Dalit Freedom Network // News

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.