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

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

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

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

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

http://www.economist.com/node/16319821

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

“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

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.

Shoumojit Banerjee
The Hindu
http://www.hindu.com/2010/05/24/stories/2010052454651300.htm

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

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.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/Dr-B-R-Ambedkar-Chair-set-up-at-Columbia-varsity/articleshow/5792832.cms

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

S. Sundar
The Hindu
Feb 11, 2010
http://www.hindu.com/2010/02/11/stories/2010021156850300.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.

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.”