began to believe that being born in America didn’t make them American. So, they began to fight for their rights. In 1955, Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery. In 1956, King began to walk for the freedom of his people. In 1963, more than 200,000 people joined King’s March on Washington and listened to his “I Have a Dream” speech with tears in their eyes. In India, Ambedkar closely followed the King’s moves and led more than 500,000 Dalits to take refuge in Buddhism in 1956.
During the next couple of decades, the blacks and the Dalits moved on parallel tracks, often influencing and guiding each other. As Dalits veered towards Buddhism, many blacks moved to Islam or erected their own churches; the word Negro — a symbol of slavery — was replaced by Black. The Dalits too dumped the term Harijan “as a symbol of Gandhi’s upper caste politics”. As Dalits got some benefits of reservation, black Americans too fought for affirmative action and got it in 1965. In 1970, when Dalit Panther was founded by Namdev Dhassal, it was inspired by Black Panthers.
Posted on: November 9, 2008
Attacks on freedom of religion for Dalits
Click here to read about latest news about the ongoing violence against Dalit Christians in Orissa and other states across India.
Posted on: October 24, 2008
The Wall Remains
by S. Viswanathan, Frontline, Volume 25 – Issue 22 :: Oct. 25-Nov. 07, 2008 INDIA’S NATIONAL MAGAZINE from the publishers of THE HINDU
ABOUT six months ago, the “wall of bias”, which separated Dalits from caste Hindus in Uthapuram, in Tamil Nadu’s Madurai district, was pulled down partly by the State government following public protests (Frontline, June 6). But the Dalit community in the village has reportedly been subjected to cruel reprisal, more by the state machinery than by caste Hindus.
DALIT WOMEN IN Uthapuram lead a funeral procession in the absence of their male relatives, who are evading arrest following caste violence.
About 15 Dalit women were injured, some of them seriously, and over 70 houses were ransacked, according to reports, when the police raided the village on the night of October 1 – a day before the 139th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, who was at the forefront of the fight against untouchability. The raid was conducted in the name of “searching for absconding men”, following a clash between Dalits and caste Hindus, in which some policemen were hurt in stone-throwing. Most of the male members of Dalit families, against whom charges have been filed by the police, have apparently left the village.
“The police brutality has shattered Dalits,” said P. Sampath, State convener of the Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front, after a visit to Uthapuram on October 13. He said that the district administration had been indifferent to the demand for demolishing the wall from the beginning. Sampath added that the administration had connived with the police in suppressing information about the police action for two weeks by barring visitors to the village under the pretext of implementing a ban order issued in connection with a temple festival.
Sampath, also a member of the State Secretariat of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), was accompanied by P. Mohan, CPI Member of Parliament representing Madurai, among others. Sampath said that both the police and revenue officials tried to dissuade him from visiting the village.
The district administration’s refusal to permit entry into the village was confirmed by C.J. Rajan, State coordinator of Citizens for Human Rights Movement. He said women volunteers of his organisation used to visit the village regularly for social work, but their visits had been restricted. So, he said, there was no way of getting any authentic information about what had happened since October 1.
Rajan said that right from the day the wall was pulled down partly, allowing limited access to the village’s common areas, caste Hindus were keen to prevent Dalits from enjoying the benefits of the demolition. The caste Hindus had moved away to a nearby hill in protest against the demolition but returned to the village after the district administration conceded a few of their demands. They apparently prevented Dalits from riding bicycles on the newly opened path. This kind of reaction provoked the Dalits, resulting in skirmishes between the two sections.
On October 1, when the caste Hindus began painting a wall close to the Muthalamman temple under their control in preparation for a temple festival, a section of Dalits objected to it on the grounds that the wall was common property of the village. This led to verbal exchanges, and the two sections threw stones at each other. In the process some policemen were reportedly injured.
Additional forces were sent in, and the police entered the Dalit areas and “searched” for the alleged offenders but could not find anyone involved in the clashes. Then they picked up 60 women and took them to the police station at Usilampatti, 25 km away. When members of the All India Democratic Women’s Association challenged the legality of the detention of the women, the police took them back to Uthapuram.
The seriousness of the situation became public on October 10, when newspapers carried a report on the death of Chitra, a Dalit woman, in the village on October 8. It said that Chitra’s body was taken to the burial ground by women in the absence of her father and brothers. The last rites were also performed by women. The report said that Chitra’s father and brothers were evading arrest and male relatives from a neighbouring village were denied entry into Uthapuram by the police.
Sampath said that those injured in the police atrocities included children and aged women. He added that none of the injured was taken to the hospital. Nor was any medical facility made available at the village. Mohan asked the district health authorities over phone to arrange for medical assistance to the victims. The response was quick and a van with medical facilities soon arrived. Sampath said he could see many houses badly damaged.
He demanded a judicial inquiry into the police excesses, action against the guilty, and compensation for the victims. Sampath also suggested that Dalits be given the right of access to all common areas in the village.
Posted on: October 22, 2008
Dalit Killed for Offering Prasad to Durga
From NCTV.com. Read full article by clicking here.
In a shocking incident, one person was killed and two were injured when upper caste people allegedly shot at a person hailing from Dalit community who had gone to offer prasad to goddess Durga at Jiyar village of Bihar’s Nalanda district.
Police said Karu Paswan, a Scheduled Caste, had gone to offer prasad to the goddess but this was resisted by upper caste men leading to a clash between them on Saturday night.
During the clash, Ratan Singh, an upper caste member, allegedly fired from his gun critically injuring three persons, including Karu Paswan. Paswan died on way to Patna Medical College and Hospital. Singh could not be traced after the incident.
An FIR has been lodged against seven unnamed persons and a police camp has been set up in the area to prevent communal flare-up.
Posted on: October 13, 2008
Hindu Threat to Christians: Convert or Flee
From the NY Times by SOMINI SENGUPTA
BOREPANGA, India — The family of Solomon Digal was summoned by neighbors to what serves as a public square in front of the village tea shop.
They were ordered to get on their knees and bow before the portrait of a Hindu preacher. They were told to turn over their Bibles, hymnals and the two brightly colored calendar images of Christ that hung on their wall. Then, Mr. Digal, 45, a Christian since childhood, was forced to watch his Hindu neighbors set the items on fire.
“Embrace Hinduism, and your house will not be demolished,” Mr. Digal recalled being told on that Wednesday afternoon in September. “Otherwise, you will be killed, or you will be thrown out of the village.”
India, the world’s most populous democracy and officially a secular nation, is today haunted by a stark assault on one of its fundamental freedoms. Here in eastern Orissa State, riven by six weeks of religious clashes, Christian families like the Digals say they are being forced to abandon their faith in exchange for their safety.
The forced conversions come amid widening attacks on Christians here and in at least five other states across the country, as India prepares for national elections next spring.
The clash of faiths has cut a wide swath of panic and destruction through these once quiet hamlets fed by paddy fields and jackfruit trees. Here in Kandhamal, the district that has seen the greatest violence, more than 30 people have been killed, 3,000 homes burned and over 130 churches destroyed, including the tin-roofed Baptist prayer hall where the Digals worshiped. Today it is a heap of rubble on an empty field, where cows blithely graze.
Across this ghastly terrain lie the singed remains of mud-and-thatch homes. Christian-owned businesses have been systematically attacked. Orange flags (orange is the sacred color of Hinduism) flutter triumphantly above the rooftops of houses and storefronts.
India is no stranger to religious violence between Christians, who make up about 2 percent of the population, and India’s Hindu-majority of 1.1 billion people. But this most recent spasm is the most intense in years.
It was set off, people here say, by the killing on Aug. 23 of a charismatic Hindu preacher known as Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, who for 40 years had rallied the area’s people to choose Hinduism over Christianity.
The police have blamed Maoist guerrillas for the swami’s killing. But Hindu radicals continue to hold Christians responsible.
In recent weeks, they have plastered these villages with gruesome posters of the swami’s hacked corpse. “Who killed him?” the posters ask. “What is the solution?”
Behind the clashes are long-simmering tensions between equally impoverished groups: the Panas and Kandhas. Both original inhabitants of the land, the two groups for ages worshiped the same gods. Over the past several decades, the Panas for the most part became Christian, as Roman Catholic and Baptist missionaries arrived here more than 60 years ago, followed more recently by Pentecostals, who have proselytized more aggressively.
Meanwhile, the Kandhas, in part through the teachings of Swami Laxmanananda, embraced Hinduism. The men tied the sacred Hindu white thread around their torsos; their wives daubed their foreheads with bright red vermilion. Temples sprouted.
Hate has been fed by economic tensions as well, as the government has categorized each group differently and given them different privileges.
The Kandhas accused the Panas of cheating to obtain coveted quotas for government jobs. The Christian Panas, in turn, say their neighbors have become resentful as they have educated themselves and prospered.
Their grievances have erupted in sporadic clashes over the past 15 years, but they have exploded with a fury since the killing of Swami Laxmanananda.
Two nights after his death, a Hindu mob in the village of Nuagaon dragged a Catholic priest and a nun from their residence, tore off much of their clothing and paraded them through the streets.
The nun told the police that she had been raped by four men, a charge the police say was borne out by a medical examination. Yet no one was arrested in the case until five weeks later, after a storm of media coverage. Today, five men are under arrest in connection with inciting the riots. The police say they are trying to find the nun and bring her back here to identify her attackers.
Given a chance to explain the recent violence, Subash Chauhan, the state’s highest-ranking leader of Bajrang Dal, a Hindu radical group, described much of it as “a spontaneous reaction.”
He said in an interview that the nun had not been raped but had had regular consensual sex.
On Sunday evening, as much of Kandhamal remained under curfew, Mr. Chauhan sat in the hall of a Hindu school in the state capital, Bhubaneshwar, beneath a huge portrait of the swami. A state police officer was assigned to protect him round the clock. He cupped a trilling Blackberry in his hand.
Mr. Chauhan denied that his group was responsible for forced conversions and in turn accused Christian missionaries of luring villagers with incentives of schools and social services.
He was asked repeatedly whether Christians in Orissa should be left free to worship the god of their choice. “Why not?” he finally said, but he warned that it was unrealistic to expect the Kandhas to politely let their Pana enemies live among them as followers of Jesus.
“Who am I to give assurance?” he snapped. “Those who have exploited the Kandhas say they want to live together?”
Besides, he said, “they are Hindus by birth.”
Hindu extremists have held ceremonies in the country’s indigenous belt for the past several years intended to purge tribal communities of Christian influence.
It is impossible to know how many have been reconverted here, in the wake of the latest violence, though a three-day journey through the villages of Kandhamal turned up plenty of anecdotal evidence.
A few steps from where the nun had been attacked in Nuagaon, five men, their heads freshly shorn, emerged from a soggy tent in a relief camp for Christians fleeing their homes.
The men had also been summoned to a village meeting in late August, where hundreds of their neighbors stood with machetes in hand and issued a firm order: Get your heads shaved and bow down before our gods, or leave this place.
Trembling with fear, Daud Nayak, 56, submitted to a shaving, a Hindu sign of sacrifice. He drank, as instructed, a tumbler of diluted cow dung, considered to be purifying.
In the eyes of his neighbors, he reckoned, he became a Hindu.
In his heart, he said, he could not bear it.
All five men said they fled the next day with their families. They refuse to return.
In another village, Birachakka, a man named Balkrishna Digal and his son, Saroj, said they had been summoned to a similar meeting and told by Hindu leaders who came from nearby villages that they, too, would have to convert. In their case, the ceremony was deferred because of rumors of Christian-Hindu clashes nearby.
For the time being, the family had placed an orange flag on their mud home. Their Hindu neighbors promised to protect them.
Here in Borepanga, the family of Solomon Digal was not so lucky. Shortly after they recounted their Sept. 10 Hindu conversion story to a reporter in the dark of night, the Digals were again summoned by their neighbors. They were scolded and fined 501 rupees, or about $12, a pinching sum here.
The next morning, calmly clearing his cauliflower field, Lisura Paricha, one of the Hindu men who had summoned the Digals, confirmed that they had been penalized. Their crime, he said, was to talk to outsiders.
Posted on: October 13, 2008
The oppression of untouchables is modern India's shame
From the Sunday Herald by Andrew Duke
Noon in Karimnagar, central India, and already it’s over 40 degrees. A queue of 2000 wedding guests wait patiently in the sun outside a covered courtyard decorated with lotus flowers and ornate drapes. The women wear brightly coloured saris and fan themselves as they chat; the men, clad in sharp, 1970s-cut suits, dab at their foreheads. From time to time, a VIP is whisked along to the front of the line. I know these people are important because they have bodyguards, and their bodyguards are carrying sub-machine guns.
Everyone here knows who these people are, and why this wedding ceremony is so significant. Before the betrothed marry, they will undergo a controversial religious conversion and the congregation of well-wishers, family members, politicians, academics and writers are here to show their support.
Deekonda Tirupathi and his bride-to-be, Sucharitha, are converting to Buddhism because they are Dalits, members of society rooted below even the bottom rung of India’s complex hierarchical system. Above them, four main Hindu classes, or varnas, occupy their own places in life: the priestly Brahmins; then the ruling class, the Kshatriyas; next are the Vaishyas, the artisans and traders; then follow the Shudras, labourers and servants. Those born without varna are seen as sub-human, or, as they used to be referred to, “untouchable”, their lives restricted to menial jobs and duties deemed impure in Hinduism: they alone work leather, dispose of dead bodies, handle carcasses, clear human and animal excrement.
Our wedding couple are the latest in a long line of Dalits who hope to rid themselves of the stigma of “untouchability” and be accepted as equals by adopting a new religion. They follow in the footsteps of one of the country’s greatest thinkers, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, a Dalit lawyer and scholar who went on to become the main architect of India’s constitution.
Ambedkar’s attempts to reform the system in the 1940s and 1950s came under attack from an unlikely source: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi – later Mahatma Gandhi, celebrated peace campaigner, spiritual leader and father of the nation.
Gandhi’s hope of finding a solution to the problem of untouchability without dividing Hindu society sat at odds with Ambedkar’s intention of direct political action: Ambedkar’s demands that Dalits should form separate electorates were initially accepted by the ruling British but he was forced to back down after Gandhi began to starve himself to death in protest.
Ambedkar did, however, manage to ensure that a quota system was introduced in education, politics, the law and public service before his disdain for caste-based Hinduism led him to convert to Buddhism in the late 1950s. “Ambedkar said if a Dalit is to be empowered, the only true way is to leave Hinduism,” Tirupathi tells me. “Since Ambedkar converted to Buddhism and I follow him, I am leaving Hinduism and embracing Buddhism.”
But for the vast majority of the estimated 180 million Dalits (16% of India’s population), everyday life is about basic survival.
“What can we do?” asks Vimalemma Mari, a widow since 1983. “We have families to support and no choice of what work we do.” I meet Mari as she starts work in a northern suburb of Hyderabad. Every day, seven days a week, the 52-year-old mother of six joins an army of women across India in the unending task of sweeping litter and dust from the nation’s roads. A gangmaster – her boss – circles the neighbourhood on a motorbike checking all the sweepers are pulling their weight.
A couple of metres beneath Mari’s feet, 27-year-old Padma Rao begins his job of clearing the drains of human waste with his bare hands. Once the task is complete, his colleagues pull him out. He lets me take his photograph but, as a friend explains, he doesn’t want to talk to me about his life because he is too embarrassed. He looks at me apologetically, gulps some fresh air and is lowered into another drain.
For their efforts, Mari and Padma will be paid around £1 a day.
Discrimination against Dalits, although outlawed, is deeply ingrained. “In rural areas it is still very dangerous for a Dalit to allow his shadow to fall across an upper-caste man – it is the biggest crime a Dalit can commit,” says Moses Vattipalli, himself a Dalit. “It results in very severe punishment, sometimes death. In villages, all Dalits live together on the east side because the wind flows from the west. This way, members of the upper caste will not have any wind or sound coming in from the direction of the Dalits.”
Vattipalli, 31, manages a website documenting the problems faced by Dalits. Much of the site catalogues violence – the beatings, acid attacks, rapes and murders – as well as day-to-day discrimination. “At my village school,” says Moses, “I was told again and again that I was a Dalit boy, and so I was unfortunate. In class we would sit separately and couldn’t share anything. Teacher would abuse me and beat me with sticks – when the upper-caste boys got something wrong, I got the beating. We weren’t allowed to drink in the same place and I had to bring my own tumbler. I was always angry, always asking, Why was I born a Dalit’ ... thinking it would have been better if I hadn’t been born.”
Despite everything, Vattipalli made the most of his education and left his village to work overseas. But moving away from the rural areas does not guarantee acceptance. “Discrimination in the city is different and can be more severe,” says Vattipalli, who now lives with his wife and daughter in Secunderabad. “In the villages you know what is happening and can be careful; here it is psychologically oppressive and dehumanising. They always ask your name: they find out you are a Dalit, then treat you differently.”
But that doesn’t stop thousands seeking work in the major IT and industrial centres each year, especially places like Hyderabad, nicknamed Cyberabad, home to Hitec (Hyderabad Information Technology Engineering Consultancy) City. Here, confidence in India’s future is reflected in the mirrored buildings housing the likes of General Electric, Microsoft and Dell. In the shadow of these multinationals, small shanty towns of itinerant workers have grown up, providing temporary shelter for those lucky enough to be given work.
Others fall into the trap of bonded labour. A few miles north of Hyderabad is a settlement unofficially known as Pipe Village. The encampment consists of discarded pipes beside the factory that produced them. Inside the pipes live the factory’s Dalit workers. Mostly from rural villages, they were enticed by the prospect of a job, accommodation and a loan to help with the move. What they got was a 12-hour day, a pipe to live in and a long-term debt that ensures they stay put.
According to a 2006 survey by the Hindustan Times, 48% of villages still deny Dalits access to water, while three-quarters of villages do not permit Dalits to enter non-Dalit homes. Meanwhile, a third of public health workers refuse to visit Dalit homes. It’s perhaps unsurprising that the contentious process of religious conversion appeals.
“Every day thousands of Dalits choose to embrace a new religion,” says Dr Joseph D’souza, international president of the Dalit Freedom Network. “Dalits are primarily choosing Buddhism or Christianity, although some have chosen Islam. Changing their religion means they – and more important, their children – think of themselves differently. Instead of following holy texts which say they were created only for one role in life and are of lesser value than others, now they learn about a creator who made them equal and truly free. This mental change impacts on their behaviour as they attempt new careers or fight for dignity by embracing their legal rights.”
This growth in confidence has, however, set those with a vested interest in preserving the status quo on a collision course with reformers. “Just 7% of the population rules the majority of India,” says Moses Vattipalli. “When the 93% gain empowerment, the minority fear they will lose everything.”
Realising the threat, the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party’s Hindu heartlands of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu introduced laws to severely restrict conversions, while others, including the state of Gujarat, have attempted to reclassify other faiths and bring them into the fold of Hinduism.
“When the small number of fundamentalist Hindus who want to rule all India and continue to oppress Dalits saw these conversions to Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism, they feared they were losing manpower and growing weaker,” says Vattipalli, himself a convert to Christianity. “They realised that soon they would become the minority and said that the other three religions were in fact branches of Hinduism.”
But that assertion met with little sympathy. “The other religions said no, we are not part of Hinduism so long as there is the caste system,’” says Vattipalli.
As their strength has increased, Dalit leaders and support groups have taken their battle further afield to help shift domestic policy.
“The Dalit movement is at a turning point in history,” says D’souza. “Most Westerners have never heard of Ambedkar, Phule, or Periyar, who were great Dalit leaders and writers. But since 2000, influential bodies such as the United Nations, the US Congress, the UK parliament have issued statements condemning caste discrimination. We are gaining momentum. We are gaining recognition that caste is similar to apartheid and deserves the involvement of the international community.”
Unsurprisingly, the talk over lunch at the wedding in Karimnagar is dominated by the topic of change. But any transition from such deeply entrenched positions may prove painful. If the caste system were to be abolished folowing next year’s crucial elections then, according to Vattipalli: “There may be clashes with Hindu fundamentalists because the Hindu scriptures are everything for them.”
His words seem to be have been born out after recent conflict in the states of Orissa, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Madhya Pradesh. Trouble in Orissa alone left 13,000 people without homes when Anti-Christian violence flared up after local Hindus accused Christian Dalits of murdering a controversial holy man. Claims of forced conversions were also levelled at the Christians. (Both allegations have been vehemently denied). During the most recent clashes, one Christian woman was left dead and scores of others were injured.
So far the outbreaks have been relatively contained, given the size and population of the country, but Moses Vattipalli fears that Dalit empowerment may prompt reprisals.
“Dalits will be angry because of injustices and oppression spread over the last 3000 years,” he warns. “There could be bloodshed, even civil war.”
But Dalit campaigner D’souza takes a different view. “Of course, any group of people that has been oppressed for thousands of years is tempted to take revenge, but I’m confident that Dalit leaders will follow the example of Gandhi and, even more so, BR Ambedkar,” he says. “They will respond with a firm but peaceful defence of their rights and human dignity.”
Posted on: October 13, 2008
Where Bibles are Burnt
Click here for the video report
The Indian state of Orissa, in the east of the country, is the theatre of a religious war that few people talk about, the traditional religious flashpoint in the country being between Hindus and Muslims.
But FRANCE 24’s reporting team came here to hear the horrific stories of people who say they are the victims of a new kind of profound religious bigotry. The hatred stems from the extremist teachings of a Hindu guru named Swami Laxmananda Sarazwahti. Since his murder in August, attacks on Christians have multiplied. Sarazwahti claimed that Christians, backed by the USA and Europe, were trying to take over India. Extremist Hindus blame Christians for the guru’s murder. These Hindus and Christians have lived side by side for 20 years, but due to the poisonous words of Sarazwahti and the fervour of his followers, violence soon followed his death. His organization, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, lives on and Indians who have converted to Christianity are especially targeted. Christians in Orissa have seen their churches vandalised and, their villages razed to the ground; 32 people have been killed. Some have even been burnt alive. Most of these Christians have left their ruined villages altogether and have gone to refugee camps for shelter. But they do not feel safe there, and for good reason: Hindus armed with sticks and knives have been trying to steal their food.
In this climate of fear, conversions to Hinduism are on the rise. Some say the violence can be traced back to the nationalist Hindu party BJP coming to power in 2000. They say the BJP is orchestrating and encouraging the violence. The situation is unlikely to improve soon, since the BJP is hoping for a third mandate in elections in Orissa early next year.
Reprinted by permission FRANCE 24
Posted on: October 9, 2008
Khairlanji Dalit Murders: 6 Get Death Sentence
Original article from Deccan Herald.
Ending intense nationwide speculation, the trial court here on 24 September 2008 slapped death sentence on six of the eight convicts in the sensational Khairlanji Dalit murder case while ordering life imprisonment for the remaining two.
The six convicts found guilty of brutally murdering four members of a Dalit family in Khairlanji village of Maharashtra’s Bhandara district are Sakru Mahagu Binjewar, Shatrughan Issam Dhande, Vishwanath Hagru Dhande, Ramu Mangru Dhande, Jagdish Ratan Mandlekar and Prabhakar Jaswant Mandlekar. The two sentenced for life imprisonment are Shishupal Vishwanath Dhande and Gopal Sakru Binjewar.
A frenzied mob of about 50 villagers attacked the house of Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange, a Dalit farmer 29 September 2006 evening and lynched four members of his family including his wife Surekha, young daughter Priyanka and two sons Sudhir and Roshan.
While the Central Bureau of Investigation handling the case had filed the charge-sheet only against 11 of the original 47 accused and discharged 36, the court had acquitted Purushottam Titirmare, Mahipal Dhande and Dharampal Dhande in its ruling 15 September 2008. The court had also dropped the charges of atrocity and conspiracy against the accused.
On 20 September 2008 first ad hoc sessions judge SS Dass had heard the arguments on the quantum of sentence from both sides in which special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam had demanded death sentence for all eight convicts for the ‘frozen blooded’ murder while defence lawyers Sudip Jaiswal and Neeraj Khandewale had pleaded for leniency in view of the convicts’ clean past record.
While Khandewale and Jaiswal said they would challenge the verdict in the appellate court, the reaction of Nikam could not be immediately known.
Find out more information about the Khairlanji murders.
Posted on: October 8, 2008
Khairlanji Ruling is Not Fair to Dalits
Original article from Times of India.
Many Dalits across the state are expressing unhappiness with the Khairlanji verdict, with several of them saying the charges made under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act should have been upheld.
Republican Party of India (Kawade) chief Jogendra Kawade said, “I am really unhappy and unsatisfied with the judgement. One must not comment on the judiciary, but I feel that the judgement is not fair to the Dalits. I cannot understand why none of the accused could be punished under the atrocities act. We feel that the government is supporting casteist forces and now they must set up a judicial commission like the Srikrishna Commission to probe this incident.” Kawade also said Dalits must arm themselves for self-protection in cases where the government fails.
While IAS and IPS officers chose to stay silent, finance wizard and Pune university vice-chancellor Narendra Jadhav demanded stringent punishment for the accused.
A Dalit activist and assistant professor of TISS, Shailesh Darokar, said, “The CBI and police had arrested 34 people and just 11 were charge-sheeted. The court has acquitted three people. I hope they punish the rest with a death sentence or a life imprisonment.”
Deputy Chief Minister RR Patil has tried to soothe Dalit tempers and said the government would ask the CBI to seek legal opinion and challenge the acquittal of the three accused. “We will demand stern punishments for the accused,” he said.
MPCC general secretary Nitin Rau, who is a Dalit MLA from Nagpur, said he had been flooded with angry calls. “The court has struck down the charges under the atrocities act. My followers are repeatedly asking me why the Act was formulated. Besides, I am also surprised that three people were acquitted. During the debate it was also said Bhaiyalal Bhotmange’s daughter was not molested. If she was not molested, why were her clothes removed. We are not happy with the verdict. I am unhappy,” Rau said.
Rajendra Gavai of the RPI (Gavai) said if the police had been prompt, alert and cautious, all 11 people would have been proved guilty and evidence of rape and atrocity against SC/ST would have been also obtained.
Find out more information about the Khairlanji Murders.
Posted on: October 7, 2008
India's Anti-Christian Violence Unparalleled Among World Democracies
For Immediate Release
Orissa violence continues unabated and enters seventh week. Despite Supreme Court ruling, police neglect duties.
NEW DELHI – October 4, 2008 – Despite the deployment of thousands of central and state law enforcement troops, the violence in Orissa continues to inflict daily casualties and massive damage to Christian properties.
Rev. Madhu Chandra, All India Christian Council (aicc) Regional Secretary, said, “The death tolls are climbing, but less than a hundred are confirmed. Perhaps this is why the Orissa attacks haven’t gained international attention the worst violation of the freedom of religion in any democracy in recent history. What most people don’t realize is the goal of the attackers is to inspire fear. The attackers believe India is only for Hindus and their stated purpose is to convert people to Hinduism or force them to leave. To accomplish this, they only need to kill one or two people in each village or church. This is clearly terrorism and ethnic cleansing, but few Indian leaders are admitting it.” Most of the victims are Dalits, formerly known as untouchables, from a tribe called Pano.
Dr. Joseph D’souza, aicc president, said, “The events of the last month, not only the anti-Christian attacks but the negligence of government, would be sad if it happened in a dictatorship or a totalitarian regime. The fact that it’s happening in the world’s largest democracy makes it infinitely sadder.”
Some police, mostly in rural areas, are neglecting their duties. For example, a Roman Catholic nun was raped amidst mob violence on Aug. 25, 2008, in Kanjemandi village between Raikia and Balliguda, Kandhamal District, Orissa. A medical examination of the nun conducted that night at the Balliguda Hospital confirmed rape. Both the victim and a priest, who tried to defend her and was severely beaten, tried to file cases in the Nuagaon police station. Their “First Information Report” (FIR) was rejected. Eventually, the same FIR was accepted at the Balliguda police station. But, in spite of numerous eye witnesses, police didn’t investigate until 38 days after the attack and made four arrests yesterday.
India’s Supreme Court said on Aug. 8, 2008 that any police officer who turns away a person without registering his or her complaint could face contempt of court charges and imprisonment (see “Cops understand only crack of whip, says Supreme Court” by Dhananjay Mahapatra, Times of India, Aug. 9, 2008). Justice B.N. Agarwal and Justice G.S. Singhvi instructed victims to appeal to their local chief judicial magistrate or the chief metropolitan magistrate. Ironically, the decision was scheduled for review on Aug. 25th, the same day as the attack on the nun.
“We demand that the officials in Orissa follow the law. We know multiple cases where Christians have tried to file cases with police after being attacked and the police turned them away. Police say they are overwhelmed and don’t have time to file cases or investigate since they must focus on maintaining order. But surely they realize that, unless crimes are promptly punished, the perpetrators are indirectly encouraged to continue their crimes. Justice is being denied to hundreds of victims,” said Chandra.
There has been no news about a second rape case. A young nun of the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Roman Catholic diocese working at Jan Vikas Kendra, a social service centre near Nuagaon, was reportedly gang raped by mobs on Aug. 24, 2008.
Similar violence lasted about a week over Christmas 2007. Some are calling it “Christian-Hindu clashes” but media reports and aicc Orissa state leaders confirm that Christians are the overwhelming victims and are not instigating attacks. There are scattered reports of Christians firing guns in self-defense. The current violence is entering its seventh week since it began on Aug. 23, 2008 after the killing of a controversial swami by unknown assailants. Extremist groups blamed Christians for the murder.
The violence spread to at least ten other states and has affected hundreds of churches and thousands of Indian Christians. Within Orissa, the violence spread to almost half of the districts, and then was contained to Kandhamal District. But now attacks are spreading again with incidents reported in Gajapati and Boudh districts in the last few days.
Other examples of recent violence include:
Sept. 26th – G. Udayagiri, Kandhamal District: A young Christian man named Rajesh Digal was on his way home from Chennai. While walking with his Hindu friend, they were attacked. The Hindu man was stabbed but escaped. Rajesh was buried alive.
Sept. 30th – Rudangia, Kandhamal District: About 60 houses of Christians were burned in the morning, and one Christian lady was shot and killed while seven others were injured.
Oct. 2nd – Sindhipakali, Kandhamal District: At 8 p.m., mobs attacked the village and set Christian houses on fire. They stabbed and killed a father and his teenage son in 9th standard (grade). Both were Dalit Christians.
Across Orissa, aicc leaders have reliable reports of 315 villages damaged, 4,640 Christian houses burnt, 53,000 Christians homeless, 57 people killed including at least 2 pastors, 10 priests/pastors/nuns seriously injured, 18,000 Christians injured, 2 nuns gang-raped, 149 churches destroyed, 13 Christian schools and colleges damaged.
The All India Christian Council (http://www.aiccindia.org), birthed in 1998, exists to protect and serve the Christian community, minorities, and the oppressed castes. The aicc is a coalition of thousands of Indian denominations, organizations, and lay leaders
For more information, contact:
Madhu Chandra, aicc Regional Secretary, New Delhi
Posted on: October 4, 2008
India's Civil Society Defends Christians in New Delhi Rally
“Killers of Mahatma Gandhi are the same killers of Christians in India,” said Swami Agnivesh
Union Minister Lalu Prasad promised to bring up the anti-Christian violence in Parliament
Over 50,000 homeless Dalit & Tribal Christians in Orissa demanded refugee status from UNHCR
About 15,000 Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Buddhists including politicians and civil society leaders joined the Peace & Solidarity Rally on the International Day of Non-Violence which falls on the 139th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, India’s ‘Father of the Nation’. The protest highlighted recent anti-Christian violence in India.
Addressing the rally, Swami Agnivesh said, “The very killers of Mahatma Gandhi are the same killers and abusers of Christians in Orissa, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and other parts of the country. The killers – the Hindutva fascists – do not represent the peace loving Hindu society. Rather they are damaging the Sanatam Dharma [Hindu way of life].”
India’s Union Minister of Railways, Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav, broke his silence over anti-Christian violence across India. Addressing the rally, he said, “I will personally meet the Prime Minister and discuss the implementation of Article 355. I will also bring up the anti-Christian violence in Parliament and debate the hatred of Hindutva forces.” Article 355 of India’s Constitution allows the central government to warn a state government to stop internal disturbances or face federal action and possible dismissal.
In the morning, the Chief Minister of Delhi, Mrs. Sheila Dixit, showed her solidarity and expressed concern and pain over the anti-Christian violence. She condemned the Hindu fanatics who are responsible for widespread crimes and causing damage to properties owned by the Christian minority.
Other dignitaries who participated in the rally included Mr. Oscar Fernandez, Union Minister of Labor; Mrs. Teesta Setalvad, General Secretary of Mumbai-based Citizens For Justice & Peace; Dr. Udit Raj, Chairman, All India Confederation of Scheduled Caste / Scheduled Tribe Organisations; Dr. Valson Thampu, Principal of the prestigious St. Stephen’s College of New Delhi; Mr. Sitaram Yechury, senior leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist); Ms. Shabnam Hashmi, senior leader of ANHAD (Act Now for Harmony and Democracy). There were additional speakers from Sikh, Muslim, and Hindu communities.
The rally concluded seven days of a “Sit-in Protest” organized by the Christians of Delhi and the NCR (National Capital Region). Major contributors included the Delhi Federation of Catholics and the All India Christian Council (aicc). Beginning on Sept. 26, 2008 at 10 a.m and ending today at 6 p.m., there was 152 hours of constant prayer and protest at Jantar Mantar – a park in the center of New Delhi – to express solidarity with victims. Most of the victims are Dalits, formerly called untouchables and officially categorized as Scheduled Castes by India’s government.
Rally participants shouted “Ban Terrorists, Ban Bajrang Dal,” “Ban Vishwa Hindu Parishad,” and “Ban Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh” as they marched along a 5 km route from Jantar Mantar to Raj Ghat, a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi. Since the surge in violence beginning in rural Orissa on Aug. 23, 2008 after the murder of a controversial Hindu swami by unknown assailants, civil society groups, human rights activists, and various religious leaders have increasingly called for these Hindutva fundamentalist groups to be banned as terrorists.
Yesterday, a delegation led by noted film maker Mahesh Bhatt along with Christian victims from Orissa met the United Nations High Commission on Refugees in New Delhi and demanded refugee status for over 50,000 homeless Christians. The delegation included Dr. Abraham Mathai from the Indian Christian Voice and Dr. John Dayal, aicc Secretary General.
The toll of violence against Christians from Aug. 23 to Oct. 2, 2008:
BIHAR: 1 Church damaged; CHHATTISGARH: 4 Nuns assaulted; JHARKHAND: 1 Church attacked; KARNATAKA: 4 (of 29) Districts affected, 35 Churches damaged or destroyed, 20 Nuns and women injured by police; KERALA: 4 Churches damaged; MADHYA PRADESH: 4 Churches destroyed or damaged and 4 schools vandalized; NEW DELHI: 2 Churches damaged; ORISSA: 14 (of 30) Districts affected, 315 Villages damaged, 4,640 Houses burnt, 53,000 Homeless, 57 People killed including at least 2 pastors, 10 Priests/Pastors/Nuns injured, 18,000 Men, women, children injured, 2 Women gang-raped, 149 Churches destroyed, 13 Schools and colleges damaged; PUNJAB: 3 Christians harassed and imprisoned by police on false charges; TAMIL NADU: 4 Churches damaged; UTTAR PRADESH: 3 Pastors and a pastor’s wife beaten; and UTTARAKHAND: 2 Christians murdered.
The All India Christian Council (www.aiccindia.org), birthed in 1998, exists to protect and serve the Christian community, minorities, and the oppressed castes. The aicc is a coalition of thousands of Indian denominations, organizations, and lay leaders.
Posted on: October 2, 2008
India"s Civil Society Defends Christians in New Delhi Rally
About 15,000 people joined Peace & Solidarity Rally on International Day of Non-Violence. “Killers of Mahatma Gandhi are the same killers of Christians in India,” said Swami Agnivesh. Union Minister Lalu Prasad promised to bring up the anti-Christian violence in Parliament. Over 50,000 homeless Dalit & Tribal Christians in Orissa demanded refugee status from UNHCR
NEW DELHI – October 2, 2008 – About 15,000 Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and Buddhists including politicians and civil society leaders joined the Peace & Solidarity Rally on the International Day of Non-Violence which falls on the 139th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, India’s ‘Father of the Nation’. The protest highlighted recent anti-Christian violence in India.
Addressing the rally, Swami Agnivesh said, “The very killers of Mahatma Gandhi are the same killers and abusers of Christians in Orissa, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and other parts of the country. The killers – the Hindutva fascists – do not represent the peace loving Hindu society. Rather they are damaging the Sanatam Dharma [Hindu way of life].”
India’s Union Minister of Railways, Mr. Lalu Prasad Yadav, broke his silence over anti-Christian violence across India. Addressing the rally, he said, “I will personally meet the Prime Minister and discuss the implementation of Article 355. I will also bring up the anti-Christian violence in Parliament and debate the hatred of Hindutva forces.” Article 355 of India’s Constitution allows the central government to warn a state government to stop internal disturbances or face federal action and possible dismissal.
In the morning, the Chief Minister of Delhi, Mrs. Sheila Dixit, showed her solidarity and expressed concern and pain over the anti-Christian violence. She condemned the Hindu fanatics who are responsible for widespread crimes and causing damage to properties owned by the Christian minority.
Other dignitaries who participated in the rally included Mr. Oscar Fernandez, Union Minister of Labor; Mrs. Teesta Setalvad, General Secretary of Mumbai-based Citizens For Justice & Peace; Dr. Udit Raj, Chairman, All India Confederation of Scheduled Caste / Scheduled Tribe Organisations; Dr. Valson Thampu, Principal of the prestigious St. Stephen’s College of New Delhi; Mr. Sitaram Yechury, senior leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist); Ms. Shabnam Hashmi, senior leader of ANHAD (Act Now for Harmony and Democracy). There were additional speakers from Sikh, Muslim, and Hindu communities.
The rally concluded seven days of a “Sit-in Protest” organized by the Christians of Delhi and the NCR (National Capital Region). Major contributors included the Delhi Federation of Catholics and the All India Christian Council (aicc). Beginning on Sept. 26, 2008 at 10 a.m and ending today at 6 p.m., there was 152 hours of constant prayer and protest at Jantar Mantar – a park in the center of New Delhi – to express solidarity with victims. Most of the victims are Dalits, formerly called untouchables and officially categorized as Scheduled Castes by India’s government.
Rally participants shouted “Ban Terrorists, Ban Bajrang Dal,” “Ban Vishwa Hindu Parishad,” and “Ban Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh” as they marched along a 5 km route from Jantar Mantar to Raj Ghat, a memorial to Mahatma Gandhi. Since the surge in violence beginning in rural Orissa on Aug. 23, 2008 after the murder of a controversial Hindu swami by unknown assailants, civil society groups, human rights activists, and various religious leaders have increasingly called for these Hindutva fundamentalist groups to be banned as terrorists.
Yesterday, a delegation led by noted film maker Mahesh Bhatt along with Christian victims from Orissa met the United Nations High Commission on Refugees in New Delhi and demanded refugee status for over 50,000 homeless Christians. The delegation included Dr. Abraham Mathai from the Indian Christian Voice and Dr. John Dayal, aicc Secretary General.
The toll of violence against Christians from Aug. 23 to Oct. 2, 2008:
BIHAR: 1 Church damaged; CHHATTISGARH: 4 Nuns assaulted; JHARKHAND: 1 Church attacked; KARNATAKA: 4 (of 29) Districts affected, 35 Churches damaged or destroyed, 20 Nuns and women injured by police; KERALA: 4 Churches damaged; MADHYA PRADESH: 4 Churches destroyed or damaged and 4 schools vandalized; NEW DELHI: 2 Churches damaged; ORISSA: 14 (of 30) Districts affected, 315 Villages damaged, 4,640 Houses burnt, 53,000 Homeless, 57 People killed including at least 2 pastors, 10 Priests/Pastors/Nuns injured, 18,000 Men, women, children injured, 2 Women gang-raped, 149 Churches destroyed, 13 Schools and colleges damaged; PUNJAB: 3 Christians harassed and imprisoned by police on false charges; TAMIL NADU: 4 Churches damaged; UTTAR PRADESH: 3 Pastors and a pastor’s wife beaten; and UTTARAKHAND: 2 Christians murdered.
The All India Christian Council (http://www.aiccindia.org), birthed in 1998, exists to protect and serve the Christian community, minorities, and the oppressed castes. The aicc is a coalition of thousands of Indian denominations, organizations, and lay leaders.
For immediate release
Posted on: October 2, 2008
Flood victims face caste discrimination
Original article from BBC News.
Hundreds of thousands of people are still homeless after floods hit the Indian state of Bihar last month. Some of the victims face the additional hardships that come from being members of the low caste dalit community. Rajan Khosla of the charity Christian Aid has been meeting some of them in the village of Mirzawaa, where 500 families live in temporary shelters.
“Let me be born again as an animal rather than as a harijan (dalit). We face more humiliation than they,” says Tetar Rishidev, a dalit from Mirzawaa village, in the district of Supaul.
After the floods in Bihar millions of people lost their homes, belongings and even family members. But for the dalits of Bihar there is further misery: the caste system.
In Mirzawaa village, Sakal Sadah is a dalit.
Today – unusually – he is happy. There is a food distribution and his family will get food. His children have been surviving on some leftover rice once in a day.
Sakal Sadah is a landless agriculture labourer and earns about 40 rupees (80 cents) for a 12-hour day.
Now he’s worried: “Where will I get work now? Everywhere is water. No one is going to employ me, I am a harijan.”
Hundreds of dalit families are in the same situation as Sakal: they have been hardest hit by the Bihar floods.
In this emergency, when everyone should be provided with food, certain groups are denied access.
The plight of these communities in remote, rural areas is very serious – especially in the feudal state of Bihar.
They cling to the little they have. Many families have left behind one male member to keep an eye on their house and belongings.
Segregated society
Asdev Sadah, an elderly dalit, stayed behind to guard the house of his upper caste employer.
“I used to work in their fields,” he said.
“They wanted me to watch their house and belongings. I have to listen to them. They will provide my family food and work once they come back.
“I have nothing left in my house – because it was made of mud it has already collapsed. My malik’s (employer’s) house is strong and they have stuff kept inside.”
It seems a strange sort of society where an old man stays back, without food or shelter, taking numerous risks to guard the house of his feudal lord.
But Asdev no doubt knows full well that in this segregated society, there is no other support system for him and his family.
The relief camp in Sabela School in Madhepura is run by one of Christian Aid’s partner organisations who are doing all they can to help.
It was set up because organisers knew there were many dalit villages in the area.
I met Jamuna Devi and Puliya Musamaar here.
They told me that they were not allowed to use the hand pump to get water as it belonged to upper caste people.
The same upper caste people also asked the camp organisers to move displaced people away because as dalits they would contaminate the entire place. Their request was refused.
“When will people understand we are also human beings?” Puliya asked. “We need food and water, our children also feel hungry.”
I asked one of the aid agencies running another relief camp whether they would have a dalit cook.
Their response was negative. They felt that not everyone would eat food cooked by dalits.
Christian Aid and its partner organisations are including two dalits in the cooking teams in the relief camps they run – thus ensuring that they are not excluded.
Everyone needs food in this crisis situation, so why should people like Sakal Sadah, Jamuna Devi and Puliya Musamaar be so discriminated against?
And if Asdev Sadah can work in the fields and loyally guard the house of his higher-caste employee, then why people should refuse to eat food cooked by them?
We have to challenge the system. I know the problem is gigantic. But efforts need to be made. Each one of us has to make a step forward.
Another aid agency working in this area assured me that they tried to treat displaced people equally.
The critical point is that while equality may be an accepted philosophy it can only happen once people also agree in practice to be equals.
Equality means that all people should get food and their rights and dignity are respected.
But flooding and discrimination seem to have taken those rights away.
Posted on: September 12, 2008
United States Legislators Concerned about Violence Targeting Christians in Orissa
For immediate release
HYDERABAD – September 6, 2008 – Seven United States members of the House of Representatives sent a letter on Sept. 4, 2008, to India’s Ambassador to the U.S., Ronen Sen, expressing concern about attacks on Christians in Orissa state. Also, on Sept. 3, 2008, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom called for action to stop the violence and accountability within India.
There are still sporadic reports of anti-Christian attacks from the eastern state of Orissa. The violence has entered its 15th day despite the emergency deployment of Central law enforcement troops. Attacks began on Aug. 23, 2008, after the murder of a controversial Hindu swami by unknown assailants.
Dr. Joseph D’souza, President of the All India Christian Council (aicc) said, “The global community is alarmed at the breakdown of law and order in Orissa, and rightly so. The widespread, continuing attacks on innocent Christians and violations of their human rights is unprecedented in India’s history. We welcome the concern of US politicians and all global citizens who believe in freedom of religion. As a proud Indian, I’m grieved that our democratic ideals are being hijacked by religious extremists.”
The seven American legislators were: Trent Franks, Chris Smith, Bill Sali, Robert Aderholt, Bob Inglis, Mark Souder, and Joseph R. Pitts. Excerpts of the letter: “We unequivocally condemn the murder of the Swami, yet we are also appalled to see how mob violence has taken root so quickly once again… The reports of brutal killings and the widespread destruction of property…are extremely disturbing and we strongly urge the Government of India to maintain a strong security presence to guarantee the protection of vulnerable communities which are facing the immediate risk of violence and death. …We urge the Government of India to take immediate steps to investigate these events and bring justice for the victims of the violence. In order to prevent future attacks, it is imperative that the government also address the climate fostering these attacks. India, with its great religious diversity, faces considerable challenges with communalism, but a democratic government must work to ensure the security and freedom of all its citizens.”
Past international condemnation includes last week’s statement by the Italian government and the Vatican as well as a joint letter by Human Rights Watch, Christian Solidarity Worldwide, and Dalit Freedom Network to the U.K. Foreign Secretary, U.S. Secretary of State, French Foreign Minister, and European Commissioner for External Relations. “We also welcome the condemnation of the riots by civil society Hindu leaders like Swami Agnivesh, President of the World Council of Arya Samaj, and Mahesh Bhatt, noted Bollywood film producer, and others,” said D’souza. On Friday, Sept. 5, 2008, Swami Agnivesh returned from a fact finding trip to Orissa and told reporters in Delhi that the attacks on Christians were “very similar” to the 2002 violence against Muslims in Gujarat.
On Thursday, Sept. 4, 2008, India’s Supreme Court instructed the Orissa government to control the violence, and the Orissa authorities promised to halt a procession by the VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad or World Hindu Council) on Sept. 7, 2008. However, VHP leaders told Indian journalist they still planned to hold the “Shraad Yatra” on the 16th day of the swami’s death, a traditional funeral rite performed by Hindu sadhus. Previously, Christian leaders from all major denominations and church networks called for a day of prayer and fasting across India on Sunday, Sept. 7, 2008.
The Supreme Court was hearing a case filed by Roman Catholic Archbishop Raphael Cheenath of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar seeking a Central government investigation into the riots. The Central government publicly approved the idea, but the Orissa state government must initiate a request for the probe and has, so far, declined. The only other way to start an investigation is through a court order.
On Wednesday, Sept. 3, 2008, Minister of Home Affairs Shivraj Patil visited the epicenter of the violence, Kandhamal District, and promised compensation for the victims.
Lakshmanananda Saraswati, a Hindu swami and VHP leader, was killed by unknown assailants on Aug. 23, 2008. VHP leaders publicly blamed Christians and mobs attacked Christians in at least 12 of 30 districts in the eastern state of Orissa. Christian leaders reported, as of Sept. 3, 2008, at least 4,014 Christian homes destroyed in 300 villages, an estimated 50,000 people displaced, two pastors and 24 other Christians killed, one nun gang raped, and over a hundred churches burned. See dedicated webpage at: http://indianchristians.in/news/content/view/2332/45/
From Dec. 24, 2007-Jan. 2, 2008, attacks in Kandhamal district killed at least four Christians and destroyed over 100 churches and 730 Christian homes. Most of the victims were Dalits, formerly known as untouchables.
The All India Christian Council (http://www.aiccindia.org), birthed in 1998, exists to protect and serve the Christian community, minorities, and the oppressed castes. The aicc is a coalition of thousands of Indian denominations, organizations, and lay leaders.
Posted on: September 9, 2008
Citizen's Delegation meets President of India; Demands Central Government Action on Orissa
New Delhi, September 1, 2008, 18:25 hrs
A Citizen’s Delegation met President Pratibha Patil on Monday morning calling upon her to enforce Article 355 of the Constitution of India on Orissa so that the Chief Minister Naveen Pattnaik administration takes adequate measures to protect Christians in the state from Hindutva violence.
The best legal opinion available. according to the delegation, was Article 355 which calls for imposition of President’s rule and New Delhi takes over reins of power. Article 355 reminds both New Delhi and state governments of their duties to protect States against internal disturbance and should be brought into force now.
The delegation reminded the President that the violence that has continued against Christians in Orissa from 23rd August till today justifies the use of this Article. The violence far exceeds that of Christians 2007, the delegation told the President, reminding her that she had a big role to play at this juncture.
In fact, violence has spilled out of Orissa into neighbouring Madhya Pradesh. In Orissa, it is not confined to Kandhamal but has affected other districts. In Kandhamal, fifty thousand people are hiding in forests or are in a few refugee camps, hiding from murderous gangs seeking to kill them or convert them to Hinduism, Over 4,000 houses have been completely destroyed apart from close to a hundred small and big churches which have been torched.
(Picture: Delegation meeting the President of India, Sep 1, 2008) 
The Citizen’s Delegation, the first such to meet the President, was led by film maker Mahesh Bhatt , Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind President Maulana Mahmood Madani, MP, and Orissa Archbishop Raphael Cheenath. National Integration Council member Dr. John Dayal, Delhi Archbishop Vincent Concessao, Maharashtra Government State Minorities Commission vice chairman Dr. Abraham Mathai, Jamiat leader Mohd Faruqi, All India Christian Council regional secretary Rev. Madhu Chandra, Delhi Catholic Archdiocese Federation President Adv. Jenis Francis and Mumbai’s Catholic Social Forum secretary general Joseph Dias were the other members.
The President gave the delegation a patient hearing and said she would have their demand for Article 355 examined. She said the government had briefed her on steps which had already been taken. Mr. Bhatt told the President that the State government was in a coma; its police totally complicit in the violence and the Sangh Parivar was running havoc.
Maulana Madani said it was a matter of security of India’s minorities. It was India’s concern for its minorities that had brought it respect internationally, and it was the object of deep concern globally. Archbishop Cheenath, Dr John Dayal and Dr Mathai briefed the President in detail about the Sangh violence in the state which has continued after the murder of the VHP vice President Lakshmanananda Saraswati.
Note: Attached were excerpts from letter to the President of India. See: http://indianchristians.in/news/content/view/2357/47/
Following are excerpts from the Memorandum Citizen’s Memorandum to the President of India:
Letter to the President of India from Citizen’s Delegation
Following are excerpts from the Citizen’s Memorandum to the President of India:
September 1, 2008
Shrimati Pratibha Patil
The President of India
Your Excellency,
You are aware of the still continuing carnage against the Christian community, mostly Dalits and Tribals, in the Kandhamal district of Orissa and in several other districts including the state capital of Bhubaneswar since 23rd August 2003 following the killing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, reportedly by Maoist groups who have been operating in the state for some time. The violence has now spread to some other states, especially Madhya Pradesh.
Nine months after attacks in Kandhamal District on Christians of Dalit, Hill peoples and Tribal ethnicity celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, we are deeply saddened by a repeat of the violence in the month of India’s Independence. The Christmas 2007 attacks claimed the lives of at least four Christians, and we verified the destruction of at least 105 churches and 730 Christian homes. The current spate of violence will exceed these totals as it continues to spread into other districts. Our estimate from Ground Zero is of close to two dozen people dead, one a Hindu girl burnt to death working for a Christian orphanage, a Nun has been gang raped, religious men and women personnel humiliated, beaten, tortured, some close to death, while policemen have looked on, or have been absent. We appeal for the restoration of law and order. But the root cause must also be addressed.
We, the secular civil society community, perceive that the great nation of India is at a tipping point. The groups, which favour a “Hindu Rashtra”, have made Orissa their laboratory, as they earlier did Gujarat. The so-called saffronisation of the state has been the subject of well-documented academic and socio-political studies. We entreat you, as President of the Republic, to enforce the rule of law upon Sangh Parivar organisations which blatantly flaunt their divisive agenda. Specifically, we call upon you to bring the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, and Bajrang Dal under the rule of law.
As Orissa authorities have repeatedly said there was ample circumstantial evidence of Maoist involvement in the killing of VHP leader Lakshmananada Saraswati and four others on August 23rd. Additionally, someone who identified himself as Azad, a leader of Maoist outfit, People’s Liberation Guerrilla Army claim responsibility for the killing as Times of India carries the news on August 30 referring to an interview with a leading Oriya daily on August 29.[1]
Yet Praveen Togadia, VHP general secretary, told an international journalist on August 27, “It is clear that the church killed the Swami.”[2] Gouri Prasad Rath, Orissa state VHP secretary, said, “This attack is the handiwork of the Christians.”[3] Subhash Chavan, national co-convener of the Bajrang Dal, said, “The police are trying to hide the truth by blaming the Maoists.”[4] An unnamed RSS spokesperson said, “This is an attack by the agents of Christian missionaries, whose attempts at forcible conversions the Swamiji countered.”[5] RSS spokesperson Ram Madhav told CNN IBN on Tuesday night6 that Christians were behind the murders. Perhaps based on a media report7, Madhav The final word lay with RSS supreme Kupahalli Sudershan who in a Press Statement faxed to the Media called the late VHP vice president a martyr for “stopping Christians from carrying on coversions.”
These types of irresponsible statements must be met with the full force of the law. They are all culpable for penal action under IPC 295A for the crime of creating enmity between communities and religions. This would benefit not only Orissa, but the nation.
We sincerely wish Swami Saraswati was not murdered and he still might be alive if the state government had followed the recommendations of the National Commission for Minorities. The NCM urged the authorities to examine the speeches of Swami Lakshmananada to determine whether they amount to incitement to violence.[8] [9] We are confident that, if this had been done, the swami would have been jailed and protected from coming to any harm.
Your Excellency, the violence in Orissa continues without adequate police forces to stop mobs which break curfew and harm innocent civilians, chasing our fellow countrymen and women like animals in the forests where they have taken refuge since August 24. Today the irresponsible leaders of hardliner Hindu nationalist groups are damaging our great democracy and secularism of the nation.
We request you to order the Union Government and the State Administration to take legal action against the irresponsible organisations which called the bundh on Monday, Aug. 25, 2008 and have passively watched their members wreak havoc. They must, of course, fully investigate the murder of the VHP vice president.
This is to request you to use your powers as President of India, and the tremendous force of your good offices, to impress on the Central Government to rush adequate Union forces, including contingents of the Armed Forces if required, to restore law and order and governance in the Kandhamal region.
The consequences of any further delay, we the secular civil society fear, may be catastrophic for the small Christian community in the State in particular, for peace in Orissa in general, and for the fair name of India as a secular country
Yours Sincerely and Most Respectfully,
[The delegation included: Bollywood film producer Mahesh Bhatt, Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Hind President Maulana Mahmood Madani, MP, Orissa Archbishop Raphael Cheenath, National Integration Council member Dr. John Dayal, Delhi Archbishop Vincent Concessao, Maharashtra Government State Minorities Commission vice chairman Dr. Abraham Mathai, Jamiat leader Mohd Faruqi, All India Christian Council regional secretary Rev. Madhu Chandra, Delhi Catholic Archdiocese Federation President Adv. Jenis Francis, and Mumbai’s Catholic Social Forum secretary general Joseph Dias]
[1] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Maoists_claim_Orissa_killing/articleshow/3423908.cms
[2] “Indian state erupts in violence after Hindu shot”, by Saeed Ahmed, CNN, Aug. 27, 2008.
[3] “Orissa on edge, VHP scoffs at Maoist theory”, see above
[4] “Orissa tragedy takes a backseat, hunt starts for scapegoat”, by Soumyajit Pattnaik, Hindustan Times, Aug. 25, 2008.
[5] “Orissa: Bandh-related violence claims 9,” by Krishnakumar P., Rediff.com, Aug. 26, 2008.
[6] “Blind Faith? Fragile Peace Blown to Bits”, CNN-IBN debate, Aug. 26, 2008, 10 p.m. IST.
[7] “Widespread anger in Kandhamal”, The Pioneer, Aug. 25, 2008.
[8] “This mischievous [VHP & Sangh Parivar anti-conversion] campaign has created an atmosphere of prejudice and suspicion against the Christian community and Christian priests and organizations. The role of the Sangh Parivar activists and the anti-conversion campaign in fomenting organized violence against the Christian Community deserves close scrutiny.” From “Report of the NCM visit to Orissa, 6-8 January 2008”, http://ncm.nic.in/pdf/orissa%20report.pdf.
[9] “The recommendation made by the NCM team that visited Orissa in January, 2008 that the State Government must look into the speeches of Swami Lakshmanananda to determine whether they amount to incitement to violence does not appear to have been acted upon.” From “Report on the Visit of the Vice Chairperson, NCM to Orissa, 21-24 April 2008”, http://ncm.nic.in/pdf/VC%20Tour%20Report%20of%20Orissa.pdf.
The All India Christian Council (http://www.aiccindia.org), birthed in 1998, exists to protect and serve the Christian community, minorities, and the oppressed castes. The aicc is a coalition of thousands of Indian denominations, organizations, and lay leaders.
Released by
The All India Christian Council
Madhu Chandra
Regional Secretary, New Delhi
Posted on: September 2, 2008
Even in flood, India's `untouchables' last rescued
Original article from the Associated Press by Gavin Rabinowitz.
In the two weeks since a monsoon-swollen river burst its banks, ancient prejudices have run just as deep as the floodwaters. India’s “untouchables” are the last to be rescued — if at all — from a deluge that has killed dozens and made 1.2 million homeless.
Dalits, the social outcasts at the bottom of the Hindu caste ladder, have borne the brunt of the devastation as the rampaging Kosi River swamped hundreds of square miles in northern India after it overflowed and shifted its course dozens of miles to the east.
On Sunday, one Dalit, Mohan Parwan ran up and down a half destroyed bridge that has become the headquarters for rescue operations in this town near the border with Nepal, desperately scanning arriving boats for signs of his family.
Dozens came in but each time he was disappointed.
Parwan, 43, is from a Dalit village just 2 miles away but completely cut off by a deep lake created by the swirling waters. As the village headman, he was put on the first rescue boat that came and was promised his wife, four children and the rest of the community would follow.
“It’s been six days and since then no boat has come from the village,” he said, tears welling in is eyes.
Dalits have long been shunned, holding a status so low they are considered outside the complex caste system that is all pervasive in India, dividing people into hundreds of groups defined by livelihood, class and ethnicity.
Even India’s emergence as a global force — fueled by it’s economic growth and high-tech hubs — has failed to break down the barriers and stigmas that hold them down.
When it comes to rescue operations, it appears Dalits are at the bottom, too.
In Triveniganj, Dalits huddled together in a small group at the end of the bridge away from everyone else. They said rescuers were saving the upper castes and the rich first, leaving their people to suffer without food and clean water.
“We are 200 people on a roof for days. Two children fell in and drowned. No one is coming to help us,” said Kishore Ram, 22, who got out on one of the few boats to visit his village.
“The officials don’t listen to us little people. We can’t offer bribes and influence, I’m just a poor student,” Ram said.
Hearing about the flood, Prithvi Chand Baswan, a 38-year-old Dalit, rushed home from the neighboring state of Punjab where he works as a farm laborer, searching for his wife and six children, ages 3 to 12. Four miles from home, he was stopped by flooding.
“People from the village say they are sheltering in the temple, but I can’t get to them and they won’t send a boat for a Dalit village,” he said, holding his head in despair.
Ravindra Prasad Singh, a state government official coordinating rescue work in Triveniganj, about 875 miles east of New Delhi, the capital, denied that Dalits were being ignored.
“It’s ridiculous. They are lying,” he said, but he could not explain why only a single boat of Dalits had come in during all of Sunday afternoon even though they make up more than half the region’s people.
On Monday, other government officials acknowledged there was a serious problem with Dalits being ignored, but said they were working to fix it.
“We are aware of these complaints,” said Prataya Amrit, a top disaster management official in Bihar state, the scene of the flooding.
Amrit said greater resources were being sent to Dalit majority areas like Triveniganj and army and navy officers were now handling rescues to ensure less abuses.
The military “presence will instill a lot of confidence,” he said. “In an operation of this magnitude you can’t distinguish between rich and poor.”
Officials also commandeered private boats in an effort to prevent richer and higher castes from monopolizing the vessels.
India’s treatment of Dalits is a long and bitter history of good intentions and little progress.
Caste discrimination has been outlawed for more than a half century, and a quota system was established with the aim of giving Dalits a fair share of government jobs and places in schools. But their plight remains dire.
Most Dalits, like Parwan, live in destitute villages of rickety mud and thatch huts with no electricity or running water, kept down by ancient prejudice and caste-based politics.
In much of rural India, people from lower castes are barred from using upper-caste drinking wells, kept out of temples and denied spots in village. Ignoring the prohibitions is often met with violence.
In times of calamity, their situation is no better.
“Caste hierarchy is a source of deep emotions in India. In the face of these emotions it is difficult for the law or the army to do anything,” said Chandrabhan Prasad, a New Delhi-based caste expert. “The rescuers have their caste loyalty and will try rescue their own first.”
Faced with indifference and even hostility from many officials, one group of Dalits gave up waiting for help and waded into the neck-deep water in search of their kin.
“What can we do?” Parwan said, after being angrily shooed away by Singh for again asking to be given a boat to help his village.
“I’m just a Harijan,” Parwan added, using a euphemism for Dalits coined by Indian pacifist icon Mohandas K. Gandhi. It means “child of God.”
Posted on: September 1, 2008
Communal violence is sequel to Dalit assertion
Original article from the Deccan Herald by R Akhileshwari, DH News Service, Hyderabad.
The violence in Orissa against Christians is not communal as it is being generally portrayed, rather it is against the perceived empowerment of the Dalits, according to human rights activists.
Speaking to Deccan Herald on phone from the affected areas, the AP-based activists explained that the anger against the Dalits and Tribals, who have been the main targets of Hindu fundamentalist groups and organisations, was against the increasing empowerment of the traditionally oppressed people.
“The Church is seen as the instrument of this change and is therefore being targeted,” said Father Thomas Palliphanem of the A.P based People’s Action for Rural Awakening.
Dalit assertion that is visible in many ways like wearing better clothes and speaking English language is not to the liking of the entrenched merchant-fringe Hindu fundamentalist groups who have aligned themselves to ‘teach a lesson’ to the Dalits, according to the activists.
Economic Reason:
Dr Sirivella Prasad, general secretary of the National Dalit Movement for Justice who has been visiting the affected areas since last December when the attacks began, said the visible economic improvement in the status of Dalits and Adivasi families was not to the liking of the upper castes.
For instance, in Brahmanigam village in Kandhamal district where the attacks started last December, the first and foremost targets of the attackers were the shops belonging to a group of young men who formed “Ambedkar Vanijya Sangh”.
“The violence then slowly spread to institutions which are supporting this process of empowerment which is mainly the Church,” said Dr. Prasad.
In another village, Barakama which like Brahmanigam has 90 per cent Christian population, the youth told the human rights activists that wearing “good clothes” and speaking English fluently was ‘unbearable’ for the Hindu upper castes. “By giving a communal colour to the attacks, everybody is comfortable,” Dr. Prasad observed.
Meanwhile, 5000-odd Christian schools and colleges in Andhra Pradesh were shut on Friday in protest against the attacks on Christians in Orissa.
According to the All India Christian Council here, about 50,000 Christian denominational institutions were closed in response to a joint call for by All India Christian Council, Catholic Bishops Conference of India, the Evangelical Fellowship of India and the National Council of Churches in India.
Christian leaders are also calling for a day’s prayer and fasting across India on the coming September 7.
Posted on: August 30, 2008
Massive rally in India's capitol and nation-wide closure of Christian schools
For immediate release
New Delhi, August 29, 2008
Reports of attacks from the eastern state of Orissa are decreasing, but many rural villages remain cut off from communication and being attacked at night. Outside Orissa, the Indian Christian community engaged in several peaceful protest actions to highlight the breakdown of the rule of law and governance. After six days of rioting, the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh, broke his silence and called the violence a “national shame”.
“We are thankful that we did not receive any reports of new attacks last night. However, there are literally thousands of displaced Christians whose homes were destroyed in the mob violence. Hundreds more are afraid to return home,” said Rev. P.R. Parichha, All India Christian Council (aicc) Orissa state president. “The violence in towns and cities seems to be over, but the villages face the strong possibility of more attacks since security forces are spread thin. We still are requesting military intervention,” said Parichha.
Media reports said Orissa officials estimate 4,000 Christian families are homeless. The death toll, currently at 17, is expected to raise as troops secure rural areas. The violence, which at one point spread across 12 of 30 districts in the state, now seems to be contained to Kandhamal District, the epicenter of similar attacks during Christmas 2007.
In protest of the collapse of governance and the rule of law in Orissa, about 10,000 Christians rallied in New Delhi this morning and were joined by Muslims, Buddhists, and progressive Hindus. Protestors tried to march to Orissa Bhavan (the official state government guest house in the capitol), but police issued a localized curfew to stop the rally. Attendees were forced to regroup at the Teen Murti traffic circle, but eventually reached Orissa Bhavan.
“Udit Raj, a major Dalit leader, and other non-Christian human rights activists clearly explained that the violence in Orissa is not because Christians are fraudulently converting people. That allegation is simply lie and hate propaganda.”
Civil society leaders suggested India needs an investigation into why Hindu nationalist organizations – who have converted tribals and Dalits in a major campaign – are not being held accountable under Orissa’s 1967 Freedom of Religion Act. “We must confront the fictional idea of “re-conversions”, created by Hindutva activists, which ignores the fact that these people’s ancestors were animists and not Hindus,” said Rev. Madhu Chandra, aicc Regional Secretary and a member of the rally’s organizing committee.
Also, an estimated 30,000 Christian schools across India closed their doors on Friday. The goal was to make millions of children – and their parents – aware of the evil of communal violence and the damage it is doing to the world’s largest democracy. Aicc and major church networks which called for the closure encouraged people to pray for victims as well as perpetrators. Much of the Indian press inaccurately reported that only Roman Catholic schools were closed.
Christian leaders are also calling for a day of prayer and fasting across India on September 7, 2008.
In the aftermath of the murder of a Hindu swami by unknown assailants on August 23, 2008, mobs attacked the Christian community across the eastern state of Orissa. Media reports and eye witness accounts from aicc leaders indicate thousands of Christian properties burnt, sexual assaults of nuns, and pastors killed in their homes. See dedicated webpage at: http://indianchristians.in/news/content/view/2332/45/
From Dec. 24, 2007-Jan. 2, 2008, attacks in Kandhamal district killed at least four Christians and destroyed over 100 churches and 730 Christian homes. Most of the victims were Dalits, formerly known as untouchables.
The All India Christian Council (http://www.aiccindia.org), birthed in 1998, exists to protect and serve the Christian community, minorities, and the oppressed castes. The aicc is a coalition of thousands of Indian denominations, organizations, and lay leaders.
For more information, contact Sam Paul, aicc Secretary, Public Affairs, , +91-9989697778
Release by
Madhu Chandra
Regional Secretary
Posted on: August 29, 2008
Unprecedented Anti-Christian Violence Spirals Out of Control in India
HYDERABAD, August 28, 2008, 23:15 hrs
For immediate release
Reports from eastern India of burning Christian homes, murdered pastors, and massive destruction of Christian property continued for a sixth day. All India Christian Council (aicc) leaders in Orissa state reported 17 Christians are dead and expect the figure to rise when communication is made with remote regions.
“Differences over religion cannot be blamed for these crimes. We are distressed at the defiance of law and order by Hindu fundamentalist leaders and their public comments which are spreading lies and hate. Their unpardonable excuse is that followers are uncontrollably angry about Christian conversions in the region,” said Dr. Joseph D’souza, aicc President. “We are also deeply troubled by the state and central government’s inadequate response. The fact that identical attacks happened in the same area exactly nine months ago is unbelievable. What will convince authorities to protect human rights and enforce constitutional guarantees?”
Although some state authorities claimed there were no new attacks, the situation continues to spiral out of control, especially in rural villages. Yesterday police were given shoot on sight orders in Kandhamal District, the epicenter of the violence, because mobs were violating curfews. Also, the Minister of State for Home Affairs, Mr. Prakash Jaiswal, was supposed to visit affected areas. But his trip was canceled due to security concerns. Aicc had reliable reports of increased violence in Gajapati District in the southern part of the state.
Today Human Rights Watch, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), and Dalit Freedom Network (DFN) sent joint letters to the U.K. Foreign Secretary, U.S. Secretary of State, French Foreign Minister, and European Commissioner for External Relations urging them to issue statements of concern about the anti-Christian attacks in Orissa. CSW and DFN are aicc partners in Britain and the USA, respectively. France currently holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union.
Yesterday, in his afternoon address at Vatican Square, Pope Benedict XVI said he was deeply saddened by the violence against India’s Christians. A senior Vatican official called the attacks “a sin against God and humanity” according to one newspaper.
A seven member inter-denominational delegation from the aicc Orissa state chapter met with the governor, Mr. Murlidhar Chandrakant Bhandare, for about 30 minutes this afternoon. “We apprised him of the situation and requested emergency deployment of the army, compensation for the victims, rebuilding of houses and churches, construction of relief camps, and restoration of the rule of law,” said Rev. P.R. Parichha, aicc Orissa state president. This evening the aicc Secretary General was scheduled to meet Sonia Gandhi, Chairperson of the ruling Indian National Congress Party in Delhi.
The aicc is supporting the call from major Indian church networks to close all of India’s Christian schools on Friday, August 29, 2008. The groups want children – and parents – to learn about the situation in Orissa and realize that communal divisions are harmful for India. They have encouraged people to pray for victims as well as perpetrators. It is estimated that about 30,000 schools will close their doors across India.
Christian leaders are also calling for a day of prayer and fasting across India on September 7, 2008.
In the aftermath of the murder of a Hindu swami by unknown assailants on August 23, 2008, mobs attacked the Christian community across the eastern state of Orissa. On Monday, a 12 hour strike called by hardliner Hindu nationalist organizations resulted in the spread of violence. Media reports and eye witness accounts indicate thousands of Christian properties burnt, sexual assaults of nuns, and pastors killed in their homes. See dedicated webpage at: http://indianchristians.in/news/content/view/2332/45/
From Dec. 24, 2007-Jan. 2, 2008, attacks in Kandhamal district killed at least four Christians and destroyed over 100 churches and 730 Christian homes. Most of the victims were Dalits, formerly known as untouchables.
The All India Christian Council (http://www.aiccindia.org), birthed in 1998, exists to protect and serve the Christian community, minorities, and the oppressed castes. The aicc is a coalition of thousands of Indian denominations, organizations, and lay leaders.
For more information, contact Sam Paul, aicc Secretary, Public Affairs, , +91-9989697778
Release by
Madhu Chandra
Regional Secretary
9868184939
Posted on: August 28, 2008
Indian state erupts in violence after Hindu shot
Original article from CNN, by Saeed Ahmed.
The remote east Indian state of Orissa, historically a tinderbox of Hindu-Christian tensions, erupted in violence this week after gunmen killed a Hindu leader and mobs burned churches in retaliation.
Four days of communal clashes left at least nine people dead. Authorities have imposed a curfew and ordered security forces to shoot violators on sight.
Pope Benedict XVI “firmly condemned” the fighting and urged the state’s residents to “re-establish with the members of the various communities the peaceful cohabitation and the harmony that has always been the distinctive mark of the Indian society.”
The Hindu leader, Laxmananda Saraswati, and four others were killed Saturday in the Kandhamal district when up to 30 gunmen barged into a Hindu school and opened fire, Orissa’s chief minister’s office said.
Authorities have not definitively determined who killed Saraswati, but they detained five Christian people after the incident, said Sukanta Panda, spokesman for the chief minister.
The government said the killings may have been the work of Maoist rebels, but hardline Hindus blamed the Christian minority.
They took to the streets in anger, rampaging through predominantly Christian neighborhoods, ransacking shops and torching houses. They chopped down trees to block roads, making it difficult for police to reach trouble spots. Christian residents fought back.
By Wednesday, an eerie calm prevailed, but both Hindu and Christian leaders said they were bracing for the worst.
“The state is a mute spectator to the violence that has been unleashed in the Christian community,” Joseph D’Souza, president of the All India Christian Council, said Wednesday.
Amit Sharma of the hardline Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) said Hindu people in the area had taken the death of the Swami (religious leader) “very seriously, and now they are going to pay them back.”
Orissa, on the east coast of India, is a poor state with a population of about 36.7 million: 94 percent are Hindu, with little more than 2 percent Christian.
However, for thousands, converting to another religion—such as Christianity or Islam—is the only way out of the confines of Hinduism’s centuries-old complex caste system.
The caste system dictates a Hindu’s lot in life, elevating some to positions as priests and labeling others as “untouchables.”
Some Hindu groups accuse missionaries of bribing or forcing Hindus into converting.
“There is no forcible conversion,” said D’Souza of the All India Christian Council. “This is nothing but pure political hate propaganda against the Christians when the root problem is, of course, caste oppression.”
The simmering anger sometimes boils over, with deadly consequences.
In 1999, a Hindu mob burned to death an Australian missionary, Graham Staines, and his two children while they slept in their car.
At Christmas, clashing groups killed four people and burned several churches in Kandhamal.
D’Souza said Saraswati “piloted” the Christmas communal violence and had carried out a “vicious campaign against the Christians.”
Sharma said missionaries were threatened by Saraswati’s growing influence.
“He was doing a good job of propagating the bright points of Hinduism, and the missionaries were not able to convert the tribal people as effectively as they were doing previously,” Sharma said. “So they decided to do away with him.”
Investigators, however, have raised the possibility that Maoists rebels may be to blame.
The rebels, who claim to be fighting for the poor and the dispossessed, have been battling the government in an insurgency that has resulted in thousands of casualties since the late 1960s.
However, Hindu groups insist Christians was behind Saraswati’s death.
“It is clear that the church killed the Swami,” said the Hindu council’s general secretary, Praveen Togadia. “The rest of what happened is something the government needs to investigate and tell the people of India.”
On Monday, Hindu hard-liners declared a general strike, prompting banks and markets to close across the state.
Mourners marched to a Christian orphanage and set it on fire. A 20-year-old woman who was teaching children burned to death, Panda said.
The next day, armed Hindus and Christians fired at each other, resulting in four deaths, he said.
Both sides said the communal violence had destroyed Christian churches and Hindu temples.
The violence spread to the state capital, Bhubaneshwar, about 140 miles (225 km) away.
Father Pius Fernandes said mobs threw stones at a children’s school and ransacked a nearby college.
“I would say the violence is seven times worse [than in December],” he said. “I mean, the government is trying its best. But it’s like a mad frenzy. They are just destroying everything.”
Posted on: August 27, 2008
Updated List of Violence Against Dalit Christians in Orissa
The aicc is maintaing this list to keep the world informed of the ongoing persecution of Christians, largely Dalits or Tribals, in India. This list is being updated daily as more incidents occur. Go to this link to see this list.
If you would like to help the victims, please click on the donate button now.
Posted on: August 27, 2008
Tragic & Widespread Anti-Christian Violence in Eastern India
For immediate release
Government authorities unable to stop Hindu nationalists from wreaking havoc
HYDERABAD – August 26, 2008 – In the aftermath of the murder of a Hindu swami by unknown assailants, mobs attacked the Christian community across the eastern state of Orissa. On Monday, a 12 hour strike called by hardliner Hindu nationalist organizations resulted in spreading violence. Media reports and eye witness accounts indicate several Christians were killed and hundreds of Christian properties burnt.
“Local leaders of the All India Christian Councill have lost count of the churches damaged, Christian homes vandalized, and pastors or priests beaten. On August 26, 1910, Mother Teresa was born. Today, exactly 98 years later, we are deeply saddened that her legacy of peace and compassion are being ignored by society in the state of Orissa,” said Dr. Joseph D’souza, President of the All India Christian Council (aicc).
Large numbers of police and Rapid Action Force troops were deployed over the weekend, yet twelve of thirty districts were reportedly affected by the violence. According to reports collected by the aicc, at least five people have died, one nun was raped, and hundreds of churches, Christian homes, Christian non-profit organizations’ offices, and Christian schools were heavily damaged or destroyed. See list at: http://indianchristians.in/news/content/view/2325/45/
Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council) leader Lakshmanananda Saraswati was killed during an attack at an ashram in the hills of Kandhamal District, Orissa, on August 23, 2008, Saturday night. The elderly swami spent several decades in the district. He routinely criticized missionaries for conversion activities and sought to “re-convert” tribals and Dalits. aicc leaders as well as major networks of churches in India, including the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India and the Evangelical Fellowship of India, condemned the killing of the swami and called for his attackers to be arrested and punished.
D’souza said, “The Orissa state government must restore order and prevent VHP activists from carrying out attacks and violating the rule of law. Then they must file cases against the perpetrators and push for rapid convictions. Lastly, we need fair and just compensation to victims, and we appeal to the Prime Minister to visit the victims as soon as possible.” “Today hardliner Hindu nationalists say they cannot control their followers who are simply unleashing their frustration with unethical missionaries. Police say they cannot put officers in every village to protect Christians. Behind all the excuses, the reality is that there is a complete collapse of governance in Orissa,” said John Dayal, aicc Secretary General and Member of the National Integration Council. “It is the duty of the President and Prime Minister of India – as well as state governments – to protect the life, liberty, and property of every citizen. We hope and pray they will act before more innocent people are killed.”
Yesterday, on Aug. 25, 2008, the aicc appealed in writing to various authorities including the Prime Minister, President, Minister of Home Affairs, and various Orissa state government officials such as the Chief Minister and Home Secretary. A delegation of both Protestant and Catholic Christians met the Minister of Home Affairs, Shivraj V. Patil, yesterday, Monday, evening. He offered federal resources but said he was awaiting the required request from the state government.
Orissa is ruled by a coalition government which includes the Bharatiya Janata Party, widely known as a party which embraces the creation of a Hindu homeland. Unlike many other states, Orissa has not set up a state commission for minorities which would investigate discrimination and violence against non-Hindu religious adherents.
From Dec. 24, 2007-Jan. 2, 2008, attacks in Kandhamal district killed at least four Christians and destroyed over 100 churches and 730 Christian homes. Several dozen women were sexually harassed and assaulted, and more than 40 shops belonging to Christians were looted and destroyed. Most of the victims were Dalits, formerly known as untouchables.
India’s National Commission for Minorities issued a report after visiting Orissa on January 6-8, 2008 and again on April 21-24, 2008. They noted that caste-based discrimination played a role as well as an anti-conversion campaign conducted by Hindu extremists which “has aimed to prevent the conversion of tribals and Dalits to Christianity.” They faulted state government officials for not preventing the violence. Aicc leaders issued two reports. For these reports and other resources, please visit: http://indianchristians.in/news/content/view/1947/45
The All India Christian Council (http://www.aiccindia.org), birthed in 1998, exists to protect and serve the Christian community, minorities, and the oppressed castes. The aicc is a coalition of thousands of Indian denominations, organizations, and lay leaders.
For more information, contact Dr. Sam Paul, aicc Secretary Public Affairs
Posted on: August 26, 2008
India's Supreme Court speaks out on discrimination
Original legal correspondence from The Hindu.
The Supreme Court has deprecated the practice of upper castes denigrating the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes and said “this is a disgrace to our country.”
“Our Constitution provides for equality which includes special help and care for the oppressed and weaker sections who have been historically downtrodden. The SC/ST communities in our opinion are also equal citizens, and are entitled to a life of dignity in view of Article 21 of the Constitution as interpreted by this court,” said a Bench consisting of Justices Altamas Kabir and Markandey Katju.
The Bench was dealing with a criminal appeal whether the use of the word `Chamar’ (an SC name) was an offence attracting the provisions of The Scheduled Castes and The Schedules Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
Writing the judgment, Justice Katju said: “In the age of democracy, no people and no community should be treated as being inferior. However, the truth is that in many parts of our country persons belonging to the SC/ST are oppressed, humiliated and insulted. This is a disgrace to our country.”
The Bench said: “The caste system is a curse on our nation and the sooner it is destroyed the better. In fact, it is dividing our country at a time when we must all be united as Indians if we wish to face the gigantic problems confronting us – poverty, unemployment, price rise, corruption, etc. The 1989 Act is a salutary legislative measure in that direction.”
The Bench said: “In this connection, it may be mentioned that in America to use the word `nigger’ today for an African-American is regarded as highly offensive and is totally unacceptable, even if it was acceptable 50 years ago. In our opinion, even if the word `Chamar’ was not regarded as offensive at one time in our country, today it is certainly a highly offensive word when used in a derogatory sense to insult and humiliate a person. Hence, it should never be used with that intent.
“In our opinion, calling a member of the Scheduled Caste `Chamar’ with intent to insult or humiliate him in a place within public view is certainly an offence under Section 3(1) (x) of the Act. Whether there was intent to insult or humiliate [a person] by using the word `Chamar’ will, of course, depend on the context in which it was used.”
In the instant case, a case was registered by Vinod Nagar, working as a driver, alleging that Delhi-based Swaran Singh, his wife and daughter insulted him, calling him `Chuda-Chamar.’ The Delhi High Court rejected the appellants’ plea to quash the framing of charge and the present appeal is directed against this judgment. The Bench said: “In a country like ours with so much diversity – so many religions, castes, ethnic and lingual groups, etc. – all communities and groups must be treated with respect, and no one should be looked down upon as inferior. That is the only way we can keep our country united.”
The Bench held that a prima facie case had been made out against Singh’s wife and daughter to proceed further with the trial, but not against him, first appellant.
Posted on: August 20, 2008
Children of Indignity
Originally published in The Week magazine, Aug. 17, 2008, INDEPENDENCE DAY SPECIAL
By Kavitha Muralidharan
It is easy to tell an oor from a cheri in any village in Tamil Nadu. A cheri, where Dalits traditionally live, is part of the village. Yet, it is so distinct from the oor of the upper castes. Roads that lead to the cheri are mostly not in good shape, and same is the case with the huts of Dalits.
The cheri of Karattupalayam village in Erode district bears all signs of a typical cheri-bad roads and mud huts. For the 100-odd families of the Arunthathiyar community (the lowest in the Dalit hierarchy), who have survived as cobblers or bonded labourers, life swings between poverty and indignity.
The family of 23-year-old Karthik is one of the worst hit. When the roof of their mud hut collapsed on a rainy day, the family crumbled. “It was the only thing that held us together. When that collapsed, the family just scattered,” recalled Karthik. His mother, Nallammal, who was seriously injured in the roof collapse, moved into the house of her sister-in-law Vijayalakshmi. His youngest brother, Prabhu, went to a government boarding school, where education is free. Karthik and his brother Satish did menial jobs for the upper castes, just what their father, Kittasamy, had been doing. “We had no option. I spent a good part of my life as a pannai adimai (bonded labourer) on a rich man’s farm. I woke up at 6 a.m. to tend cattle. My work ended only at midnight. When I was in my teens, I escaped from the wretched life,” said Karthik. He resents his parents for making him a bonded labourer.
The roof collapse came as a blessing in disguise for Kittasamy, who was overburdened with work. He soon went his way, deserting his family. But his flight to town brought him more indignity. “In town, you are reminded of your caste. Right from the tea shop to the street-corner where you sleep, people chase you away as if you were an evil spirit. You can even be born as a dog, but not a Dalit,” he said bitterly.
Karthik ran away from the rich man’s farm, wandered from one place to another, but hasn’t landed a decent job. “I do any work I get. When I have nothing to do, I come back and do what Dalit labourers traditionally do-removing the husk from coconuts.” Despite hardship he is happy to be part of the cheri. “I have no intentions of moving to town. I know I will be abused for everything, from drinking water to entering a temple,” he said. “Deep down, I feel wretched, but what can be done?”
Human rights organisations say Dalits in Tamil Nadu suffer harassment in 47 forms, including the two-tumbler system in tea shops, denial of entry into temples, no-entry in streets where caste Hindus live and abuse of Dalit children. In many villages, they have no access to barber shops and government community centres.
Dalit panchayat presidents live in constant fear. Said R. Pazhaniyammal, president of the Nariyoothu panchayat in Theni district: “They elected me president, but they wont’ allow me to sit in the president’s chair.” She was elected president because the post was reserved for scheduled castes. To this day, she cannot walk through the streets of the oor wearing slippers. Her husband is summoned by the caste Hindus to do menial jobs whenever there is a funeral.
On February 19, 2007, Servaaran, Dalit panchayat president of Marudankinaru in Tirunelveli district, was brutally killed when he ignored the warnings of vice-president Sumathi, a caste Hindu, and sat in the president’s chair. Such grotesque incidents remain a blot on the freedom to live with dignity that the Indian Constitution promises all citizens.
Said V. Kathir, director of the NGO Evidence: “We have identified 234 cases of Dalit harassment last year. But very little action has been taken in those cases.”
Though untouchability has been abolished by law, it is practiced in various forms. Kathir said the number of cases filed under the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act in Tamil Nadu is abysmally low.
On March 9, 2007, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) issued its concluding observations on India’s compliance with the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. The committee found that “de facto segregation of Dalits persists” and its report highlighted systematic abuse against Dalits, including torture, extrajudicial killings, and sexual violence. The Indian representatives’ refusal to acknowledge the caste-based discrimination did not go down well with the committee.
The committee has given India a year to respond to four of its recommendations, including how the country can end widespread impunity for violence against Dalits.
Uneasy equality
Samathuvapuram (village of equality) in Oothiyur near Erode in Tamil Nadu is a picture of spatial independence. The 100 houses are spread across streets aesthetically named after legendary Tamil poets. Yet, the lives of those who live here are anything but poetic. The equality that the Samathuvapuram project promised remains elusive. “Dalits are Dalits everywhere,” said Mary, a single mother. Her son Elangovan, who works in a garment factory in Tiruppur, chipped in: “If I have to talk to an upper caste, I have to maintain a distance. I cannot imagine talking to an upper caste girl. People are very watchful.”
The government has established 150 Samathuvapurams, and has announced that 95 more would be constructed in 29 districts. When Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi launched the project in 1997, he visualised a village where Dalits would co-exist with people of other castes. Contrary to the vision of the project, many of its beneficiaries have given their houses on rent, as they couldn’t put up with discrimination. THE WEEK found that more than 70 per cent of the houses had been rented out.
Dalits are still looked down upon in Samathuvapuram. Even at the common tap, Dalits face discrimination. “At the tap I would be asked to wait until the upper castes have finished fetching water,” said Mary. Non-Dalits grudge that they have to use the same tap.
Kathirvel, a People’s Union for Civil Liberties activist, says the government should monitor Samathuvapurams. “It is important that Samathuvapurams be monitored. The inherent caste feeling is something that just cannot be done away with by putting people together,” he said. Karunanidhi once admitted that Samathuvapurams might not bring about a change in attitudes, but said it was a major step towards preventing caste and communal clashes. The grand and lofty ideals of Samathuvapuram might just go awry if the government does not intervene and set things right.
Posted on: August 11, 2008
More Bombings in India on Saturday, July 26, 2008
On Saturday, July 26, 2008, there were multiple bombings in Ahmedabad, the capital city of Gujarat state. Early media reports say more than a dozen people died (later revised to nearly 50 people dead) and the bombs all went off within a short time span. Bombs were reportedly planted on buses or on parked bicycles and placed in “tiffins” (metal lunchboxes). No people with DFN or DFN-associated partners were harmed.
This follows Friday’s bombings in Bangalore in which at least one person died and several were injured.
We are watching carefully to see if particular people are being targeted by the recent violence. In both tonight’s bombings and those of yesterday, it doesn’t seem like a particular nationality (i.e. American) nor was a religious community targeted. The random nature of the attacks is good in one sense. However, some extremists in India use attacks like this as an excuse to lash out at other communities. Because Ahmedabad has experienced clashes between religious communities in the past, we expect state and federal authorities to act quickly to prevent riots and enforce calm.
Authorities continue to speculate that the “low-intensity” blasts are designed to instill fear, more than to kill. We expect Ahmedabad businesses, schools and public places to be closed for the next few days. We are following the advice from Consulates/Embassies in India which said in an email bulletin Friday, “[Foreigners] traveling in India are urged to monitor local news reports, avoid crowded places, and remain aware of their surroundings.” Below are some local media stories:
17 BOMB BLASTS ROCK AHMEDABAD, 15 DEAD
CNN-IBN
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/17-bomb-blasts-rock-ahmedabad-15-dead/69654-3.html
16 blasts in Ahmedabad, 18 feared dead
NDTV
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080058856
Posted on: July 27, 2008
DFN Statement on Bombings in Bangalore (Bengaluru)
On Friday afternoon, several small bombs went off in downtown Bangalore (officially called Bengaluru). Early media reports indicate that the targets were crowded locations and one report said they were “near refugee settlements”. It doesn’t seem like a particular religious community or nationality was targeted, but there has been no claim of responsibility yet. Most important, the blasts were far from our partner organization’s main campus, (Operation Mercy Charitable Company or OMCC). In addition, no international personnel from DFN or OMCC were near the bombings or affected in any way.
The phone networks are experiencing problems either because the authorities have temporarily shut them down or simply because of an increased volume of calls. Police and federal officials have assured the public that things are under control and urged people to continue with their daily lives. However, most businesses and schools have closed for the day and might remain closed for several days; this is typical response in India. There was a similar attack on the city of Jaipur in May 2008 and Hyderabad in August 2007. In both cases, the city residents and officials quickly calmed the situation and began investigations.
We expect a bulletin from the American Consulate in Mumbai or Chennai shortly and are in touch with our Indian partners living in and around Bangalore (via email, Skype, phone). We’ll inform you if there are any new developments in the coming hours.
Below are three stories from the local (Indian) media:
CNN-IBN, “5 blasts rock Bangalore, one killed”
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/5-blasts-rock-bangalore-one-killed/69540-3.html
NDTV, “Serial blasts rock Bangalore, 1 killed”
http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20080058672
Times of India, “7 blasts rock Bangalore; two killed, 20 wounded”
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/7_blasts_rock_Bangalore_2_dead_20_wounded/articleshow/3279730.cms
Posted on: July 25, 2008
Indian Americans divided over invitation to Narendra Modi
Original article from ZeeNews.com.
The Indian American groups across the United States are sharply divided over invitation sent to Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi to attend the second world Gujarati conference to be held in New Jersey.
While some organizations are working behind the scene mounting pressure on the US government to grant him visa to attend the meet, the coalition against genocide, an umbrella organization of some 25 bodies, has written a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asking her to deny visa to the Chief Minister.
The invitation was sent by the Association of Indian Americans in North America (AIANA), organizers of the meet, but its President Sunil Nayak had said issuance of visa is a matter between American authorities and Modi. However, he had expressed the hope that Modi would be able to attend the three-day conference beginning from Aug 29 in which some 50,000 Gujaratis from the world over are expected to participate.
Modi was denied visa to the Gujarati conference in 2005 in view of anti-Muslim riots in the state for which some organisations had blamed him but he did talk to the delegates and press through a video link.
In its letter to Rice, the coalition against genocide requested her not to allow Modi to enter the United States “under any conditions” as, it said, circumstances under which he was denied visa earlier remain “largely unchanged” and “minority communities in the state continue face systematic human rights violations.”
“Modi has not only expressed no remorse for the 2002 violence; but he has continued to justify them, as he has a spate of extra judicial killings by his police. And, the state continues to persecute civil society groups who have been trying to speak up for the victims under very difficult circumstances,” said the letter.
The United States should not “unwittingly be the platform from which these unrepentant and yet ascendant forces in India exploit the opportunity to rally the support base among Indian diaspora communities and raise international legitimacy and standing,” it said.
It would be “dangerous” at this juncture of Indian political process to give Modi that “long denied and therefore much coveted window.” “As recently as April 2008, Modi enacted the anti-conversion law in Gujarat that effectively bars religious conversions, thereby crippling the provisions of religious freedom in the state,” the letter released by the coalition said.
Not only Modi, it said, was responsible for the death of over 2,000 Muslims and the displacement of 200,000 more, but “six years after the Gujarat-state sponsored violence, the Muslim community in Gujarat is subjected to a devastating economic and social boycott, institutionalized at every level.”
“Most have received little, if no compensation for the deaths of loved ones and loss of property; thousands are still displaced, without homes, work, or access to decent schools for their children. At the level of the courts too, Muslims in Gujarat have received little justice, barring a few exceptions; and the few that have managed to push their cases forward have met with threats, physical harm and harassment,” the letter alleged.
“Noting the prejudice extending at every level of the state apparatus, the supreme court ordered cases related to the 2002 massacres to be moved out of gujarat,” it said.
The organizations which signed on the letter include alliance for a secular and Democratic South Asia (ASDSA), Association of Indian Muslims of America (AIM), Campaign to Stop Funding Hate (CSFH), Coalition for a Secular and Democratic India (CSDI), Dalit Freedom Network (DFN), Dharma Megha inc, Gujarati Muslim Association of America (GMAA), Hindu Vaishnava Center for Enlightenment, India Foundation Inc, Indian Buddhist Association, Indian Muslim Council-USA (IMC-USA), Indian Muslim Educational Foundation of North America (IMEFNA), and Sikh American Heritage Organization (SAHO).
The conference would highlight business, culture, education and family values and would provide an opportunity to companies there to showcase their products and plans for possible business tie-ups.
Posted on: July 3, 2008
The Outsiders
Original article from Tehelka.com by SHOBHITA NAITHANI.
FOR AKSHAY (name changed), his admission in 2002 to the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, (IIT-D) was an achievement whose magnitude has less to do with his being Dalit than with the fact that he has battled schizophrenia since his early teens. Diagnosed in 1997, Akshay has been through years of therapy, which his doctors at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) have certified to have had 95 percent success. His struggle with this complex, mind-debilitating illness, however, meant that it took him six years to reach third-year studies at India’s premier engineering institute.
This May, Akshay went to his professor of Applied Mechanics to request an attendance waiver because he hadn’t been keeping well. A sensitive response is what one would have expected, particularly from a person of the sophisticated calibre IIT professors can be thought to possess. What Akshay received, instead, was a reprimand of stunning crudity. “Every second beggar on the street is a schizophrenic,” he claims the professor told him. “IIT has no room for such people. Degree engineer ko milti hai, bimaar ko nahin (engineers get degrees, not the sick).” Then came the crowning blow: “The only reason you’re here is because of reservations.” The stunned 24-year-old stood speechless.
But worse was to come. Akshay’s name, along with those of 19 other IIT-D undergraduates, was struck off the institute’s rolls earlier this month because his “performance was below the required minimum level for continuation”. This is the first time the institute has asked so many students to leave; 12 of them are Dalits. Akshay, a bank clerk’s son from Faizabad in Uttar Pradesh, doesn’t deny the fact that he hadn’t done well, but insists that the institute must examine the reasons for his poor show. “I sought support but all I got was a dressing-down for being a Dalit,” he says. “I can’t get over that, and I can’t understand why the faculty is not more supportive.”
Along with AIIMS, IIT-D was at the vanguard of anti-reservation protests in 2006, when the human resources development ministry sought to expand reservations for Other Backward Classes (OBCs) in State-funded institutions of higher learning. The anti-quota campaign reached a nadir of vulgarity when IIT-D students took to articulating their protest by pretending in public places to mend shoes and sweep roads, implying that these “low” professions (to which Dalits have traditionally been confined) would be the upper-caste IIT aspirant’s only career options were the quota law to be enforced. Propaganda through SMS and e-mail was a highlight of the campaign — these and other inspired ideas were, it was later found, the brainchild of a Gurgaon-based public relations firm, which had offered to help out.
Resentment of backward-caste students is apparently endemic at IIT-D, and comes not just from peers but the faculty as well. Where professors are meant to guide students through the institute’s demanding course work, many of them actively demoralise those from disadvantaged backgrounds. “The IITs were never democratic,” avers a former student, who asked not to be named. “I don’t mean in terms of functioning, but in their attitude towards students.”
The 20 students expelled this year were also obliged to vacate their hostels without delay. Some left without questioning. One decided to fight back. Last December, Ravinder Kumar Ravi achieved passing marks in a subject he was later informed he had failed. He approached the Dean with the initial mark sheet, but, he says, “the Dean took no heed and said the teacher’s word was final”. He then went to the teacher concerned (whom he doesn’t wish to name); she subsequently e-mailed the Dean to explain that the discrepancy had occurred because she had missed one of Ravi’s assignments, which had caused his grade to fall from D to E. “Is it not perverse that the same teacher who gave me passing marks at first found cause to fail me later?” Ravi asks.
Read the rest of the article.
Posted on: June 29, 2008
Dalit women invisible citizens: Report
Original report from The Hindu Newspaper.
JAIPUR: A fact-finding mission’s report on the status of dalit women in Rajasthan released here on Monday has brought to light the critical denial of rights to them on the basis of caste as well as gender. Dalit women were found having very little access to livelihood, food, water, sanitation and the government’s welfare programs.
As untouchables and outcasts, dalit women invariably face caste-based discrimination. As women, they face gender discrimination, and as poor, they face class discrimination, affirmed the report prepared by two leading dalit and women’s rights groups.
The Centre for Dalit Rights (CDR) and the Programme on Women’s Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (PWESCR) conducted field surveys in five localities inhabited by dalits in Jaipur and Dausa districts to assess “exclusion and subordination” of dalit women. “Dalit women are restricted to the bottom of the society, impoverished and invisible as citizens,” noted the report.
Releasing the report here in the presence of dalit activists, academicians and community leaders, State Assembly Speaker Sumitra Singh admitted that “systematic denial” of right to education, training, land and livelihood resources during the 60 years of Independence had led to exclusion of dalit women from all socio-economic and political fields. Ms. Singh called upon the dalit groups to exert pressure on government functionaries to provide health care, nutrition and other basic services in the dalit-dominated areas. “Access to education will surely enable dalit women to assert their rights and improve their living conditions,” she said.
The 39-page report said all dalit communities in the State were suffering from the practice of untouchability and deliberate segregation. The fact-finding teams visiting the five areas found that dalits lived in ghetto-like structures within the segregated areas away from the general population.
CDR chairperson P. L. Mimroth said that there was a complete lack of information about the State programs and schemes and entitlements for dalits under them. With dalit men and women being unable to access these sources, the government functionaries had a sense of complacency and no concern for accountability.
The dalit habitations covered by the field surveys were the Jhalana Doongri Kachchi Basti, Jaipur; Bagarion Ki Dhani, Pachala; Kadwa Ka Bas, Dudu (all in Jaipur district) and Raigar Mohalla, Gudalia; and Raigar Basti, Dausa city (both in Dausa district).
Preeti Darooka of PWESCR said the only occupations available and traditionally allocated to dalit women were those that no one else would prefer to do. “The fact-finding clearly demonstrates that in spite of various laws and schemes for dalits, not much is being done on the ground to address the day-to-day hardships faced by dalit women,” she said.
The report demanded that the State government develop a monitoring system to recognise the discrimination faced by dailt women in all walks of life. There should also be a redress mechanism to deal with the complaints of violation of rights and dalit women should be made aware of their legal rights.
The report also underlined the need to bring about “radical changes” in the mind-set of people who see nothing wrong in the customary practices of social exclusion of dalit women. It said the government should ensure that dalit children had access to education without being discriminated.
Posted on: June 24, 2008
Caste as race
Original article from IndiaTogether.org.
Over the years, the Indian government has been steadfast in its unwillingness to consider caste-based discrimination as racial discrimination, despite the many arguments in its favour. Ipshita Sengupta reports.
The Government of India reiterates its position that ‘caste’ cannot be equated with ‘race’ or covered under ‘descent’ under Article 1 of the Convention – India’s 15th-19th Periodic Report to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
Discrimination based on ‘descent’ includes discrimination against members of communities based on forms of social stratification such as caste and analogous systems of inherited status which nullify or impair their equal enjoyment of human rights. Therefore, the Committee reaffirms that discrimination based on the ground of caste is fully covered by Article 1 of the Convention. – CERD, concluding observations on India’s Periodic Report.
These contradictory statements show where India stands as far as caste-based discrimination is concerned. In 2002, the United Nations’ (UN) Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, in its general recommendation no.29, expanded the meaning of the term ‘descent’ in Article 1 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), to include discrimination based on caste. The convention, which came into force in 1969, has been ratified by 173 countries, including India. Despite this, and despite the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights reiterating that discrimination based on work and descent is a form of racial discrimination, the Indian government’s stand on this issue has remained the same: caste is not race.
The CERD, an independent panel of experts established under the international convention on racial discrimination, monitors how well signatories are implementing the convention, through periodic reports submitted by State parties. The CERD provides “concluding observations” on these State reports.
India’s reluctance to consider the issue seriously is clear from the way it has treated its responsibilities as a signatory to the international convention. Though periodic reports are due to the CERD every two years, all of the reports from 1998 to 2006 were submitted to the committee only in 2006 as a joint 15th-19th periodic report. When this report came up for review at the CERD’s 70th session meeting at Geneva in February-March 2007, many activists were hoping that there would be a change in the Indian government’s position.
However, it soon became clear that neither the heated debates on descent-based discrimination at the Durban World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in 2001, nor the criticism that the government has faced from various quarters including the CERD, and international civil society and Dalit groups in India, have made any impact. Despite the arguments advanced in favour of treating caste-based discrimination as racial discrimination, the Indian government has refused to budge from its stand.
India’s joint periodic report detailed the legislative and policy measures in place currently to address racial discrimination, but did not offer an impact assessment of these measures. On caste-based discrimination, the government reiterated its stand that as the Indian Constitution did not consider caste and race to be the same (Article 15 of the Constitution prohibits discrimination on grounds of race and caste and lists them as separate categories), they could not be conflated.
Non-government organisations, individuals and civil society coalitions, which had submitted alternate reports – known as shadow reports – to the CERD, rejected the government’s stand. These reports mentioned several instances of caste-based discrimination faced by Dalits.
A joint report by the United States-based Human Rights Watch and Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice, titled Hidden Apartheid: Caste Discrimination against India’s ‘Untouchables’, pointed out that more than 165 million persons in India faced discrimination while accessing education, health, housing, property, employment and equality before the law simply because of their caste. The report, dated February 2007, documented India’s “systematic failure to respect, protect, and ensure Dalits’ fundamental human rights”.
Discussions and dialogues on India’s periodic report at the CERD’s 70th session were focused on the issue of caste-based discrimination and the plight of India’s Dalit population. The Indian delegation, which was led by India’s permanent Ambassador to the UN Swashpawan Singh, Solicitor General Goolam E Vahanvati and academic Dipankar Gupta, among others, tried to establish on sociological grounds that caste was different from race and could not be equated under any circumstances. Gupta denied that caste fell under the term ‘descent’ as described in the convention. The Indian delegation’s stand digressed from the discussion at hand, which was whether caste-based discrimination was similar in nature to descent-based discrimination, and whether the convention covered such discrimination.
The CERD, in its observations on India’s report presented at the session, rejected India’s stand on caste-based discrimination. The committee criticised the government for failing to provide information on steps taken to implement anti-discrimination and affirmative action laws and policies. The panel also insisted that the government present such details in its next periodic report.
The CERD also expressed concern that India did not recognise the country’s tribal population as “distinct groups entitled to special protection under the Convention”. It recommended that India “strengthen its efforts to eradicate the social acceptance of caste-based discrimination and racial and ethnic prejudice, eg by intensifying public education and awareness raising campaigns, incorporating educational objectives of inter-caste tolerance and respect for other ethnicities, as well as instruction on the culture of scheduled castes and scheduled and other tribes, adequate media representation of issues concerning scheduled castes, tribes and ethnic minorities, with a view to achieving true social cohesion among all ethnic groups, castes and tribes of India”.
Despite CERD’s tough stance, India has been unwilling to engage in a constructive dialogue on caste-based discrimination. Most recently, in April 2008, when the UN Human Rights Council conducted a mandatory review of the human rights records of its member countries, India stated that caste-based discrimination was not racial in origin. India’s periodic report to the UN’s Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), which monitors the implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, had a similar tenor. In its concluding observations in a review of the report, conducted in May 2008, the CESCR noted that India had failed to address “persistent de facto caste-based discrimination” despite boasting of several legislative measures.
According to the Crime in India Report 2006, prepared by the National Crime Records Bureau of the Ministry of Home Affairs, the crime rate against SCs recorded an increase of 3.6 per cent in one year, with the number of cases reported rising from 26,127 in 2005 to 27,070 in 2006.
The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989, referred to as the POA Act, aimed at penalising discriminatory acts against these groups, has remained ineffective. Despite the high incidence of crime against SC/STs and the strict penal provisions contained in the POA Act, the number of cases registered under this Act remains low. In 2006, 8581 and 1232 cases were registered across India under the POA Act for atrocities against SCs and STs respectively. The average conviction rate for crimes against SCs/STs is also dismal low at 27.6 per cent (SCs) and 28 per cent (STs), although the charge-sheeting rates are high.
While India’s defiance of monitoring mechanisms like the CERD points to a complete lack of political will to adopt international standards and implement domestic laws to overcome discrimination, it also points to another failure. The country’s non-cooperation with international mechanisms, at some level, also points to the failure of the United Nations’ human rights mechanisms to ensure enforcement of international human rights norms.
Posted on: June 8, 2008
Bihar, where water's divided on basis of caste
By Prabhakar Kumar via CNN-IBN.
(WATER WOES: Muslims, backward castes and upper castes all have separate wells in Bihar’s Vaishali district.)
It’s a known fact that in some areas of Bihar, people from different castes live in separate colonies. But the caste divide doesn’t end there. Now water too is being divided on the basis of caste.
Kulhara village in Bihar’s Vaishali district has six drinking water wells. And in the scorching summer, Janpatia Devi’s family doesn’t have a drop to drink. That’s because she is a Dalit, and the well in the village meant only for her community has gone dry.
Wells — the only source of drinking water in this village — are divided on the basis of caste. but Dalits get the worst deal.
“The water is not potable at all. It is dirty but we have no other choice,” Sunita Devi, a distraught villager, says.
And dry wells mean a half-kilometre trek to nearby villages to fetch water.
“There are three wells. One well’s water is not potable and people don’t let us draw water from the other two. I went there yesterday but they threw my bucket,” Binda Devi, another villager, says.
With nothing being done so far to stop this mindless division, caste has also coloured the village waters.
Posted on: May 30, 2008
Dalits remain unempowered
By Rashme Sehgal via The Asian Age.
Panchayati raj has allowed a critical mass of 5.4 lakh dalits enter the mainstream panchayat system but they remain an unempowered lot. A report on the state of panchayats (2007-8) has highlighted that the practice of untouchability continues even during gram panchayat meetings where they are made to sit separately and drink tea and water from separate glasses.
The report, sponsored by the ministry of panchayati raj, cites examples of several violent incidents in which dalits have tried to assert their rights.
One such example is of a dalit sarpanch Bholaram, who was battered to death in the village of Phooljhar close to Raipur because the villagers were not happy with a dalit sarpanch.
Even in a state like Tamil Nadu , there have been complaints of dalit panchayat members being done to death by uppercaste Hindus.
Ten Scheduled Caste panchayat presidents in Tirunelvelli district have recently complained that their lives are under threat from uppercastes.
Four villages in Madurai district of Tamil Nadu which saw Dalits elected are witnessing accelerated caste tension.
Following panchayat elections in October 2006, P. Jaggaiyan, president of Nakkalamuthanpatti village was done to death because he refused to oblige the `upper caste vice-president ‘ by being a rubber stamp president. This was followed by the death in suspicious circumstances of M. Servaran, president of the Maruthankinaru village panchayat. He was found dead near his house on February 9 2007.
Several other dalit panchayat heads in different districts of Tamil Nadu complain of not being allowed to function by their deputies and other caste members.
Dalit women also face similar discrimination. The report cites the example of Savita Ben, sarpanch of saddha gram panchayat in Himmatnagar taluka of Sabarkantha district in Gujarat who took part in several development activities but was suspended from her post on one pretext or the other.
Another way to prevent dalit members from functioning is to introduce no-confidence motions against them. Last year, 34 no-confidence motions were introduced against dalit heads of panchayats in Chattisgarh alone.
This has led a Dalit Mukti Morcha activist to conclude that `whenever dalits come to power, their posts are declared null and void so as to prevent them from exercising their rights’.
This problem is heightened by the fact that the majority of elected SC representatives in the BIMARU states are illiterate. State governments have set up social justice committees to protect the interests of SCs, STs and backward classes but these committees remain only on paper.
Posted on: May 30, 2008
Heaven Can Wait
Posted on: May 24, 2008
A Nation's Lowest Women Work Under Severe Degradation
Original article by Shuriah Niazi with Lys Anzia for the Women News Network (WNN).
“In some urban slums of many major cities of India, and more so in the case of semi-urban areas, dry toilets are a sad part of the common reality,” said Dr. Sam Paul, National Secretary of Public Affairs, All India Christian Council, a human rights organization based in Secunderabad, India, in a recent report for the All India Christian Council on March 28.
(CAPTION: Manual Scavenging Girl, India – Matt Corks 2006 image)
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights (UN-HRC), at a 2002 meeting of the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, said, “Public latrines – some with as many as 400 seats – are cleaned on a daily basis by female workers using a broom and a tin plate. The excrement is piled into baskets which are carried on the head to a location which can be up to four kilometers away from the latrine. At all times, and especially during the rainy season, the contents of the basket will drip onto a scavenger’s hair, clothes and body.”
In spite of the modernization of many parts of India, the age old custom of using dry – non-flush – toilets have exposed many bio-hazards to women in India who work as manual scavengers. Manual scavengers are, “exposed to the most virulent forms of viral and bacterial infections which affect their skin, eyes, limbs, respiratory and gastrointestinal systems. TB (tuberculosis) is rife among the community,” continues the UN report.
This is only a fraction of the suffering women manual scavengers face today in India. Labor slavery, severe discrimination and lack of the most basic human rights are only some of the challenges.
A 2005, US Department of Health, report states that disease for women manual scavengers can be “passed directly from soiled hands to the mouth or indirectly by way of objects, surfaces, food or water soiled with feces.”
Women working unprotected are in grave danger of contacting countless diseases through their daily and close contact with human waste. Some of these diseases, in addition to TB, include: campylobacter infection, cryptosporidiosis, giardiasis, hand, foot and mouth disease, hepatitis A, meningitis (viral), rotavirus infection, salmonella infection, shigella infection, thrush, viral gastroenteritis, worms and yersiniosis.
(CAPTION: Cleaning the sewers of India)
Facing the dangers of daily contact, “Ninety percent of all manual scavengers have not been provided proper equipment to protect them from faeces borne illness,” said a recent, Jan 2007, report on safety by India’s TISS – Tata Institute of Social Sciences. This includes safety equipment like gloves, masks, boots and/or brooms.
The use of hands by women manual scavengers, along with the certainty that they will have direct skin contact with human waste, is a very dangerous combination that is contributing to serious health conditions. Chronic skin diseases and lung diseases are very common among women manual scavengers.
To add to the danger, “Removal of bodies and dead animals is the third most common practice of manual scavenging, preceeded by sewerage sweeping, and the carrying of night-soil by basket/bucket or on the head,” continued the 2007 TISS report.
In spite of its being “illegal” the practice and use of manual scavengers continues in many low-income urban and rural parts of India today.
But the law is clear.
The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrine Act of 1993 states that, “No person shall engage in or employ for or permit to be engaged in or employed by any other person for manually carrying human excreta; or to construct or maintain a dry latrine.”
Read the rest of the article.
Posted on: May 16, 2008
Dalit woman manual scavenger Film
Originally posted on WNN.
This 2003 film, shows the degrading conditions for a Dalit woman manual scavenger. Without protective gloves, masks or shoes she works to clean the dry latrines.
Posted on: May 16, 2008
Spring 08 Newsletter
Download the Spring 08 Newsletter to find out the latest news on DFN’s involvement with the Dalits in India.
Posted on: May 11, 2008
The Old Order Rules
From Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 18, Dated May 10, 2008
The realities that Dalits in our countryside face are not unknown, and the media is full of stories on the topic, but mostly on issues that are sensational and ‘newsworthy’; that is to say, ‘atrocities.’ But the daily deprivation and oppression they encounter, which do not evoke overt protests or create news, often gets ignored.
Tikamgarh, a remote district of Madhya Pradesh with a large Dalit population, is a case in point. Tucked away in the Bundelkhand plateau bordering Uttar Pradesh, the total population of Tikamgarh district as per 2001 census is 12.02 lakhs, out of which Scheduled Castes constitute 24 percent and Scheduled Tribes 4 percent. The district’s literacy rate is 56 percent, while female literacy rate stands at 41 percent. The Human Development Index (HDI) of 2001 for Tikamgarh District stood at 0.468, ranked a dismal 42nd out of MP’s 45 districts.
The SC population consists of Ahirwars (locally referred to as Chamars), Kumhars (potters), Banskars (bamboo craftspeople) and Mehtars (sweepers), and constitute the poorest segment of the local population. Most have very little landholding and whatever land they do own lies fallow due to consecutive years of drought and fast depleting groundwater. The marginal farming activity no longer supports them even for subsistence and their major source of income today is wages for daily labour in the villages or nearby towns.
Caste hierarchy is strikingly visible in the villages of Tikamgarh even today. Dalits and Adivasis here have little say in local decisionmaking, and their control over Common Property Resources (CPRs) is minimal. Grazing lands, old village tanks constructed by the ninth century Chandela kings and other common property resources such as drinking water wells and so on are completely controlled by higher castes such as Brahmins, Thakurs, and Yadavs. The traditionally skewed social structure not only keeps Dalits and Adivasis deprived of their rightful access to livelihood resources but also to public goods, such as their due share in the government’s development and welfare programmes.
Tikamgarh is one of the initial 100 districts in which works under National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) were launched. But despite the government’s assurance of a minimum 100 days of employment, the programme has failed to benefit people in many of the hamlets here. Take the case of Bairwar, where the landless community of Banskars — who form the majority of local inhabitants — have all got job cards, but not employment as assured by the Act. The work carried out under the scheme in Bairwar was construction of cement roads, which is heavy on material components and hardly generated wage employment. The Banskars say that the treatment they — especially their womenfolk — received from the contractors and the village sarpanch was so demeaning that they would rather not work in the village, but in cities like Jhansi, Gwalior or Delhi. While net earnings are not much in the cities, and life is tougher, at least their Dalit identity does not matter so much there. The village sarpanch, on the other hand, claims that the Banskars prefer to work in the villages even if work is available locally, since they have taken a liking to the cities!
THE INSTANCE of Bairwar illustrates the dismal reality of panchayat-level governance in Tikamgarh. Many of the panchayats here are reserved for Dalits and women, but none of these sarpanchs actually exercise any authority; official documents are often signed by husbands in the case of women, and upper castes in the case of Dalits. In many such villages, a visitor asking to meet the sarpanch would invariably be pointed towards the house of a Brahmin or a Thakur, irrespective of who the actual sarpanch is.
The story is no different in the rest of Bundelkhand, where the systematic deprivation enforced on lower caste communities continues unabated. On the other hand, the economy has been liberalised and market forces have been freed, and are entering the rural landscape like never before. The common view is that the old order is changing, and giving way to a new one. But in villages such as Bairwar, traditional social relations form the basis for economic transactions, and the old order still holds firm. How likely is it that the State — which is unable to protect the weakest from a predatory feudal order — can guard them against an equally predatory market order?
Posted on: May 10, 2008
Dalits segregated, walled off in Madurai village
Original article from IBN Live, by Shambhavi Rai.
It’s crime of another kind in a village in Madurai in Tamil Nadu – one of caste divide. There’s even a wall that separates the upper caste from the Dalits in the village.
It’s a reality that people of Uthapuram village in Madurai have been waking up to since 1989. The 600 m long 10 m high brick wall that separates the Dalit colonies in the village from the colonies of the Pillaimars or the upper castes.
Dalits have been denied access to many common resources in the village.
Villager Muniappan says, “Until last April, the wall was even electrified-we came to know after a bird died of electrocution-but after government intervention the wires were removed.”
But the wall of separation still exists. The Dalits have separate community halls, crematoriums and water taps and are not allowed to take part in temple functions.
Posted on: May 4, 2008
A 6 year old girl thrown on fire for being 'lowest class'
Original article from CNN.com.
Dalits, or “untouchables,” are victims of discrimination in India despite laws aimed at eliminating prejudice.
A man, incensed that a 6-year-old girl chose to walk through a path reserved for upper caste villagers, pushed her into burning embers, police in north India said Wednesday. She was seriously burned.
The girl is a Dalit, or an “untouchable,” according to India’s traditional caste system.
India’s constitution outlaws caste-based discrimination, and barriers have broken down in large cities. Prejudice, however, persists in some rural areas of the country.
The girl was walking with her mother down a path in the city of Mathura when she was accosted by a man in his late teens, said police superintendent R.K. Chaturvedi.
“He scolded them both and pushed her,” Chaturvedi said. The girl fell about 3 to 4 feet into pile of burning embers by the side of the road.
The girl remained in critical condition Wednesday.
The man confessed to the crime and was charged with attempted murder, Chaturvedi said.
The assault took place in India’s Uttar Pradesh state, about 150 km (93 miles) south of Delhi. The state is governed by Mayawati, a woman who goes by one name and is India’s most powerful Dalit politician.
Her Bahujan Samaj Party seeks to get more political representation for Dalits, who are considered so low in the social order that they don’t even rank among the four classes that make up the caste system.
Hindus believe there are five main groups of people, four of which sprang from the body of the first man.
The Brahmin class comes from the mouth. They are the priests and holy men, the most elevated of the castes.
Next is the Ksatriyas, the kings, warriors and soldiers created from the arms.
The Vaisyas come from the thighs. They are the merchants and traders of society.
And the Sudras, or laborers, come from the feet.
The last group is the Dalits, or the “untouchables.” They’re considered too impure to have come from the primordial being. Untouchables are often forced to work in menial jobs. They drink from separate wells. They use different entry ways, coming and going from buildings.
They number about 250 million in India, about 25 percent of the population, according to the Colorado, U.S.-based Dalit Freedom Network.
“Dalits are seen to pollute higher caste people if they come in touch with them, hence the ‘untouchables,’” the group says on its Web site. “If a higher caste Hindu is touched by, or even had a Dalit’s shadow fall across them, they consider themselves to be polluted and have to go through a rigorous series of rituals to be cleansed.”
Recent weeks has seen a rise in violence against Dalits in Uttar Pradesh, CNN’s sister network, CNN-IBN, reported Wednesday.
Posted on: May 1, 2008
