Dalits Media Watch – News Updates 09.03.16

 

Pujari suicide case: new public prosecutor appointed – The hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/pujari-suicide-case-new-public-prosecutor-appointed/article8329200.ece

Happy or Hapless: Dalit Students With Dalit Professors – Counter current.org

http://www.countercurrents.org/prabakaran080316.htm

Subhash Pannaiyar escapes murder bid – The hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/subhash-pannaiyar-escapes-murder-bid/article8329193.ece

Booked in murder case, Dalit boy drops out of college – The hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/booked-in-murder-case-dalit-boy-drops-out-of-college/article8329260.ece

Gang Goes After Nadar Outfit Boss, Hacks Cronies – The new Indian express

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil_nadu/Gang-Goes-After-Nadar-Outfit-Boss-Hacks-Cronies/2016/03/09/article3317303.ece

Need cemeteries, not free pilgrimage: Christian leaders – The tribune

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/punjab/need-cemeteries-not-free-pilgrimage-christian-leaders/206509.html

ABVP rebels burn “Manusmriti” despite JNU denying nod – Zee news

http://zeenews.india.com/news/india/abvp-rebels-burn-manusmriti-despite-jnu-denying-nod_1863787.html

Utilisation of SC/ST sub-plans funds paltry, says study – The hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-andhrapradesh/utilisation-of-scst-subplans-funds-paltry-says-study/article8328973.ece

At JNU, caste trumps Hindutva – The hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/at-jnu-caste-trumps-hindutva/article8328823.ece

Decades-old group rivalry revived – The hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/decadesold-group-rivalry-revived/article8329195.ece

Life’s not an easy ride for this Dalit woman rickshaw driver – Khaleej times

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/international/india/lifes-not-an-easy-ride-for-this-dalit-woman-rickshaw-driver

 

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The hindu

Pujari suicide case: new public prosecutor appointed

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/pujari-suicide-case-new-public-prosecutor-appointed/article8329200.ece

Principal District Judge R. Poornima adjourned the temple pujari suicide case to March 9 here on Tuesday for continuous hearing as the district administration appointed a new public prosecutor as per the direction of the High Court.

All the seven accused, including the prime accused O. Raja, brother of Finance Minister O. Paneerselvam, appeared before the court in the morning. However, the newly appointed public prosecutor was not present.

The district administration submitted the order appointing High Court lawyer Mohan of Erode as public prosecutor to argue the case on behalf of the petitioner Subbu Raj, father of the deceased. (Subbu Raj had filed a case in the High Court seeking another lawyer in the place of the public prosecutor appointed by the government in Dindigul.)

Defence Counsel M. Kannappan informed the court that Mr. Raja filed a writ petition in the High Court seeking clarifications on certain defects in the court decree directing appointment of a public prosecutor. The judge wanted to know whether the High Court issued any order in this connection. The lawyer replied that the writ was submitted in the HC and it was numbered. After hearing his argument, the Principal District Judge adjourned the case to Wednesday advising all the accused to appear before the court. Already, the Madurai bench had directed the subordinate court to dispose the case within four months.

Charges were framed against O. Raja and others on December 15. The Theni District Court had transferred the case to Dindigul District Court on November 25 as per direction of Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court.

1. Nagamuthu (22) of T. Kallupatti village, a Dalit, who worked as pujari in Sri Kailasanathar hill temple in Periyakulam had committed suicide by hanging on December 8, 2012 after he was allegedly subjected to harassment.

Counter current.org

Happy or Hapless: Dalit Students With Dalit Professors

http://www.countercurrents.org/prabakaran080316.htm

Rohit vemula’s ‘social death’ has had disastrous upshot on students, scholars, professors and the Dalits in general across the state by opening doors, for having debates, to understand the plight of Dalit students, who study Masters and Ph.D, at the higher educational institutions of India. My friend and the research scholar who is pursuing his doctorate in Chennai wrote an article, which briefly speaks of the general circumstances of Dalit students, recently in leading English daily. According to him, even Dalit professors humiliate Dalit students more than non-dalit professors. What extent the statement is honest? Is it true or merely a jargon? The readers, especially non-dalits, who had read the column, would have been perplexed.

We might have heard about many incidents of cruelest behaviors of the caste Hindu professors against oppressed sections. A short time ago in Tamilnadu, a Dalit youth, coming from a scavenging caste, who wanted to do Ph.D, got the seat under the guidance of a caste Hindu professor. As the student belongs to scavenging caste, the professor used to compel him to come to his residence not for the lessons or discussions but for cleaning his home. And whenever the student used to go to his home, even for proof correction, he insisted him to do so. The student, furthermore, was asked to help out his wife in drying her cloths and to carry out other domestic works.

Another student who is studying the subject of Beef eating and social exclusion did not/could not get any government fellowship till today as the title, probably, makes government of the day upset. The topics or the subjects, in most cases, Dalit student wishes to explore is not taken into consideration. If the topic consist words like Ambedkar or Dalit, the respective supervisors would be harassed so as an alternative they suggest the students to change the topic or change terminologies something like poor, disadvantaged, deprived, and economically backward.

‘Quota students, SC students, fellowship students’, these are the comments that Dalit students mostly encounter from other groups at the ‘Indian’ educational campuses. These abusive languages are comparable to what characteristically happens every minute in the Indian villages, where predominately caste Hindus have power over economic and political spheres, calling Dalits by the caste names with added filthy adjective. This necessarily need not be done by fellow students but also the teachers as well as staffs. When I joined M.Phil course at the Madurai University, a service staff in the office introduced me to the HOD as ‘sir, SC student, new admission’. Since then my caste has become so discernible to them that this kept me wondering and exasperating, what is the need for revealing my position, with self-evident specification, imposed on me, without my consent.

Students like the humiliated youths narrated in the above episodes or Senthilkumar or Vemula who have died because of continuous torture and discrimination, or ‘chain of events’ as enunciated by many scholars, by the caste Hindu professors. Many Dalit students, indeed, have been encountering many insidious forms of sufferings at all universities and research institutions. But this is also a myth that those students from oppressed sections who work with Dalit professors are not discriminated as much as the one working under caste Hindu Professors. In fact, it is assumed to be beneficial for both – student and the professor. We must introspect at this juncture that are Dalits students, who are pursuing his or her doctoral degree, at ease in the hands of Dalit professors or do professors really guide them without any exploitation?

Generally, we invoke discriminations if it is only done by non-Dalits or caste Hindus or occurs in the context of Dalit VS non- Dalit, not within Dalits. We therefore hardly ever discuss the issues of Dalit students working with Dalit professors. The incidents narrated in this paper attempt to draw your attention in order to understand and explicate the author’s personal experiences and others like himself. The paper stems from the experiences that are found by the author in the course of his study and interaction with students. As the author, aware of these issues, is not intend to present a negative image(s) of Dalit professors, who failed to offer ‘pedagogical accountability’ but to provide an overview as well to highlight the obstacles of Dalit students in the current research programmes. The author, on the other hand, strongly felt that the paper would intercede as a means to initiate a conversation between students and professors.

Slow learners, not proficient in English or who do not pronounce English well could not become prominent in Mathematics and Science subjects as compared to the students from other communities. These are the prejudices about Dalit students that are still ingrained in professors ‘caste minds’. One of the Dalit students who achieved top rank in the higher secondary school examination got admission at one of the premier institutions in India. One day in the class room he was humiliated by his professor asking him, ‘how did you get admission here? By your caste quota?’. The student, who got the seat under the general category based on his marks, felt that the professor not only put him down in front of the whole class but the whole community. Supervisors are very much being in love to tempt the students to cry out in front of them. In the very first year students are made to feel they do not have adequate knowledge to pursue Ph.D. As a result they lose hope on themselves and the subject. If you are married before joining they would ask why you got married. If you are not married they would say, ‘go and get married to someone and do other work. Do not come here’. Comments like this are not only made by ‘others’ but also expressed by Dalit professors.

Students of Dalit community are selected by even Dalit professors usually after having a long conversation with the respective students. Even these decisions are made in order to show their sympathy to the entire community, as if they are socially concerned. A Dalit student, who has worked earlier as guest lecturer, is pursuing her Ph D under Dalit professor for more than four years without any agreement on her research title or design or without receiving any academic guidance.

Another girl student coming from rural and poor background doing her Ph.D, everyday comes across sexual threats and sexual comment, though she courageously refused the advances right away and reprimanded the concerned person right away. She was selected by the same professor with promising words like ‘since you and I are from the same caste, we should work mutually so as to be trouble-free’. As she regards education, especially Ph.D, as an important dream of her life; she has tolerated all this from day one to present. The professor also intervenes into her personal matters and controls her mobility such as whom to speak and where to go. As his attempts, for sexual exploitation, have failed, eventually, he attempted to seize money as much as possible from her monthly fellowship, which mounted up to lakhs now. (Listen caste Hindu students, who murmur about Dalit fellowships, there are countless bitter stories)

A handful of Dalit professors generally show off themselves as ‘gatekeepers’, exceptions are there, of the Dalits students in front of other faculties and the institutions, especially where academic discussions takes place. But to the respective students group they are as matter of fact, hardly ever, guiding, encouraging and helping academically (or in other ways) related to the subjects that student wants to work on. They in fact I have personally experienced, try to construct emotional bonding with students by simply keeping the photograph of Ambedkar or pictorially representing his legendary quotations in their rooms. But unexpectedly the actions remain inconsistent to this and create ‘false consciousness’ among the students soon after. However, the young scholars still believe the teachers who speak of Ambedkar or the caste issues, whoever they are, would guide them contentedly.

Ideally students expect, in any case, positive attitudes from the professors. In contrast some of the Dalit professors have also been wounding dalit students psychologically by continuous daunting as other does. The crucial part is that they also very consciously opt for and prioritize their attention to the students such as first from their own sub caste then other caste groups. In some way, thus, Dalit professors also exploit students, so the hope in the minds of young students, who are coming with passion, to do research gets dashed. Dalit professors and intelligentsia need to think of special preparation for Dalits – who are can be an average or bright student; who may have studied in rural, government schools and colleges with inadequate infrastructure – in order to foster them. Students cannot be successful on their own without some encouragement or support from Dalit academia; therefore they need help from every corner, particularly among the educationists if Dalits really have to liberate themselves from the oppression. If we paraphrase Freire, pedagogy of the Dalits should be practiced by not only non-dalit professors but the oppressive Dalit professors too.

The hindu

Subhash Pannaiyar escapes murder bid

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/subhash-pannaiyar-escapes-murder-bid/article8329193.ece

Two persons accused in the murder of Dalit leader Pasupathi Pandian were killed by a rival gang at the farm of Subhash Pannaiyar, a relative of late gangster Venkatesh Pannaiyar, at Pazhayakayal on Tuesday.

Subhash Pannaiyar narrowly escaped the attack.

Around 1 p.m. the gang entered the farm and hurled country-made bombs at Pannaiyar.

It then beheaded his accomplice M. Arumugasamy (32) of Surandai, and killed A. Kannan (52), a barber in Pazhayakayal.

The severed head was found at Deivaseyalpuram, sources said.

A bomb found in the farm remained unexploded.

A piece of broken glass was found in the rear side of a four-wheeler and a pouch to hold knife was recovered from the farm.

There is an impression that the attack was in revenge for the murder of Pasupathi Pandian by an armed gang at his residence in Nandhavanapatti, Dindigul on January 11, 2012.

1. Ashokan, manager of the farm, said, “I only noticed a gang of around 40 men, who suddenly entered the farm carrying lethal weapons after parking their car and several bikes”.

Deputy Inspector General of Police, Tirunelveli Range, R. Dinakaran and Superintendent of Police, Ashwin M. Kotnis inspected the area.

Mr. Kotnis said the police got crucial leads in the case and were closing in on the accused. Striking force personnel would be deployed at Authoor and Arumuganeri and its surroundings, the SP said.

Tiruchendur Deputy Superintendent of Police, V. Gopal and local police personnel were present.

The Authoor police are yet to file a case.

The hindu

Booked in murder case, Dalit boy drops out of college

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/booked-in-murder-case-dalit-boy-drops-out-of-college/article8329260.ece

A Dalit youth in Ramanathapuram district has discontinued education after being “falsely” arraigned in a murder case and jailed for 65 days. The youth, M Karunakaran (21), a student of the Government Polytechnic College near Melur, was among the 12 accused arrested by the Paramakudi police in November last, in connection with the murder of a BJP functionary, C. Ramesh, near Thenpoduvakudi village.

While the police insist that Karunakaran was part of a gang that hacked the victim, three of the co-accused claimed to The Hindu that he was in no way connected with the crime and that they were not familiar with him.

Karunakaran and his family members say that on the day of the murder, he was at home as he was suffering from ear pain. A local paramedical staff says he administered injection to Karunakaran on that day at his home. Besides, medical records reveal that he had visited the Paramakudi Government Hospital, a day before the murder, with complaints of ear pain.

“I was on leave when the murder happened and attended classes from the next day onwards. But in the small hours of Friday (four days after the murder), I was arrested by the police,” said Karunakaran. College administration acknowledged his presence in the classroom during the two days after the murder.

The jurisdictional Inspector, A John Britto, said that all the 12 accused — incidentally all are Dalits — were involved in the murder,

“The victim was involved in a scuffle with V. Devaraj, the main accused in the case, over a minor road accident, a month before he was murdered,” he said.

Karunakaran’s advocate K Muthukannan claimed that his client was detained on suspicion and there was nothing to connect him to the crime.

‘Probe by external agency’

1. Kathir, executive director of a civil liberties outfit ‘Evidence’, which is providing legal assistance to Karunakaran, has sought investigation by an external agency into the murder to bring out the truth.

However, N. Manivannan, Superintendent of Police of Ramanathapuram district, denied that Karunakaran was innocent and said that he was arrested only after investigation confirmed his involvement.

“As far as we are concerned, he is an accused in the case at this stage,” he said.

Ramanathapuram Superintendent of Police, however, said that he was arrested only after investigation confirmed his involvement

The new Indian express

Gang Goes After Nadar Outfit Boss, Hacks Cronies

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil_nadu/Gang-Goes-After-Nadar-Outfit-Boss-Hacks-Cronies/2016/03/09/article3317303.ece

THOOTHUKUDI: In a long running feud between the supporters of Venkatesh Pannaiyar, who was shot dead in a police encounter in Chennai in 2003, and slain Dalit leader Pasupathi Pandian, the latter’s men hurled country bombs targeting the former’s brother Subash Pannaiyar and his accomplices at his coconut farm in Sarvodayapuram near Palayakayal in the district on Tuesday.

Two persons – Subash Pannaiyar’s aide Arumugasamy and a barber, whose name was given as Kannan – were hacked to death thereafter by the gang. Subash Pannaiyar, President of the All India Nadar Padhukaappu Peravai, managed to escape the bomb attack with minor injuries, while Arumugasamy was singled out and murdered. They both were accused in the Pasupathi Pandian murder case and were out on bail.

According to eyewitnesses, the incident happened around 12.45 pm when a gang of 20 men whizzed past on two SUVs and high-speed bikes to the farm and hurled country bombs, scaring away the workers in the farm. Pannaiyar, who is said to have suffered minor injuries in the attack, was immediately escorted to safety by his supporters. Even as Arumugasamy was trying to take on the gang to protect his master, the gangsters picked him up, dragged him a few feet and attacked him with deadly weapons right inside Pannaiyar’s farm, police said, adding that barber Kannan, who was mistaken for Pannaiyar’s aide, was also hacked to death.

The gang, police said, severed Arumugasamy’s head, carried it with them and left it beside a board carrying Pandian’s portrait at Deivaseyalpuram en route Tirunelveli. Police recovered his torso and Kannan’s body, lying in a pool of blood at the farm, and, later, the severed head of Arumugasamy, and sent them to Thoothukudi Government Hospital for postmortem. Tirunelveli Range DIG R Dinakaran and Thoothukudi Superintendent of Police M Ashwin Kotnis inspected the scene of crime. Later, police arrested Kathiresan, one of the car drivers, at Seevalaperi.

A police source said that Pasupathi Pandian’s aides had vowed at their leader’s cemetery on his death anniversary to eliminate all those who had involved in murdering him before next January.  Pandian, founder of the Federation of Devendrakula Vellalars, was murdered outside his house in the outskirts of Dindigul on January 10, 2012.

Charged with criminal conspiracy, Subash Pannaiyar was named as the prime accused in the case, while Arumugasamy was the second accused, who is said to have executed the murder.

The tribune

Need cemeteries, not free pilgrimage: Christian leaders

http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/punjab/need-cemeteries-not-free-pilgrimage-christian-leaders/206509.html

Christian leaders in the constituency, where the community’s vote bank is pegged at a 22 per cent translating into 1.5 lakh voters, lashed out at the SAD-BJP government’s project of “Mukh Mantri Tirath Yatra” terming it a ploy to appease the Christians ahead of the assembly elections.

A train carrying 1,000 pilgrims left for Chennai today even as prominent Christian leaders termed the yatra as an “electoral pilgrimage”.

Senior Christian leaders are not happy at the SAD’s decision to send pilgrims to see one of the oldest churches in Chennai.

Kanwal Bakshi, president, United Christian Front, claimed that instead of the train they needed cemeteries in villages, 2 per cent reservation in government jobs and heritage status for 60 churches in the state built during the British regime.

“For the past several decades we have been urging the successive governments to build cemeteries in villages. But nobody is listening. Instead of running the train, the government should first address our basic problems,” Bakshi said.

“There are around 60 churches in Punjab, constructed by the British, which are nearly 150 to 200 years old. They are in a dilapidated condition and nobody is bothered about their preservation. We want the government to declare these heritage property and do the needful to safeguard them for future generations,” stated another leader Waris Masih.

Zee news

ABVP rebels burn “Manusmriti” despite JNU denying nod

http://zeenews.india.com/news/india/abvp-rebels-burn-manusmriti-despite-jnu-denying-nod_1863787.html

New Delhi: The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) rebels, who left the RSS’ student outfit citing differences over its handling of the JNU row, on Tuesday burnt a copy of the ancient legal text Manusmriti despite the varsity administration denying permission for the same.

Weeks after the controversial event against Afzal Guru’s hanging was held on campus, five ABVP rebels joined by left-backed All India Students Association (AISA) and Congress-affiliated National Students Union of India (NSUI) burnt the text at Sabarmati Dhaba, which was also the venue of the earlier event.

While three of the organisers were former ABVP office-bearers, two of them are still with the party but differ with their stand on Manusmriti.

The university authorities maintained that they had denied permission for the event and the security was briefed about the same.

“We had denied the permission for the event but in response the students submitted in writing that they will still go ahead with the event. We have got the programme videographed,” a varsity official said.

Asked about whether the varsity will consider it as an “offence” on part of student’s, the official said, “we will see tomorrow”.

Giving clear indications of rift within ABVP, Jatin Goraih, the vice president of outfit’s ABVP unit, said, “we had suggested during our party meeting to have a Manusmriti burning event to answer all the left parties’ allegations about ABVP being insensitive to the interest of dalits. But there were disagreements and the party ignored us”.

“But my conscience said I should. This is not a political cause, but a social one on the occasion of women’s day as the book has highly derogatory content about women. Since I decided to go ahead with it, the party is free to take its call whether they will expel me or not. I will not resign,” he added. Pradeep Narwal, who was ABVP’s joint secretary at the university, resigned along with Rahul Yadav and Ankit Hans, president and secretary, respectively, of the ABVP unit in the School of Social Sciences at JNU, citing differences on the two-millennia-old book and the “oppression unleashed by the government” on JNU protesters, sharpening the divide since Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula’s suicide.

Narwal yesterday narrated the “derogatory” text from the book before burning and said he was warned by teachers not to do so but he is not scared of being slapped with sedition.

“We were not allowed to conduct the event. My question to the Vice Chancellor is whether he subscribes to the thoughts propagated in Manusmriti. A teacher today told me that I should not do so as I will be charged with sedition. I am not scared of it,” he said while addressing the students.

“Asking for ‘azaadi’ from the government is not anti-national or seditious,” he said, as he shouted slogans of ‘brahamanwad murdabad’.

While students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar and general secretary Rama Naga, who have been charged with sedition in connection with the February 9 event, gave yesterday’s programme a miss, former JNUSU VP Anant Prakash was present.

Responding to the rift in the Sangh student body, JNUSU Joint Secretary Saurabh Kumar Sharma, who is the lone ABVP member in the union, said, “it is there wish, if they want to burn they can burn. We are against anti-India activities and they are trying to divert the attention from February 9 event.”

“Manusmriti has been rejected by Hindus long ago and it’s a mere book now. If they want to burn a book let them. It’s the left who don’t want us to not believe in Manusmriti,” he said.

ABVP later issued a statement, saying it believes in democratic and equal rights for all the sections of society.

“ABVP strongly supports individual rights and freedom of expression where it gives full freedom to any of its members to condemn and criticise anything to any extent unless it does not hamper the unity and integrity of India,” it said.

“The excerpts burnt by one of our activists were anti-women and anti-SC-ST and OBC. These excerpts are totally irrelevant and had received stark criticism even from Kautilya. The person who burnt these excerpts is a member of ABVP and we will continue working for the cause of nation building together in future,” it added.

The hindu

Utilisation of SC/ST sub-plans funds paltry, says study

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-andhrapradesh/utilisation-of-scst-subplans-funds-paltry-says-study/article8328973.ece

Most of the flagship programmes for which allocations worth crores of rupees have been made under Scheduled Castes Sub Plan (SCSP) and Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) have not used a single rupee so far, a study by Dalit Bahujan Resource Centre (DBRC) has revealed.

The Plan Outlay for 2016-17 for AP is Rs.550.01 crore out of which Rs.91.3 crore and Rs.47.3 crore is due to SCSP and TSP respectively.

The exhaustive study made by the centre on the allocations and expenditure of various departments, schemes, release of budgets and expenditure under SCSP 2015-2016 pointed to a disturbing trend of misuse of funds meant to be used for accelerated development of SC and ST communities.

But the study revealed that so far, not even a single rupee was spent under SCSP/TSP on flagship schemes such as Smart Cities (allocation Rs.29.26 crore), Slum Development (Rs.11.7 crore), Rural Sanitation (Rs.120.9 crore) etc.

Despite allocations worth of crores in departments such as Major Irrigation (Rs.268.5 crore), R & B (Rs.68.3 crore), the utilisation of funds was zero.

Even in State government’s schemes such as allocation of houses under Indiramma scheme, the utilisation remained paltry with just 3.43 per cent.

In spite of tall claims about incentives to SC entrepreneurs for industrial promotion, for which Rs.242.49 crore has been allotted, the percentage of utilisation is just 25 per cent, the study revealed

Few schemes such as NTR pensions to old age and widows, disabled persons, Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty have recorded 100 per cent utilisation. The silver lining though is 100 per cent utilisation of Rs.460.2 crore meant or MGNREGS.

The DBRC has come out with blue print for proper utilisation of funds and demanded that funds should be allotted to schemes which could directly benefit to SC/ST communities.

“We demand that a social audit should be held on the allocation and expenditure of funds under SCSP/TSP and also urge the government to allot the funds to the SC/ST nodal agencies, which should be empowered to allot and monitor the use of funds,” said Dalit Bahujan Resource Centre secretary Alladi Deva Kumar.

The hindu

At JNU, caste trumps Hindutva

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/at-jnu-caste-trumps-hindutva/article8328823.ece

With a sitting vice-president of the JNU unit of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the RSS’ student affiliate, burning the Manu Smriti on the campus on International Women’s Day on Tuesday, something unprecedented in the Sangh Parivar’s history happened.

While Dr. B.R. Ambedkar — who was also India’s first Law Minister — had indeed burnt the document, associating it with inequality, it was in sync with the radical Dalit politics he espoused.

But this time the challenge comes from within Hindutva — which finds Hindu traditions to be meaningful — though the challengers are already marginal within and seem to be on the verge of staging an exit.

Present with Jatin Goraya, the JNU ABVP unit vice-president, who is a Dalit from Haryana, were Pradeep Narwal and other students who have moved away from ABVP since the arrest of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar — out on bail now — under sedition law. Clearly, young Dalit leaders who had associated with Hindutva’s Dalit outreach seem to have moved away ideologically as the ABVP has clashed with the Ambedkar Students’ Association at Hyderabad University — where Rohith Vemula committed suicide — and with the Left union at the JNU.

“These are contradictions between Hindutva and Dalits surfacing in the wake of recent controversies. Hindutva does not know how much to shift its line to accommodate Dalits, who are also Ambedkarites. And young Dalits also cannot adapt to it beyond a point. This contradiction is already playing out in this case,” said Badri Narayan, who teaches social exclusion at the university.

Prof. Narayan says caste as an institution is a prime impediment to the growth of Hindutva and the contradictions between the two are beginning to surface.

Mr. Narwal told The Hindu that Mr. Goraya would quit the ABVP if the organisation did not condemn the Manu Smriti, widely seen as an “anti-Dalit” and “anti-women” text.

The Sangh Parivar, however, seems to be playing down this incident at the JNU for the moment.

ABVP Dalit leader burns ‘Manu Smriti’ which is seen as

an ‘anti-Dalit’,

‘anti-women’ text

The hindu

Decades-old group rivalry revived

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/decadesold-group-rivalry-revived/article8329195.ece

TIRUNELVELI : The gruesome murder of two persons, supporters of Subhash Pannaiyar of Moolaikkarai near Tiruchendur, at Pazhaiyakaayal has renewed the enmity between him and the followers of Dalit leader Chidambaram Pasupathi, popularly known as Pasupathi Pandian of Mela Alangaarathattu, who was killed in 2012. The enmity between Subash and supporters of Pasupathi dates back to late 1980s. A few Dalit workers employed in the farms and saltpan of Asupathi Pannaiyar, father of Subhash Pannaiyar, started agitating against the employer in the late 1980s. The protesting workers sought the help of Pasupathi, who had nurtured himself as the ‘saviour of Dalits’ by orchestrating a few attacks.

Pasupathi and his supporters murdered Asupathi Pannaiyar, Subash’s brother Venkatesa Pannaiyar of Akhila India Nadar Paathukaappu Peravai and his men unsuccessfully targeted Pasupathi in Tuticorin. After surviving the attack, Pasupathi and his supporters murdered Subash’s grandfather Sivasubramanian Pannaiyar in 1990 and two witnesses of this murder later at Tiruchendur.

Meanwhile, Pasupathi developed enmity with his relative Kasi Pandian, also from Mela Alangaarathattu. Kasi triggered a remote-controlled bomb near Murugan Theatre in Lourdammalpuram under Thoothukudi North Police Station limits when Pasupathi’s convoy was crossing, but the attack came a cropper and none was injured.

As threat to his life increased, Pasupathi shifted his base to Nandavanaththupatti in Dindigul. After his wife Jacintha, a lawyer, became a victim of the attack by a gang when he was coming to Thoothukudi to appear before a court in a case against him, Pasupathi was murdered in 2012 at Nandavanaththupatti. Ever since Pasupathi was murdered, it was anticipated that his supporters would target Subhash and the attack orchestrated on Tuesday with the motive of exterminating him resulted in the killing of his supporters.

Khaleej times

Life’s not an easy ride for this Dalit woman rickshaw driver

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/international/india/lifes-not-an-easy-ride-for-this-dalit-woman-rickshaw-driver

The travails of one of the first female auto drivers in Kerala still continue even as the state government is trying to push more women into the male-dominated profession in order to make travel safe for women.

The auto rickshaw of Chithralekha, who was forced to flee her native village in Kannur district following torture from male auto drivers allegedly belonging to the Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Centre for Indian Trade Unions (CITU) there, was attacked for the third time on the eve of the International Women’s Day.

The whole upholstery of the vehicle, including the roof, were damaged by the miscreants when she went to her ancestral home at Edatt in the northern district to collect documents related to the criminal cases slapped against her and her husband.

Though she had lodged a complaint with the Payyannur police identifying the local CPM workers responsible for the incident on Friday, they registered a case only after the woman made a representation to the district collector on Monday.

The hostility towards Chithralekha, a Dalit woman, began immediately after she hit the Edatt auto stand controlled by the CITU in 2004 with an auto rickshaw she purchased with bank loans. The CITU workers tried to chase her away by passing casteist slurs against her.

When that did not deter Chithralekha, they burnt her auto and launched a smear campaign portraying her and her mother prostitutes. The harassment continued after she returned to the Edatt stand again in 2008 with an auto bought with the help of human rights activists.

Her auto was attacked again, her house was vandalised and she and her husband beaten up. Even her 10-year-old child wasn’t spared physical assaults. When she fought back, “false cases” of violence were slapped against her and her husband, including a case of attempt to murder.

Chithralekha, who moved to Kattampilly, about 30km away from Edatt, in the wake of the torture had gone to the house she left for collecting documents related to one of these cases.

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had promised to get the cases reviewed following a month-long agitation she staged in front of the state secretariat at Thiruvananthapuram in January this year.

Chitralekha had also staged a 122-day long sit-in agitation in front of Kannur collectorate last year, demanding protection from CPM workers. Following this the government had allotted her a plot of land at Kattampilly to build a house.

Chithralekha initially thought that the attack on her was prompted by the loss of business the male auto drivers suffered after she hit the roads. However, she later realised that they were intolerant towards her because of her lower caste status.

A solidarity mission commissioned by Feminists Kerala Network to probe one of the attacks on Chithralekha and her husband has confirmed her fear. The mission led by Professor Gail Omvedt concluded that the intolerance towards the Dalit woman was a ritualistic part of the untouchability practiced in the region even today.

The mission’s fact-finding report said Chithralekha’s travails were the result of a fascist atmosphere created by the CPM in the area. The party has been controlling Edatt as a party village, enforcing its writ over the people living there.

The party has several such villages in Kannur district.

“The CPM exists and thrives in these places through the use of such power over the entire people in these villages. Anyone who questions the party or goes against its wishes is harassed, alienated, ostracized and sometimes even killed,” the mission report said.

News monitored by AMRESH & AJEET

Dalits Media Watch – News Updates 08.03.16

 

15-year-old girl ‘raped and set on fire’ battles for life with 95 per cent burns – Nyoooz

http://www.nyoooz.com/delhi/382568/15yearold-girl-raped-and-set-on-fire-battles-for-life-with-95-per-cent-burns

Dalit Beaten To Death In U.P., Crimes Against The Community Only Show Rise Since 2013 – Youth ki awaz

http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2016/03/dalit-man-killed-in-uttar-pradesh/

Arraigned in murder case, Dalit boy drops out of college – The hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/arraigned-in-murder-case-dalit-youth-drops-out-of-college/article8325457.ece?css=print

HC rejects petitions of expelled Dalit students – The hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/hc-rejects-petitions-of-expelled-dalit-students/article8325593.ece

ABVP rift widens: VP of JNU unit will burn Manusmriti copy today – Catch news

http://www.catchnews.com/national-news/abvp-rift-widens-vp-of-jnu-unit-will-burn-manusmriti-copy-today-1457403356.html

For the women – The Kathmandu post

http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2016-03-08/for-the-women.html

 

Please Watch:

Supreme Court Justice Asok Ganguly vs Anupam Kher | The Telegraph National Debate 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSEr5STAq_0

Anupam Kher’s Controversial Speech at The Telegraph National Debate 2016 on 05 Mar 2016 at Kolkatta

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV7Er7vjMDQ

 

Barkha Dutt Countered Anupam Kher at The Telegraph National Debate 2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXXQbx4ot0o&feature=share

 

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Nyoooz

15-year-old girl ‘raped and set on fire’ battles for life with 95 per cent burns

http://www.nyoooz.com/delhi/382568/15yearold-girl-raped-and-set-on-fire-battles-for-life-with-95-per-cent-burns

Summary: Doctors at Safdarjung Hospital said the girl was brought with around 95 per cent thermal burns and a history of sexual assault. She is battling for life at Safdarjung Hospital with 95 per cent burn injuries. (Express Photo: Gajendra Yadav)A 15-year-old girl was allegedly raped and set ablaze on the terrace of her house in a village in Gautam Buddh Nagar district in the early hours Monday, said police. “Our priority is to control the spread of infection in her blood which can lead to multi-organ failure and be life threatening. Poonam Dhanda, PRO of Safdarjung Hospital, said, “Doctors are trying their best to control the spread of infection.” Doctors said she was referred after initial treatment at a local government hospital.

Police deployed at the village. (Express Photo: Gajendra Yadav) Police deployed at the village. (Express Photo: Gajendra Yadav) A 15-year-old girl was allegedly raped and set ablaze on the terrace of her house in a village in Gautam Buddh Nagar district in the early hours Monday, said police.

She is battling for life at Safdarjung Hospital with 95 per cent burn injuries. A 20-year-old man from the village has been picked up for questioning in the case, said police. Doctors at Safdarjung Hospital said the girl was brought with around 95 per cent thermal burns and a history of sexual assault. Doctors said she continued to be extremely critical at about 8.30 pm in the burns ICU. “There are around 95 per cent burns across her body.

Youth ki awaz

Dalit Beaten To Death In U.P.

, Crimes Against The Community Only Show Rise Since 2013

http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2016/03/dalit-man-killed-in-uttar-pradesh/

A Dalit man was beaten to death in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh on March 7, due to “old enmity”, said Superintendent of Police Manoj Kumar Jha. The 55-year-old man was killed in Chachya village, in Nagra area. Maliram was attacked with sticks by the assailants and he died on the spot, they said.

An FIR has been registered in this regard and police are trying to catch the culprits.

Reports suggest that incidents of atrocities against Dalits have registered a spike since the current government under PM Narendra Modi came to power.

Last month, a Dalit man was singed to death in UP.

In October last year, an elderly Dalit man was beaten to death for trying to enter a temple in Hamirpur, Uttar Pradesh.

In November 2015, a Dalit man was beaten to death for “gate-crashing” a marriage party.

With the government already under fire since Rohith Vemula, a Dalit student from Hyderabad Central University, committed suicide, such incidents mar its reputation even more as being insensitive to the plight of the marginalised sections of the country. Union minister V.K. Singh also faced a lot of flak after he compared a similar incident in Haryana last year to pelting stones at dogs.

A stricter vigil on such issues is expected as one of the remedial measures from both, the state and the central governments.

The hindu

Arraigned in murder case, Dalit boy drops out of college

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/arraigned-in-murder-case-dalit-youth-drops-out-of-college/article8325457.ece?css=print

A Dalit youth in Ramanathapuram district has discontinued education after being “falsely” arraigned in a murder case and jailed for 65 days. The youth, M Karunakaran (21), a student of the Government Polytechnic College near Melur, was among the 12 accused arrested by the Paramakudi police in November last, in connection with the murder of a BJP functionary, C. Ramesh, near Thenpoduvakudi village.

While the police insist that Karunakaran was part of a gang that hacked the victim, three of the co-accused claimed to The Hindu that he was in no way connected with the crime and that they were not familiar with him.

Karunakaran and his family members say that on the day of the murder, he was at home as he was suffering from ear pain.

A local paramedical staff says he administered injection to Karunakaran on that day at his home. Besides, medical records reveal that he had visited the Paramakudi Government Hospital, a day before the murder, with complaints of ear pain.

“I was on leave when the murder happened and attended classes from the next day onwards. But in the small hours of Friday (four days after the murder), I was arrested by the police,” said Karunakaran. College administration acknowledged his presence in the classroom during the two days after the murder.

The jurisdictional Inspector, A John Britto, said that all the 12 accused — incidentally all are Dalits — were involved in the murder,

“The victim was involved in a scuffle with V. Devaraj, the main accused in the case, over a minor road accident, a month before he was murdered,” he said.

Karunakaran’s advocate K Muthukannan claimed that his client was detained on suspicion and there was nothing to connect him to the crime.

1. Kathir, executive director of a civil liberties outfit ‘Evidence’, which is providing legal assistance to Karunakaran, has sought investigation by an external agency into the murder to bring out the truth.

However, N. Manivannan, Superintendent of Police of Ramanathapuram district, denied that Karunakaran was innocent and said that he was arrested only after investigation confirmed his involvement. “As far as we are concerned, he is an accused in the case at this stage,” he said.

The hindu

HC rejects petitions of expelled Dalit students

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/hc-rejects-petitions-of-expelled-dalit-students/article8325593.ece

Expressing serious concern over even educational institutions not having been spared from caste and communal clashes, the Madras High Court Bench here has refused to interfere with the expulsion of three Dalit students from an arts college for having allegedly assaulted a Caste Hindu student with deadly weapons.

Dismissing writ petitions filed by final year B.A. (Economics) students K. Raja, S. Premkumar and B. Ranjithkumar who were expelled from Sree Sevugan Annamalai College in Sivaganga district, Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana lamented the increasing number of caste and communal clashes taking place between students.

Action was taken against them for alleged assault of a Caste Hindu student

Catch news

ABVP rift widens: VP of JNU unit will burn Manusmriti copy today

http://www.catchnews.com/national-news/abvp-rift-widens-vp-of-jnu-unit-will-burn-manusmriti-copy-today-1457403356.html

The rift between members of the right wing students’ organisation ABVP over the Manusmriti, the ancient text that outlines the laws of India’s caste system and the status of women in society, widened on 7 March when the vice president of the ABVP’s JNU unit announced that he would burn a copy of the text on the occasion of International Women’s Day.

“We will symbolically burn the Manusmriti to protest against what it says on Dalits and women,” said Jatin Goraya, a final-year bachelor’s student of Russian studies.

Members of the ABVP at JNU have exhibited signs of disunity since three office bearers resigned over what they called “the oppression unleashed by the government” on students of the university ever since the Delhi Police charged six students including JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar with sedition. The suicide of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula at Hyderabad Central University in January also contributed to the divergence of opinion among ABVP members on the Manusmriti, according to The Telegraph.

While Goraya is uncertain if he will resign too, he said: “We have an ideological difference on the Manusmriti with the ABVP…. They were not of the opinion that we should burn it.

The Kathmandu post

For the women

http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2016-03-08/for-the-women.html

Mar 8, 2016- Over the last decade, women from historically marginalised groups such as Dalits, Madhesis and Adivasi Janajatis have consistently stressed the importance of recognising diversity among Nepali women. Yet the “mainstream” women’s movement, which shapes the discourse of women in Nepal, has failed to include their voices. In most cases, the exclusion is deliberate. Here I will give just one among numerous examples to illustrate this.

Dev Rai, who hails from a village in Sankhuwasabha, has been actively involved in indigenous people’s issues for the last 12 years. He now lives and works in Kathmandu. In 2009, he was working as a programme manager at a reputed NGO that champions the rights of women. The election to the first Constituent Assembly had just ended. For the first time in Nepal’s history, the political environment seemed somewhat favourable for raising the issues of marginalised groups. He thought the time was right for the NGO to carry out activities specifically targeted for indigenous women.

Like most indigenous women activists, Rai believes that problems faced by Nepali women differ in nature and magnitude depending on their caste or ethnic identity. With this in mind, he designed 19 “pilot activities” targeted for Danuwar women in Udayapur district, an area where the NGO had been working for some time. The activities aimed at increasing Danuwar women’s knowledge about their cultural and economic rights. Rai meticulously prepared the “logframe” for the activities and developed the “output, results, and verifiable indicator”. He knew the budget was not a constraint because the NGO had adequate funding for “women empowerment”. Once the project activities were completed, he hoped to deliver trainings for men as well as non-indigenous women in those areas to familiarise them with the multi-layered challenges faced by Danuwar women. He strongly believed (and still does) that understanding and empathising with the experiences of marginalised peoples strengthens rather than disrupts social harmony.

One among many

In short, there was nothing radical about Rai’s proposed activities. It was well in accordance with the accepted norms and practices of the NGO world. The only difference was that the activities were aimed at women from a highly marginalised community.

But when he laid out his plans before the NGO head, she scrapped his proposal without asking for an explanation. Rai was told that such activities would lead to “division” and “conflict” within the community. When he tried to explain his rationale, he was made to appear like a tribal-minded extremist. The NGO head, who belonged to a privileged caste group, loftily suggested that he rise above communal loyalties and focus on working for “all Nepali women”.

Two months later, the NGO organised a five-day “strategic planning meeting” at the Godavari Resort. National and international experts and intellectuals were invited to the meeting. One of the sessions was devoted to conducting a SWOT analysis of the NGO—a commonly used method for evaluating the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats faced by an organisation. The team identified “identity politics and fundamentalists” as the biggest threats to the NGO. The NGO head argued that such threats weaken the women’s movement and need to be contained. Rai had become a “threat” for having raised the issue of marginalised indigenous women. A month later, he handed in his resignation letter where he clearly elaborated his reasons for quitting.

Rai laments that not a single colleague stood up for him. The few colleagues who belonged to the marginalised groups sympathised with him in private but did not dare openly support him. This did not surprise him though. He knew that the rare Janajati, Madhesi or Dalit who works in an I/NGO (or any “mainstream” organisation for that matter) must exercise a degree of self-censorship to avoid offending their seniors or colleagues. Vastly outnumbered by high caste people, the Janajati, Dalit or Madhesi in such organisations can only “fit in” by pretending that identity does not matter. Those who complain that the Janajatis and Dalits are taking away all their jobs would do well to check the ethnic composition of most organisations in Kathmandu. Such tokenistic representation of marginalised groups is helpful only insofar that it allows organisations to tick the right boxes and attract more funding.

Long way ahead

And yet the pernicious myth prevails that inclusion is a “donor funded” agenda. Many women activists from the marginalised groups can barely articulate themselves in Nepali. How can they even begin to compete with those who have mastered the language of donors? A 2012 report titled ‘Rights, Share and Claims: Realising Women’s Rights in South Asia’ by South Asian Women’s Fund stated, “Large ‘mainstream’ women’s organisations receive the lion’s share of funding, due to their personal connections with donors (attributed to their upper caste, English speaking privileges) and their greater accessibility to donors.” By contrast, the report adds, organisations run by women from marginalised communities are the “worst off among women’s organisations” in terms of receiving funding.

A remark by Meena Acharya, a well-known economist and women rights activist, encapsulates the “mainstream” attitude toward the demands of marginalised women. In a 2010 paper titled ‘Diversity and Unity of Feminist Movement in Nepal’,  Acharya writes that “…ethnic women’s movement [is] guided primarily by the ideology of revenge for their past oppression, rather than by a vision of a truly democratic, equitable and just state and society.” It is unfortunate that a widely respected feminist like Acharya views the aspirations of marginalised women through such a narrow and twisted lens. Clearly, the so-called mainstream women movement has a long way to go before it can claim to represent “all Nepali women”.

News monitored by AMRESH & AJEET

Dalits Media Watch – News Updates 07.03.16

 

SC/ST Act Slapped on Two Namakkal Schoolboys – The new Indian express

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil_nadu/SCST-Act-Slapped-on-Two-Namakkal-Schoolboys/2016/03/07/article3313939.ece

Vemula impact: UGC wakes up to caste-based discrimination on campuses – Dna

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-vemula-impact-ugc-wakes-up-to-caste-based-discrimination-on-campuses-2186273

Harassment of Dalit Student: Preliminary Report in 2 Weeks – The new Indian express

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/Harassment-of-Dalit-Student-Preliminary-Report-in-2-Weeks/2016/03/07/article3314486.ece

Didn’t say anything objectionable, stand by remarks: Katheria – Nyoooz

http://www.nyoooz.com/agra/380157/didnt-say-anything-objectionable-stand-by-remarks58-katheria

Dalits, adivasis get raw deal in Budget – The times of india

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Dalits-adivasis-get-raw-deal-in-Budget/articleshow/51283450.cms

BJP ex-MLA booked for Dalit atrocities – Nyoooz

http://www.nyoooz.com/delhi/380907/bjp-exmla-booked-for-dalit-atrocities

Rohith’s suicide, JNU row unites Left and Dalit students all over India – Catch news

http://www.catchnews.com/social-sector/rohith-s-suicide-jnu-row-unites-left-and-dalit-students-all-over-india-1457325065.html

 

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The new Indian express

SC/ST Act Slapped on Two Namakkal Schoolboys

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil_nadu/SCST-Act-Slapped-on-Two-Namakkal-Schoolboys/2016/03/07/article3313939.ece

NAMAKKAL: With Dalit outfits raising a hue and cry over the death of a Dalit boy after he was allegedly assaulted by two of his schoolmates, the police have registered a case under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act.

The Thiruchengode Rural police initially registered an FIR under sections 323 and 341 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against the two accused, following a complaint from the victim’s mother Pappathi on Friday. Subsequently, the case was altered to section 302 (murder) of the IPC on Saturday after the 10-year-old boy succumbed to his injuries.

However, his mother lodged a fresh complaint on Sunday, alleging that he was subject to caste-based verbal abuse by the duo.

“We booked the two children under section 3 (2) (v) (a) of SC/ST (POA) Amendment Act on Sunday after receiving a fresh complaint from the mother of the deceased,” Inspector S Lakshmanakumar told Express.

The victim, a student of the Panchayat Union Middle School in Kozhikkalnatham, was said to have been roughed up by the two accused, both of whom belong to upper caste communities, after he questioned them as to why they had stolen his geometry box.

“My son swooned on the bed that evening. When I asked him what was wrong, he told me that he was assaulted by the two kids at school, Pappathi recalled.

“I took him to the Sankagiri Government Hospital, where he underwent an X-ray. The physician there had assured me that there was nothing to worry about,” she said.

She then took her son to Salem to attend a temple festival, where the boy continued to show signs of weakness and exhaustion.

“After my son vomitted blood, I took him to the Government Mohan Kumaramangalam Medical College Hospital and the doctors told me there was a blood clot in his brain and that his condition was serious,” said Pappathi, Refusing to accept the child’s body following his death, his mother and her relatives, backed by the Dalit Sena, approached Namakkal Collector V Dakshinamoorthy and implored him to take steps to register a case under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against the assailants.

DNA

Vemula impact: UGC wakes up to caste-based discrimination on campuses

http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-vemula-impact-ugc-wakes-up-to-caste-based-discrimination-on-campuses-2186273

The University Grants Commission (UGC), it seems, has finally woken up from slumber and taken note of caste-based discrimination on campuses.

In a circular dated March 1, it has directed all vice-chancellors to ensure that there are no such complaints henceforth. It also said that officials and faculty should desist from any act of discrimination against SC/ST students, on grounds of their social origin.

This is the first ‘acknowledgment’ of the menace, on part of the apex higher education body, ever since the suicide of Dalit researcher Rohith Vemula at Hyderabad Central University rocked the country.

The UGC further directed all higher educational institutions to develop a web page for lodging complaints of caste bias. Also a complaint register should be maintained in the office of the registrar or principal for the purpose. “If any incident comes to the notice of the authorities, action should be taken against the erring official/faculty members promptly,” the circular said.

“Officials/faculty members …should be more sensitive while dealing with such incidents of caste discrimination,” it said, referring to old directives issued in 2011 and 2013 to this effect.

Dalit organisations have welcomed the move. “Better late than never. Hope this initiative will encourage SC/ST students come forward and lodge harassment plaints,” said Sanjay Vairal, head of an Dalit student outfit in Mumbai.

“It remains to be seen whether universities will promptly act on such plaints or, like the anti-harassment cell for women, it would remain on paper only,” he said.

Students, however, are cautious of the move. “Caste-based remarks, direct and indirect humiliation, exclusions.. all still exist in public universities and IITs. However, victims don’t come forward to make formal complaint for fear of their career,” said an IIT Bombay student.

Rohith Vemula, who committed suicide in January, was earlier expelled from the varsity and hostel over allegations of violent attack on an ABVP leader. The ABVP leader had then approached Union labour minister Bandaru Duttatrey who reportedly asked the Ministry of Human Resource Development to take stringent action on Vemula and three other students for “anti-national” activities.

While Vemula’s supporters claim he was punished hard because of his caste, ABVP insists he was part of extreme left groups, and engaged in “anti-national” activities such as supporting Afzal Guru.

As many as 12 scheduled caste students have ended their lives in Hyderabad Central University alone, since it came into existence in the early 1970s, according to the Ambedkar Students’ Association.

The new Indian express

Harassment of Dalit Student: Preliminary Report in 2 Weeks

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/Harassment-of-Dalit-Student-Preliminary-Report-in-2-Weeks/2016/03/07/article3314486.ece

THRISSUR:  Kerala Agricultural University(KAU) panel, constituted to look into the complaint filed by Dalit PhD research scholar T Rajesh who alleged caste discrimination, ill-treatment and mental harassment from the part of advisory committee, will submit the preliminary report in two week’s time.

“I am under severe stress and agony over the discrimination and ill-treatment I have faced from the side of advisory committee. I am compelled to follow the footsteps of my brother, the late Rohit Vemula, a victim of casteism at Central University Hyderabad,” his complaint said.

A three-member panel consisting of Academic Director Dr T E George, Dean, College of Forestry, Vidyasagar and Associate Dean of College of Corporation and Banking, Dr A Sukumaran, has been constituted to look into the incident.

“All arrangements have been made to facilitate submission of his thesis in two months time. The probe will be based on the reasons for his delay in thesis submission. But a more serious enquiry will be launched to look into the casteism angle,” said University Registrar P V Balachandran.

In his complaint, a copy of which was accessed by ‘Express’, the scholar noted that he had completed BSc(Ag) and MSc(Ag) from TNAU with two subject gold medals. “I had completed the research work and submitted a draft copy to Dr V V Radhakrishnan, Chairman of Advisory Committee, on 01/05/2014. He returned the draft copy after making the corrections,” he said.

He noted that other members of the advisory committee had done the same, except one, who declined to accept his draft thesis copy.

“After superannuation of Dr V V Radhakrishnan, no one was appointed in his place. Meanwhile, Dr Ambili S Nair, a member of committee, also left the service. The advisory committee had met and reviewed the progress of other research scholars periodically. In my case, the committee had met only three times. The committee should have met at least 10 times. I am qualified for the award of degree. I belong to a poor scheduled caste family. I have completed my academic requirements successfully in the face of greatest pains and heavy monetary expenses beyond capacity of my family,” he noted.

Nyoooz

Didn’t say anything objectionable, stand by remarks: Katheria

http://www.nyoooz.com/agra/380157/didnt-say-anything-objectionable-stand-by-remarks58-katheria

Summary: Mayawati has destroyed the efforts of Kanshi Ram and Ambedkar for creating awareness in the Dalit community. AGRA: Member of Parliament from Agra, Ram Shankar Katheria defended his statement given after the murder of a VHP member from the city. “Katheria also demanded the resignation of UP CM Akhilesh Yadav, holding him responsible for the deteriorating law and order situation of the state. “SP has lost the moral right to stay in government,” he added. He denied the alleged hate speech as reported by various newspapers asserting that he never said anything objectionable and was simply demanding justice for the aggrieved family.In his press conference that also appeared like the build up for the upcoming state assembly elections, Katheria attacked the ruling SP government for the deplorable law and order situation in the state.

AGRA: Member of Parliament from Agra, Ram Shankar Katheria defended his statement given after the murder of a VHP member from the city. He denied the alleged hate speech as reported by various newspapers asserting that he never said anything objectionable and was simply demanding justice for the aggrieved family.In his press conference that also appeared like the build up for the upcoming state assembly elections, Katheria attacked the ruling SP government for the deplorable law and order situation in the state. The minister who himself is a Dalit targeted BSP leader Mayawati, calling her a “trader of Dalit votes” who has exploited the community for her personal gains.The minister asserted the fact that murdered Agra University staffer Satyendra Jatav too was from the Dalit community and dared Mayawati to visit his aggrieved family instead of giving statements against his speech.It is to be noted that in the upcoming state elections Mayawati is seen as a strong contender considering the anti-incumbency factors working against the ruling Samajwadi Party.

BJP’s strong performance in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections have failed to yield similar results in the assembly elections in Delhi and Bihar and hence Uttar Pradesh elections are going to be crucial for the party. Dalit votes could be the key to the party’s performance in the state and this was evident from the minister’s attacks on the BSP supremo.Accusing Mayawati of “indifference” for failing to condole the murders of Arun Mahor and Jatav by meeting the members of both families, the minister said, “The Dalit community understands that she is neither a Dalit any longer, nor are her brother or family members true representatives of the community. Mayawati has destroyed the efforts of Kanshi Ram and Ambedkar for creating awareness in the Dalit community.”Katheria also demanded the resignation of UP CM Akhilesh Yadav, holding him responsible for the deteriorating law and order situation of the state.

The times of india

Dalits, adivasis get raw deal in Budget

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Dalits-adivasis-get-raw-deal-in-Budget/articleshow/51283450.cms

Dalit and Adivasi groups have expressed disappointment at the continued deficit in earmarking of funds for these two deprived communities in this year’s Union Budget. An analysis of budgetary allocation by the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights showed that, like in past years, instead of earmarking 16.6% funds for Dalits, only 7% has been earmarked. Similarly, only 4.36% has been specifically kept aside for adivasis, instead of the required 8.6%.

These earmarking policies called Scheduled Caste Sub Plan (SCSP) and Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) were started in the late 1970s. They are meant to ensure that spending by various ministries and departments should have a specific component meant for Dalits and adivasis in proportion to their population shares, which are 16.6% and 8.6% respectively. The Budget has separately given Rs 500 cr each for Dalits and adivasis under ‘Start Up India’.

“We need to move beyond the optics. The first step is to allocate the money that is in proportion to the population,” said N Paul Divakar of the NCDHR.

The finance ministry had grouped 292 schemes under SCSP and 303 under TSP. But an analysis done by NCDHR showed that only 26 schemes related to Dalits and 22 related to adivasis have direct relevance to the communities.

An example of schemes with no direct impact on Dalits is the allocation of Rs 897 cr for the UGC, shows the analysis. About 60% of the allocation was for creating capital assets under the two sub plans and 30% was grants in aid for institutions. Only 8% was spent on fellowships, scholarships and hostels.

Divakar said that plans like Indira Awas Yojana for rural housing, matric scholarships or self-employment scheme for manual scavengers are beneficial because the targeted persons are accounted for individually.

While 86% of funds allocated to Dalits and adivasis are for ‘survival’ related schemes only 27% funds flow to real development related measures. The Center for Budget and Governance Accountability says changes in fiscal policies like restructuring of centrally sponsored schemes, finance commission recommendations and the proposal to scrap the Plan/Non-Plan differentiation will have marked impact on these earmarking policies.

Nyoooz

BJP ex-MLA booked for Dalit atrocities

http://www.nyoooz.com/delhi/380907/bjp-exmla-booked-for-dalit-atrocities

Summary: While leaving from the programme, Kumar said, Jha got into an argument, abused him and used derogatory words against his community. According to the complaint, Jha and his supporters had allegedly attacked Kumar during a programme at a school in outer Delhi. NEW DELHI: An FIR under sections of prevention of atrocities against scheduled castes and scheduled tribes has been registered against former BJP MLA Anil Jha on a complaint filed by Sanjay Kumar, who claims to be the personal assistant of BJP MP Udit Raj. Meanwhile, the MP denied any knowledge of the incident and said he did not know Kumar. According to Kumar, the incident took place on February 28.

NEW DELHI: An FIR under sections of prevention of atrocities against scheduled castes and scheduled tribes has been registered against former BJP MLA Anil Jha on a complaint filed by Sanjay Kumar, who claims to be the personal assistant of BJP MP Udit Raj. According to the complaint, Jha and his supporters had allegedly attacked Kumar during a programme at a school in outer Delhi. According to Kumar, the incident took place on February 28. While leaving from the programme, Kumar said, Jha got into an argument, abused him and used derogatory words against his community.

He added he was trying to push Jha out of the way when his associates attacked him. Meanwhile, the MP denied any knowledge of the incident and said he did not know Kumar. Jha also claimed that he was unaware of any such FIR against him.

Catch news

Rohith’s suicide, JNU row unites Left and Dalit students all over India

http://www.catchnews.com/social-sector/rohith-s-suicide-jnu-row-unites-left-and-dalit-students-all-over-india-1457325065.html

University and college campuses in India are seeing more unity between opposing student unions than ever before thanks to the issues of the suicide of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula and the nationalism-sedition controversy at JNU. Some colleges that never had a student body before are also now creating them.

In JNU, from where Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar was charged with sedition together with seven other students with various political ideologies after an event was organised on campus on 9 February, where anti-national slogans were allegedly raised, Leftist student organisations such as the Students Federation of India, All India Students Federation and the All India Students Association are now working together with Dalit group, Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students Association (Bapsa).

The All India Students Association and All India Students Federation members were the first in JNU to protest discrimination against Dalits after Rohith’s suicide on 17 January, and Bapsa members participated in rallies organised by their one-time rivals to protest the government and police crackdown on JNU.

“We still have ideological differences but have decided to join hands on common issues. It’s not a permanent union,” said Manikanta, a Bapsa leader.”.the recent association is aimed at fighting the Right-wing forces, which are on a mission to destroy institutions.

News monitored by AMRESH & AJEET

Dalits Media Watch – News Updates 06.03.16

News Digest: Questions over dead man’s ‘potency’ delay gangrape trial – Ibn7 live

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india/news-digest-questions-over-dead-mans-potency-delay-gangrape-trial-1212456.html

Severe water crisis hits dalit village in Odisha – Odisha sun times

http://odishasuntimes.com/2016/03/05/severe-water-crisis-in-dalit-village-in-odisha/

Rohith Vemula-Kanhaiya Kumar link irks BJP as it brushes caste under the flag – The Indian express

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/rohith-kanhaiya-link-irks-bjp-as-it-brushes-caste-under-the-flag/

Mango man and his democracy – Meri news

http://www.merinews.com/article/mango-man-and-his-democracy/15914170.shtml

Minister stresses proper use of funds for facilities in Dalit areas – Nyoooz

http://www.nyoooz.com/aurangabad/380572/minister-stresses-proper-use-of-funds-for-facilities-in-dalit-areas

Poetry of resistance- Nyoooz

http://www.nyoooz.com/kochi/380310/poetry-of-resistance

UP parties eye university polls – The aisan age

http://www.asianage.com/india/parties-eye-university-polls-733

A Right-Wing Wrap Around Nationalism – Tehalka.com

http://www.tehelka.com/2016/03/a-right-wing-wrap-around-nationalism/

OPP RAISES DALIT VICTIM’S ISSUE IN UP ASSEMBLY – The pioneer

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/opp-raises-dalit-victims-issue-in-up-assembly.html

First book on Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula released in Malayalam – The aisan age

http://www.asianage.com/india/first-book-dalit-scholar-rohith-vemula-released-malayalam-884

Please Watch:

History of Caste Politics in Bengal Part 1 (Till 1950s)–Prof Sarbani Bandyopadhyay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jE7_mp_0jg

Caste in West Bengal Part 2: MarichjhNapi, and the Deep-rooted Casteism of Left Front Bhadraloks

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PqhAaE9TJ8

 

URGENT APPEAL ! Please contribute to

PMARC: Dalits Media Wacth !

Ibn7 live

News Digest: Questions over dead man’s ‘potency’ delay gangrape trial

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india/news-digest-questions-over-dead-mans-potency-delay-gangrape-trial-1212456.html

The verdict in the gangrape of a Danish tourist in Delhi has been held up by a peculiar request — the court-appointed lawyer of one of the nine accused, now dead, wants him declared impotent and, thereby, innocent.

The state had withdrawn the case against Shyam Lal after his death. But his lawyer, Dinesh Sharma, is insistent that the court recall witnesses to testify on a medical report stating that the 55-year-old was impotent. Additional sessions judge Rakesh Kumar will now hear an application filed by Sharma on March 8, the Hindustan Times reported.

2. You are wasting public money, government tells PSU bank bosses

The government has read the riot act to chiefs of state-run banks, asking them to shape up and take decisive action to rework the public sector banking landscape, which accounts for nearly 70% of the financial market.

During a closed-door meeting at Gyan Sangam, an an nual retreat to strategise, minister of state for finance Jayant Sinha on Friday accused bank bosses of sitting in their “ivory towers“ and not even reassuring their employees at a time when the state-run lenders were going through the most difficult time in over a decade, the Times of India reported.

The message was the sternest in recent months and came after a series of steps -from reworking the appointments process to a recapitalisation roadmap -have had little impact so far.

3. Ice-cream vendors to get smart cards

The New Delhi Municipal Council has launched a special drive to issue smart cards to street vendors in New Delhi. Ice-cream vendors will be the first to get such cards.

The council aims to regulate the activities of vendors and check related traffic nuisance at public parks, markets, commercial places and footpaths, the Hindustan Times reported.

4. Rohith-Kanhaiya link irks BJP as it brushes caste under the flag

When JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar spoke of caste inequality and called Rohith Vemula his “icon” after his release on bail for sedition, he didn’t have to connect the dots for his audience.

Kanhaiya’s arrest in JNU came just short of a month after the Dalit student committed suicide in his room on the Hyderabad Central University campus. Like Kanhaiya, Rohith had also been labelled “anti-national” — for having demonstrated, under the banner of the Ambedkar Students Association (ASA), against the death penalty to Yakub Memon. The ABVP’s fingerprints are visible in both episodes — it invited the government into its face-off with the ASA, even as it first raised the flag, or alarm, over the February 9 meeting in JNU, the Indian Express reported.

5. Jat violence like 1984 riots: Sukhbir Badal

Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal has compared the recent violence for Jat reservation in Haryana to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots. In an exclusive interview to the Times of India, he has also said that such riots have continued in the country because the perpetrators of the 1984 violence were not booked and given exemplary punishment. He even hinted that the Haryana government was not doing enough.

Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh had recently commented that non Jats, especially Punjabis, were targeted during the violence in Haryana and Shiromani Akali Dal had remained a mute spectator.

6. Soon, Stanford University quality check for desi engineers

The government wants to run a quality check on engineering students to sharpen their skills before they graduate.

The human resource development ministry is engaging Stanford University to design a capsule test to measure learning outcomes of engineering students, the Hindustan Times reported. The test is likely to be introduced by the end of this year.

7. Exam centre 15km away, victim’s kin says girl will be traumatised again

“My daughter cannot take the examinations,” said Nalanda rape victims’ father as he fished out her admit card that had arrived on Saturday morning.

“Her exam centre is Sohsarai Kisan College which is 15 kilometres away. Do they expect me to go there with my daughter and make a tamasha (spectacle) of her with 10 police guards following us… How would the boys…? What will I do of the catcalls and teasing?… She (my daughter) will forget whatever she studied,” he told the Hindustan Times reported.

8. Bags, pens & T-shirts to swing Bengal voters Gone are the days when candidates banked on door-to-door campaigning or mass rallies to reach out to the electorate. With the announcement of the Bengal polls on Friday, Trinamool Congress candidates are raring to go all out to woo voters. Many of the veteran politicians and heavyweights have already made a pitch to come up with innovative poll memorabilia, from umbrellas to pocket calendars and T-shirts to name a few.

Trying to limit the expenditure within the allocation limit set by the EC, Chandrima Bhattacharyya, who is contesting from North Dumdum, may place an order for umbrellas with the TMC emblem and her name on it, the Times of India reported.

9. Only two state-run buses for every 10 lakh people in Bihar For every 10 lakh people in Bihar, on average just two governmentrun buses were available in 2014-15. In Odisha 11, and in West Bengal 22, such buses were available for a million people. This is the reality, even as governments have repeatedly vowed to improve public transport so that it is within reach of the last man in a village.

There are some states which have bucked the trend -Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Himachal Pardesh. They have more government buses serving people and reaching out to far-off villages where private players are scarce since these are loss making routes.

10. Pakistan man, ‘missing’ since 2007 Samjhauta blasts, set to leave Punjab jail Eight years after Pakistani national Muhammad Irfan was recorded as “missing” in the wake of the 2007 Samjhauta Express bombings, he may be released from Amritsar Central Jail. Pakistani officials visited his family, settled in Sargodha district of Pakistan Punjab, last Tuesday seeking details to ascertain his identity to secure his release in India.

According to the Indian Express, a diploma student in computer hardware, Muhammad Irfan, then 28, had come to New Delhi for some purchases in connection with his studies. He had boarded the Samjhauta Express to go back, travelling on ticket number 391734 from Delhi to Attari, when blasts had ripped through the train on the intervening night of February 18-19, 2007, leaving 69 dead.

Odisha sun times

Severe water crisis hits dalit village in Odisha

http://odishasuntimes.com/2016/03/05/severe-water-crisis-in-dalit-village-in-odisha/

Ghasidiha village in Banapur block, under  Deogaon panchayat area in Khurda district of Odisha is facing severe water crisis.

The dalit village of more than 2500 residents has only five tube wells, out of which three are not working.

The two tube well are insufficient in fulfilling the needs of the villagers, therefore villagers are dependant on the village pond for their water requirements.

The village pond is very polluted but they are forced to drink the unhygienic  water. Appeals by the villagers to clean the pond has fallen on deaf ears.

Since the maintenance of tube wells and water bodies is under the Panchayat, when the Deogaon sarpanch Akshya Behera was asked he said he will immediately look into the matter.

“We will do the work in war footing if people complain,” panchayat sarpanch said.

The Indian express

Rohith Vemula-Kanhaiya Kumar link irks BJP as it brushes caste under the flag

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/rohith-kanhaiya-link-irks-bjp-as-it-brushes-caste-under-the-flag/

When JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar spoke of caste inequality and called Rohith Vemula his “icon” after his release on bail for sedition, he didn’t have to connect the dots for his audience.

Kanhaiya’s arrest in JNU came just short of a month after the Dalit student committed suicide in his room on the Hyderabad Central University campus. Like Kanhaiya, Rohith had also been labelled “anti-national” — for having demonstrated, under the banner of the Ambedkar Students Association (ASA), against the death penalty to Yakub Memon. The ABVP’s fingerprints are visible in both episodes — it invited the government into its face-off with the ASA, even as it first raised the flag, or alarm, over the February 9 meeting in JNU.

As Kanhaiya and Rohith get twinned in the political discourse, what is also becoming visible is this: This linkage is causing discomfort in the BJP-ABVP.

In conversations with the rank and file of the BJP-ABVP in UP, in Varanasi, Ayodhya-Faizabad and Muzaffarnagar, The Sunday Express found that those who are aggressively using the JNU episode to draw harder lines between “Us” the “desh bhakts” and “Them” the “desh drohis”, downplay, at the same time, the reality of caste discrimination that Rohith wrote about in his suicide note.

The tidiness of the new faultline after JNU, which invokes the Hindu vs Muslim cleavage, seems to depend on a disavowal of the reality of caste discrimination of the kind Rohith suffered. This, by a BJP that has, ironically enough, Mandalised itself relatively successfully in UP since the 1990s, even as it continues to run into problems with backward caste assertion in neighbouring Bihar.

In his ground-floor office in the imposing sprawl of the Varanasi Nagar Nigam headquarters, mayor Ram Gopal Mohley, former BJP district president, says the JNU row has exposed “so-called secularists and progressive forces”, those who are “propped up by foreign funds”, of “Dawood, bin Laden”, to destabilise a “rashtravadi (nationalist) government”.

Mohley dismisses the suicide of Rohith as a “personal issue”. “There were more serious incidents under previous governments. As PM Modi has said, ek maa ka laal gaya”, one mother has lost her son.

About 2 km away, in the Jan Sampark Karyalaya, which functions as the PM’s parliamentary office in the city, Kedarnath Singh, MLC, talks of “jan aakrosh” or people’s anger over the “anti-national” activities in JNU. “Yeh door tak jayega”, this issue will stay with us, he says. On Rohith’s death, he says: “The BJP has governments in many states, and the Dalits support our party. In UP, of course, they may not be as much with the BJP. But this (Rohith’s death) was blown up, politically. It was a university matter, nothing to do with government.”

S K Tripathi, state coordinator, training, links the two events: “The same anti-national elements are misguiding Dalits like Rohith and Kanhaiya in JNU,” he says. But he also dismisses the issue of caste discrimination — and offers his own reading of Rohith’s suicide note: “It shows aatma glaani (self-loathing). (Rohith felt) I am a Hindu and I organised a beef party, commemorated Yakub Memon? What did I want to be, and what have I become.”

In a bare room off a cavernous hall in the Kashi Vidyapeeth, Ayushi Shrimali, president of the university’s students’ union, active member of the ABVP, talks of “vyaapak” or widespread student mobilisations, protest marches and effigy burnings, to protest “anti-nationalism” in JNU. “Such activities are not new in the red bastion. But it is only because of the ABVP that this has come to light now,” she says. “These people should be stripped of their citizenship”, or else “the fire will spread from JNU to AMU and then everywhere”.

About Rohith, Ayushi, who takes pride in being the first woman president of the university’s students’ union, asks: “Was he even a Dalit? So what if his mother was one? We live in India. It’s a patriarchal system.” His suicide note, which speaks of his anguish at being reduced to his Dalit identity, “could be a conspiracy”. His death “is a sad event. But it shouldn’t be seen as political,” she says.

Veteran Varanasi Cantt MLA Jyotsana Srivastava shares young Ayushi’s indignation on JNU, and denies the issue of caste discrimination in a more fundamental way. Srivastava contests the politics of meaning as constituted in the term “Dalit”, or the oppressed. “I think Dalit is the wrong word. India is an ancient civilisation and there could be some distortions in culture, like sati. But you cannot call people Dalit, or SC or ST. These are divisive terms. If a Brahmin can be called a Brahmin, why cannot a Chamar be called by his caste name?”

Across the state, in Faizabad, Anuj Srivastava, general secretary, Saket Mahavidyalaya Chhatra Sangh, and coordinator, ABVP, puts the onus on Dalits: “Why do they consider themselves small and backward?” As for Rohith, “He could have belonged to any caste or community,” he says.

For Anuj, the issue is also the policy of reservation. “Why does everyone want reservation? What about vikas (development)? The ABVP believes that reservation is needed, for now. But my own view is it should be stopped, it only fuels divisiveness.”

In Lucknow to attend the assembly session, Vimla Solanki, BJP MLA from Sikandrabad, also denies the pervasive scandal of caste discrimination. “I studied in Vanasthali, we didn’t know everyone’s caste.” While fellow legislator Raghunandan Singh Bhadauria, BJP MLA from Kanpur Cantt, says: “It was a suicide, it happens. There has been a suicide even in my own family.” Both Solanki and Bhadauria are united in their call for the strictest punishment for the “anti-national” JNU students.

In Muzaffarnagar, newly elected BJP MLA, Kapil Dev Agarwal, who demands a “high-level probe to uncover the conspiracy behind the support for JNU students”, has this to say on Rohith’s suicide note: “When you reap benefits from the system, you don’t say you are a Dalit. Why is it that you remember your Dalit identity only when you want to cry injustice or are being punished for some wrongdoing?”

His colleague in the party, Sanjay Agarwal, district general secretary of the Muzaffarnagar BJP, sums it up: “I don’t think discrimination against Dalits is a problem. If there is any, it is only in small villages, not in the cities. This (the controversy over Rohith’s suicide) is only politics.

Meri news

Mango man and his democracy

http://www.merinews.com/article/mango-man-and-his-democracy/15914170.shtml

The Modi government presented the most important event of the year, the budget of 2016-17 on 29 February. So, logic demands that on 1st March the politicians of this country should have been discussing the budget because this session of the parliament is known as the Budget Session of the Parliament.

But no, in the mango man country and its democracy, both the houses of the Parliament were not allowed to function, not because the opposition was agitated with the provisions contained in the budget, which the ruling Modi government was not prepared to discuss, but the issues were corruption charges against the son of Congress top neta P Chidambaram and the anti-national happenings at JNU and also at theHyderabad University, and the Congress’ desire to bring in a privilege motion against HRD Minister Smriti irani that was being prevented not by the ruling Modi government but by the AIDMK party of Tamil Nadu. In this context following points need consideration:

During recent raids at the houses Mr Krati Chidambaram in Chennaiwho is son of Mr P Chidambaram, the ex-finance minister of Indiaduring the rule of Sonia Gandhi led UPA government, by default the documents have been found which give out details of large property assets of Mr Chidambaram junior bought outside the country when Chidambaram senior was the finance minister. So, AIDMK party of J Jayalalitha wants proper investigation of these assets which according to them are much more than Chidambaram junior’s income.

This is a genuine demand and the Modi government should concede. However at the same time the Congress leaders wanted to bring in the privilege motion against HRD minster on the statements given by her in the house of Parliament which Congress says are false. Both the parties did not allow each other to speak and the Parliament had to be adjourned. Congress blamed this act of AIDMK a result of incitement by the Modi government. If this is so then Congress must also explain on whose incitement they want to bring in a privilege motion?

The anti-national JNU is an issue which is being investigated by the Delhi police and is in the domain of the Indian courts. It is the judiciary of India which will decide the issue. Similarly the Rohit Vemula suicide issue is being investigated by the Hyderabad police and Hyderabad University. In both cases things will only emerge after these investigations are complete and their reports are out. It is very clear that instead of waiting for these investigations to be complete before discussing the same in parliament The Congress party wants to bring in this privilege motion against HRD minister basically to keep these issues alive in Parliament so that no worthwhile work can be done in the both houses of Parliament. By doing so Congress and other parties in opposition do not want to pass pending 62 bills since last three sessions of Parliament that are urgently needed to be passed to kick start Indian economy. What dirt level politics and democracy is this?

It is also very clear that political parties like Congress, left parties, BSP and JDU all are only interested in Dalit vote banks and are using Rohit Vemula’s mother as a pawn. It is worth noting that Vemula’s father was not a Dalit and only his mother is a Dalit, so what is the status of Rohit, a Dalit or a non-Dalit? The question here is not of a Dalit or non-Dalit. The issue that these political parties must be addressing to is that what all can be done to ensure that in future such tragic incidents are not repeated. But no political party appears to be interested to set right this anomaly.

With Mr Rajendra Kumar IB chief of Gujarat, MR GK Pillai the ex-Home secretary of India then working under the then home minster Chidambaram and now under secretary internal security Mr Mani, all blaming Chidambaram of having changed the affidavit himself that gave a clean chit to the LeT jehadis Ishrat Jahan and her three accomplices in 2009 in the alleged fake encounter case, in which she and her accomplices were killed in 2004, just to implicate Modi and Amit Shash, Congress is in quandary as, what to do now?

Surely Mr Chidambaram could not have got himself involved if these orders had not come from his top most bosses of Congress. So before leads of these investigations reach this top boss, Chidambaram has to be saved. Hence all these happenings in Parliament are meant to divert attention from the main issue of budget and economy to save Chidambaram by filibustering on this privilege motion issue.

With these types of politicians ruling the roost god help the mango man and his country. It is time people of India wake up to these shenanigans of our politicians before it is too late. Time has come when people of India specially its 80 crore youth must ask hard questions from these netas, because it concerns their future. Nobody can be allowed to play with the country’s security like this for political or personal gains.

Nyoooz

Minister stresses proper use of funds for facilities in Dalit areas

http://www.nyoooz.com/aurangabad/380572/minister-stresses-proper-use-of-funds-for-facilities-in-dalit-areas

Summary: Aurangabad: District guardian minister Ramdas Kadam on Saturday took the civic authorities to task for causing delay in the utilisation of funds meant for the Dalit Vasti Sudhar Yojana. But the funds could not be utilised because of the lacklustre approach of the municipal authorities. In the meantime, the municipal authorities deposited the funds in July 2015. “The government had allotted funds for providing facilities in the localities dominated by Dalits. Thereafter, it submitted a plan worth Rs 37 crore to the state government, which sanctioned Rs 27 crore.

Aurangabad: District guardian minister Ramdas Kadam on Saturday took the civic authorities to task for causing delay in the utilisation of funds meant for the Dalit Vasti Sudhar Yojana. He asked the authorities to take up the project in the respective localities at the earliest.”The government had allotted funds for providing facilities in the localities dominated by Dalits. But the funds could not be utilised because of the lacklustre approach of the municipal authorities.

It is injustice to the Dalits,” he said.Kadam said he would not tolerate delay by the municipal administration and asked the authorities to earmark funds for the civic body’s contribution for the scheme.Assuring the guardian minister of prompt action, municipal commissioner Om Prakash Bakoria said the civic body has already initiated the process of building facilities in the targeted areas.Earlier, the Aurangabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) could not avail funds worth Rs 20 crore allocated for the purpose, as the civic body failed to pay its share of about Rs 31 lakh. The state government had introduced the scheme for providing water connections and toilets in the households of schedule caste and Nav-Buddhist category people in 2010-11. Under the scheme, Rs 4,000 was earmarked for providing every water connection and Rs 12,000 for the construction of toilets.The AMC had hired a private agency to prepare the project implementation plan.

Nyoooz

Poetry of resistance

http://www.nyoooz.com/kochi/380310/poetry-of-resistance

Summary: A published poet — his first anthology, ‘Warscape Verses’, came out in 2014 — Mr. Chandramohan thinks that Indian poetry in English has been largely elitist, with little social commentary. Like all protest poets, S. Chandramohan writes without frills. He dives straight into the cauldron of social, communal and caste hierarchies and resultant deprivations, only to come up with a starkly polemic take on them. Rosy Foundation – launched in the name of the first Malayalam cine actress, a Dalit, whom nobody wanted to celebrate until recently. “My effort at the moment is to build a commune of Dalit writers,” he says.

Like all protest poets, S. Chandramohan writes without frills. He dives straight into the cauldron of social, communal and caste hierarchies and resultant deprivations, only to come up with a starkly polemic take on them. A poet on a mission, he turns the iterated legends shaped by set notions of caste value on their heads in a bid to read them in the light of contemporary social realities.

A published poet — his first anthology, ‘Warscape Verses’, came out in 2014 — Mr. Chandramohan thinks that Indian poetry in English has been largely elitist, with little social commentary. While poets like K. Satchidanandan and Ananya S. Guha have described his poems as overtly political and straight, it’s only recently that some of his poems were summoned to add muscle to the student protests happening across the country. A Dalit poem written by him, ‘Killing the Shambukas’, sometime ago was suddenly brought back to currency across the country after the suicide of Hyderabad University student Rohith Vemula. It reads thus: “Jim Crow segregated hostel rooms Ceiling fans bear a strange fruit, Blood on books and blood on papers, A black body swinging in mute silence, Strange fruit hanging from tridents.” While the Shambuka poem was rendered in over 10 Indian and foreign languages and read out in protest demonstrations in New Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad, several other poems of his – looking at subaltern characters in Indian mythology from a Dalit perspective and often ringing them into the stifling hierarchies and deprivations of contemporary society – also found avid readers. Mr.

The aisan age

UP parties eye university polls

http://www.asianage.com/india/parties-eye-university-polls-733

Student elections in various universities, scheduled to be held in August-September this year, will witness a serious and intense involvement of almost all political parties in Uttar Pradesh that are targeting young voters.

With youth, in the 25 to 35 years age group, forming the almost 38 per cent of the voting population, all political parties seem to have realised the advantage of wooing young voters.

The Bahujan Samaj Party, for instance, will be taking active interest in campus politics this time and the party has asked its leaders to connect with the dalit youth on the campus. The BSP, so far, had kept away from student politics and it was the Mayawati government that had banned students’ elections in 2007.

“The death of Rohith Vemula, a dalit scholar, has forced the BSP to take a stand on student politics and Ms Mayawati has decided to up the ante against the Modi government on dalit issues. There are a growing number of dalit students in each university and we need their support too,” said a BSP functionary.

The Samajwadi Party, on the other hand, has always banked heavily on student support and Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav asserts that the university campus should be treated as a nursery for politicians. The SP has a predominant presence in campus politics and its members are known more for their aggressive behaviour than their political views.

Moreover, with Mr Akhilesh Yadav as chief minister, the party has gained youth support and the SP leadership now wants to use it to their advantage in the 2017 Assembly polls.

The BJP is smug on the youth issues because its youth wing ABVP is aggressively battling these issues on the campus after the JNU controversy. “The ABVP role in the JNU controversy has won us appreciation from students across Uttar Pradesh and this will help us in enlisting youth support on the campus and in Assembly elections,” said a party MLA.

The Congress, too, is keen to cash in students’ movements and the party is focusing on cases of casteist discrimination on the campus.

The Congress will also put up its candidates in students’ elections and senior party leaders will oversee their campaigns. “Students belonging to dalit and Muslim communities are facing discrimination in universities and colleges and we are preparing the list of such case. The Congress will take them up at suitable platforms,” said senior Congress leader Siraj Mehndi.

Tehalka.com

A Right-Wing Wrap Around Nationalism

http://www.tehelka.com/2016/03/a-right-wing-wrap-around-nationalism/

The nation is witnessing such an unprecedented situation these days that the ruling party’s ideological fountainhead RSS  and other affiliated organisations are zooming in on places such as educational institutions, news rooms and even court rooms, and mobs are teaching violent lessons of nationalism.

As many point out, the very idea ofIndia and its pluralistic culture is facing major threats from these organisations. Will the BJP government succeed in the plan to weave a Right-wing narrative around the concept of nationalism?

Priyamvada Gopal, writer and academic at Cambridge University tells Tehelka, “The Sangh Parivar has succeeded in taking an existing Right-wing narrative of a Hindu nation and bringing to the mainstream its most vicious, exclusive, bigoted and violent aspects.”

Apart from the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, the sudden rise of its affiliates such as the ABVP , the Hindu Dharma Sena, the Durga Vahini, the Adhivakta (lawyers’) Sangh, the Dharma Jagaran Samanwaya Samiti and the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti are examples of it.

The result of this blooming of outfits was evident in the statistics the government recently released in the Lok Sabha which revealed thatcommunal violence witnessed a 17 percent rise in 2015.

The poll-bound Uttar Pradesh witnessed 155 communal incidents andKarnataka, where Sangh Parivar has a strong base, is in second position with 105 incidents.

Other states where most of the incidents occured such as Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat are ruled by the BJP. When these groups started their plans with aggression on Muslims, Dalits and Adivasis initially, the civil society formed a wall to thwart this and it lead to the BJP’s electoral rout in Delhi and Bihar Assembly elections. It also lost 33 seats out of 50 in bypolls after the 2014 Lok Sabha election.

A paralysed economy and rising unemployment also added to the worries of the government. The suicide of Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula at the University of Hyderabad created an anti Sangh Parivar wave across the campuses.

Though the Sangh has spread its roots among Dalits and other marginalised sections of the society, the assertion of Dalit identity against the ruling dispensation got unprecedented support from civil society and students groups.

To get out of this difficult conundrum, the Sangh is now rewriting the concept of nationalism. BJP and other Sangh organisations leaders portrayed the Ambedkar Students Association, to which Vemula belongs, as anti-national and started to describe any dissent against the Sangh as against the country.

The next stop was JNU . Why JNU ? D Raja, National Secretary of CPI and Rajya Sabha member says, “After the Modi government came to power, the students and teachers were agitating on various issues. Universities are the places of ideas and ideologies and JNU is the best at it. That is why they wanted to take it on and intimidate the students. For that they are using the ABVP , though it is a student organisation, with the support of State machinery.”

Sangh Parivar has succeeded in the plan to mobilise the mainstream into a frenzy. They have used the news channels to implement their plan.

Channels such as Times Now, Zee News and News X which were the cheerleader of nationalistic fury, topped the TRPs for the past two weeks.

The paranoid psyche of common Indian towards Kashmir and the Afzal Guru issue was also exploited in a designed manner. The Sangh has more or less succeeded in dividing people as nationals and anti-nationals. Will this patriotic authoritarian nature of a mob lead to a communal flare up?

Eminent social scientist Achin Vanaik says, “The big riots may not happen. The plan is to change the public discourse by polarising the society in such a way that it benefits them in the elections. Now they are targeting universities like jnu because these are centres from which Sangh narratives are challenged vehemently.”

It is evident from history that ultra-nationalism was the final card in many countries, when they were facing internal or external challenges.

Will this strategy become a short time fantasy by the Sangh Parivar which will soon fizzle out or will it ultimately emerge victorious? Gopal says, “A counter narrative is emerging. That is what we see at the heart of the JNU row and in order for it to succeed, it will require an alliance between various progressive social movements — Adivasis, Dalits, Bahujans, Kashmiris and the Left in the widest sense of the term (not restricted to the official party Left). I do think that the resistance to Brahminism is vital to challenging Hindutva and as such, Dalit assertion is vital to the success of the counter-narrative.”

But even when the agitating students, teachers and academics are coming out in large numbers, it seems that the government is relentless about its agenda.

A cabinet minister getting enormous support from various sections of the society for her casteist and communal toned speech, which has lies and half truths, about the death of a Dalit student and the atmosphere in JNU, suggests that the narrative is well underway.

The pioneer

OPP RAISES DALIT VICTIM’S ISSUE IN UP ASSEMBLY

http://www.dailypioneer.com/state-editions/opp-raises-dalit-victims-issue-in-up-assembly.html

The UP Assembly witnessed noisy scenes on Saturday when members of the BSP and the Congress raised the issue of murder of a dalit employee of Ambedkar University at Agra and the cash reward promise by former Badaun chief of Bhartiya Janata Yuva Morcha who could slit the tongue of JNU student union chief Kanhaiya Kumar.

BSP members trouped in the Well of the House demanding Rs 20 lakh for the family of dalit victim Satyendra Kumar – a clerk of the Agra University, who was murdered on February 13. The angry BSP MLAs alleged that the UP government doled out Rs 10 lakh to the family of slain VHP leader Arun Mahaur due to ‘political reasons’ but ignored the murdered dalit.

The House witnessed noisy scenes for about five minutes after which Parliamentary Affairs minister Azam Khan pacified the members assuring punishment to the killers and raising the issue of compensation for the victim’s family with the CM. Khan also said that the UP government gave Rs 10 lakh to Mahaur to counter the negative propaganda by communal forces and it should not be compared with the dalit employee’s killing.

The BSP raised the issue after Union minister of state for HRD, Ramashanker Kateharia on Friday questioned the BSP leaders as to why the party was silent on the murder of dalits in Agra.

The Congress members raised the issue of the ex-Budaun chief of BJYM announcing an award of Rs 5 lakh to anyone who would slit the tongue of the JNUSU chief.   “The statement is an effort to divide the country and foment communal disturbances,” alleged Congress member Pankaj Malik.

Replying to the issue, Parliamentary Affairs minister Azam Khan said, that the state government would deal such people attempting to spew communal hatred, with a firm hand. He said that it semed that some people issue provocative comments to find a space in the media.

Meanhwile, BJP leader Suresh Kumar Khanna raised the issue of scarcity of drinking water due to depletion of ground water level across the state.  He said the hand pumps installed in rural areas have become inoperational and demanded that these be   rebored or replaced immediately. He asked the government to sanction at least 300 hand pumps for each Assembly segment. BJP legislator from Gorakhpur, Radha Mohan Agarwal through Adjournment notice raised the issue of flouting of Right to Education (RTE) Act by private schools.

He pointed out that the rules framed by the state government were faulty and contravened the guidelines laid down by Supreme Court. Agarwal charged that the government was soft on private schools which were flouting the Act by denying admission to poor students. Opposing the notice, Azam Khan said that it was not possible for the UP government to force private unaided schools to implement the RTE. “Moreover it was against the law of natural justice to ask schools to implement RTE who are not given any financial assistance by the state government,” he said.

The aisan age

First book on Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula released in Malayalam

http://www.asianage.com/india/first-book-dalit-scholar-rohith-vemula-released-malayalam-884

Vemula’s scathing comments on Patel reservation, CPM’s stand on quota in private sector are incorporated in the book.

The first book in Malayalam about the Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula and the issues he raised was released here on Saturday.

The book, ‘Rohith Vemula: Nizhalukalil Ninnum Nakshathrangalilek’ (Rohith Vemula: From shadows to stars), published by Kozhikod-based ‘Vidyarthi publications’ contains Vemula’s writings and opinion pieces of notable social commentators about his politics. Memoirs were written by K.P. Praveena, Vaikhari Aaryat and Jobi Mathew, Vemula’s friends and students of HCU.

Vemula’s scathing comments on Patel reservation, CPM’s stand on reservation in the private sector and SFI’s soft Hindutva stand at HCU are incorporated in the book.

“The protest that has been triggered by Rohith Vemula’s suicide is unparallel in the country after the Mandal commission protests.” says Mr O.P. Raveendran who edited the book.

News monitored by AMRESH & AJEET

Dalits Media Watch – News Updates 05.03.16

IIMC Professor quits saying government targeted him; I&B Ministry denies charge – Ibn live

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india/iimc-professor-quits-saying-government-targeted-him-ib-ministry-denies-charge-1212080.html

Veenavanka gangrape case: Tests reveal rape accused not minors – The deccan chronical

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/crime/050316/veenavanka-gangrape-case-tests-reveal-rape-accused-not-minors.html

HC reinstates man who put up Ambedkar’s portrait in office – The hindu

http://m.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/hc-reinstates-man-who-put-up-ambedkars-portrait-in-office/article8302099.ece

Panel to high court: SC, ST land allotment survey impossible – The times of india

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Panel-to-high-court-SC-ST-land-allotment-survey-impossible/articleshow/51235953.cms

Dalit body seeks action against officials – The hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Coimbatore/dalit-body-seeks-action-against-officials/article8316785.ece

Rohith’s Caste Outshone His Merit, Talent: Mother – The new Indian express

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/andhra_pradesh/Rohiths-Caste-Outshone-His-Merit-Talent-Mother/2016/03/05/article3311305.ece

‘I am a patriot but not a nationalist’: The day after, Kanhaiya Kumar explains his vision of ‘azadi’ – Scroll.in

http://scroll.in/article/804636/i-am-a-patriot-but-not-a-nationalist-the-day-after-kanhaiya-kumar-explains-his-vision-of-azadi

Mahaur was killed because he was a ‘gau rakshak’: MoS Katheria – Nyoooz

http://www.nyoooz.com/lucknow/378763/mahaur-was-killed-because-he-was-a-gau-rakshak58-mos-katheria

11-yr-old found killed in Hardoi , human sacrifice suspected – The Indian express

http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/lucknow/lucknow-11-yr-old-found-killed-in-hardoi-human-sacrifice-suspected/

Please Watch:

Mr. Amit Sengupta’s last lecture at IIMC
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5yFthoJDms

 

URGENT APPEAL ! Please contribute to

 PMARC: Dalits Media Wacth !

Ibn live

IIMC Professor quits saying government targeted him; I&B Ministry denies charge

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india/iimc-professor-quits-saying-government-targeted-him-ib-ministry-denies-charge-1212080.html

New Delhi: A senior faculty member of Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) on Friday resigned alleging that he was “targeted” by the I&B Ministry for supporting the protests over Dalit student Rohith Vemula’s suicide and JNU and FTII issues.

Amit Sengupta, an Associate Professor in the department of English Journalism, quit after an order was issued transferring him to the premier media school’s campus in Odisha’s Dhenkanal district, which he slammed as a “political decision”.

Information and Broadcasting Ministry officials said that a recent inquiry into incidents at the premier journalism school by I&B Ministry Joint Secretary Mihir Kumar Singh showed that Sengupta had in a Facebook post asked students to carry out protests after Vemula’s suicide.

In his resignation letter, Sengupta said that he had been “targeted” as he “supported the solidarity protest for Rohith Vemula (of Hyderabad Central University) in the campus, organised independently by students of IIMC in which other faculty members too participated.”

“I have been targeted also because I supported the JNU and FTII students,” he added.

Sengupta said that he was “proud” of standing up for Vemula and would continue to do so.

“This is my constitutional right. I think grave injustice has been done to him and the students of Hyderabad Central University. I will always stand and fight for Dalit rights,” he said.

He said the JNU and FTII “struggles” are glorious and the country will enrich itself with the great leap of imagination and the brilliant content of the peaceful, democratic debate the students and faculty of these great institutions have generated.

Countering the allegations levelled by Sengupta, I&B Ministry officials said Sengupta has been moved to the institute’s Dhenkanal branch till further orders only because of shortage of staff.

On January 19, they claimed, Sengupta had in a post said “Hello IIMC students; protests all over by students, why is IIMC silent? Put a poster at least. Also surely, the suicide note. I am ready to join you, I promise.”

A student of IIMC had then objected to the post, accusing Sengupta of trying to politicise the campus and disturbing harmony, I&B officials added. A verbal altercation between the student and Sengupta had also taken place, they added.

Asked about the charges related to his posts on Facebook, Sengupta said views expressed on social media fell on his personal domain and was his “constitutional right”.

The deccan chronical

Veenavanka gangrape case: Tests reveal rape accused not minors

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/crime/050316/veenavanka-gangrape-case-tests-reveal-rape-accused-not-minors.html

Karimnagar: Two of the three accused in the Veenavanka gangrape case, who were earlier thought to be minors, are likely to be declared majors, according to medical examinations.

It may be recalled that Gotte Srinivas, 23, and the two other accused, listed as 17-year-olds, were booked on charges of outraging the modesty of a Dalit girl of Challur village in Veenavanka mandal on February 25.

The two were sent to a juvenile home as they were considered minors, according to their study certificates. However, this led to an outcry and forced the investigating officials to cross-check the certificates submitted by the accused from different educational institutions.

They noticed that the date of birth of the two youths does not match. The cops then sent them to undergo a tests to determine their exact age.

The test revealed that one of them is aged 21 and the other is above 18. A juvenile court, which is hearing the case, will pronounce its verdict either on March 8 or 9.

The hindu

HC reinstates man who put up Ambedkar’s portrait in office

http://m.thehindu.com/news/cities/chennai/hc-reinstates-man-who-put-up-ambedkars-portrait-in-office/article8302099.ece

The Madras High Court has set aside the order of a single judge which upheld the decision of the State Bank of India terminating one of its office assistants for allegedly putting up a portrait of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar on the bank’s premises.

1. Gowrishankar, an office assistant at the bank’s Adyar Branch and a member of the SBI SC/ST Employees Welfare Association, was charged with placing a picture of Dr. Ambedkar in the bank hall without permission.

On July 16, 2004, the bank issued a memo stating that the portrait “spoiled the ambience of the hall”. Various SC/ST Associations objected to the statement and resorted to agitations. On September 21, 2004 the bank issued another memo following the protests. Subsequently, an enquiry was conducted and Gowrisankar was dismissed from service on December 2, 2005.

Assailing the order, Gowrishankar approached the appellate authority, which modified the punishment to removal from service with superannuation benefits, on April 3, 2006.

The matter was then referred to the Central Government Industrial Tribunal-cum- Labour Court (CGIT) which held that the charges were proved. It, however, altered the punishment and ordered his reinstatement with continuity of service and all other attendant benefits but without back wages.

Mr. Gowrishankar appealed in the High Court questioning the portion of the award denying him back wages, while the bank challenged his reinstatement.

A single judge passed a common order dated October 17, 2014, allowing the plea moved by the bank, while dismissing the petition filed by the Gowrishankar. The reinstatement awarded by the CGIT was also reversed.

Gowrishankar challenged the single judge’s order.

In its order, a Division Bench of Justices S. Tamilvanan (since retired) and D. Hariparanthaman cited a circular issued by the Union Ministry of Finance dated September 8, 2006 to all the nationalised banks and other financial institutions directing to display portraits of Dr. Ambedkar in their offices.

Consequently it held, “In our view, the entire issue was not properly handled by the bank and the entire blame is on its own for irresponsibly using the remark in a sensitive matter”. Therefore, it directed that the employee be reinstated.

The times of india

Panel to high court: SC, ST land allotment survey impossible

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/Panel-to-high-court-SC-ST-land-allotment-survey-impossible/articleshow/51235953.cms

Ahmedabad: The three-member panel, appointed by the state government on the order of Gujarat high court to look into allotment of agricultural land to dalits and tribals as part of land reforms, suggested on Monday to put an end to the exercise, terming the task “impossible”.

The survey was undertaken – with the panel formed at the HC’s behest – in response to a PIL by activist Jignesh Mevani, who complained that most of the allotments of 1.63 lakh acres of land to dalits has remained on paper only. He contended that the beneficiaries are not in actual possession of these pieces of land. The state government appointed three deputy secretaries of the revenue department – land acquisition, ULC and land reforms – to study the issue and bring out the details on encroachment on such land across the state. The panel produced details of a few villages, but the petitioner claimed that the details were at variance with other reports on Ahmedabad and Surendranagar districts. The panel told the HC that furnishing details on the allotment of lands, from the beginning to actual possession by the beneficiaries, “may be very difficult and may take a huge amount of time and perhaps may be nearly impossible even after putting in much efforts”. The panel recommends that the PIL to be disposed of and the government “may think of it if details with substantiation are submitted in particular cases”.

The PIL demanded that due procedure for allotment of land for agriculture be followed and that benefits reach SCs and STs. It stated that the Centre had declared that 56,873 acres of government land were allotted to members of the SC and ST communities in 2007 and 2010. However, when inquired into further, the government offices did not furnish the names of such beneficiaries

The hindu

Dalit body seeks action against officials

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Coimbatore/dalit-body-seeks-action-against-officials/article8316785.ece

Dalit Liberation Movement-Tamil Nadu has petitioned the Chief Secretary seeking departmental action against tahsildar, Revenue Inspector and Village Administrative Officer, all of Kangayam taluk, for carrying out renovation of a temple situated on the taluk office campus.

1. Karuppaiah, State joint general secretary of the Movement, said that the action was against the government orders and also a High Court order that had forbidden any construction, including renovation, of any temple situated on the government office premises.

Here, the taluk office campus also houses Kangayam Traffic and Law and Order police stations, All Woman police station and sub-treasury office apart from the Tahsildar’s office.

Against Centre’s order

“An order from the Centre, dated about 20 years ago, has even stated that no government office campus should have a temple or any place of worship,” Mr Karuppaiah pointed out.

Work stopped

When contacted, Revenue Divisional Officer (Dharapuram) G. Saravanamurthy told The Hindu that the renovation works on the 60-year-old temple were temporarily stopped now following complaints.

However, Mr. Karuppaiah was of the stance that action still needed to be taken against the Tahsildar and other revenue officials as they violated the rules to initiate the works.

The new Indian express

Rohith’s Caste Outshone His Merit, Talent: Mother

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/andhra_pradesh/Rohiths-Caste-Outshone-His-Merit-Talent-Mother/2016/03/05/article3311305.ece

VISAKHAPATNAM: “I will not relent fighting till I get justice for my son,” said V Radhika, mother of Rohith Vemula who committed suicide on the campus of University of Hyderabad.

Radhika, in her attempt to garner support from civil organisations to ensure justice for her son, arrived in the city on Friday.

She lamented that it was painful to watch her son being identified by his caste rather than his merit just because he was a Dalit.

“Rohith was an intelligent student who had secured an All-India 6th rank in UoH entrance exam and got admission. But after his suicide, people are raising doubt on his talent and credentials. Caste factor outshone his merits and intelligence,” a visibly pensive Radhika said.

Radhika went on to put the blame on the university management particularly the V-C for death of Rohith.

She demanded that a detailed probe be made into the series of events that led to Rohith’s suicide and punish the people responsible for it.  “I have rejected the ex gratia of `8 lakh offered by the university management. We will not end protest till people who abetted Rohith’s suicide are punished,” she said.

At the meeting organised by Mahila Chethana here on Friday, various civil and women rights organisers demanded justice for Rohith and appealed to the government to bring out a law for protection of Dalit students who are facing problems in the higher institution of learning.

Mahila Chetana president K Padma said caste issues particularly those involving Dalit students were prevalent in Central Universities and we need to wage a fight to ensure that no student suffers like Rohith again.

Scroll.in

‘I am a patriot but not a nationalist’: The day after, Kanhaiya Kumar explains his vision of ‘azadi’

http://scroll.in/article/804636/i-am-a-patriot-but-not-a-nationalist-the-day-after-kanhaiya-kumar-explains-his-vision-of-azadi

In the middle of his electrifying speech after being released from prison on Thursday, Jawaharlal Nehru Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar decided to address Narendra Modi, making sure to use the phrase, “my esteemed, respected Prime Minister”. Grinning sarcastically, he explained, “I better use those words, right. Who knows, someone might doctor this video too and then slap sedition charges on me”. The enormous crowd outside the university’s administrative block went into raptures.

The moment exemplified the canny insouciance with which Kumar has steered through the maelstrom that he and five other students have been thrust into since February 9, the day “anti-national” slogans were allegedly raised on the JNU campus. The Modi administration’s response was swift and strong: it accused six JNU students of committing sedition against the government, bringing out the colonial-era law once used against Mahatma Gandhi.

Sedition and doctored videos

But it soon became clear that the police action against the students had been bungled, and was perhaps even malevolent. The Delhi Police based its case on videos of Kumar – videos that have now been proven to be doctored. Not only the police, even the JNU registrar, Bhupinder Zutshi,

incorrectly claimed that “Kanhaiya was also seen in the video raising anti-national slogans”. In an unprecedented move, the JNU Teacher’s Association has even asked for Zutshi to be

emoved, accusing him of conspiring with the police to frame students.

Kumar did indeed chant slogans asking for “azadi” but they weren’t a call for secession from India. Instead, he was asking for freedom from a range of societal ills. The doctored videos, though, made it seem as if he was a political separatist, setting of a chain of events: sedition, large-scale media vilification and even physical assault by lawyers as he was produced in court, as the Delhi Police looked on.

After this, many would have thought it prudent for Kumar to stay away from this slogan. But, of course, he didn’t do that. As his speech on Thursday was broadcast across the nation, Kumar made it clear that he was asking for freedom not from India, but in India. Kumar ended his speech by shouting the azadi slogan again – this time, as millions watched.

Ambedkarite leftism

Kumar already seems to have a rare pulse of public affairs. On Friday, the morning after his scintillating speech, Kumar held a press conference making sure to put on record his condemnation of the events of February 9 – and his admiration of the Indian Constitution. But then, he also made sure to firmly convey his political ideology with the nation watching. “These dark clouds will not be able to hide the red sun that shines against the blue sky,” referring to the Communist and Ambedkarite colours.

This was, by far, the most significant thrust of Kumar’s political messaging. The Left in India has always been blind to caste. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) has never had a Dalit on its politburo. Kumar was attempting to change that. And thanks to the sedition case, he had a national audience to work with.

There was more: answering a question on what he thought of Afzal Guru’s death sentence, Kumar made it clear that the Kashmiri man convicted for his role in the 2001 Parliament attack wasn’t his hero, Rohith Vemula was. Vemula, the Dalit scholar from the University of Hyderabad, had been hounded by a minister in the Modi government, being called “anti-national” and his stipend stopped. Vemula committed suicide in January – an act Kumar pointedly described as “murder” in his Thursday speech.

Later, Kumar spoke to Scroll.in about the charge of sedition against him. “Large sections of the Hindi media have used the word deshdroh, treason for the charge against me rather than the correct term rajdroh, sedition,” Kumar explained animatedly. “Sedition is a colonial-era law – we need to question it.”

Outside the JNU campus, though, this difference is often blurred. The Bharatiya Janata Party senses a political opportunity in this and had, a week ago, led a Lok Sabha debate on the matter. During the discussions, Human Resource Development minister Smriti Irani played an ace, bringing up a previous event of alleged blasphemy against the goddess Durga on the JNU campus. This was an incendiary mix of religion and nationalism that can fire up not only the BJP base but many voters across the Hindi heartland.

Patriot but not a nationalist

Back in JNU, Kumar presents a sharp contrast, calmly debating the very concept of nationalism. “I am a patriot but not a nationalist,” explained Kumar. “Nationalism is a European concept. India is a land of diversity – she has no one uniform identity.”

He argued: “The BJP’s nationalism is fake. Remember, the first words in the Constitution are ‘We, the People’. A minority, who is being lynched, is part of the People. A Dalit, who is told that a cow is purer than him, is part of the People.

“Nationalism is a ploy, nothing else, for the BJP. They’re doing it to distract people from economic issues. So that the people don’t ask Modi how he is able to afford a suit worth lakhs of rupees.”

Azadi within India

The student leader said that he was glad the azadi slogan has become so popular across the country. “This isn’t a treasonous or seditious slogan,” he said. “This talks of bettering the country.”

During his press conference, Kumar had been asked if he has plans to enter politics. He answered that right now he was a student leader more concerned with removing bed bugs from hostel rooms. Indeed, till February 9, that is what Kumar was – a rather nondescript student leader. Like countless other Jawaharlal Nehru Student Union presidents before him, constricted by a shrinking Left wing space, Kumar would also have graduated from university and faded into obscurity. But the government’s near-comical overreaction to a student event in JNU has meant Kumar now has the platform to rise much higher. His oratory and grasp of ideas means that the traditional political class looks tired and slow in front of him.

For now, those around him are convinced that he’s in for the long haul. One JNU faculty member suggested that the government had made a mistake by picking on Kumar: “Not only is he a great orator, but he is plucky. He won’t back down.”

Nyoooz

Mahaur was killed because he was a ‘gau rakshak’: MoS Katheria

http://www.nyoooz.com/lucknow/378763/mahaur-was-killed-because-he-was-a-gau-rakshak58-mos-katheria

Summary: Katheria said, “Mahaur was a ‘gau bhakt’ and he was poor. His only fault was that he was a ‘gau rakshak’ who reported incidents of this nature. Mahaur was threatened with being shot to death two days before he was murdered in broad daylight. “Focusing his attack on BSP rather than the ruling Samajwadi Party, Katheria also alleged Mayawati and her family were “no longer dalits”. Two days before his death, another dalit, Satyendra Jatav, was also killed.

LUCKNOW: Even as controversy over the death of Dalit VHP leader Arun Mahaur spread to the Uttar Pradesh assembly on Friday, and BJP resorted to noisy sloganeering in the well of the house, Union minister of state for HRD Ram Shankar Katheria maintained he had not targeted any specific community when he said Mahaur was killed because he was a ‘gau rakshak’ (cow protector) given to reporting ‘unlawful’ activities in a ‘basti’ (slum) where ‘incidents of this nature happened regularly.On a whirlwind three-hour trip to Lucknow, Katheria said, “In the prevailing conditions, people are being killed. Mahaur was threatened with being shot to death two days before he was murdered in broad daylight. His only fault was that he was a ‘gau rakshak’ who reported incidents of this nature.

His death lead to natural social reaction. As MP of Agra, I spoke on the issue, but I did not say anything with the intent to target any community or person.”While the minister could not point out any concrete action the Centre had taken in its alleged fight-for-justice for Mahaur, he said that the Union home minister had bee n requested to intervene in the matter.In the run up to UP’s assembly polls in 2017, where Katheria is projected as the BJP’s most prominent dalit face, the minister’s statements made it amply clear the party would lumber forth with both its Hindutva agenda, and its dalit outreach, with Bahujan Samaj Party’s Mayawati identified as its chief opponent. Katheria said, “Mahaur was a ‘gau bhakt’ and he was poor.

The Indian express

11-yr-old found killed in Hardoi , human sacrifice suspected

http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/lucknow/lucknow-11-yr-old-found-killed-in-hardoi-human-sacrifice-suspected/

In a suspected case of human sacrifice, a 11-year-old girl was found murdered with her throat slit in a village under Behta Gokul police station area in Hardoi district Friday morning.

According to police, Anupriya, daughter of Ram Murti, went missing Thursday evening. The family searched for her but she could not be traced until the next morning when her body was found lying in an orchard.

“Her throat was slit with a sharp-edged weapon and a red chunri (scarf) was found lying near the body. The scene indicates that it could be a case of human sacrifice, but the family members of the girl have not alleged so in their complaint,” said Brajesh Tripathi, station officer of Behta Gokul police station. The girl was a student of Class V at the government primary school in her village, Kheria.

He said the family members of the girl have named nine persons from the village who they claimed had enmity with them. He said a few of the accused persons have been taken into custody for questioning.

He said the police are yet to receive the postmortem report, but are looking into all possibilities. The victim and the accused both belong to Dalit community.

Circle Officer Nitesh Singh said they are investigating the matter and declined to comment on the killing being linked to human sacrifice as the investigation is underway. However, he said the material used for worship was found from the spot where the girl’s body was recovered.

News monitored by AMRESH & AJEET

Dalits Media Watch – News Updates 04.03.16

 

Had resisted rape bid – Dalit girl succumbs to burns – The times of india

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/varanasi/Had-resisted-rape-bid-Dalit-girl-succumbs-to-burns/articleshow/51250451.cms

Dalit BJP leaders form group to demand ‘justice’ for murdered VHP leader – Nyoooz

http://www.nyoooz.com/agra/377489/dalit-bjp-leaders-form-group-to-demand-justice-for-murdered-vhp-leader

Protests continue over gang-rape of Dalit girl – The hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/telangana/protests-continue-over-gangrape-of-dalit-girl/article8311902.ece

Dalit scholar in UP threatens suicide – The asian age

http://www.asianage.com/india/dalit-scholar-threatens-suicide-292

BJP MP who rallied Dalits in Agra is prime accused in anti-Dalit riots – The indian express

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/bjp-mp-who-rallied-dalits-in-agra-is-prime-accused-in-anti-dalit-riots/

‘Azadi’: Kanhaiya Kumar returns from Tihar Jail to JNU to make a speech of a lifetime – Scroll.in

http://scroll.in/article/804568/azadi-kanhaiya-kumar-returns-from-tihar-jail-to-jnu-to-make-a-speech-of-a-lifetime

Universities on the boil – Blink

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/cover/universities-on-the-boil/article8309809.ece

How Hinduism delegitimizes the Dalit – Live mint

http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/xQESdl5rR5BzRzNj8zG9DM/How-Hinduism-delegitimizes-the-Dalit.html

What a university means– Are there limits to academic freedom? – The telegraph

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1160304/jsp/opinion/story_72617.jsp#.VtkT2yL9V_k

 

Please Watch:

Kanhaiya Kumar speaks to Ravish Kumar on Prime Time

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoi0WnR4BUk

We stand for socialism, secularism and equality: Kanhaiya Kumar at JNU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6hY0AhaRfw

FULL SPEECH JNU Leader Kanhaiya Kumar after getting out of Jail 03/3/2016

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_mnhl8Byn4

Out of jail, Kanhaiya Kumar attacks PM Modi in speech on JNU campus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jkQhAE-j8s

URGENT APPEAL ! Please contribute to

 PMARC: Dalits Media Wacth !

 

The times of india

Had resisted rape bid – Dalit girl succumbs to burns

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/varanasi/Had-resisted-rape-bid-Dalit-girl-succumbs-to-burns/articleshow/51250451.cms

Varanasi: A teenaged Dalit girl, who was allegedly set ab laze by three persons attempting to rape her, succumbed to burns in a Varanasi hospital on Thursday . The incident, on February 26, took place in a village of Ghazipur district.

Following her death, her family members and some political activists staged a demonstration after blocking road in Kakarmatta area.

Situation normalised when circle officer Bhelupur and inspector Bhelupur rea ched there and assured of proper investigation.After the stir was called off, the body was sent for postmortem.

On the evening of February 26, the girl was found engulfed in fire in a cane field. She was rushed her to a local hospital from where she was referred to Varanasi. On the complaint of the girl’s grandfather, the police lodged an FIR against Sonu Yadav, Pra vin Yadav and Prasidh Yadav under section 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 307 (attempt to murder), and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

Nyoooz

Dalit BJP leaders form group to demand ‘justice’ for murdered VHP leader

http://www.nyoooz.com/agra/377489/dalit-bjp-leaders-form-group-to-demand-justice-for-murdered-vhp-leader

Summary: on ThursdayAgra: Dalit leaders of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday formed a committee titled ‘Dalit Garjna’ to carry forward their agitation over Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Arun Mahor’s murder. We are not going to keep mum on the issue,” said Dalit Garjna coordinator Ashok Kotia. Later Agra police booked three BJP, VHP and ABVP leaders for inciting communal tension during the same meeting.Kotia said although they are members of BJP, Dalit Garjna has been formed comprising Dalit leaders to highlight the atrocities meted out to their community. said Ravi Mahor, another leader of Dalit Garjna. “Mahor’s murder was part of an organized crime by cow slaughterers.

on Thursday Agra: Dalit leaders of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday formed a committee titled ‘Dalit Garjna’ to carry forward their agitation over Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Arun Mahor’s murder. The leaders accused ruling Samajwadi Party leaders of shielding “cow slaughterers” ni the murder case.Slamming the Akhilesh Yadav government for its “double standards”, BJP leaders said that while the state chief minister gave Rs 45 lakh, two government jobs and two houses to the family of Akhlaq who was allegedly lynched over suspicions of beef consumption, but only Rs 15 lakh to Mahor’s family. They have threatened to launch a massive agitation in Agra, Lucknow and Delhi in the coming days if Mahor’s family is not given compensation equivalent to the Dadri victim.

Further, they wanted renaming of Meera Hussani crossing in Mantola as Shaheed Mahor Chowk.”Mahor’s murder was part of an organized crime by cow slaughterers. While so much noise was created over the Dadri episode, why is no one speaking about this murder? We are not going to keep mum on the issue,” said Dalit Garjna coordinator Ashok Kotia. “It is ironic that leaders like Arvind Kejriwal, Rahul Gandhi and Mayawati who shed crocodile tears over the suicide by Hyderabad University student Rohith Vemula are nowhere to be seen here in Agra,” he added.Kotia accused Agra police of harassing and filing false cases against BJP leaders who spoke in support of getting justice for Mahor.

The hindu

Protests continue over gang-rape of Dalit girl

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/telangana/protests-continue-over-gangrape-of-dalit-girl/article8311902.ece

The Joint Action Committee of the women victims, Dalit organisations and others staged a massive dharna in front of the Collectorate in Karimnagar on Thursday demanding action against Huzurabad DSP and Jammikunta Rural CI for neglecting their duties in the Dalit girl’s gang-rape issue.

JAC leaders led by its convenor Surapalli Sujatha, co-convenors Marwadi Sudarshan, J. Jayaraj, Kothapalli Amarnath and others participated in the dharna demanding justice to the victim. Alleging that police negligence had led to the heinous crime, they sought suspension of DSP and CI along with the SI and constable.

Flaying the police lethargy in checking crime against women, they also sought Rs.1 crore compensation to the victim, a government job, three acres of land and double-bed room house. They also warned of direct action against the persons involved in the crime against the women if the police failed to prevent the occurrence of such incidents.

TPCC SC cell memo

In the meantime, TPCC SC cell chairman Arepalli Mohan, TPCC Mahila Congress State president Nerella Sharada, DCC SC cell chairman Uppari Ravi and others submitted a memorandum to the National SC commission member Kamalamma at her camp office in Hyderabad on Thursday. Alleging that the police were responsible for the gang rape of the victim as they failed to respond to the panic call made by another girl, they also stated that the police were trying to shield two other accused persons by claiming that they were minors. Demanding stern action against the culprits involved in the heinous crime, they also sought compensation, government job and agricultural land to the victim.

 

Dalit organisations and others demand suspension of Huzurabad DSP and Jammikunta Rural CI for neglecting their duty

The asian age

Dalit scholar in UP threatens suicide

http://www.asianage.com/india/dalit-scholar-threatens-suicide-292

In what could be a replay of the Rohith Vemula case in Hyderabad, a Dalit scholar in the Chaudhary Charan Singh University in Meerut district had threatened to ‘commit suicide like Vemula’ if no action is taken against faculty member who has been harassing him.

Harish Kumar, a Dalit researcher, told reporters in Meerut that the Research Design Course committee gave the nod to his research topic in 2012 but he could not start his work because the University Grants Commission (UGC) had issued an order that all research scholars had to go through a six-month pre-PHD course.

Harish Kumar alleged that when the course started in November-December 2014, he found that his batch had been merged with the second batch whose course had to be started six months after his batch.

“The coordinator, Aradhana Gupta started to shout at me instead of giving me any reasonable answer. I started to attend the classes but most of the time I was provided a paper to sign on that to mark my attendance instead of any attendance register. After six months 10-12 scholars including me were asked to take extra classes as we were short on attendance. On this ground I was not permitted to take internal exams”, he said.

Prof. Aradhana Gupta, however, denied misbehaving with the scholar. “He was stopped along with 17 other scholars from taking the exam due to shortfall in attendance. Kumar only came to the department on the very first day of the course and we saw him again when internal exams were about to start. When all the students had signed on the attendance register, why would he be given a paper instead?” the professor added.

She further said that on the request of students with less attendance, the department had arranged extra classes for 20 days in July-August 2015.

“But Kumar attended 10 classes in five days. The final exams will start on March 6 and only those scholars who have cleared internal exams and have 45 per cent attendance will be allowed to appear. Therefore he has filed a complaint even though he has no specific allegation to make. At the beginning of the course he had a heated argument with me and later gave a written apology”, she added.

The research scholar, meanwhile, explained that he was forced to write an apology because he was a Dalit.

“Now I have just two options, either take to crime or commit suicide like Rohith Vemula”, he said.

Vice chancellor N K Taneja said the though the matter had been settled but if the student has complained again, an inquiry would be ordered into the episode.

Harish Kumar has already sent a copy of the complaint to the district magistrate, in which he mentions writing to PM Modi, HRD minister Smriti Irani and chairman of UGC.

“If I commit suicide like Rohith Vemula, the responsibility will lie on Anuradha Gupta, the V-C, PM and HRD minister”, he said in the letter.

The district magistrate remained unavailable for comment.

The indian express

BJP MP who rallied Dalits in Agra is prime accused in anti-Dalit riots

http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/bjp-mp-who-rallied-dalits-in-agra-is-prime-accused-in-anti-dalit-riots/

Babu Lal, who sought to rally the Dalit community with his speech, is also a prime accused in one of the worst cases of violence against Dalits in Uttar Pradesh.

DURING A condolence meeting organised by the Sangh Parivar on Sunday for Arun Mahaur, a Dalit VHP worker allegedly killed by Muslim youths in Agra on February 25, BJP’s Fatehpur Sikri MP Babu Lal urged the crowd to “fix a date” and “take on Muslims”.

Babu Lal, who sought to rally the Dalit community with his speech, is also a prime accused in one of the worst cases of violence against Dalits in Uttar Pradesh.

According to police records and eyewitness accounts, in June 1990, Lal allegedly mobilised Jats to prevent a Dalit wedding procession from crossing his home in the Jat-dominated locality of Agra’s Panwari village. The village had 87 Dalit families, but all of them, barring one, were forcibly evicted by the Jats, allegedly under the leadership of Lal, who was at the time the Block President of Achhnera and was emerging as a prominent Jat leader.

Bharat Singh Kardam, whose younger sister Mundra was supposed to get married on June 21, 1990, vividly remembers the incident. “Babu Lal has concern for Dalits? He was the prime accused in the Panwari riots. He instigated people, saying a wedding procession of Dalits must not cross the Jat colony, that it would be a humiliation. We had decided to change the route but he wanted to further his political career through these riots,” Kardam claimed.

Despite heavy security, Jats managed to attack the wedding procession, leading to riots in the area. Dalit homes were burnt down in Panwari as violence spread across Agra and adjoining districts. Several people died in the riots, and Agra remained under curfew for several days.

Babu Lal was unavailable for comments. His personal assistant said he is unwell.

Kardam alleged that “armed Jats had surrounded the wedding procession”. “We were scared. Somehow, we managed to run away, leaving everything behind,” he said.

Kardam, who is fighting the case in Agra’s SC/ST court on behalf of the affected families, has with him thick files containing newspaper clippings and photographs showing burnt down homes and a deserted Panwari village. One photograph, of two big vessels, is captioned: “Vegetable curry that was prepared for the wedding guests”. Another is of “a dead buffalo in Jatav colony”.

Rambai Sonkar, a member of the Schedule Caste, died in the violence, reportedly while trying to pacify the Jats. His body was never recovered. Kardam had deposed in the court that Babu Lal and his men committed the murder.

After the riots, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited Panwari, but the Dalits still felt it safer to flee and settle in neighbouring villages. Most of them work as daily labourers today. “The Jats burnt down our homes. Everything was done at the behest of Babu Lal,” claimed Mange Lal, who now stays in Mahal village, a few kilometres away. He claimed that even as they fled, members of their community were “pulled out of buses and assaulted”.

While the administration had promised homes and compensation for the affected Dalits, Kardam said none of them have their own homes till date.

Babu Lal, who bragged on Sunday that he has faced the National Security Act on three occasions, was also convicted and given life term in 1984 for the murder of one Vijendra Singh. The high court stayed the sentence and he was released on appeal. He had also been booked under the NSA for allegedly assaulting a polling officer at a booth during an assembly election in Fatehpur Sikri in 1993.

All five accused in Mahaur’s murder have been arrested. Police claim Mahaur and the main accused, Shahrukh, had an altercation a day before he was killed.

Scroll.in

‘Azadi’: Kanhaiya Kumar returns from Tihar Jail

 to JNU to make a speech of a lifetime

http://scroll.in/article/804568/azadi-kanhaiya-kumar-returns-from-tihar-jail-to-jnu-to-make-a-speech-of-a-lifetime

“Ladenge,” said Kanhaiya Kumar, drawing out each syllable so that the word became a cry. We will fight.

The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union president, who has been charged with sedition, was back on campus after more than a fortnight and addressing students after being released from Tihar Jail on Thursday. No half-jokes or preamble for Kumar. He plunged in.

“Ladke lenge,” he shouted, grinning at the crowd gathered at the JNU administrative block.

“Azadi,” they cried. Freedom.

“Hum leke rahenge,” he shouted. Once more the crowd replied, “Azadi.” The whole fortnight had led up to this moment of audacity.

A long fortnight

Kumar was arrested on February 12 after the authorities claimed that he had chanted anti-national slogans at an event to mark the hanging of Afzal Guru, the Kashmiri man convicted for his role in the 2001 attack on Parliament. As hyper-ventilating television anchors aired video clips for several nights in a row purporting to prove his guilt, two other students were also arrested on similar charges.

The case quickly seized the national imagination. When Kumar was produced in court on February 16, a group of lawyers assaulted him, and also beat up journalists, professors and students on the premises, even as the police stood by. Outside the court, a Bharatiya Janata Party MLA was caught on camera punching a bystander to the ground, under the noses of the police. Despite the outrage, the violence was repeated for a second time when Kumar was appeared in court the next day.

As the fortnight dragged on, forensic experts concluded that some of the video clips aired on television had actually been doctored. But across the country, protestors took to the streets to express their support for the young man from Bihar. One of his speeches even got used as the basis for a madly infectious dubstep track.

The case became the subject of a great thrust and parry in Parliament. On February 24, Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani made an energetic defence of the government’s actions in Parliament, only to have several commentators point out that her speech contained several inaccuracies.

At Ganga dhaba

So a great deal of anticipation hung in the air over the JNU campus on Thursday evening, when it was announced that there would be a march from Ganga dhaba, a well-known landmark on the campus of the seething university in the capital, to the administrative block, starting at 9.30 pm. Students had gathered there early, and Ganga dhaba as well as the neighbouring eatery did brisk business. Some groups polished off plates of chicken tikkas, while others smoked in dark corners, talking intently. Sitting at the curb, a woman thumped on a drum and sang We Shall Overcome in three languages ‒ English, Hindi, Bengali.

Slowly, the crowd around her began to swell, and the singing turned to chanting. Posters were passed around: a picture of Ambedkar and written below it, “From HCU to JNU, Save Constitution! Save Democracy! Save University! JNUSU.” The reported ban on photocopying pamphlets and posters on campus has clearly not limited their circulation yet. There were other handwritten posters asking for the release of “Comrade Umar, Comrade Ban, Comrade Geelani”.

Council members of the JNUSU addressed the gathering, advising caution. “In the movement ahead, we have to be careful about the slogans we raise,” said Rama Naga, general secretary of the JNUSU and one of the students accused of sedition. “Two of our comrades are still in jail and we won’t chant slogans that will raise more questions for them. We know what our slogans mean but they are misinterpreted outside.”

But this crowd was in the mood for revolution. “Sangharsh hamaara naara hai,” they shouted. The old classics of the Left were brought out: “The people united shall always be victorious,” “Ho-Ho-Ho Chi Minh,/ We shall fight, we shall win,” and, of course, “Lal Salaam” for all the comrades. These were twinned with the Dalit slogan, “Jai Bhim.”

If there was celebration that Kumar had returned, there was also anger most of it directed at the government. “Sedition ki yeh sarkaar, nahi chalenge ab ki baar,” the crowd chanted. “Narendra Modi murdabaad, home minister murdabaad, Delhi police murdabaad. Hum apna adhikaar mangte, nahi kisi se bheek mangte.”

And then that last, thrilling slogan, “Hum kya chahte? Azadi.” What do we want? Freedom.

 The challenge

Through his speech on Thursday night, Kumar articulated the components of this azadi. He spoke, once again, of his faith in the Constitution. The #StandWithJNU movement, he said, believed in the principles it enshrined: socialism, secularism, equality.

They were demanding azadi in India and not from India, Kumar said. “Is it wrong to ask for freedom from the problems that the country faces?” he demanded. Azadi meant freedom from “jaativad (casteism)” and “Manuvad (the doctrine of Manu)”. It meant freedom for a coalition of the oppressed ‒ Dalits, women, farmers and minorities. It also seemed to mean freedom from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and the “programme set by Nagpur”, where the Hindutva organisation has its headquarters.

Kumar’s speech on Thursday was an open challenge to the Bharatiya Janata Party and its student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. “We don’t hate anybody and we certainly don’t hate the ABVP,” he said, pointedly calling them “the opposition” and not “the enemy”.

To the government. Kumar was gratuitously polite. “I particularly want to thank the great personages sitting in Parliament and deciding what is right and what is wrong,” he said at the start of his speech. “I want to thank their police, their media.” A few minutes later, he started an anecdote with the words, “Our dear, esteemed prime minister”. He explained, “One has to say it, or else they will doctor the tape and call it sedition.”

To the human resources development minister, Kumar had this to say: “Smriti Irani will not decide what is sedition because we are not her children… Most respected, extremely respected Smriti Irani, we are not your children.”

If he was adversarial towards government, Kumar tried to reach across other institutional faultlines to build a broader coalition of sympathy. He claimed to have spoken to his jailers, explaining to them what “Lal salaam” (the red salute) and “kranti” (revolution) meant, and to a soldier, discussing what religion meant.

Sympathy stemmed from points of identification. The soldiers who died in war and the lower echelons of the constabulary came from rural, agricultural backgrounds, just like him. “What about the thousands of farmers who are committing suicide?” Kumar demanded, referring to the recent debate of soldiers versus “anti-nationals”. “Do not create a false debate with this binary. People are dying at the frontiers and people are dying in the interiors. But who is making the soldiers fight?”

Sympathy

The Kanhaiya Kumar who spoke on Thursday was radical and defiant. He wore his rural origins proudly and used it to reach out to others. He told anecdotes about magic tricks in his village to make a political point. He even took on jokes made about village people and their pronunciation of English words. And he had a story about his mother, an assistant in an anganwadi, to match Modi’s story about his mother.

In a speech that lasted over 40 minutes, Kumar took his audiences from anger to grief to laughter. It ended with the same slogans ‒ Jai Bheem, Lal Salaam, Azadi ‒ and a euphoria that rose gently into the cool night air. As students started making their way back home, one group stood around a pavement discussing what they had just heard.

“What a speech,” one of them said. “I’ve never heard a speech like this in JNU.”

“What JNU?” said her companion. “I’ve never heard a speech like this anywhere.

Blink

Universities on the boil

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/cover/universities-on-the-boil/article8309809.ece

With the long-excluded marginalised communities entering the domain of knowledge, universities have become the hub for new questions and ideas that challenge old notions

Universities and institutions of higher learning today are in revolt — against attempts to reduce them to a factory for the production of mindless automatons — either in the service of the neo-liberal/corporate machine or of a mind-numbing, virulent Hindu nationalism. If the neo-liberal wants universities to churn out people who would become cogs in the corporate machine, Hindutva forces seek to turn all educational institutions into factories, mass-producing pre-programmed Hindu nationalists who will eat, read and love only as prescribed.

But there is an air of desperation among the hitherto powerful, since, for the first time in India’s long history, universities are throbbing with the new energies produced by the entry of those who have long been excluded from the domain of knowledge.

As masses of students from Dalit and Bahujan backgrounds, or from really poor families enter these hitherto heavily-guarded fortresses, panic buttons are pressed in a bid to protect the privileges of the dominant.

With their arrival, new questions and new perspectives challenge these institutions. The old common sense that has till now dominated many of these institutions is thrown into crisis, received notions of nation and nationalism are interrogated.

Recall the withdrawal of recognition to the Ambedkar-Periyar Study Circle (APSC) by IIT-Madras in May 2015. This institution has seen a number of right-wing organisations, ranging from the RSSshakhas to groups like the Vivekananda Study Circle, operating without restrictions. However, within a year of its formation, the APSC was faced with a notice of ‘derecognition’, following a complaint by RSS students to the Ministry of Human Resource Development and the latter’s suspiciously prompt response. The ministry’s letter to the institute raised the matter of “the distribution of controversial posters and pamphlets in the campus” and “creating an atmosphere of hatred among students by one student group” and also disaffection against the Prime Minister and ‘the Hindus’.

This is eerily the pattern that is repeated later in University of Hyderabad, where the attack, once again prodded by the MHRD, is on members of the Ambedkar Students’ Association (ASA), leading eventually to the tragic suicide of Rohith Vemula. There again, the proactive intervention of the MHRD, following provocation by the ABVP, led to the suspension of Vemula and his comrades for indulging in ‘anti-national’ activities.

What is happening in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) now is not very different insofar as the essentials of the script go. It is the same bogey of ‘anti-nationalism’ that is being raised here — and this time it was not just the MHRD but the Home Ministry as well, that intervened — in order to frame students for sedition. The pattern itself suggests that there is more to JNU than meets the eye — and some of this becomes evident in the way a few television channels were pressed into service for creating an atmosphere of paranoid witch-hunting. And lest we forget, two of the five students whom the police want to frame are Dalits and some others from very poor backgrounds.

It is also worth noticing that in all these cases, the Dalit students have been talking not merely about their ‘own’ issues of caste discrimination but also issues that are not of immediate concern from an identity perspective. Thus the APSC in IIT-M had been organising discussions on issues like the coal-bed methane exploration project in the Kaveri delta, GM crops, labour law changes and language politics, just as the ASA in Hyderabad University had been raising the issue of capital punishment in the Yakub Memon case, as well as questions regarding the state of minorities (the screening of a film on the Muzaffarnagar violence being one of the immediate points of conflict with the ABVP). In other words, in all these cases we see the emergence of a new kind of self-confident Dalit politics that is decisively moving in a leftward direction. It is this that has caused panic.

From this it should not be understood, however, that other issues of culture and identity have become any less important. A case in point is the issue of the worship of Mahishasur as a counter-cultural symbol to mainstream Hinduism. It is an index of how much of a microcosm of India JNU is, that even such marginal beliefs and practices find a place there. The coming of age of Dalit politics also manifests in this significant bid to create a counter-cultural canon from symbols that have been consigned to oblivion as far as the mainstream is concerned. It is this feature of JNU that has also opened up possibilities of cultural re-education of Left groups as well, making us all aware of the immense diversity that is India. It is this that Hindutva nationalism cannot digest.

Live mint

How Hinduism delegitimizes the Dalit

http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/xQESdl5rR5BzRzNj8zG9DM/How-Hinduism-delegitimizes-the-Dalit.html

A few days after I started in journalism (this was in 1995), a man came into the office of The Asian Age in Mumbai. He was short, stout, dark and dressed poorly. But he was confident and he took a seat, without invitation, in the chair in front of me. He handed me a press release, and it was about a demand of some union in the municipality he wanted publicized.

The note was in Marathi, which I read poorly, and its contents I have long forgotten. But I noticed the words in bold on top, and they read “Jai Bhim”. This interested me because I had not encountered the valorizing of a minor Mahabharat character before. I was disabused of my ignorance only later, when I understood that it was, of course, Bhimrao Ambedkar that “Bhim” referred to. Through“Jai Bhim”, this man was declaring his identity and his affiliation.

In Surat, where I had grown up, it was unthinkable that a Dalit could be assertive about who he was. What he should feel was something akin to shame. Dalits were referred to as (and even referred to themselves as) harijan, a patronizing name. Such things are not easy to be rid of. Visitors to the municipal sweepers’ colony in Mahim, on the left just before Shiv Sena Bhavan, coming from Bandra, will observe a divide straight down the middle.

To the left are the older rooms of the Gujarati sweepers, whose families came to 19th century Bombay, who identify themselves as harijan. They mark Ganesh Chaturthi, pandaland all (no doubt with a pandit terrified of being polluted), and various other Hindu occasions.

To the right is the much newer building with rooms of Marathi Dalit sweepers. This is more austere, more Buddhist, less Hindu and it is out of the question that they would refer to themselves as harijan. They would feel offended if referred to thus, not on their own terms, and rightly.

And yet Gujarat’s savarna classes—meaning those four castes who possess varna: Brahmin, Kshatriya, Vaishya, Shudra—casually use the jati names of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as abuse.

An unkempt or unwashed Gujarati child will be laughingly called dublo, dhed, bhangi. This is how I was raised.

It was only in my 20s, when I encountered the works of the great Reginald Edward Enthoven (without amateur ethnographer district collectors like him and Denzil Ibbetson, where would this third-rate nation be?) that it dawned on me that this name-calling was pure cruelty. That contempt and bigotry was built into everyday Gujarati vocabulary. I had not known it—and mind you, I was reasonably informed. Indeed, it would have angered the 24-year-old me had someone suggested that I was illiterate about the most basic things about India. I have tried to exorcize myself. I suggest people like Union human resource development minister Smriti Irani try to educate themselves, and I am not saying this in derision. I am saying it in sympathy, having been through the process they need going through.

The exorcism is of the conviction that “our” Hinduism, essentially the Puranic, is valid. The rest is primitive, and even the customary, like the worship of Mahishasura, exists because of ignorance on the part of the other. Such thinking needs to be reversed, and it cannot be reversed if, as Irani and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah (a Jain Baniya, who has also been aggressive on this issue) insists, the other’s perspective is not only invalid but blasphemous.

Our middle class needs to be re-educated, else it will remain ignorant. This is not just limited to nomenclature, to knowledge of caste and so on. We confuse privilege with “merit” and most of us do not have the intellectual capacity, truth be told, to look on the issue neutrally. The arguments here are banal, and it doesn’t matter how traditionally literate the middle-class individual may be.

On an NDTV show on reservations moderated by Vikram Chandra, I was on a panel that included two former Indian Institute of Technology professors. They had little to offer and their decades in teaching had, if anything, solidified their prejudices. Their view was shallow and ignorant, I am sorry to say, and of a piece with the angry middle-class audience that was demanding an end to reservations. On the other side were the writer Chandra Bhan Prasad and BJP MP Udit Raj, both Dalits.

You will find any number of savarnas (no need to look far, I raise my hand) who take a firm view in favour of reservations, and affirmative action. I challenge the middle classes to name one Dalit who accepts their point of view on “merit”. Udit Raj finds himself in a difficult position often because the truth is that it is difficult for Hindutva, with its stress on vegetarianism, on prohibition, to be open to other castes, though it pretends to be.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh invests in Ekal Vidyalaya (single-teacher schools) in Gujarat’s tribal areas. The Swayamsevaks who do the teaching sacrifice their years doing this work, it is true. But what they are focused on doing is weaning away the tribal from animism and towards Puranic idolatry.

In their work we observe the same certitude as we find in Irani, but this time there is also a “solution”. And that solution is to delegitimize the customs, culture and dignity of the tribal.

Hindutva should attempt to be more inclusive. If not towards Muslims, and I can understand why here it cannot, at least towards non-savarnas.

A full 25% of India is Dalit and Adivasi. Put your palm on your heart (do it) and ask yourself what representation they have in your office. How represented is their culture in our popular culture (films, TV serials, advertising clichés)? If it is not, ask yourself why it is not. The only answer, a terrifying one, is that it is not “good culture”. Add Muslims and we are talking of nearly 40% of our population, a half-billion people seen with contempt because of an illiteracy on the part of the rest of us.

Aakar Patel is executive director of Amnesty International India. The views expressed here are personal. He tweets at aakar_amnesty.

The telegraph

What a university means– Are there limits to academic freedom?

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1160304/jsp/opinion/story_72617.jsp#.VtkT2yL9V_k

We are suddenly being bombarded by reminders that freedom of speech can never be unlimited. Political leaders and newscasters are telling us that university campuses cannot claim exemption from the obligation to respect the integrity of the nation and defer to constituted authorities enforcing the law. That there are limits to free speech is a truism. But in the hysteria that has been raised over allegations of “anti-national” speech by university students, there is complete disregard, some caused by careless thinking and others by deliberate obfuscation, for the principles that determine where those limits lie and who can enforce them.

We all know from daily experience that not everything can be said in every social situation. What can be said in a football game cannot be said in the classroom. What can be said in a raucous party of young males cannot be said in a polite gathering of gentle men and women. What can be said on the street corner cannot be said in Parliament (even though our parliamentarians frequently forget that rule). In each case, there are accepted social conventions that define the limits of appropriate speech and identify the recognized authorities – the teacher, social elders, the Speaker – who can enforce those limits. But in none of these everyday situations is the limit defined by the laws of the State. That is the first principle we must remember.

We also know that these conventions change over time. The pace of change has undoubtedly hastened in recent decades. Until fairly recently, for instance, those belonging to the lower castes would not have been allowed to address members of the upper castes as social equals. Those unequal terms of address have changed in many public institutions today. Not so long ago, women would not have been seen, let alone speak, in public gatherings; that has changed. These changes have been brought about by social movements, protests, resistance and reform. The struggle continues. There are many social arenas where Dalits, adivasis and other marginal groups are not allowed to speak with the same freedom that more privileged groups enjoy. Women are still prevented from access to public spaces or facilities that men use as a matter of routine.

This is where the State in a constitutional democracy such as India has to play a special role. Article 19 of the Constitution guarantees to every citizen the fundamental right to freedom of speech, assembly, association, movement and residence. There are specific limitations and exceptions to that right mentioned in other parts of the Constitution and in certain laws enacted by Parliament. But none of those exceptions take away the fundamental right. The implication is that when a woman is ordered by a council of village elders not to use a mobile phone or study in the same class with male students, she has the right to appeal for protection from an agency of the State. If a Dalit is denied access to a public forum on grounds of caste, he has the right to seek the protection of the State. And no matter what the prevailing social conventions, the State is required by law to guarantee the citizen his or her freedom. In other words, irrespective of the limits on freedom of speech imposed by other social authorities, the default position of the State in a constitutional democracy must always be to uphold the freedom of the citizen. Otherwise, democracy slides into tyranny and reform into reaction. That is the second principle that must be kept in mind.

What about freedom of speech in the university? Is there a special quality to the respect that must be given to free thought and expression within the precincts of that institution? Yes. There are two institutions in a constitutional democracy where free speech must receive special protection: one is the elected assembly of people’s representatives and the other the university. The first enjoys legally recognized protection, since the Houses of Parliament and the state assemblies themselves decide what can or cannot be said there; no other authority, not even the courts, have any jurisdiction over them. If one thinks about it carefully, one must conclude that the university must also have a similar autonomous and self-governing character, even if only by convention, if the pursuit of knowledge and critical thinking is to have any value. Given the recent turmoil over this issue in India, the point needs to be argued a little more elaborately.

Take the following text as an example. “Even though from childhood I had been taught that idolatry of the Nation is almost better than reverence for God and humanity, I believe I have outgrown that teaching, and it is my conviction that my countrymen will truly gain their India by fighting against the education which teaches them that a country is greater than the ideals of humanity… Nationalism is a great menace. It is the particular thing which for years has been at the bottom of India’s troubles.” I first read those lines in the 1960s as a student of political thought at the University of Calcutta. Tagore’s lectures on Nationalism were required reading in the class. By then, a song composed by him had been converted by a military band into India’s national anthem. I remember that not only the students but even our professors were unsettled by Tagore’s eloquent and passionate condemnation of nationalism. We had to get underneath our comfortable common sense notions of patriotism to come up with good answers to Tagore’s arguments. It was as a university student that I realized that one had to shed one’s reverence for Tagore as well as the nation in order to pursue knowledge as a vocation.

That is the founding principle of the modern university, as distinct from a seminary or mathaor madrasa. Obligations of bhakti must be set aside for the pursuit of jnana. The university cannot be a place to cultivate deshbhakti or reverence for the nation; there are other, more appropriate, places for that. At the university, one pursues deshjnana or knowledge of the nation. One asks: when and how did the nation come about? What were the different visions of the nation that contended with one another? How exactly did the people of India resolve to constitute themselves as a sovereign republic? Who were the people included and excluded from equal participation in national life? Any a priori assumption of national loyalty cannot promote true knowledge of the nation. Otherwise, Rabindranath Tagore, if he were to speak on nationalism at a university campus in India today, would have to be arrested on charges of sedition.

The absurdity of bringing sedition charges for speech uttered inside a university is so egregious that it defies comprehension. Are we to accept that the present boundaries of the Indian nation state cannot be critically examined in the classroom or seminar? Are history students not to be encouraged to explore the archives to unearth the history of colonial conquests, treaties and partitions that resulted in the territorial boundaries of present-day India? When the sovereign state of India has added (Goa, Sikkim) or given up territory (most recently through a treaty with Bangladesh), are those not to be studied? And since when are judgments of the Supreme Court exempt from public discussion in India? Can students of law and the Constitution not be expected to answer questions about the Afzal Guru judgment, when eminent persons who oppose capital punishment as a principle and others who feel the weight of evidence in that case was insufficient to merit the death penalty have gone on record with their views? Is the status of Kashmir and the Northeastern states a taboo subject in the university when the daily news is full of stories of protests and violence in those places? Can resistant forms of religious and cultural practice that differ from those of the dominant mainstream not be discussed by teachers and students? In that case, the university might as well be declared dead; instead, let the government build national seminaries designed to produce patriotic morons.

Should there not be limits to freedom of speech on campus? There already are. They are governed by conventional practices that are not always the same on every campus and are enforced by appropriate university authorities. Last week, an MA student made a presentation in my seminar on the publicity material and school textbooks produced by Daesh (or ISIS) in Syria and Iraq. The material was spine-chilling in its crude militarism and sheer intensity of hatred. But the students were able to engage in a serious discussion on why this poisonous message might attract some people. That is what a university should be able to do. Perhaps the discussion might not have been appropriate for younger, less mature, students. That is a judgment that teachers have to make. I cannot imagine a physics teacher wasting valuable time in class, except perhaps as a comic diversion, on someone claiming that the earth was flat or that the sun revolved round the earth. Depending on the appropriate forum, discipline and standard, university authorities always make decisions on what kinds of speech are irrelevant, confused or plain wrong. This includes discussions held outside the classroom which are an essential part of a vibrant campus life.

But that is not a judgment that the agencies of the State are equipped to make. If there is a murder or robbery or riot on campus, the university authorities will recognize their inability to deal with the matter and hand it over to the appropriate State authority. On all matters concerning speech and expression, however, the university authorities must be the sole judge to decide on the limits. No other principle is compatible with the idea of the modern university.

The writer is honorary professor, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, and professor at Columbia University

News monitored by AMRESH & AJEET

Dalits Media Watch – English News Updates 03.03.16

 

Modi is anti-Dalit, anti-student: Rohith Vemula’s mother – The states man

http://www.thestatesman.com/news/india/modi-is-anti-dalit-anti-student-rohith-vemula-s-mother/127354.html

1cr ex-gratia to rape victim demanded – The hanse india

http://www.thehansindia.com/posts/index/Telangana/2016-03-03/1cr-ex-gratia-to-rape-victim-demanded/211068

Delhi journalism school suspends student for making anti-Dalit remarks – Scroll.in

http://scroll.in/latest/804504/delhi-journalism-school-suspends-student-for-making-anti-dalit-remarks

Act on my complaints or will commit suicide like Rohith: CCSU Dalit scholar – The times of india

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/meerut/Act-on-my-complaints-or-will-commit-suicide-like-Rohith-CCSU-Dalit-scholar/articleshow/51230241.cms

Congress nails police for gang-rape – The hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-telangana/congress-nails-police-for-gangrape/article8307225.ece

Dalit group says Scheduled Castes should have got 16.8 per cent in budget – The asian age

http://www.asianage.com/mumbai/dalit-group-says-scheduled-castes-should-have-got-168-cent-budget-010

‘Dalit movement has to see itself as part of a class-wide movement’ – The hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/sociologist-vivek-chibber-saysdalit-movement-has-to-see-itself-as-part-of-a-classwide-movement/article8305404.ece

TN2016 and a call for governance: Caste-ing the first stone in Tamil Nadu – F.budget

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/tn2016-and-a-call-for-governance-caste-ing-the-first-stone-in-tamil-nadu-2644248.html?utm_source=FP_CAT_LATEST_NEWS

DALIT LITERATURE IS NOW ABOUT EQUAL RIGHTS – Banglor mirror

http://www.bangaloremirror.com/news/india/Dalit-literature-is-now-about-equal-rights/articleshow/51231147.cms

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The states man

Modi is anti-Dalit, anti-student: Rohith Vemula’s mother

http://www.thestatesman.com/news/india/modi-is-anti-dalit-anti-student-rohith-vemula-s-mother/127354.html

Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula’s mother on Wednesday described Prime Minister Narendra Modi as being “anti-Dalit” and “anti-students”.

Speaking during a protest here, organised by the Indian Youth Congress (IYC) and joined by senior Congress leaders at Jantar Mantar, Radhika Vemula said the death of her son was politicised by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which was an insult to her son.

“The way this whole issue was politicised by BJP and its ministers is an insult to my son. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is against students and Dalits,” she said.

Radhika also thanked Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi for supporting her.

“I am thankful to Rahul Gandhi ji and Sonia Gandhi ji for fighting against the injustice done to my son. They (Congress) are not playing politics over my son’s death. As a matter of fact, it is Rahul Gandhi who visited Hyderabad and supported me and gave assurance that he will fight till the end,” she said.

Senior Congress leaders Digvijaya Singh, Randeep Singh Surjewala, Kumari Selja, Raj Babbar and Jitin Prasada were also present during the protest at Jantar Mantar.

Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh and other party leaders also raised the issue of Ishrat Jahan during the protest, and alleged former home secretary G.K. Pillai was now talking in favour of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

“Why didn’t G.K. Pillai speak when he was at his post? The reason he is talking in favour of BJP now is he is now working for Gautam Adani Company,” said Digvijaya Singh.

Demanding resignation of union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani, the IYC members tried to take their protest march to the Parliament House but security forces stopped them.

Some of the protestors burnt an effigy of Smriti Irani after managing to cross the barricades at Jantar Mantar. Police used water cannon and mild force to disperse them.

IYC president Amarinder Singh Raja attacked Smriti Irani, saying Rohit’s death was not a suicide but a political murder.

“Rohith Vemula was not only his mother’s son but he was the son of the nation. We will fight till the last breath of our life for justice to Rohith Vemula,” he said.

The hanse india

1cr ex-gratia to rape victim demanded

http://www.thehansindia.com/posts/index/Telangana/2016-03-03/1cr-ex-gratia-to-rape-victim-demanded/211068

Challur: Senior Congress women leaders and former ministers on Wednesday visited the house of gang rape victim and consoled her. J Geetha Reddy, Sabita Indra Reddy, Sunita Laxma Reddy and State Mahila Congress president Nerella Sarada and others interacted with the girl for about 45 minutes and assured to extend all kind of support to her.

They spoke personally with the girl and her family members for about 15 minutes by sending others including media persons and their gunmen away from the room.

Later speaking to the reporters, they alleged that that police department failed in nabbing the accused till the victim’s family members caught them. Is Karimnagar police in deep sleep? What the cops are doing when the atrocities against women are rising in the district? They questioned.

The leaders also questioned the Huzurabad DSP, as to why he took the victim to the incident spot at around 1.30 am on February 24, despite having the video recording of the entire tragic episode.

Alleging that the police have tortured the girl in the name of investigation, they demanded the government to suspend both the DSP and CI. They found fault with the District Superintendent of Police for summoning the victim to his office instead of visiting her home.

Blaming the police department of not registering the case under Nirbhaya Act, the Congress leaders wanted the government to change the section. Commenting on cops argument that the two accused were minors, they questioned how minors got admission in police coaching centre.

Geetha Reddy demanded the government to fulfil the dream of the victim by giving a job in the police department considering it as a special case. Besides double bedroom house, five acres of land should be allotted to the victim’s family. She also demanded Rs one crore ex-gratia to the victim.

The government was playing a mute spectator role while attacks on dalits were in raise in the State, she alleged and found fault with district Minister K Taraka Rama Rao for not consoling the girl.

Sabita Indra Reddy said they hoped that crime rate would be reduced with the formation of separate Telangana State. However, gang rape incidents were increased after the State bifurcation, she opined. Supporting Rs one crore ex-gratia demand, she felt there was nothing wrong in the demand since Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao has given Rs one crore to tennis player Sania Mirza.

She wanted the government to constitute a fast track court to pronounce the judgement within three months and appealed the lawyers not to argue the case against the victim.

Referring the police department claims that they managed to control the crime against women by appointing SHE teams, Sunita Laxma Reddy questioned where are the SHE teams? Are they working? Why a SHE team member didn’t met the victim if they were existence?

Mahila Congress state president Nerella Sarada found fault with the State Women’s Commission for not responding over the issue of a gang rape of a dalit girl even after five days of the incident came to limelight. She interacted with the victim at her house in Challur on Wednesday before the arrival of other women Congress leaders.

How can Tripurana Venkataratnam of Andhra Pradesh continue as the chairperson of Telangana Women’s Commission even after State bifurcation?

Supporting the demand for instant justice by the victim’s family, Mahila Congress president also supported them. Speaking to The Hans India, Sarada demanded the State government to do instant justice to the victim by killing the accused in encounter so that others will not dare to commit such kind of heinous crime in future.

When this correspondent questioned that being a political leader, how can she support unlawful act, she said “I am a woman before becoming a politician. I am demanding immediate justice because I am a woman”.

Scroll.in

Delhi journalism school suspends student for making anti-Dalit remarks

http://scroll.in/latest/804504/delhi-journalism-school-suspends-student-for-making-anti-dalit-remarks

A panel, formed by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, found that the Hindi journalism student’s posts on a social networking website were ‘offensive, grossly provocative, insulting and unparliamentary’.

The Indian Institute of Mass Communication has suspended a student from the institute’s hostel for three weeks for making derogatory remarks against the Dalit and Adivasi communities on a social networking website. The Indian Express reported that Utkarsh Singh was suspended after an inquiry committee found that the language used by him was “offensive, grossly provocative, insulting and unparliamentary”.

“The matter has been considered and it is felt that your posts resulted in a great deal of dissatisfaction and unrest within the IIMC campus. Your actions are not in keeping with the standards of conduct expected from a student of the institute and is reprehensible,” IIMC’s Deputy Registrar PVK Raja wrote to the Hindi journalism student.

This comes a month after 17 students belonging to the SC/ST/OBC communities approached the Information and Broadcasting Ministry against the posts. The ministry, which controls the institution, had formed a committee to look into the matter. The committee also suspended a Dalit student from the English journalism department who was among the students who approached the ministry. The panel expelled Prashant Kanojia from the institute’s residential complex for a week for using expletives against a senior faculty member during a WhatsApp chat, reported the Times of India.

The times of india

Act on my complaints or will commit suicide like Rohith: CCSU Dalit scholar

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/meerut/Act-on-my-complaints-or-will-commit-suicide-like-Rohith-CCSU-Dalit-scholar/articleshow/51230241.cms

Meerut: Tired of inaction against a faculty member of Chaudhary Charan Singh University (CCSU) who had allegedly harassed him, a Dalit research scholar from NAS College here has threatened to commit suicide “like Rohith Vemula” if authorities ignore his complaint.

“The Research Design Course committee gave the nod to my research topic in 2012. As University Grants Commission (UGC) had issued an order that all research scholar had to go through a six-month pre-PHD course, we couldn’t start our research till the course was over,” said Harish Kumar, the researcher, narrating the events.

Due to administrative difficulties, the pre-PHD course started only from March to November 2014, based on availability of subject coordinators in different departments. Kumar alleged that when the course started in November-December 2014, he reached the history department and asked why his batch was merged with the second batch whose course had to be started six months after his batch, but he was insulted. “The coordinator, Aradhana Gupta started to shout at me instead of giving me any reasonable answer. I started to attend the classes but most of the time I was provided a paper to sign on that to mark my attendance instead of any attendance register. After six months 10-12 scholars including me were asked to take extra classes as we were short on attendance. Although I attended them, I was still not permitted to take internal exams,” he said.

Aradhana Gupta, however, denied misbehaving with the scholar. “He was stopped along with 17 other scholars from taking the exam due to shortfall in attendance. Kumar only came to the department on the very first day of the course and we saw him again only when internal exams were about to start. When all the students had signed on the attendance register, why would he be given a paper instead? He is completely lying,” the professor added.

The faculty member said on the request of students with less attendance, the department had arranged extra classes for 20 days in July-August 2015. “But Kumar attended 10 classes in five days. The final exams will start on March 6 and only those scholars who have cleared internal exams and have 45% attendance will be allowed to appear. Therefore he has filed a complaint even though he has no specific allegation to make. At the beginning of the course he had a heated argument with me after which he gave a written apology,” Gupta added.

On being asked why he had apologized to Gupta if she had harassed him, Kumar said he was forced to write an apology as he was a Dalit and poor. “Now I have just two options, either take to crime or commit suicide like Rohith Vemula,” Kumar said.

Vice chancellor NK Taneja said the matter had been settled but if the student has complained again, an enquiry would be made into it. Meanwhile, Kumar has sent a copy of the complaint to the district magistrate, in which he mentions writing to PM Modi, HRD minister Smriti Irani and chairman of UGC. “If I commit suicide following Rohith Vemula’s footsteps, Anuradha Gupta, the V-C, PM and HRD minister will be responsible,” said the letter.

The hindu

Congress nails police for gang-rape

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-telangana/congress-nails-police-for-gangrape/article8307225.ece

omen Congress leaders team led by former Ministers J. Geetha Reddy, P. Sabitha Indra Reddy and Sunitha Laxma Reddy consoled the Dalit gang-rape victim at her residence in Challur village of Veenavanka mandal on Wednesday.

Speaking on the occasion, the former Ministers launched a scathing attack against the Telangana State government for high incidences of crimes against women during their regime. Charging that the police officials were responsible for the gang-rape in Karimnagar as they failed to respond to the panic call, they also found fault with the police for summoning the victim to the police station and the incident spot during odd hours and posing embarrassing questions without the presence of women police officials. They also demanded suspension of Huzurabad DSP and Jammikunta CI for harassing the rape victim by posing embarrassing questions. Demanding the government to constitute a fast track court for the early disposal of the case and punishment to all three accused, they also urged the lawyers not argue in support of the accused persons. They sought a compensation of Rs. 1 crore, five acres of land, job in the police department and also double-bedroom house to the victim. “When the government can give Rs. 1 crore to tennis player Sania Mirza, there is nothing wrong in providing the same amount to a Dalit rape victim,” they argued. They also ridiculed Collector Neetu Prasad and Joint Collector Pausumi Basu for not consoling the victim in spite of being top women officers of the district. Alleging that the SHE teams were sleeping in Karimnagar district, they asked why the Women and Child Welfare Department officials were not informed about the incident and involved in the investigation by the police. They have also decided to lodge a complaint with State Women’s Commission on March 5. Earlier, former Minister Geetha Reddy handed over financial assistance of Rs. 1 lakh to the victim. State Mahila Congress president Nerella Sharada, former whip Arepalli Mohan, former Jammikunta market committee chairman T. Sammi Reddy and others were also present.

The asian age

Dalit group says Scheduled Castes should have got 16.8 per cent in budget

http://www.asianage.com/mumbai/dalit-group-says-scheduled-castes-should-have-got-168-cent-budget-010

The Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industries (DICCI) may be pleased with the Union Budget for its proposed allocation of Rs 500 crore under the Stand-Up India scheme however that does not seem to be the case with National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), which is an organisation of Dalit scholars. The NCDHR has claimed that allocation for Scheduled Castes (SCs) is only 7.6 per cent when it actually should be 16.8 per cent under the SCSP budget.

President of DICCI, Milind Kamble, reacted to the Union Budget saying that the National Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Hub announced in it completes the backward class entrepreneurs’ ecosystem and will play the role of “matchmaker” between government and businessmen. However, the NCDHR reaction is completely different.

General Secretary of NCDHR, Paul Divakar, said that the due amount under SCSP budget should be 16.8 per cent which means Rs 91,301 crore and 8.6 per cent under TSP which is Rs 47,300 crore. But the Union Budget has denied a total of Rs 75,764 crore and hence, NCDHR condemns this denial in allocation,” he said.

Mr Divakar added that of the total Rs 897 crore allocated under the University Grants Commission (UGC), 60 per cent goes towards capital assets and another 30 per cent towards grants-in-aid and only 8 per cent directly benefits SC and ST students.

He further said that the budget continues to marginalise Dalit-Adivasi women by allocating a mere 1 per cent to Dalit women and 2 per cent to Adivasi (ST) women without taking into account the needs and voices of these women. He said that the schemes lack understanding of the living reality of these women and are blind to their concerns.

Secretary of Bharip Bahujan Mahasangh and former Dalit Panther, J.V. Pawar, too, was disappointed with the allocation for SCs and STs.

The hindu

‘Dalit movement has to see itself as part of a class-wide movement’

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/sociologist-vivek-chibber-saysdalit-movement-has-to-see-itself-as-part-of-a-classwide-movement/article8305404.ece

Reservation is an issue that only affects a small proportion of Dalits, says sociologist Vivek Chibber.

The ferment on campuses across the country following Rohith Vemula’s suicide and the recent crackdown on free speech at Jawaharlal Nehru University have drawn international attention, with many academics, students and activists across the world expressing solidarity. The mobilisation of Dalit students and the increasing awareness of caste oppression were some positive outcomes amid the troubling instances of attack on dissent and democratic rights. Vivek Chibber, Professor of Sociology at New York University and author of Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital spoke about on these developments. While appreciating the significance of struggles around identity in India and the United States, Prof. Chibber argues that movements of the oppressed can be sustained and strengthened only if they take up issues of economic justice.

Following the death of Rohith Vemula, the Dalit scholar from Hyderabad Central University, several thousand students in India came together in protest. The incident also sparked spontaneous, nationwide mobilisation of Dalits, many of whom were already engaged in local struggles. Around the same time a strong criticism of the mainstream Left emerged that pointed to its perceived indifference to Dalit causes and, more broadly, caste-based discrimination in India. Here in the U.S., we see Black Lives Matter — a campaign against violence targeting black people in the U.S. — that has become a prominent movement in the last few years, drawing enormous attention and support. All the same, some activists within the movement are said to be questioning the exclusive emphasis on racial identity. Are there any parallels?

I think in India it is quite necessary, essential even, for Dalits to organise around their social marginalisation and the various forms of exclusion that they face — both within mainstream society and also within the Left, because it is real.

But it is also the case that any Dalit movement, if it is actually going to address the needs of Dalits as a group, has to see itself as part of a class-wide movement. The reason for that is simple: the overwhelming majority of Dalits are wage labourers either in the rural areas or in the informal sector in the urban settings.

The agitations that have been taking place in the cities are important, but it is important to recognise that the most visible ones have been around issues like reservations and discrimination in colleges, and these are issues that affect only a small proportion of the Dalit population. So, even if reservations were enacted with full force in government jobs and in universities, it would still only benefit a quite small section of the Dalit population.

For Dalits therefore to make progress really requires that they take up issues around wage labour and they take up issues around economic justice.

What has happened is that the Dalit movement, like identity movements across the world, has really narrowed its focus to forms of oppressions that are very real, but which still constitute only a small subset of the oppressions that the Dalits face.

There is a parallel with the U.S. Black Lives Matter, if you think of it as a movement, has two layers to it. One is a layer of real organisers in urban areas, who were incredibly and very concertedly active around issues of economic justice. Because for them the most pressing issues are not so much discrimination in the labour market, but not having a job at all; not so much the exclusion in schools, but not having [access to] schools at all. These activists are very aware that their concerns as black people involve fundamental issues of economic justice, not just narrowly racial justice.

Furthermore, these activists are also aware that what has become Black Lives Matter is as much a name brand and a commodified emblem as it is a movement. And in the past six months or so, we have seen Black Lives Matter has not been as visible as it was a year ago, on the streets. This is partly because many of the most prominent icons of Black Lives Matter are already moving into the Democratic Party, or into Teach for America, things like that.

So it is an avenue that a certain section of the black middle class is using for its upward advancement. We have seen that happen in India too — with Dalit intellectuals and Dalit politicians. Therefore, I think for people who are progressive, there is a simple and clear position to take, which is that one cannot and should not set issues of Dalit identity against issues of Dalit class interests because what they face is not simply economic exploitation but many things on top of that.

Secondly, unless a movement for justice for Dalits is fundamentally and solidly based in class and economic justice it will not address the needs of the vast majority of this section of the population.

It seems ironic that class politics and identity politics should be in conflict. Why do some of these movements demonstrate that sort of tension?

One reason is that, especially in India, the Left has not given issues of social marginalisation and exclusion the importance they deserve. So some of it is an expression of that frustration on the part of especially backward castes and Dalits, of what they faced in Left organisations. I think that has to be admitted.

But that is not the fundamental reason. The fundamental reason is that, all around the world, one of the symptoms of the decline of the Left has been that movements for social justice have been captured by middle class and fairly elite people, who have genuine disdain for class politics and class movements. And they use the language of identity and some of the failures of the Left in the past as a way of setting the class interests of their own constituency aside. This is an inevitable consequence of the decline of the economic organisations of the poor because if and when Dalits or OBCs [Other Backward Classes] start organising as workers, they will inevitably have to confront and push aside many of the current representatives of their movements which have not very much interest in the real, long-term interests of their own constituencies.

So what you are seeing here is a consequence of the fact that the representatives and the articulate exponents of identity politics around the world, especially the Indian intelligentsia, belong to a relatively privileged stratum that has a natural disdain for class organising, because those would affect their own status.

Do you think that points to a shift — away from a position where the mainstream Left appreciated social marginalisation more than it perhaps does now? I am thinking of the Communist engagement with Dalit farmers in the past — in Tamil Nadu in the 1960s, for example, around the time of the Keezhvenmani massacre.

The Indian and the American Left — their fundamental history is a positive one, on all these issues. The American Left in particular has had actually a very noble and very admirable history on taking up issues of racial justice; in fact all forms of social exclusion. The Indian Left did, I think from the 1930s onwards, take the problems of casteism and gender domination more seriously than any other part of the Indian political culture. Nevertheless, I think within its internal functioning and in its mass organisations it never confronted casteism with the force it should have.

There are a variety of ways in which the Communist parties brought into their own culture the caste prejudices, both at the leadership and the mass organisations. I have talked to older members of the Communist movement who testified that there were separate matkas (pitchers) for the Dalits and Brahmins in the organisation. While they would encourage inter-caste marriages, at the same time, they incorporated many of the rituals of Hinduism. But the thing is that you really cannot separate Hinduism from casteism; it is quite impossible. And once you give Hinduism sanction inside your organisation, inevitably, those rituals are rituals around the exclusion of other castes. You just can’t separate those two. So yes, this was a real weakness.

At the same time, we also have to see that within the sections of the self-styled progressive intelligentsia today this weakness on the part of the Left is being used as a reason to dismiss class politics. And that should give you ample indication that the people making such arguments for the dismissal of class politics are not doing it with the interests of Dalits and backward castes and Scheduled Tribes in mind, because it is simply impossible to address their situation without taking up issues of land, jobs, and structural transformation.

So my view is that the appropriate response on the part of people who call themselves Left — and by Left I don’t mean just the mainstream Communist Parties — is to say that the Left was weak in these areas, but the solution is to have a better Left. Not to move away from the politics that the Left represents. It is not just because of class, it is also because the Left has been the most consistent cosmopolitan, universal, democratic force in India. It has been the only one to argue consistently for democratic rights, for women’s rights, and for social inclusion.

And what we are seeing right now, the viciousness that is becoming part of Indian culture, in urban areas, rural areas, one reason for it is that even in the language of politics, sectionalism, narrow interests, nativism is not being challenged anymore. It has always been the Left that did it.

Even in the case of Jammu and Kashmir, the current political forces are mobilising predominantly on religious lines, polarising people, as the 2014 poll verdict showed us.

The Kashmir independence movement, you know the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front when it had real social power and social weight, was a secular and a democratic movement. It was partly undermined by its own shortcomings, but also because but also by the Indian state and the Pakistani state that worked very hard to make sure that it was marginalised by sectarian groups, because they were easier to handle than the secular ones. That is true across the rest of the country as well.

What hope do you see for movements, including the Dalit movement, seeking to mobilise people around identities of caste or religion to sustain themselves towards the goal of social justice?

I think there is a challenge, and an enabling condition. The challenge is that Left groups have to immerse themselves in the Dalit movement and other such struggles and show that they are fundamentally committed to the interests of marginalised groups. If they do this, then they can bring these movements into a broader agenda.

The enabling condition, one that will help the Left make this happen, is that the political establishment, as a whole right now, is lined up against the rights and interests of poor people in India, it is not just [Narendra] Modi. It is important to remember that the law that Mr. Modi is using to crack down right now, the UAPA [Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act], was not passed by the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] government, but by the Congress-led UPA [United Progressive Alliance].

In 2004 when POTA [Prevention of Terrorism Act] expired, it was the Congress government that renewed its essentials with the UAPA. And the UAPA is the most draconian, anti-democratic legislation that we have seen in India — ever. It actually quite explicitly arrogates to itself the power to arrest and keep in detention anybody for simply maligning the Indian nation, for simply criticising it or “causing disaffection” against India. And the definition of what that is, is left open, and hence it’s for the state to decide. It was not the BJP that passed the legislation, it was the Congress. The Communist Parties should have quit the UPA right then. But they made a few noises and then stayed on, resigning later over the nuclear pact with the U.S., which in my view is less consequential than the UAPA as a threat to Indian democracy.

What that tells you is that we have been witnessing for the last 12-15 years an enormous intensification of the crackdown on democratic rights in India. One of the consequences of that is that, I think, people who are committed to fighting for democratic rights see that no one party or no one organisation is behind it. It is a quite unified assault by Indian elites, the Indian establishment. And that is going to require a fairly broad and unified response on the part of ordinary citizens and working people in India.

How do you view the developments at JNU?

That is a straightforward issue. The one thing I’ll say is that it shows again the narrowness and complicity of the media and of so many sections of the Left in that there are a very few people who are challenging the very idea of a sedition law. Instead of arguing over whether or not Kanhaiya Kumar and these people uttered what they said, the relevant issue here ought to be, why does India have a sedition law at all? Even the Left, the mainstream Left parties, their position has been not to ask why is there a sedition law, but to say this was at most an act of a few hooligans, and the whole university should not be attacked or undermined because of it.

But the thing is that the moment you say that a few people in a university can be arrested because of the slogans they are shouting or the views they espouse, you’ve effectively undermined the entire academic institution. You’re attacking the whole university. It seems to me that the fundamental issue here is notwhether or not Kanhaiya Kumar was complicit in shouting anti-national slogans, but the very idea of something being anti-national, and that the state gets to define what is anti-national. The very idea is a negation of the very essence of democratic rights.

You think that is not being challenged enough?

No, at least not in the mainstream media and certainly not by the political parties, especially the Left. To my knowledge, and I might not have the full information since I am in New York, the CPI (M)’s [Communist Party of India (Marxist)] position has been to call for an investigation and to call for concrete evidence for the charges. This implies that if the students did shout the slogans of which they are accused, the arrests are justified. But the arguments have to be that the law is illegitimate. This is what the issue ought to be.

Do you think that this government, which came to power on the promise of development, is using these issues to divert public attention from its own performance?

No doubt about it. No doubt. I think the fact is that the Modi government has basically failed in delivering any of its promises and sees that the Indian people are quickly rendering their verdict. Look at its quite humiliating defeat in Bihar. And I think Mr. Modi who initially was, in my estimation, giving a few sops to the Sangh Parivar while keeping his attention on economic issues, has basically thrown his weight behind this crackdown. Because the BJP is thinking this is the only way they will be able to survive, since there is nothing they can do to prop themselves up. But again, I would urge, let us not keep the focus on the BJP because both the BJP’s economic programme and its crackdown on democratic rights is an intensification of something that was already happening under the Congress government.

(Meera Srinivasan is the IWMF Elizabeth Neuffer Fellow 2015-16)

F.budget

TN2016 and a call for governance: Caste-ing the first stone in Tamil Nadu

http://www.firstpost.com/politics/tn2016-and-a-call-for-governance-caste-ing-the-first-stone-in-tamil-nadu-2644248.html?utm_source=FP_CAT_LATEST_NEWS

As Tamil Nadu heads into poll frenzy, the overarching theme of the campaigns — both by the ruling party as well as the Opposition — is that of governance. While Opposition parties like the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) claim a breakdown of governance in the current regime, the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam argues that governance has never been better in the state.

In this series, Firstpost takes a dive into various aspects of governance in the past five years to analyse the merits and demerits of each party’s claim. The first part of the series examined criticism, the second part looked at how populist politics are eating away at the economy, while the third in the series sought to explore corruption.

In his small house at the edge of a Dalit colony in Omalur town in Salem, V Kalaiselvan, 24, sobs like a child. The lone photo album in his house brings on the tears – memories of carefree years, the only holiday the family had been on in 2003 to Tirupati.

Kalai has seen tragedy very young. When he was in Class X, his father died of ill health. Last year his younger brother, Gokulraj, was allegedly murdered due to his caste.

“My father Venkatachalam was a neat, stylish man,” said Kalai in between sobs. “He was a government bus driver. He used to tell us that an education was most important. Gokul used to look just like dad, had his exact same mannerisms. Now he too is gone,” he cried.

Kalai explains after his tears, that the once happy family fell upon hard times and grew apart after his dad died. Following Gokul’s tragic end, life, he says, appears pointless.

Gokulraj, a 21-year-old engineer, was found lying decapitated on the railway tracks near Erode in 2015. Subsequently, police found that the cause for the murder was caste – Gokul, a Dalit belonging to the Scheduled Paraiyar caste, was allegedly murdered for talking to a classmate, a girl from the “upper” Gounder caste in Tiruchengode. The alleged killer Yuvaraj was finally taken into custody after four months of taunting the Tamil Nadu police.

Kalaiselvan’s anger which has now turned to helpless grief is not his alone. In 2014, Tamil Nadu had the dubious distinction of ranking number two in the country behind Maharashtra in terms of caste riots. In the past five years of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) regime, a number of cases of caste violence have taken place.

In 2011, a mob of Dalit youths was fired upon by the police in Paramakudi, killing seven. Dalits alleged that the police opened fire without provocation and without first warning the mob or firing rubber bullets. Police claim that the mob was armed and attacked them first.

In 2012, violence broke out in the northern districts as “upper” caste Vanniyars torched 200 huts in Natham Colony, a Dalit area in Dharmapuri district. The reason was that a Vanniyar girl had eloped with a Dalit boy Ilavarasan. Her anguished father committed suicide, leading to the huts being torched. Subsequently the girl returned home to Dharmapuri after living with Ilavarasan for some months. A devastated Ilavarasan allegedly committed suicide by lying down on the railway tracks. Dalit groups insist that Ilavarasan was murdered, while police say both post mortems clearly show suicide. This case triggered a number of revenge attacks across the state.

“Dalit murders have increased in this regime,” said Kathir, convenoe of NGO Evidence, which deals with cases of atrocities against Dalits. “There are two types of atrocities — state violence against Dalits and caste groups related violence. 38 commissions on enquiry were set up between 1999 to 2015. All commissions of inquiry have gone with police version so far. Every year murders of Dalit Panchayat Presidents and other caste related violence taking place. This is a caste attack, not simply caste violence,” he stated.

In 2013 came the Marakkanam caste violence in which members of the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) clashed with Dalit groups like Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK). In August 2015, Dalit huts were burnt in Seshasamudram village near Kallakurichi. Apart from these, a series of murders and sporadic violence have marred the current regime’s record.

Activists say that the rival Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) has nothing to crow about in terms of preventing caste related violence. “If there was a Paramakudi firing incident in 2011 in the AIADMK period, there was a Thamirabarani police firing in 1999 in which 17 were killed,” said Kathir of Evidence NGO.

“This regime has not done anything to contain caste violence which has increased in an unprecedented manner,” said C Lakshmanan, Associate Professor, Madras Institute of Development Studies. “There has been a huge increase in honour killings. Rule of law did not help the downtrodden,” he charged.

Lakshmanan states that although there may have been fewer instances of caste related violence during the previous DMK regime, both parties were similar in dealing with this specific issue. “The DMK period did not see so many violent episodes as in AIADMK term. But as Opposition party, neither party takes up the issue of violence against Dalits. There is a clear uniform undercurrent in terms of addressing the Dalit question,” he stated.

The ruling party places the blame for caste clshes squarely on the Opposition. “Karunanidhi himself is creating these problems by aligning with caste-based outfits and inciting them to violence,” said a senior leader of the AIADMK, who did not wish to be named. “We are bringing reconciliation between caste groups and religious groups in the state,” he said.

Police sources stress that firm action was indeed taken during this regime to control and prevent caste clashes. “In 2012, after a petrol bomb attack between two caste groups in Pasumpon, a decision was taken to prevent outsiders from coming into villages and causing law and order problems, especially during festivals like Thevar Jayanthi, Immanuel Sekaran’s birthday and any other event related to caste leaders,” said a retired police officer on condition of anonymity.

He explained that the Collector of the district would impose Section 144 ahead of the festival, thus preventing groups from other areas from coming in in trucks and jeeps, chanting provocative slogans like “Indha padai podhuma, innum konjam venuma” (meaning is this army enough or do you want more?). “Since people from other districts tended to act irresponsibly in the safety of anonymity, unlike locals, this curtailed misbehaviour,” he added.

The jury is out though as regards the handling of caste and related tensions in the state by the current regime. In 2014, Dalits voted almost en masse for Jayalalithaa. With talk of the first ever Dalit chief ministerial hopeful now doing the rounds — Thol Thirumavalavan of the VCK — the issue of attacks on Dalits might just become more important in this election.

Banglor mirror

DALIT LITERATURE IS NOW ABOUT EQUAL RIGHTS

http://www.bangaloremirror.com/news/india/Dalit-literature-is-now-about-equal-rights/articleshow/51231147.cms

Dalit literature is seeing a new churning: Unlike the past where the focus was on the depiction of atrocities being faced by the community, it is now all about voicing the need for equal rights and resistance against discrimination.

During a one-day national seminar on ‘Dalit literature in Hindi’, organised by Baldwin College here on Tuesday, the writers contributing to dalit literature observed that earlier the tales of dalits were narrated by upper-caste authors.

The journey of dalit literature in Hindi from Munsi Premchand’s Dukhi to Om Prakash Valmiki’s Joothan (Leftover) was discussed, and the shift from atrocities being depicted by the upper caste towards dalits to their own discourse on the matter was highlighted.

The later phase that marks the rise of poets like Kanwal Bharti and his book Aadikhand Kavya and Dr Rishab Deo Sharma in his poetry collection Tevar (Attitude) where they are seen voicing their resistance against the atrocious system was also observed.

Dalit writing found a new voice in Marathi in the 1960s and 70s, and made its way to other languages like Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. Dr Vimla, of the Bengaluru University said, “Autobiography as a literary genre became a major tool for portraying discrimination during this time.”

“Personal experience of atrocities and caste discrimination used as a tool to subjugate a particular community, resulted in a paradigm shift and the resistance through writing from within the oppressed set the impetus for politics of identity which defined dalit literature,” she added.

Contemporary dalit literature, after evolving for several decades, is now not only about depicting the struggles of the oppressed but it is about defining a rightful place in a society where there is constant resistance from the upper caste, whose emotions are being fuelled by a sense of depravation as the traditional psyche of society is being challenged.

Dr Pandit Banne, a dalit writer while discussing short stories as a genre in dalit literature, said, “The new kind of short stories now being penned in Hindi, is not only about the caste struggle, but also about the rights and struggles of dalits, within their community thanks to the advent of modern education.”

The language used by dalit writers, which was earlier considered crude and coarse by upper-caste writers whose focus was on sophisticated aesthetics is now being accepted. Postmodern literature has debunked the myth of literature for literature’s sake thanks to the evolution of realism as literary theory.

Hindi writers like Om Prakash Valmiki, Mohandas Naimishray and Kanwal Bharti were attacked for their language during the 1980s and 1990s for lack of sophistication and usage of cuss words in their writings. But now it is more of an accepted norm and has also influenced post-modern Indian literature.

Dr Rishabh Deo Sharma a dalit writer and poet said, “The dalit literary circle is now more aware and unlike earlier days it is not craving for sympathy. Now the writings are more succinct and sharp in their attack towards the age old discriminatory model.

Earlier a common factor that inspired dalit writers was a resentment against the upper caste but now even the creamy layer among dalits who have turned their back on the community are also being criticised and the focus of is not on glorifying self-pity. The main focus is to raise the consciousness around dalit causes, he said.

The writers also observed that after a brief phase during the 1990s – when dalit literature showed resistance to writing from writers outside the community – it has become more inclusive and open, as several students and researchers across the country are moving away from well-known literary geniuses and focusing on issues closer home and subaltern society.

‘Rohit Vemula’s death brought voices from all castes together’

Talking to Bangalore Mirror on the sidelines of the National Seminar on Dalit Literature in Hindi held here in Tuesday, dalit writer and poet Dr Rishabh Deo Sharma said that political rhetoric aside, the death of Rohit Vemula has brought voices from all castes together. “In my opinion this is the way forward for dalit literature too, which for a brief period of time was seen as a fundamental movement, where the voices of revolution were directed towards a particular community to maintain a status quo.” “Dalit literature for me is more about resistance from a strong opposition against evil practices in society and the debate that rose around Vemula’s death shows that even the youth of society cannot be blinded by void age-old malpractices anymore.”

News monitored by AMRESH & AJEET

Dalits Media Watch – English News Updates 02.03.16

URGENT APPEAL ! Please contribute to PMARC: Dalits Media Wacth !

‘SI delayed registering sexual harassment case’ – Nyoooz

http://www.nyoooz.com/mangalore/375500/si-delayed-registering-sexual-harassment-case

Veenavanka Gangrape: Dalit Victim Pleads Government for a Job – The new Indian express

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/telangana/Veenavanka-Gangrape-Dalit-Victim-Pleads-Government-for-a-Job/2016/03/02/article3306062.ece

Thangadh Dalit killings: Inquiry report still under govt consideration, says CM Anandiben Patel – The financial express bugjet

http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/ahmedabad/thangadh-dalit-killings-inquiry-report-still-under-govt-consideration-says-cm-anandiben-patel/

‘Revoke suspension of Dalit lawyers’ – The hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhra-pradesh/revoke-suspension-of-dalit-lawyers/article8301959.ece

Hyderabad varsity’s exam reforms to help Dalit students – Busines line

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/education/hyderabad-varsitys-exam-reforms-to-help-dalit-students/article8300944.ece

Dalit-Bahujan Perspective On The Mahishasura Debate – Counter current .orenge

http://www.countercurrents.org/mani020316.htm

‘Revoke suspension of Dalit lawyers – Nyoooz

http://www.nyoooz.com/hyderabad/375731/revoke-suspension-of-dalit-lawyers

Plea for water supply – The hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/plea-for-water-supply/article8302948.ece

Budget 2016: Schedule castes, tribes protest after Jaitley offers a penny, snatches a dollar – Twi circle .net

http://twocircles.net/2016mar01/1456848675.html#.VtaHrD_Pouw

 

Nyoooz

‘SI delayed registering sexual harassment case’

http://www.nyoooz.com/mangalore/375500/si-delayed-registering-sexual-harassment-case

Summary: He said that the sub-inspector registered a case under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act only after 20 days following intervention by Child Line. Dalit rights activists on Tuesday alleged that a sub-inspector attached to the Uppinangady police station had delayed registering a complaint related to the sexual harassment of a 12-year-old girl. Mr. Rajaram said that disciplinary action should be taken against the sub-inspector for trivialising the case. Shekar Belthangady said the police should first take disciplinary action and then hand over investigation of the case to an officer of the rank of Assistant Superintendent of Police. Additional Superintendent of Police Vincent Shanthakumar said the allegation would be inquired into and action would be taken if it was found to be true.

Dalit rights activists on Tuesday alleged that a sub-inspector attached to the Uppinangady police station had delayed registering a complaint related to the sexual harassment of a 12-year-old girl. Raising the issue at the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe grievance redressal meeting at the office of the Superintendent of Police, activist Rajaram Belthangady said that the sub-inspector registered only a petty case when a complaint was filed on January 18. He said that the sub-inspector registered a case under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act only after 20 days following intervention by Child Line. Mr. Rajaram said that disciplinary action should be taken against the sub-inspector for trivialising the case.

Shekar Belthangady said the police should first take disciplinary action and then hand over investigation of the case to an officer of the rank of Assistant Superintendent of Police. Additional Superintendent of Police Vincent Shanthakumar said the allegation would be inquired into and action would be taken if it was found to be true. Raghuvir Sooterpet expressed the need for police to oversee the operation of paying guest accommodations that were largely unregulated. Mr. Raghuvir said that there were chances of these facilities being used by criminals. Additional Superintendent of Police promises to look into the allegation.

The new Indian express

Veenavanka Gangrape: Dalit Victim Pleads Government for a Job

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/telangana/Veenavanka-Gangrape-Dalit-Victim-Pleads-Government-for-a-Job/2016/03/02/article3306062.ece

KARIMNAGAR:   “I aspired to get a job and support my family. All my dreams were shattered on that fateful day when the three rogues pounced on me. It is humiliating with people staring at you like a showpiece. But I have to live on for my parents and sisters. We dreamt of a day when I will earn a job and liberate the family from poverty. The dreams of a family were shattered,” lamented the 23-year-old Dalit girl of Veenavanka, who was gang-raped by three miscreants when she went to the police constable test coaching centre.

Recovering from the trauma, the girl shudders in panic when strangers approach her house. She prefers to keep herself within the confines of her house and is struggling to come to terms with her ordeal.

In her choked voice, the girl pleads with the government to provide her with a job so that she can take care of her family. Her father is a daily wage labourer and mother a house wife. She has to take care of one of her sisters also, who is mentally challenged. Two sisters are studying Intermediate and SSC respectively.

The family lives in a single room thatched house with no basic facilities. There is no toilet and the girls are forced to go to the fields to attend nature’s call.

Meanwhile, various organisations held a round table over Veenavanka gang-rape. Sujatha Surapally, lecturer at Satavahana University PG college and member of Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression (WSS), alleged that the state government has failed to ensure safety for women. She wondered where SHE teams were working. Finding fault with the police for allowing minor students to attend their coaching centre, Sujatha said that she failed to understand the character of the students. She condemned the attitude of  Jammikunta Rural circle inspector, who was rude to the victim. Sujatha said that though one week has passed after the incident, the government is yet to conduct medical examination and announce ex-gratia for the victim.

Congress leaders MLA T Jeevan Reddy, former minister D Sridhar Babu and former MP Ponnam Prabhakar visited the victim’s house on Tuesday. Speaking to mediapersons, they demanded the government to provide exgratia for the victim.

The financial express bugjet

Thangadh Dalit killings: Inquiry report still under govt consideration, says CM Anandiben Patel

http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/ahmedabad/thangadh-dalit-killings-inquiry-report-still-under-govt-consideration-says-cm-anandiben-patel/

Nearly three years after it was submitted to the state Home Department, an inquiry report into the killing of three Dalits in 2012 police firing in Surendrangar’s Thangadh town, Gujarat government is still considering its findings while not making it public. Replying to a starred question, raised by Congress MLA Shailesh Parmar, in the Assembly on Tuesday, CM Anandiben Patel said that the report was under the consideration of the state government. Parmar had sought details of the report and asked why it was not being presented in the House.

On September 22-23, 2012, three Dalits were killed and one seriously injured in police firing in Thangadh after they went to lodge a police complaint over a Dalit’s scuffle with a local upper-caste community member at the annual Tarnetar Fair in the town. Police had fired on the Dalits when they were protesting against them. The state government had ordered a probe into the incident by the then principal secretary of Social Justice & Empowerment Department, Sanjay Prasad. Prasad had submitted his report to Home Department in May 2013.

The hindu

‘Revoke suspension of Dalit lawyers’

http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhra-pradesh/revoke-suspension-of-dalit-lawyers/article8301959.ece

The Roundtable of Osmania University Students union has demanded that the suspension of Dalit advocates of Karimnagar should be revoked.

The Round Table held here on Tuesday also demanded that the judgement given by Justice Narasimha Reddy in the case of atrocities perpetrated on Dalits in Karamchedu and Tsunduru should be re-examined and the accused should be awarded stern punishment.

Justice B. Chandrakumar, who was the chief guest said caste discrimination, poverty and corruption would harm the society and what was wrong in questioning those social evils and it would help in bringing awareness in the society. Various student union leaders warned that if the suspension of the advocates was not revoked, an agitation would be launched across Telangana.

Busines line

Hyderabad varsity’s exam reforms to help Dalit students

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/education/hyderabad-varsitys-exam-reforms-to-help-dalit-students/article8300944.ece

HYDERABAD, MARCH 1:  

The University of Hyderabad (UoH) is planning major reforms in the examination system to make things easier for Dalit students who come from a difficult background.

The Central university, which was rocked by agitation after the Dalit Ph D scholar Rohit Vemula’s suicide in a campus hostel on January 17, 2016, is now back to normal.

Rohit was one of the five students who were debarred from hostels for allegedly attacking ABVP campus unit president N Susheel Kumar.

Shutdown
The university was shut down for two weeks after the suicide with the agitators demanding action against Union Ministers Smiriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya, besides Vice-Chancellor P Apparao.

“This has been the biggest ever crisis the university has faced since its inception in 1974. But now we are not only back to the regular academic schedule but also trying to prevent any recurrence of the tragic incident,’’ M Periasamy, in-charge Vice-Chancellor, told Business Line.

Periasamy, the third senior most professor in the university, assumed charge in controversial circumstances after students demanded the resignation of his predecessor, Srivastava, who acted as in-charge vice-chancellor after Apparao went on long leave.

‘Inclusive institution’

When asked on the measures being taken to prevent any discrimination against the Dalit students, he said: “As UoH is an inclusive institution, we have about one fourth of students who come from socially oppressed sections of society. I feel the present examination system is not in favour of them,’’ he said. There are 5,500 students on the rolls.

At present, the examination system is a combination of continuous assessment (internals) for 40 per cent while remaining 60 per cent of marks are awarded on the basis of a written exam.

“If we reduce the importance of written exam by another 20 marks and give more importance to oral tests, it might be useful for students from rural backgrounds. I find they are more articulate orally than in written exams,” Periasamy said.

Academic panel

Plans are also afoot to constitute a panel of senior professors, which will act as a filter for issues which go to proctorial board.

“The decisions of proctorial board are generally tough to be reviewed in any university. We want to provide another window to settle any issue in a student-friendly manner,’’ the vice-chancellor said.

According to Periasamy, the suicides of Dalit students in the university (nine in last 10 years) were mainly due to ‘administrative lapses’ such as inordinate delay in allotting supervisors to the research scholars.

“I am proposing that a faculty should not be allowed to take general candidates for research supervision unless and until he has a numerically proportionate number of Dalit students/scholars,’’ he said.

However, all the proposed changes will have to be routed through the academic council and executive council which have to ratify these aspects.

‘No delay’

There will be no delay or disruption in the admission schedule for the next academic year, the process of which begins next month.

Periasamy, a professor of chemistry and Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar awardee, is also planning to take up a project on renewable energy based on a new technology by involving students and unemployed youth.

“The project is pending with the Ministry of Human Resource Development and we are in the process of filing a patent for the process,” he said, adding that a knowledge park should be set up to help students.

(This article was published on March 1, 2016)

Counter current .orenge

Dalit-Bahujan Perspective On The Mahishasura Debate

http://www.countercurrents.org/mani020316.htm

The ruling party’s despicable invocation of Mahishasura and Durga legend in Parliament recently and its castigation of the JNU students who organised Mahishasura Martyrday Day as a case of depravity and treason represents the belligerent brahmanic politics of the RSS-BJP that wants to muzzle all dissenting voices of dalit-bahujans. Such politics reduces arguments to bluff and history to myths in order to equate brahmanism with nationalism so that the dalit-bahujans can be kept enslaved to the historical frauds. But things are changing now, as a new generation of dalit-bahujans, inspired by the emancipatory ideology of Phule, Ambedkar and Periyar, are rereading history and rejecting the brahmanic deception that passes off as Indian history. This is the backdrop in which the raging debate over the Mahisha-Durga myth should be grappled and grasped.

We have several partial and contesting visions of the Indian past. But they can be broadly categorized into the two—brahmanic and dalit-bahujan. The reality of this longstanding divide is in sharp contrast to the dominant elitist discourse that serves the upper-caste interests in several ways. The brahmanic, as we know, represents the orientation of the powerful and privileged sections, while the term dalit-bahujan (under which we include the dalits, adivasis, OBCs as well as common women) stands for the perspective of the demoralised and fragmented majority. The brahmanic and dalit-bahujan visions of the past are so contrary and contemptuous of each other that the real history of India will perhaps never be authoritatively known or reconstructed. This is the tragedy of India because its troubled history is not going to become history in near future. As the past shapes our present and future in significant ways, history continues to evoke conflicting emotions in the privileged and the disadvantaged. In fact, the contest over the past is the contest over the affairs of the present that mirrors the real social fissures and distrust that divides the Indian society. Some may argue, and quite rightly, that such contestation over the past and present is not unique to India, but few can deny that social conflicts tend to turn more bitter and vicious in a more hierarchical and patriarchal society like ours.

Thus, it is not surprising that the mystery of history, as reflected in the ongoing Durga-Mahisha controversy, continues to haunt a new generation of defiant dalit-bahujans who want to grasp how and why did they become enslaved to the oppressive caste culture. But as they still continue to be by and large absent or excluded from the professional domain of knowledge-construction and history-writing, they often fall back on the stories of their remembered past that have been handed down to them from generation to generation. Such visions of their oppressive past are buttressed by the contemporary reality of discrimination and marginalization that they face in their everyday life. In my view, the remembered past and lived experience of the dalit-bahujans are much closer to the socio-historical reality than the sum and substance of various brahmanic narratives that generally pass off as standard history in the mass media as well as academia.

It is a revealing fact in itself that the modern historiography in India, save some exceptions, continues to be the fiefdom of the caste elites who variously concoct an imaginary ‘Hindu-national’ or ‘liberal-progressive’ history based on the selective and cunning reading of the ancient texts and sources. In their breathtaking exaltation of ancient India as a uniquely non-violent society, even the liberal-secular pundits like Amartya Sen and Romila Thapar, despite their obvious scholarly excellence and superiority over the Hindutva-type hacks, envision a make-believe past that effectively hides the historical violence of caste and brahmanism. Liberals like them glibly argue that India has a glorious history of being a wonderfully tolerant and liberal society and the problem lies only with the RSS-type distortion of this glorious history. By normalising the longstanding oppressive history of caste and brahmanism, the privileged-caste liberal scholars do not touch the fundamentals of brahmanic Hindu assumptions about Indian history. (For this point, and especially the exposure of Sen as a closet brahmanic apologist, see my Knowledge and Power [2014].) It is admirable that they oppose the hate politics of Hindutva against Muslims and Christians, but they remain blind, like the Hindutva rascals, to the sinister politics of Varnashrama Dharma and the unparalleled brutalities of caste and its consequences. Their privileged caste-class position—and the lure of getting easy praise and prizes from the brahmanic intellectual establishment—make them obscure what is obvious to the dalit-bahujans who are at the receiving end of the most brutal hierarchy ever known to humanity. In other words, we see the normalisation of caste and brahmanism even in the best of social science writings. It can be argued that it is this stubborn refusal to recognise the brutalisation of the lowered-castes majority under the culture of caste and brahmanism in the liberal-progressive scholarship that has contributed to, if not paved, the way for the BJP-RSS’ rise to power and the macabre Hindutva dance that we witness today. This also makes clear why the liberal caste elites are utterly ineffective in countering the menace of Hindutva forces, and the Hindutva rascals fully enjoy and exploit this hypocrisy of their liberal caste cousins.

It seems as if the entire burden of the established knowledge and historiography about India is to somehow converge on one or other kind of brahmanical conclusion, and, thus, to variously discredit and destroy the dalit-bahujans’ memory of their oppressive past and their own lived experiences of caste and discrimination. This, however, is not surprising, given the fact that almost all academic researches and writings still remain the fiefdom of the caste elites. The tendency to belittle and dismiss, directly or indirectly, the dalit-bahujan perspective on history (pioneered in modern times by the rebellious thinkers like Phule, Ambedkar and Periyar) as ‘sectarian’ and ‘unscientific’ is pervasive in the elite-controlled academia. Such academic blindness to the historical injustices of caste and brahmanism—and a longstanding struggle against them—has strengthened the Hindutva forces and deepened the distrust between the brahmanic and dalit-bahujan minds.

This, I think, is the broad historical context in which the raging debate over the Durga-Mahisha myth should be grappled. Let us first know the basic facts related to the myth and the controversy about it before we try to comprehend the larger meaning hidden behind the symbol of Mahishasura.

The religio-mythical device to conceal historical reality

The legend of Durga’s killing of Mahisha, which forms the basis of Durga Puja, is fairly well known. Its foundational text is Devi-Mahatmya (Glorification of the Goddess), a long poem in the Markandeya Purana, written between the fifth and seventh centuries AD. The narrative and complexity of the myth suggest that Devi-Mahatmya incorporates the accounts of some earlier texts in Sanskrit or Prakrit languages. In the Puranic account, Durga (which literally means ‘hard to get [to]’) first appears under the name of Chandika (the Fierce). This warrior-goddess takes to a violent height the tradition of earlier supernatural enchantresses such as Mohini (Vishnu in disguise) and Tilottama (a celestial beauty) who merely seduce the Asuras (‘non-Aryans’) so that the Suras (‘Aryan-brahmans’) can overpower them. What makes Durga remarkable is the fact that she is the first goddess who herself kills the Asuras and their leader Mahisha.

The legend of this lion-mounted magnificent goddess with eight arms, each of which carries deadly weapons, with which she makes mincemeat of the Mahisha and his army, is celebrated in the brahmanical tradition as a triumph of virtue over the forces of darkness. In modern times, Durga, who symbolizes shakti (power) and beauty, has also been resurrected as an unparalleled feminist icon in the writing of many brahmanic-minded men and women scholars. India, they claim, is the only country that has produced an amazing range of gorgeous and powerful goddesses, who are even superior to the male gods.

The above assumptions, however, throw up the following questions.

Does Durga really represent the forces of good? Or, was she just a willing tool in the hands of the scheming gods who wanted to kill Asuras by hook or by crooks?

Was Mahisha a cruel monster, as shown in the brahmanical lore? Or, was he the righteous leader of the non-Aryans who were treacherously annihilated?

And, does the claim of feminist power hold any water, or is it just a figment of brahmanic imagination or an exercise in self-congratulation?

Above all, is it desirable to religiously perpetuate and celebrate the politics of violence and killings?

And these are the questions or suspicions that agitate many dalit-bahujans, and they articulate them angrily and variously, often linking the oppression of the past with that of the present.

It seems quite plausible that the myth of Durga is a redacted and garbled account of some real historical events, as the brahmanical sources themselves reveal. Many Sanskrit texts also divulge the erotic relationship between Durga and Mahisha. Devi-Bhagavat Purana, for example, explicitly states that the Suras created Durga, and she seduced and then killed Mahisha. It is this treacherous killing of Mahisha that infuriates the dalit-bahujan and animates their subversive reading of the myth. They argue that the demonized Asuras such as Mahisha were actually their honoured ancestors who fought against the Aryan-brahmanic onslaughts. They link this fact with their larger argument that the brahmanic social order was constructed through a violent process, which the Puranic legends such as Durga-Mahisha try to conceal through the rigmarole of supernatural accounts. They conflate their subversive re-reading of the mythology with other brahmanic texts such as Dharmashastras which proclaim and preach that knowledge, power and prosperity of the brahman and allied castes must rest on the enforced ignorance, powerlessness and poverty of the shudra-atishudras.

This is what the students of JNU who organised the Mahishasura Martyrdom Day were trying to do by presenting a trenchant counter-narrative of the Mahishasura-Durga myth. And this is what several incisive articles in the Forward Press, a prominent dalit-bahujan monthly, had variously tried to underline. This perspective finds resonance in several dalit, OBC and adivasi communities across India which celebrate Mahishasura as their hero. And this perspective finds reflection in several historical sites in several states that have memorials built in honour of Mahishasura. Even a city like Mysuru (known as Mysore in its Anglicised form) is named after Mahishasura, as compelling historical sources prove. In other words, the brahmanical version of the Mahishashura-Durga myth is nothing but a historical misrepresentation in the eyes of dalit-bahujans.

What particularly rankles the dalit-bahujans is the fact that their shudraization or social enslavement was given a religious gloss in the brahmanical cultural tradition. But as the caste subjugation of the toiling masses was turned into the sacred laws of the brahmanic culture and religion, there has also been a long tradition of struggle against brahmanism, as the dalit-bahujan ideology variously and powerfully underlines. It is in this longstanding anti-brahmanic tradition—the tradition nurtured in modern times by Phule, Ambedkar and Periyar—that informs the new generation of dalit-bahujans who see the Durga Puja as a living symbol of the violent anti-dalit-bahujan tradition. Opposing such sacralisation of violence, they revere the martyrdom of Mahisha, who was seduced and deceitfully murdered, as many brahmanical sources themselves suggest.

Similarly, it can be argued that the claim of Durga—and other goddesses—as an unparalleled symbol of stree shakti (feminist power) in ancient India is based on dubious logic. First of all, Durga’s power, as Devi-Mahatmya and other texts inform us, comes not from within herself but from the energy (tejas) of the male gods. Secondly, she is not an autonomous force but merely a willing instrument in the hands of the scheming male gods who cunningly employ her to defeat their arch-rivals. To seek feminist salvation in the bosom of such goddesses is like asking for the moon which no one is going to ever get. As Wendy Doniger, who has incisively researched Hinduism and its mythology, astutely observes, “The pious hope of goddess feminists, and others, that the worship of goddess is Good for Women is dashed by observations in India, where the power recognised in goddesses certainly does not necessarily encourage men to grant to women—or women to take from men—political or economic powers. Indeed we can see the logic in the fact that it often works the other way round (the more powerful the goddess, the less power for real women) …In taking the mythology of goddesses as a social charter, the goddess feminists are batting on a sticky wicca.”

Above all, it is not hard to find that the brahmanical tradition recognised and glorified goddesses in the Puranic period when it was assimilating a lot of indigenous and tribal practices in its fold in order to entice the reluctant masses to the brahmanical social order. The non-Aryan communities, many of whom had a marked matrilineal orientation, had already been worshipping their goddesses, and among them were Chandika and Durga. In other words, these names were current in the non-Aryan tradition before their brahmanic appropriation. It is notable that the Kushans, centuries earlier than the Aryan-brahmans, had put goddesses on their coins. As Doniger has pointed out, at some moment in the Puranic period, which also marked the rise of cult of devotional bhakti, the critical mass of Devi (goddess) worship already current in the local indigenous cultures forced the brahmanical custodians of Sanskrit narratives to acknowledge it. Thus, the reinvention of the goddesses in the brahmanical mould and turning them into a war machine against the Asuras (which indeed seems a code name for the ancestors of dalit-bahujans) was a masterstroke that worked excellently for the Aryan-brahmans. It helped them immensely in killing the memories of the violent Aryan-non-Aryan warfare that stretched over the centuries, the garbled and distorted accounts of which we find in the Veda-Purana and other brahmanical texts.

Conspiracy to lock up the mind and society in caste prison

It would be in order here to make some pertinent points about myth and history that can deepen our understanding of India’s troubled past. Of course, myth is not history, but myth is not simply the opposite of truth either. Intermingling fiction and fact, fantasy and reality, myth is a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of a people or explaining a natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events. Abounding in symbols, allusions and fantasies, mythology both reveals (leads) and conceals (misleads), and alongside the historical sources and writings helps us understand and reconstruct the human past. But the problem in India is peculiar. The ancient India has only mythography in the form of Itihaas-Purana (myth-history and legends) and hardly any historiography in the dominant brahmanical tradition. It is interesting to explore why didn’t historical-mindedness develop in India? The fact that the study of history flourished in other countries such as Greece and China but not in India is quite revealing, and lends credence to the dalit-bahujan suspicion of a political-intellectual conspiracy to lock up the masses in the prison-house of caste.

It seems that the brahmanic choice of mythography over historiography was deliberate and a crucial part of a sinister strategy to suppress or misrepresent the historical events in order to keep the society closed and enslaved in the caste mould. It is true that all societies have undergone and experienced some form of hierarchy in the past, but as Donald Brown shows in his important work Hierarchy, History and Human Nature (1988), the degree of hierarchy is not the same in every society. Less hierarchical societies tend to be more open and inclusive, with more avenues and scope for social mobility, whereas rigidly hierarchical societies like India’s are by and large closed, where only those from the privileged families or castes are able to get ahead. In more open societies, success depends in a large measure on an individual’s skills and initiatives, giving rise to an interest in history as a repository of facts and interpretations about why certain individuals succeeded and others didn’t. Open societies have a propensity to be interested in the accurate recording of chronology, biography, and realistic portraiture as well as a common educational philosophy, social and political science, the pace and direction of change, the shape of things to come, and, above all, belief in the idea of universality of human nature.

By contrast, closed societies—of which pre-modern and caste-ridden India is a prototype—tend to represent individuals symbolically, identifying persons through the symbols of their caste or rank rather than depicting their individual characteristics. A classic example is the legend of Mahisha itself, as his very name makes clear. Mahisha is a human being, but in the brahmanical eye, he is no different from the buffalo (the bovine which apparently occupied a vital place in the then pastoral society). He is reduced to a buffalo: his very name is Mahisha (Sanskrit for buffalo). In producing images, art and literature that are highly stylized, symbolic, and non-representational (which are, again, vividly visible in the art and literature on the Durga-Mahisha legend), the objective of the ruling castes in closed societies is to perpetuate illusions and mystification about society and culture, thus keeping people away from the reality of historical truth. For this reason, closed societies like India have traditionally elevated myths and legends over historical facts, hagiography over biography, iconography and symbolism over realism, superstition over rationality or science, education of the few over education of the many, and above all, casteism and sexism over humanism and egalitarianism, etc.

This explains why the brahman in India wrote only Itihasa-Purana, which, unlike historical narratives, are a make-believe account that conceals the reality far more than it reveals. The point is not that mythology is undesirable or inferior to history—it may not be an inferior mode of thought either, as many critical traditionalists argue—but it cannot be a substitute for history. By mixing the natural with supernatural and fact with fiction, myths allow us to read whatever we like to read. But if a society is left only with myths, it will be well nigh impossible to understand the past—anyone could read anything into those myths. This was however the precise purpose of the brahman literati—to hide actual history and destroy as far as possible the evidence of real events and their nefarious role therein so that real history could not be reconstructed.

This understanding gives a plausible explanation to why did the brahman fictionalise and do not historicise their—and India’s—history. It reveals the reason why they wrote all kinds of myths and legends, but no history or narrative of what had actually happened. For example, the very origin of caste was explained through a myth in the Purusha-sukta of the Rig-Veda. The tendency to base the origin of caste on a supernatural agency, fictitious claims of descent from mythic figures and similar mythifications were essential to the bigger ploy of keeping the people in the dark about how they were enslaved in the caste system. Opting for myth over history (where accurate names, facts, and chronicles are needed and understanding of the past is animated by an objective concern about what exactly happened) became necessary to hide the hideous historical truth. The literati who wrote misleading accounts kept their own identities hidden from the public eye. It is striking that most brahmanic works remain either anonymous or attributed to fictitious or false authors. Manu, for example, is not the real name of the man who wrote the Manusmriti (see my Debrahmanising History [2005] 2015: 131).

By filling the public space with misleading stories and legends, by blurring the difference between myth and reality, the brahman destroyed the very possibility of any meaningful discussion about society and its actual functioning. In many of the Puranas, statements about events were made in the future tense, although they were written much after the events had happened. Similar falsification–mystification are evident in the Dharmashastras, the Sanskritized epics of the Ramayana and Mahabharata, and other sacerdotal texts in which the general design is to confuse brahmanic prescription with social description. So fraudulently was fiction interwoven with selective facts that the anti-caste and non-brahmanic traditions, especially the Buddhist-shramanic movements, were erased, suppressed, or at the best, grossly misrepresented in some fleeting references. For example, a Puranic text depicts Ashoka, one of the most benevolent kings in history, as a hated Buddhist and a despised shudra. In brahmanic eyes, the Mauryas, the dynasty to which Ashoka belonged, was shudra-prayastv-adharmikah—mainly shudras and un-righteous. The brahmanic records completely ignore Ashoka until the time when, ten or twelve centuries afterwards, all danger from his influence had passed away. Expunged from the Indian history, Ashoka had to be discovered on the basis of his rock edicts and the Ceylon chronicles.

Ashoka’s icon, Gautam Buddha fared no better as the brahmanic forces tried to destroy the Buddhist ideology and movement through a criminal conspiracy and large-scale violence that stretched over centuries, as my Debrahmanising History ([2005] 2015) and Giovanni Verardi’s Hardship and Downfall of Buddhism in India (2011) have compellingly demonstrated, showing also the complicity of modern elitist historiography to hide the real history of India. Brahmanism not only succeeded in banishing Buddhism from India but also in destroying the very historicity of Buddha. So much so that there was a raging debate among historians in the first half of the nineteenth century about the historicity of Buddha and whether he was an Indian! Buddha had to be rediscovered after centuries of forced oblivion in a country whose pundits take great pride in advertising their brilliant intellectual legacy.

Not only did the brahman not keep any specific chronologies or sequences of events, they also destroyed the records and literature of their supposed adversaries. They indulged in massive forgeries to recast Indian culture in the brahmanic mould. They suppressed facts, changed names, confused places and periods, proffered false data, created fictitious dynastic pedigrees, frequently revaluated and tampered with their Vedas and Puranas, Sanskritized the Mahabharata and Ramayana, and above all, brutally censured all oppositional voices and events. (For elaboration and illustration of this point, see my Knowledge and Power (2014:194-209) and Debrahmanising History [2005] 2015: 134-8).

By obliterating historical facts, records and events when Buddhism opposed brahmanism, and the memories of the people—considered ‘enemies’ and hence lowered and ensnared in the caste hierarchy—the brahman destroyed the possibility of a realistic understanding of what really happened. Instead, they (mis)represented India through the rigmarole of myths and legends which served the purpose of hiding the real history. Besides, Shastras and Puranas were frequently altered and rewritten over the centuries to incorporate elements (that were felt necessary for the brahmanic supremacy) that in historical terms were simply lies.

Summing up, brahmanic misrepresentation of Indian history and culture was driven by a ruthless politics of power, the kind of politics we see today in the obnoxious politics of RSS. For all this, it was essential that the people lived in ignorance and remained uninformed of historical truth. In order to establish caste order and a religion based on it, brahmanism had to promote mass ignorance and prohibit emancipatory learning for the lowered castes and women. This is the tradition the RSS valorises and wants to perpetuate under the cover of Hindu nationalism. Its aggressive reinvention and dissemination of old and new brahmanical myths about Indian society and culture constitute the new oppressive power. For the struggling dalit-bahujans, a cutting-edge understanding of this oppressive power and its outright rejection is essential for launching a liberating cultural movement. And its counter-narrative of the Mahishasura-Durga legend is a part of this liberating cultural struggle.

Braj Ranjan Mani is the author of Knowledge and Power: A Discourse for Transformation (2014). His earlier and challenging work Debrahmanising History (2005) has undergone many reprints, and is now available in an extensively revised edition (2015).

Nyoooz

‘Revoke suspension of Dalit lawyers

http://www.nyoooz.com/hyderabad/375731/revoke-suspension-of-dalit-lawyers

Summary: The Roundtable of Osmania University Students union has demanded that the suspension of Dalit advocates of Karimnagar should be revoked. Various student union leaders warned that if the suspension of the advocates was not revoked, an agitation would be launched across Telangana. Justice B. Chandrakumar, who was the chief guest said caste discrimination, poverty and corruption would harm the society and what was wrong in questioning those social evils and it would help in bringing awareness in the society. The Round Table held here on Tuesday also demanded that the judgement given by Justice Narasimha Reddy in the case of atrocities perpetrated on Dalits in Karamchedu and Tsunduru should be re-examined and the accused should be awarded stern punishment.

The Roundtable of Osmania University Students union has demanded that the suspension of Dalit advocates of Karimnagar should be revoked. The Round Table held here on Tuesday also demanded that the judgement given by Justice Narasimha Reddy in the case of atrocities perpetrated on Dalits in Karamchedu and Tsunduru should be re-examined and the accused should be awarded stern punishment. Justice B. Chandrakumar, who was the chief guest said caste discrimination, poverty and corruption would harm the society and what was wrong in questioning those social evils and it would help in bringing awareness in the society. Various student union leaders warned that if the suspension of the advocates was not revoked, an agitation would be launched across Telangana.

The hindu

Plea for water supply

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Madurai/plea-for-water-supply/article8302948.ece

Demanding regular drinking water supply and streetlights in their hamlet, a group of Dalits from Kazhur under Tirumalapuram Kadankulam panchayat submitted a petition to Collector M. Karunakaran on Monday.

The petitioners said that drinking water supply, which had remained affected for the past one year, was yet to resume despite repeated attempts made by the residents of Kazhur and petitions submitted to the officials concerned.

The hamlet, housing 50 Dalit families, had been neglected by the officials and the local body administration, they said. “Though we made several attempts during the past one year to meet the panchayat president, Ramesh, all our efforts went in vain. Hence, the Collector should instruct the officials concerned to provide basic facilities to the village,” said M. Eranian of Kazhur.

Two circle .net

Budget 2016: Schedule castes, tribes protest after Jaitley offers a penny, snatches a dollar

http://twocircles.net/2016mar01/1456848675.html#.VtaHrD_Pouw

Delhi: In his Budget speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley was at his eloquent best while allocating Rs 500 crore for scheduled caste, scheduled tribes and women entrepreneurs under the ‘Stand up India’ scheme.

“We are celebrating the 125th birth anniversary of Shri B Ambedkar. This must become the year of the economic empowerment for SC/ST entrepreneurs… It is proposed to constitute a national SC/ST hub in the MSME Ministry in partnership with industry associations,” he said.

On the face of it, this sounds like a great and laudable step.

But while this was one scheme, if we look at the budgetary allocation to Special Component Plan (SCP) for Scheduled Caste and Tribal Sub Plan (TSP) for Scheduled Tribes, it is pretty clear that the NDA government has, once again, fooled the marginalised communities. As per the Supreme Court guidelines, budgetary allocation should be proportionate to the SC and ST population.

According to the guidelines for budgetary allocations, 16.6% for SCP and 8.6%for TSP from the plan outlay should have been made available for these schemes. However, just like the previous year’s budget, this year’s budget also falls short of meeting those requirements. This year, the total plan outlay was Rs 5.5 lakh crore, of which Rs 38,833 crore have been allocated to SCP (7.6%) while Rs 24,005 crore was allocated to TSP (4.36). As per the guidelines, the numbers should have been Rs 91,301 crore for SCP and Rs 47,300 crore for TSP. Thus, it is clear that the two sections have been denied a total of Rs 75,764 crore. Now, a scheme of Rs 500 crore doesn’t seem much, does it?

This was the reason why a number of people joined hands at Jantar Mantar to protest against the apathy of the government. CPM leader Brinda Karat, who addressed the protesters, said her party would ensure that the issue is raised in Parliament. “The government must be held responsible for its anti-Dalit, anti-Tribal stance,” said Karat.

Further, activists of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) say that the funds rarely reach the targeted population and are used to provide benefits to everyone, and also questioned the previous Budget’s allocations to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes.

In 2011/12, after the Jadhav Committee recommendations, government directed 26 Ministries/Departments regarding SCP and TSP to strictly allocate towards development of these communities, in proportion to their numbers in the population, both in physical and financial terms.

“Data analysis of Budget numbers from the last five years show that fund allocation to these sub-plans were on an average 50% less than what is due,” said Paul Divakar of NCDHR.

He pointed out that during the last budget (2015-16), Rs 77,236 crore was allocated to Scheduled Castes and Rs 40,014 crore to Tribals. However, a pre-budget memorandum submitted to the Finance Ministry this year by ‘National Coalition on SCP and TSP Legislation’, a Delhi-based rights groups that tracks budgetary provision for backward classes, showed that only Rs 30,851 crore was allocated to SCP and Rs 20,000 crore to TSP as per revised estimates. Even out of this, only Rs 8,793 crore was directed specifically towards the development of SCP, as per the guidelines of the Planning Commission, while Rs 7,399 crores was directed to TSP. Moreover, 60% of the funds for TSP were under ‘general allocation’ while in the case of SCP, it was 65% for the fiscal year of 2015-16. General allocation is meant for the entire country and not just for SC/ST population. The report found that 28% of SCP and 37% of TSP allocation are targeted allocation, which benefits SC/ST directly.

NCDHR also pointed out that while the ministries are supposed to allocate funds for TSP and SCP, only a handful do. As expected, the Ministry of Tribal Affairs allocated 100% fund to Scheduled Tribes under TSP and 12 departments/ministries allocated 6-11% funds in 2015-16. But other important ministries/departments, such as the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Ministry of Power, Department of Telecom, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, and Ministry of Mines made no allocations under TSP.

It is a similar story with the SCP. Out of the 108 ministries and departments, only 23 made allocations to SC under SCP. Again, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment allocated the highest (79%) while the lowest allocation was from the Department of Electronics & Information Technology (2%). The Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, and Department of AIDS Control had no allocations under SCP in 2015-16.

News monitored by AMRESH & AJEET

Dalits Media Watch – English News Updates 01.03.16

URGENT APPEAL ! Please contribute to PMARC: Dalits Media Wacth !

 Mentally Challenged Dalit Girl Allegedly Raped in UP – Out look

http://www.outlookindia.com/newswire/story/mentally-challenged-dalit-girl-allegedly-raped-in-up/932129

Villagers shell-shocked over ‘police apathy’ – The hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-telangana/villagers-shellshocked-over-police-apathy/article8297850.ece

Carry on your fight, Mayatells Rohith Vemula’s mother – Nyoooz

http://www.nyoooz.com/lucknow/374118/carry-on-your-fight-mayatells-rohith-vemulas-mother

Stand Up India Fund Needs a Leg-Up – The new Indian express

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil_nadu/Stand-Up-India-Fund-Needs-a-Leg-Up/2016/03/01/article3303980.ece

Accused of attempting to derail trains, 5 Dalit activists acquitted after 6 years – The news minut

http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/accused-attempting-derail-trains-5-dalit-activists-acquitted-after-6-years-39609

After Budget, Back To Smriti Irani Vs Opposition In Parliament – NDTV

http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/after-budget-back-to-smriti-irani-vs-opposition-in-parliament-1282709

Hamas: Terror wave shows ‘Palestinian culture’ – ARTUZ SHEVA

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/208699#.VtUdtj_9V_k

Agra: VHP plans ‘sankalp sabhas’ in every village to pay tribute to killed leader – Nyoooz

http://www.nyoooz.com/lucknow/374157/agra58-vhp-plans-sankalp-sabhas-in-every-village-to-pay-tribute-to-killed-leader

This Is The Reason Behind The “Systematic And Planned” Defamation Of JNU – Youth ki awaz

http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2016/02/jnu-protests-rule-of-the-privileged/

 

Out look

Mentally Challenged Dalit Girl Allegedly Raped in UP

http://www.outlookindia.com/newswire/story/mentally-challenged-dalit-girl-allegedly-raped-in-up/932129

A 12-year-old mentally-challenged dalit girl was allegedly raped by a man in Sahibabad area here, police said today.

Based on a complaint, the accused, identified as Rakesh (21), a street food vendor, was arrested yesterday and sent to jail.

Sahibabad police station SHO Haridayal Singh Yadav said the girl, a resident of Pappu Colony, was returning home from market when the incident took place yesterday. She was lured by the street food vendor to an empty house and allegedly raped.

An FIR under section 376 of IPC and relevant provisions of the POCSO Act has been registered, the police officer said, adding the girl has been sent for medical examination.

The hindu

Villagers shell-shocked over ‘police apathy’

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-telangana/villagers-shellshocked-over-police-apathy/article8297850.ece

An eerie of silence prevails in this tiny Challur village of Veenavanka mandal with the womenfolk in general and girls in particular still traumatised after the heinous gang-rape of a Dalit girl and filming of the crime by the accused.

With the media highlighting the plight of the girl, the villagers are a worried lot with the social stigma caused to their village.

With a stream of politicians and mediapersons visiting the village and inquiring about the incident, the villagers, mostly women, are confining themselves to their houses. Villages are yet to come out of the shock and trauma caused to the girl, whose dream was to become a policewoman by undergoing pre-constable recruitment training conducted by the police. The circulation of the video clipping through mobile phones still haunts the villagers.

“People have lost confidence in the police department as they failed to prevent the crime in spite of the victim’s friend making a panic call when the gruesome incident took place on February 10,”complained a close relative of the rape victim. She said that the victim wanted to commit suicide after the incident as the police did not respond to the panic call. “But we instilled confidence in her, and with the support of villagers, we could catch all the three accused, and handed them over to the police after giving them a sound thrashing,” she said, and flayed the police machinery for its lethargy.

The victim’s father wailed saying how can he lead his family with three other girl children after undergoing so much of mental agony. Urging the government to do justice to them, he called upon the police officials to punish the accused so that it can be a lesson to others. “If not, please hand over the culprits to us. Either we will kill them or die in their hands if we are unable to kill them,” he cried.

Nyoooz

Carry on your fight, Mayatells Rohith Vemula’s mother

http://www.nyoooz.com/lucknow/374118/carry-on-your-fight-mayatells-rohith-vemulas-mother

Summary: “She (Radhika), therefore, expressed her apprehensions that BJP had mala fide intentions towards the dalit community,” the BSP boss said. Radhika has lost the confidence of the ruling BJP government in being able to do justice,” Mayawati said.Mayawati also claimed that Vemula’s mother accused Irani of speaking a lie in parliament and bringing the house to disrepute. The demand, Mayawati said, has not been met. Mayawati suggested Radhika of pursuing the case and ensured her of getting justice.Vedmula’s mother meeting Mayawati, political experts said, will give BSP boss a strong chance to project herself a messiah of dalits , besides allowing her to consolidate core dalit vote bank ahead of UP assembly elections. Lucknow: Radhika Vemula, the mother of Hyderabad Univerity Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula, met Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati at her residence in Delhi on Monday and unfolded the turn of event that led to the death of her son.The BSP chief in a statement claimed that Radhika categorically accused the two Union ministers, Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya, of putting immense pressure on Rohith, who eventually committed suicide.

Lucknow: Radhika Vemula, the mother of Hyderabad Univerity Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula, met Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati at her residence in Delhi on Monday and unfolded the turn of event that led to the death of her son.The BSP chief in a statement claimed that Radhika categorically accused the two Union ministers, Smriti Irani and Bandaru Dattatreya, of putting immense pressure on Rohith, who eventually committed suicide. Radhika has lost the confidence of the ruling BJP government in being able to do justice,” Mayawati said.Mayawati also claimed that Vemula’s mother accused Irani of speaking a lie in parliament and bringing the house to disrepute. Three days ago Irani had engaged in a heated conversation with Mayawati in the Rajya Sabha — even offering her ‘head’ if the latter was not satisfied with the reply on the question of having a dalit member in the judicial committee appointed to probe the death of Rohith.Radhika also reportedly thanked Mayawati for demanding a Dalit to be a member of the judicial committee probing the death of Rohith.

The demand, Mayawati said, has not been met. “She (Radhika), therefore, expressed her apprehensions that BJP had mala fide intentions towards the dalit community,” the BSP boss said. Mayawati suggested Radhika of pursuing the case and ensured her of getting justice.Vedmula’s mother meeting Mayawati, political experts said, will give BSP boss a strong chance to project herself a messiah of dalits , besides allowing her to consolidate core dalit vote bank ahead of UP assembly elections.

The new Indian express

Stand Up India Fund Needs a Leg-Up

http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil_nadu/Stand-Up-India-Fund-Needs-a-Leg-Up/2016/03/01/article3303980.ece

CHENNAI: The annual Union budget announced a proposal for setting up a Rs 500 crore fund for the Dalit community to help them with start-up ventures. However, Dalit representatives contend that the ‘Stand up India’ initiative, as Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has termed it, needs a more stable footing.

The finance minister, who announced the Rs 500 crore fund for the SC/ST and women entrepreneurs, dovetails with the Prime Minister’s vision of transforming them into becoming ‘job providers rather than job seekers’ on the occasion of of Dr BR Ambedkar’s 125th birth anniversary. But although well-intentioned, the figures don’t tally, a few Dalit representatives say.

Ashok Bharti, Chairman of National Confederation of Dalit Organisations (NACDOR) says that although this is a definite impetus to help Dalits become part of the mainstream entrepreneurship, there are some pressing concerns that need to be addressed.

The Rs 500 crore fund, he says, needs to be viewed together with the 2.5 lakh beneficiaries, a figure given by the Union government. This works out to a mere Rs 20,000 for each entrepreneur, going by these estimates. “This is grossly inadequate,” he says, adding that NACDOR will be appealing for a substantial hike in this figure at the budget revision.

And to start a business, various costs like incorporation, raw materials, machinery, labour costs etc drive capital investment to a hefty figure especially in today’s business environment.

Hence, the funds, he said must be allocated in lieu of these considerations as SC/ST’s make up nearly 25.2 per cent of the country’s population for which organisations like NACDOR and the DICCI (Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry) have been lobbying for, in the past several years.

Major hurdles like market accessibility, lower credit-worthiness and a lack of trust by banks, he explains.  “Even the tender process is riddled with problems,” he says explaining that the process should be more sympathetic towards Dalit communities many of whom are from semi-literate and lower economic backgrounds.

“Capacity building and skill training facilities too have to be improved and be made accessible for Dalits, if these minorities have to compete in light of obstacles like societal bias,” opines Ajatshatru Upadhyay, who trains Dalit entrepreneurs in skills across the country.

He echoes the statement of the Union Food Minister Ram Vilas Paswan who on Sunday urged that Public Sector Undertakings (PSU) in the country to procure 4 per cent of the goods and services of the mandated 20 per cent from Dalit entrepreneurs as per a GO.

The news minut

Accused of attempting to derail trains, 5 Dalit activists acquitted after 6 years

http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/accused-attempting-derail-trains-5-dalit-activists-acquitted-after-6-years-39609

Five Dalit activists who were arrested and detained for allegedly trying to derail trains near Tirupur six years ago, have been acquitted of all charges by a local court in Coimbatore on Monday.

The five activists belong to the Aathi Thamilar Peravai or the Arunthathiyar Viduthalai Iyakkam, groups that have been protesting the Eelam war, according to The New Indian Express.

The police said that the men wanted to derail the train to protest against state government’s inaction during the last phase of the war in Sri Lanka.

First, the government arrested two men on November 26, 2010, for allegedly attempting to damage six trains between June and November of 2010. After a month, police arrested three more men and accused them of attempting to derail a passenger train.

In March 2011, two among them were booked under National Security Act, which was challenged in the Madras High Court.

On Monday, the Coimbatore Judicial Magistrate VI Rajavelu acquitted them of all the charges. The lawyers told The New Indian Express that the police was not able to prove any of the charges against them. They said, “The police had no physical or circumstantial evidence to prove the case.”

The five activists are M Gandhi (38), R Parameswaran (45), R Manickam (57), VC Kathiravan (39) and K Mani (38). They all hail from Uthukuli and Tirupur in Tamil Nadu.

Five Dalit activists who were arrested and detained for allegedly trying to derail trains near Tirupur six years ago, have been acquitted of all charges by a local court in Coimbatore on Monday.

The five activists belong to the Aathi Thamilar Peravai or the Arunthathiyar Viduthalai Iyakkam, groups that have been protesting the Eelam war, according to The New Indian Express.

The police said that the men wanted to derail the train to protest against state government’s inaction during the last phase of the war in Sri Lanka.

First, the government arrested two men on November 26, 2010, for allegedly attempting to damage six trains between June and November of 2010. After a month, police arrested three more men and accused them of attempting to derail a passenger train.

In March 2011, two among them were booked under National Security Act, which was challenged in the Madras High Court.

On Monday, the Coimbatore Judicial Magistrate VI Rajavelu acquitted them of all the charges. The lawyers told The New Indian Express that the police was not able to prove any of the charges against them. They said, “The police had no physical or circumstantial evidence to prove the case.”

The five activists are M Gandhi (38), R Parameswaran (45), R Manickam (57), VC Kathiravan (39) and K Mani (38). They all hail from Uthukuli and Tirupur in Tamil Nadu.

NDTV

After Budget, Back To Smriti Irani Vs Opposition In Parliament

http://www.ndtv.com/india-news/after-budget-back-to-smriti-irani-vs-opposition-in-parliament-1282709

NEW DELHI:  Union Budget presented, chaos is expected to return to Parliament today with the opposition parties prepped to target Education Minister Smriti Irani. They have moved privilege motions against the minister in both Houses alleging that her statements on the death of Hyderabad Central University student Rohith Vemula and the JNU controversy misled Parliament.

Ms Irani’s fiery replies to debates on the campus crises in the country had won her much praise from her party with Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulating her on Twitter.

But the family of Rohith Vemula, who committed suicide on January 17 days after he was banned from the hostel and other common areas on the campus, had said the minister’s claim that “nobody allowed a doctor near his body” was a set of “absolute lies”.

Supporters of Rohit, a Dalit, and opposition parties allege that he was a victim of caste discrimination.

As opposition parties decided to corner the government and the minister, Rohith’s mother met Congress president Sonia Gandhi, CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury and Janata Dal (United) leader KC Tyagi on Saturday.

The privilege motion against Ms Irani in the Lok Sabha is not a big worry for the government, which has a comfortable majority in the lower house to defeat it, though the opposition is expected to follow that up by disrupting the house.

The real worry is in the Rajya Sabha, where the government is in a minority. Mayawati, whose Bahujan Samaj Party or BSP draws big support from Dalit voters, is leading the charge against the government in the upper house and a united opposition has the numbers for making the house accept the motion.

“Rohith’s mother is saying that the HRD Minister lied in the house. Still Prime Minister Modi has not acted against her,” said Satish Mishra of the BSP.

But sources in the BJP insist that Ms Irani had not lied. She is believed to have cited a police report submitted in court, which inexplicably did not mention the visit by a doctor who declared Rohith dead after examining him.

The Left parties also want to move privilege motions against Ms Irani for her comments on Goddess Durga in Parliament on Friday.

“I am a practising Hindu and Durga worshipper,” she had said, explaining the context of why she had read out from a pamphlet allegedly circulated on the Jawaharlal Nehru University or JNU campus, which had derogatory references to Goddess Durga. Ms Irani has said the pamphlet showed the “depraved mentality” of a section of JNU students.

 Opposition parties have said they want the minister to apologise and explain if it was authentic.

ARTUZ SHEVA

Hamas: Terror wave shows ‘Palestinian culture’

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/208699#.VtUdtj_9V_k

The Hamas terrorist organization held a show of strength with thousands of participants last Friday at Rafah in southern Gaza, in a demonstration of full support for the current Arab terror wave against Israel.

Deputy Hamas head Ismail Haniyeh was the main speaker at the event, where he said the brutal intifada expresses “the culture of the Palestinian people” and the path it has chosen.

He claimed that the “occupying enemy” will not be able to stop the terror wave, and neither will Israeli security cooperation with the Palestinian Authority.

Haniyeh said the new generation of Palestinian Arabs doesn’t know fear, and that the intifada shows “the greatest strategic change in recent years.”

“The Al-Quds intifada, despite the distance, is our campaign here in Gaza and our intifada here in Rafah, and the blood there is our blood, and the heroes there are our heroes, and Jerusalem is ours and Al-Aqsa Mosque is ours, and it’s all ours, and Allah is with us with our forces,” said the terror leader.

Hamas has been vigorously involved in inciting terrorism during the current wave of violence, often mimicking Islamic State’s style with propaganda clips staging beheadings and suicide bombings.

Hamas has been also been preparing intensively for its fourth terror war against the Jewish state. The IDF estimates Hamas is focusing its efforts on one major terror tunnel breaching far under the security barrier, with roughly 1,000 terrorists said to be working on the tunnel meant to enable a surprise attack deep inside Israeli territory; the tunnel has yet to be located.

Nyoooz

Agra: VHP plans ‘sankalp sabhas’ in every village to pay tribute to killed leader

http://www.nyoooz.com/lucknow/374157/agra58-vhp-plans-sankalp-sabhas-in-every-village-to-pay-tribute-to-killed-leader

Summary: (Express Photo by Gajendra yadav) Heavy police force deployed in Agra after a VHP Leader shot dead. Heavy police force deployed in Agra after a VHP Leader shot dead. “Gau Rakshak Samitis (cow protection units) will be set up to keep a watch on cow slaughter and smuggling. VHP has alleged that Mahaur was killed because he was running a campaign against cow slaughter in the region. The Agra district general secretary of VHP, Ashok Lavaniya, said from Wednesday, the organisation will start holding condolence meets for Mahaur in every village and ward of Agra.

Heavy police force deployed in Agra after a VHP Leader shot dead. (Express Photo by Gajendra yadav) Heavy police force deployed in Agra after a VHP Leader shot dead. (Express Photo by Gajendra yadav) A DAY after holding an “aggressive” condolence meet for Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Arun Mahaur — a Dalit who was allegedly killed by Muslims in Agra last week — the organisation has decided to hold ‘shradhanjali’ and ‘sankalp sabhas’ in every village and ward of the Braj region from Wednesday to protest against his death. VHP has alleged that Mahaur was killed because he was running a campaign against cow slaughter in the region. The Agra district general secretary of VHP, Ashok Lavaniya, said from Wednesday, the organisation will start holding condolence meets for Mahaur in every village and ward of Agra. The VHP workers would put up posters with Mahaur’s photograph with messages like ‘Amar Shaheed Gau Rakshak Arun Mahaur’ in the backdrop and address gatherings attended by Hindus.

Leaders of pro-Hindutva outfits, particularly leaders from the Dalit community, would be invited to the meetings. “The objective of these meetings will be to create an awareness among Hindus that a person from their community has sacrificed his life to protect the honour of Hindus girls and prevent cow slaughter… The message is clear… the entire Hindu community will have to unite to protect cows,” Lavaniya said. At the meetings, people would be told that while BSP chief Mayawati, Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal were “silent” on Mahaur’s killing, they had been vocal when a Muslim man was lynched by a Hindu mob in Dadri on suspicion on beef consumption. “The organisation has decided to not hold any violent protest on the roads because such spontaneous reaction draws allegations that VHP is trying to do politics on unfortunate incidents,” Lavaniya said. VHP national joint general secretary Surendra Jain said that at the ‘sankalp sabhas’ held in Braj region, Hanuman Chalisa will be recited and a pledge taken to protect cows. “Gau Rakshak Samitis (cow protection units) will be set up to keep a watch on cow slaughter and smuggling. The samitis will first inform police, but if the administration does not respond, the workers will take action on their own,” he added. On Sunday, Muslims were equated to “demons” and “descendants of Ravana”, and warned of a “final battle”, as the Sangh Parivar held a condolence meeting in Agra for Mahaur.

Youth ki awaz

This Is The Reason Behind The “Systematic And Planned” Defamation Of JNU

http://www.youthkiawaaz.com/2016/02/jnu-protests-rule-of-the-privileged/

Discrimination and prejudice have always been a part of our society. Universities in India are hegemonised by dominant-caste student groups. The prejudicial treatment of students from marginalised communities, especially with Dalits, became a serious matter of concern after the suicide of Rohith Vemula, a student of the University of Hyderabad. The ‘rule of the privileged’ has become a norm rather than an exception in our universities.

It seems Jawaharlal Nehru University will not be allowed to be an exception to the ‘rule of the privileged’. The systematic and planned defaming of the university calling the students ‘anti-nationals’ is nothing but an attempt of those whose are desperately trying to impose their ideologies on institutes of higher education. JNU has always provided a pluralistic and an open vision of India to its students that works to render the country’s poorest and the most underprivileged visible in the eye of the state and it has always been the ethos of the university.

The upper-caste middle class in India often does not even recognise the existence of underprivileged citizens. Therefore, it becomes easy for them to swallow Sangh Parivar’s vision of India as a country of the Hindu upper-caste middle class.

While people are critical of the debate on Afzal Guru’s hanging, no one seems worried that insults have been made regularly to our Constitution by the actions of the government. It is also alleged that Ambedkar’s literature, including copies of Constitution, which were displayed outside Bal Bhawan for sale, were allegedly torn by agitating Bhartiya Janta Yuva Morcha activists in a recent clash in Gwalior. Why does the ‘elite’ class then sit ignorant of this, stay dormant and take no action? The government seems to be muffling the voices of the many in the name of ‘nationalism’.

India has a history of dominant groups being intolerant towards certain sections – women, Dalits, lower castes, and other minorities. These underprivileged sections were never given an opportunity to question the injustice done to them by the dominant groups and always had to muffle their voices for various reasons be it the fact of their belonging to a minority, or being born as a woman, or a Dalit. The reasons are plenty.

A movement only happened after structural changes were introduced in society. Reservation was one such step that provided a new horizon of opportunities to the long lost voices of the ones belonging to the suppressed castes, classes and gender. It is when they read that they began to question societal norms and voice their opinions. It is then that the underprivileged, which had always considered tolerance a virtue by birth, refused to further tolerate the injustice.

Class, caste and gender divisions exist in all sections of society. Today, the need of the hour is for us to be rational and understand what kind of intolerance is acceptable and what kind is not. With an Emergency-like hysteria being created, basic democratic rights being suspended and voices being stifled, whatever has been happening in JNU since the last few days is an act of atrocity. One person raises an opinion and we begin to call that act ‘anti-national’. We must recall that in a democracy, everyone is entitled to hold an independent opinion. That does not mean they are anti-national, does that?

News monitored by AMRESH & AJEET

Dalits Media Watch – English News Updates 29.02.16

URGENT ALERT ! Please contribute to PMARC: Dalits Media Wacth !

 

Dalit medical student found hanging in Tamil Nadu – Ibn live

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india/dalit-medical-student-found-hanging-in-tamil-nadu-1209215.html

Karimnagar: 2 held for rape of Dalit girl – Deccanechronicle

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/crime/290216/karimnagar-2-held-for-rape-of-dalit-girl.html

Shoddy handling of Rohith Vemula case – Nyoooz

http://www.nyoooz.com/hyderabad/373227/shoddy-handling-of-rohith-vemula-case

National human rights body seeks report on dalit girl rape case – The times of india

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/rajkot/National-human-rights-body-seeks-report-on-dalit-girl-rape-case/articleshow/51184589.cms

I’m not your child but political opponent: JNU student to Smriti Irani – Ibn live

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india/im-not-your-child-but-political-opponent-jnu-student-to-smriti-irani-1209371.html

Sadhvi Prachi sparks fresh row: SP govt conspiring to convert state into Kashmir – Nyoooz

http://www.nyoooz.com/agra/372878/sadhvi-prachi-sparks-fresh-row58-sp-govt-conspiring-to-convert-state-into-kashmir

Bajrang Dal questions Maya’s silence over ‘Dalit’ VHP leader’s murder – The times of india

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/meerut/Bajrang-Dal-questions-Mayas-silence-over-Dalit-VHP-leaders-murder/articleshow/51181673.cms

Lucknow University to hold ‘non-political’ national seminar on Ambedkar’s vision – Nyoooz

http://www.nyoooz.com/lucknow/373074/lucknow-university-to-hold-nonpolitical-national-seminar-on-ambedkars-vision

Jaffer Sharief moots dalit CM – demand for change gains support – Daiji world

http://www.daijiworld.com/news/news_disp.asp?n_id=382724

Offer Truth and Hope, Not Drama: Teachers – the news click

http://newsclick.in/india/offer-truth-and-hope-not-drama-teachers

The one sure-fire prediction for 2016 Budget: Dalits and Adivasis will be tricked again – Scroll.in

http://scroll.in/article/804320/the-one-sure-fire-prediction-for-2016-budget-dalits-and-adivasis-will-be-tricked-again

 

 

Ibn live

Dalit medical student found hanging in Tamil Nadu

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india/dalit-medical-student-found-hanging-in-tamil-nadu-1209215.html

A final year medical student from Trichy, Tamil Nadu was found hanging from the ceiling fan of his room on Sunday.

Parithi Semmal was a final year student of MBBS at Sree Moogambika Institute of Medical Sciences.

According to the police sources, no suicide note was found from his room. A case of unnatural death has been registered at the nearest police station.

The postmortem report is still awaited. Parithi’s death comes weeks after three girls allegedly committed Suicide in Villupuram over poor infrastructure and harassment on the part of college authorities.

Deccanechronicle

Karimnagar: 2 held for rape of Dalit girl

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/crime/290216/karimnagar-2-held-for-rape-of-dalit-girl.html

Karimnagar: Two youths were arrested in the sensational rape of a dalit girl from Venavanka in uzurabad on Sunday. The incident drew headlines in the national media. Women’s organisations, political parties and student unions condemned the incident. Accused Gotte Srinivas, a resident of Amudalapalli in Shankarapatnam mandal, Moddam Rakesh and Moddam Anji from Kaluwala in Veenavanka mandal were apprehended on the charge of raping the girl, a B. Tech student. Another youth, Moddam Rakesh, who filmed the scene when the other two were outraging her modesty, was detained on Saturday.

Huzurabad DSP M. Ravinder Reddy said the accused were arrested as they were discharged from the hospital. Srinivas was produced before a Huzurabad magistrate and sent to judicial remand. Rakesh and Anji were produced before a juvenile court as they were minors. The accused were booked under SC-ST Prevention of atrocities Act, and IT Act of 2008.

Nyoooz

Shoddy handling of Rohith Vemula case

http://www.nyoooz.com/hyderabad/373227/shoddy-handling-of-rohith-vemula-case

Summary: Continuing protests over the suicide of dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula underscores complete failure on the authorities’ part to deal with the situation, which has now catapulted into a full-fledged national issue. His temporary appointment has also been protested.The gaffes have continued with Irani saying in the Parliament that no doctor was allowed to check on Vemula immediately after the suicide, resulting in a huge protest in the nation’s capital. Srivastava, not new to controversies, was in the eye of a storm following the suicide of dalit student Senthil Kumar, in 2008.After Srivastava, was also forced to go on leave, the mantle has now fallen on senior professor M Periasamy to run the show. She not only defended the actions of the varsity, but also ended up making bloopers in the probe itself.A huge backlash by the opposition and nationwide protests, finally forced Prime Minister Narendra Modi to speak on the issue, but it turned out to be a case, too little too late.Asking Appa Rao to go on leave and appointing Dr Vipin Srivastava from the department of physics, who was chairman of the committee that recommended punishment for the students, was a poor move. A series of blunders by the MHRD and poor coordination with authorities at University of Hyderabad, has not only brought huge embarrassment to the ruling BJP, but also raised questions about its crisis management skills.In the immediate aftermath of the suicide, vice-chancellor Appa Rao Podile made the first mistake of not meeting the bereaved family or the agitating students, fearing attacks.While New Delhi also shied away from intervening, in what at that stage, seemed to have a potential to rock several boats.

Continuing protests over the suicide of dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula underscores complete failure on the authorities’ part to deal with the situation, which has now catapulted into a full-fledged national issue. A series of blunders by the MHRD and poor coordination with authorities at University of Hyderabad, has not only brought huge embarrassment to the ruling BJP, but also raised questions about its crisis management skills.In the immediate aftermath of the suicide, vice-chancellor Appa Rao Podile made the first mistake of not meeting the bereaved family or the agitating students, fearing attacks.While New Delhi also shied away from intervening, in what at that stage, seemed to have a potential to rock several boats. Opposition parties, mainly the Left and the YSRCP, quickly rallied behind the four expelled students and Vemula’s family in condemning the act.While the TRS government chose not to speak on the issue, inviting criticism from various quarters, the national leaders led by Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal started to trickle in and attacked the BJP.As one after the other, national leaders turned it into a caste issue, the BJP finally woke up, but committed the next blunder of allowing Union minister Smriti Irani to question the anti-establishment politics by Rohith Vemula and the Ambedkar Students Association in a media conference.

She not only defended the actions of the varsity, but also ended up making bloopers in the probe itself.A huge backlash by the opposition and nationwide protests, finally forced Prime Minister Narendra Modi to speak on the issue, but it turned out to be a case, too little too late.Asking Appa Rao to go on leave and appointing Dr Vipin Srivastava from the department of physics, who was chairman of the committee that recommended punishment for the students, was a poor move. Srivastava, not new to controversies, was in the eye of a storm following the suicide of dalit student Senthil Kumar, in 2008.After Srivastava, was also forced to go on leave, the mantle has now fallen on senior professor M Periasamy to run the show. His temporary appointment has also been protested.The gaffes have continued with Irani saying in the Parliament that no doctor was allowed to check on Vemula immediately after the suicide, resulting in a huge protest in the nation’s capital.

The times of india

National human rights body seeks report on dalit girl rape case

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/rajkot/National-human-rights-body-seeks-report-on-dalit-girl-rape-case/articleshow/51184589.cms

Rajkot: The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has issued a notice to Amreli collector and state director general of police seeking an action-taken report in connection with the alleged rape of an 18-year-old dalit girl in Amreli village last year.

Family members of the girl, who was allegedly raped by a 29-year-old man from upper caste, have fled their native Vadli village after being allegedly threatened with dire consequences by kin of the accused.

The girl was allegedly kidnapped and raped on December 25. She returned home at around 3am on December 26 and lodged a complaint against two persons Hitesh and Umesh.

After lodging the complaint, the girl’s 22 member-family of farm labourers, including the survivor’s paralytic father, fled the village and have been camping outside the Amreli district collectorate since January 1. They are demanding to be declared as ‘Hijarati’ (compelled to leave native place). A dalit right activist wrote to NHRC about the human rights violation issue and sought action.

“The petitioner has alleged rape of dalit girl, police inaction and threat to dalit people forcing them to leave their village. Let the complaint be transmitted to Amreli district magistrate and director general of police, Gujarat, calling for action-taken report within four weeks. It is requested that action-taken report be sent to commission within four weeks from the date of receipt of this letter,” NHRC’s letter stated.

Rajula police had also lodged a complaint of criminal intimidation against the accused’s relative Raning Jakhda, who was named by the girl’s father for threatening the family.

“After our repeated calls to declare this family Hijarati, Amreli district administration has asked the concerned department to initiate process and we are awaiting the response,” said Navchetan Parmar, the advocate, who is helping the family get justice.

Ibn live

I’m not your child but political opponent: JNU student to Smriti Irani

http://www.ibnlive.com/news/india/im-not-your-child-but-political-opponent-jnu-student-to-smriti-irani-1209371.html

New Delhi: Asserting that he is not a “child”, a term used by HRD Minister Smriti Irani to refer to Dalit scholar Rohith Vemula in Parliament, one of the six JNU students accused of sedition has said in an open letter to her that he is instead her political “opponent”.

“I heard the speech you gave in Parliament. I want to make it clear that this letter is not from a ‘child’ to a ‘motherly’ Minister but from one political person to another political person,” said the open letter by Anant Prakash.

“I also want to make it clear that I do not judge a person’s merit by her educational qualification. In fact, I reject the concept of merit,” he further said.

Prakash said that while the minister asserts her identity as a woman, she had failed to stand with Vemula’s mother.

“You assert your identity as a woman and you must do that because women are among those groups who have been oppressed for long. But Vemula’s mother, a Dalit woman, fought with this patriarchal society to raise her kids and gave them her identity but why is your government associating the identity of her children to her husband.

“Are you standing with a Brahmanical and patriarchal society? Why are you snatching away her right to have an independent identity,” the letter said.

Prakash also asked Irani to read Manusmriti and said that he hopes she would leave BJP once she reads it as a woman.

“You said in your speech that politics is happening over Rohith’s murder but you are not so naïve to not understand that he died due to saffron politics.

“Don’t you know the process of natural justice that a decision cannot be taken without listening to the party concerned. We were debarred by an inquiry committee without even listening to us. Should you not have been cautious to not announce our names in Parliament in the most unconstitutional manner,” he added.

Students and teachers have alleged that Smriti had quoted in Parliament from a “half-cooked” report submitted by the university without any investigation.

“Rohith’s mother is not begging you for justice, my mother is not crying for me too. She is concerned of course but she is encouraging me to fight against the fascist forces and is advising me to not be scared,” he added.

Anant, a former JNU students’ union vice president, is among the five students police were looking for in connection with a sedition case over an event on campus against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru during which anti-national slogans were allegedly raised.

They had disappeared following the arrest of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar on February 12 and resurfaced back on campus on February 21.

While Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya surrendered before police, the remaining three — Ashutosh, Anant and Rama Naga — are residing on campus. They have refused to surrender but asserted that they are open to questioning by police during the course of investigation.

Nyoooz

Sadhvi Prachi sparks fresh row: SP govt conspiring to convert state into Kashmir

http://www.nyoooz.com/agra/372878/sadhvi-prachi-sparks-fresh-row58-sp-govt-conspiring-to-convert-state-into-kashmir

Summary: AGRA: Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Sadhvi Prachi has stoked a fresh controversy by claiming that there is conspiracy of Samajwadi Party led UP government to convert the state into Kashmir. “Brijesh Mahor, who was the state secretary of the Samajwadi Party, was killed in 2014 during the Lok Sabha elections, while Subhas Mahor was killed in 2013. “She said, “Hypocrites like Mayawati who claims to be a leader of Dalits have not even bothered to meet the families of those three Dalits who had been murdered in last two years – Arun Mahor, Subhas Mahor and Brijesh Mahor. And in this mission, the state government is helping create a sense of insecurity among Hindus and Dalit. “Targeting Azam Khan, she said, “He is supporting and securing those culprits who are slaughtering cow, our holy mother.

AGRA: Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Sadhvi Prachi has stoked a fresh controversy by claiming that there is conspiracy of Samajwadi Party led UP government to convert the state into Kashmir. ?She had been in news, recently, over her remarks on Muslim educational instituions and Jawaharlal Nehru University.Sadhavi Prachi, who is in Agra to pay condolence on the death of VHP leader Arun Mahor, said, Akhilesh Yadav government is being partial towards its citizens. Under pressure from UP minister Azam Khan, he compensated the family of Dadri’s farm worker Mohammad Akhlaq with a flat worth crores and also paid them Rs 45 lakh, while he merely gave Rs 15 lakh to a Hindu Dalit, who was shot dead by a gang of five murderers.”Targeting Azam Khan, she said, “He is supporting and securing those culprits who are slaughtering cow, our holy mother.

And in this mission, the state government is helping create a sense of insecurity among Hindus and Dalit. There is a conspiracy to convert UP into a Kashmir.”She said, “Hypocrites like Mayawati who claims to be a leader of Dalits have not even bothered to meet the families of those three Dalits who had been murdered in last two years – Arun Mahor, Subhas Mahor and Brijesh Mahor.”Brijesh Mahor, who was the state secretary of the Samajwadi Party, was killed in 2014 during the Lok Sabha elections, while Subhas Mahor was killed in 2013.. .

The times of india

Bajrang Dal questions Maya’s silence over ‘Dalit’ VHP leader’s murder

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/meerut/Bajrang-Dal-questions-Mayas-silence-over-Dalit-VHP-leaders-murder/articleshow/51181673.cms

Meerut: Bajrang Dal on Sunday here upped the ante on the murder case of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Arun Mahor, who the right-wing outfit claimed was a Dalit. They questioned Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawati’s, asking why she was so “actively” attacking the government over the suicide of Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad when she was silent on the murder of a ‘Dalit’ in her home state.

“Arun Mahor, the VHP leader who was shot dead in Agra on Thursday, was a Dalit. Now I want to question all those who claim to represent Dalits and raise their voice against the BJP. BSP chief Mayawati claims to be the saviour of Dalits in the country. We all saw how she jumped at the opportunity to score political points after the suicide of Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad. It seems she cares more about Dalits in other states than she does about those in her own state,” said Balraj Doongar, state convener of Bajrang Dal, addressing a press conference here.

“The reason Mayawati has chosen to stay silent on the brutal murder of a Dalit in her home state is simple. She does not want to draw the ire of a particular community since she wants their vote. Mahor’s killer belongs to a particular community which she does not want to anger. She seems to have forgotten her principles for vote bank politics. Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi is another leader who claims to fight for Dalits. Gandhi went to a Dalit family’s house for a photo opportunity and has been speaking about the Rohith Vemula case. However, he has been silent on the killing of Arun Mahor. We demand that these so called pro-Dalit parties make their stand clear. Leaders of the BJP, VHP and Bajrang Dal have been expressing solidarity with Mahor and his family but these pseudo-secular parties have not done so,” Doongar added.

Nyoooz

Lucknow University to hold ‘non-political’ national seminar on Ambedkar’s vision

http://www.nyoooz.com/lucknow/373074/lucknow-university-to-hold-nonpolitical-national-seminar-on-ambedkars-vision

Summary: Members of Awadh Intelectual Forum hold a protest against JNU Administration at in front of Gandhi Statue in Lucknow on Sunday. The event, scheduled to be held on March 4 and 5, is being organised by departments of Anthropology and Geology. “It is an academic event being organised jointly by the Anthropology and Geology departments… A notice on the seminar has also been put on the official website of Lucknow University,” said Arya. Asked how a seminar on a social topic was being organised by Anthropology and Geology departments, Arya, an assistant professor with Geology department, said: “Sociology, Anthropology and Geology are synonyms. Express Photo by Pramod Adhikari Members of Awadh Intelectual Forum hold a protest against JNU Administration at in front of Gandhi Statue in Lucknow on Sunday.Express Photo by Pramod AdhikariAMID THE ongoing debate over rights of Dalit students, the Lucknow University is set to hold a national seminar in March on ‘Dr Ambedkar’s Vision and Status of Dalits, Women and Tribes in Higher Education’.

Members of Awadh Intelectual Forum hold a protest against JNU Administration at in front of Gandhi Statue in Lucknow on Sunday. Express Photo by Pramod Adhikari Members of Awadh Intelectual Forum hold a protest against JNU Administration at in front of Gandhi Statue in Lucknow on Sunday.Express Photo by Pramod Adhikari AMID THE ongoing debate over rights of Dalit students, the Lucknow University is set to hold a national seminar in March on ‘Dr Ambedkar’s Vision and Status of Dalits, Women and Tribes in Higher Education’. The event, scheduled to be held on March 4 and 5, is being organised by departments of Anthropology and Geology. Organising secretary Ajay Kumar Arya said he has already received about 80 papers from students and teachers of different universities across the country, who wish to put their point forward during the meet in Lucknow. Arya, who was recently made convener of the Congress’ SC/ST department, said: “Permission has been taken from the university vice-chancellor for the event… it is purely an academic programme. With the kind of incidents taking place in educational institutions across the country, it has become significant to discuss such issues rather than run away from it.” However, he added that the event has nothing to do with any political party.

“It is an academic event being organised jointly by the Anthropology and Geology departments… A notice on the seminar has also been put on the official website of Lucknow University,” said Arya. Asked how a seminar on a social topic was being organised by Anthropology and Geology departments, Arya, an assistant professor with Geology department, said: “Sociology, Anthropology and Geology are synonyms. Thus, the two departments have decided to jointly take up the discussion on the issue, which is touching society at large.” A two-page pamphlet giving details about LU and the seminar states: “Education has been seen conducting an emancipator role in each person’s life. The current education system has drawn inspiration from opinions, which are cultured from the authoritative powers of the dominating classes, and seems divorced from exploring the rationale for its relevance in society at large and the youth within.” It further says: “Dr Ambedkar was an impeccable leader, who took up the leadership to light the lamp of enlightment… Dr Ambedkar’s last words emphasised — ‘Educate, Agitate and Organise’.

Daiji world

Jaffer Sharief moots dalit CM – demand for change gains support

http://www.daijiworld.com/news/news_disp.asp?n_id=382724

Senior Congress leader, C K Jaffer Sharief, has mooted suggestion for replacing the chief minister (CM) with a person from dalit community. He also suggested names of Mallikarjun Kharge and G Parameshwar as able candidates from this community for this post.

This salvo has been fired by Sharief at a time when the CM camp is beleaguered by issues like defeat of party candidate from Hebbal constituency in assembly bypoll, wrist watch fiasco, and unsatisfactory performance in taluk and zilla panchayat elections. It is said that the Congress is preparing to send Karnataka in-charge of party affairs, Digvijay Singh, to the state for collecting opinions from state leaders and submit a report thereof to the party high command, sensing that the opposition might capitalize on the wrist watch issue during the assembly session beginning on Monday.

Speaking in the city on Sunday, Jaffer Sharief had said that the state had got chief ministers from various communities, but candidates from dalit and minority communities had not become CM of the state so far. He added that the people want a dalit CM for the state. His comments, coming in the backdrop of the recent comments of All India Congress Committee general secretary, Hariprasad, who had echoed similar sentiments, have created a sense of discomfort in the camp loyal to the CM.

Sharief said that most of the cabinet ministers in the state hail from Mysuru region, and there are allegations that the CM gives more importance to their suggestions. He had asked the CM to take all leaders together, make use of efficient and honest officers, and use both power and intelligent strategies for providing efficient administration.

In the meanwhile, sensing that the party high command was not happy at the way the wrist watch issue was handled, the CM and his confidants held prolonged meeting extending up to three hours in the city on Sunday. It is said that the meeting decided to submit a detailed report on the wrist watch issue, tackling it from both political and legal angles. The CM hopes that this report would satisfy the party high command.

the news click

Offer Truth and Hope, Not Drama: Teachers

http://newsclick.in/india/offer-truth-and-hope-not-drama-teachers

The following is an open letter written by the SC/ST Teachers’ Forum & Concerned Faculty, University of Hyderabad, to Union HRD minister Smriti Irani:

Dear Ms Irani,

Thanks to your stunning performance, we, many faculty members from the University of Hyderabad, are compelled to do what we should have done in the last one month or so, but could not bring ourselves to – write, write about Rohith, write about our other students, write about the state of academics, write about ourselves and write about society at large.

Our first acknowledgement to this therefore goes to you for revealing yourself and for bringing us back from grief, from reflection, from teaching and from various other mundane things we do as part of our job.

As we watched you in disbelief on our TV screens on 24th February 2016, you, in a voice choked with emotion, again and again referred to the “child” whose death has been used as a political weapon. We were left bewildered.

At what precise point, Madam Minister, did this sinister, anti-national, casteist, Dalit student of the University of Hyderabad transform into a child for you? Definitely not in those five rejoinders from MHRD (the ministry of human resource development) between 03-09-2015 and 19-11- 2015 with the subject line “anti-national activities in Hyderabad Central University Campus”? Definitely not when you chose to overlook and endorse what can only be read as extraordinarily aggressive and unfounded allegations by a minister in your own government, Mr Bandaru Dattatreya?

Ms Irani, your constant reference to him as a child is nothing but a patronising attempt to dehumanise his reality. It is also deeply disrespectful to Rohit’s mother whose child he actually is – because she knows how ironic your appropriation of him is, considering your culpability in his death.

Only after more than a month of his death Rohith becomes a “child” for you “whose death was used as a political weapon”. A political weapon by whom, honourable Minister? By the other four students who were expelled with him and who spent those cold nights out in the makeshift velivada (which loosely translates as Dalit ghetto), with nothing but each other for company and succour? By the other students and friends who stood by him? Because you definitely seem to imply that when you say this child could possibly have been revived and yet his body was hidden and no doctor or police was allowed near him.

By now incontrovertible facts have emerged that belie this.

However, we would like to go beyond those facts and appeal to your heart. You were not there that night, Respected Minister. You did not see the grief or the shock, nor were you there to feel the despair. How could you even begin to fathom how desperate the students were when they called faculty members and the medical doctor of the university’s health centre as soon as Rohith’s body was found hanging by students and security officials? As Dr Rajyasree, medical officer, has stated, she rushed to the hostel at 7.30pm and declared Rohith dead at 7.40pm, all recorded in his case sheet on that fateful night of 17-01-2016.

The police arrived at the scene immediately after this. Iraniji, it is beyond our simple comprehension to understand how you with your meticulous preparation, evident in the Lok Sabha speech, ignored these crucial medical documents/preliminary evidences. This also includes the post-mortem report that declares Rohith was dead at least 18-24 hours before the body was examined the subsequent day. From all the medical and post-mortem reports, statements by friends, faculty and university officials – it is clear that Rohith’s body was found hours after he hanged himself.

Not only are your claims factually incorrect but they point to an utter lack of respect and sensitivity for the grieving family, friends and students. You are clearly disconnected from the heartbreaking grief of his friends, palpable to anyone present that night or the accompanying anger knowing the injustice that led to this tragedy. Does it befit our honourable minister to implicate these very grieving people in the death of their beloved friend?

Respected Minister, you have also repeatedly claimed that the committee which suspended Rohith Vemula and four other Dalit students was not constituted by your government, but by the UPA regime. You have also emphasised that there indeed was a Dalit faculty member in that committee.

We are astounded that you can so smoothly pass on the responsibility for this tragedy to someone else. Being at the helm of the MHRD, we are sure you must know that the Executive Council’s Sub-Committee that took the fatal decision to suspend the Dalit students from hostels and other common spaces was expressly constituted by the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Appa Rao, following five rejoinders from your ministry goading the university to take action against the Dalit students.

We may also point out that the two-member committee constituted by the MHRD itself points out a curious anomaly – the EC and its sub-committee is the very same body that recommends and ratifies – this simply cannot be.

Just in case your busy schedule has not allowed your attention to the following, permit us to point out further contradictions:

That this subcommittee was composed of all upper caste members except for one. We fail to understand how this one member is expected to overrule the will of five.

Most importantly, Prof. Prakash Babu, the sole Dalit member, was co-opted as the Dean, Students’ Welfare and NOT as an SC/ST representative. Kindly refer to the constitution of the EC sub-committee in its minutes of meeting dated 24-11-2015.

That the EC sub-committee did not hear out the key stakeholders or consider the counter-affidavit filed by the Commissioner of Police on 3rd October 2015 and simply concurred with the much contested Proctorial Board’s decision is matter for another enquiry.

Now let us come to the punishment itself. Let us think of the lives and struggles of the five boys who were suspended – four of them being sons of agricultural labourers and one without both parents. For them, suspension from hostel meant denial of food and shelter. Add to that, denial of right to access common spaces effectively amounted to social boycott in caste terms. Students who had surmounted unimaginable obstacles to reach the university were pushed back right into the velivada, the “untouchable” fringes of the village.

Do you not believe that the administration should have reached out at least when Rohith wrote that 18th December 2015 letter asking the VC to provide Dalit students “(a toxic inorganic compound) and a nice rope” at the time of admission itself?

Ms Irani, for all practical purposes, it was a cry for help. This was an opportunity for us to help this “child” and we lost that opportunity. And we have never heard you quote from this letter that was acknowledged as received by the VC’s office.

For a despondent, beleaguered Rohith, hounded and ignored by the powers that be, death was probably the only way to freedom and the limitless wonder and beauty of the universe that so moved him! Perhaps it was the only way out for someone as conscientious, brilliant and reflective as Rohith was. This was Rohith’s assertion of dignity, a dignity that was not allowed to him or his friends in their lives.

Their lives, in the words of Gopal Guru, mirrored social death, smeared with indignities of caste. To say that his “suicide note” of 17-01-2016 does not name or implicate anyone amounts to gross opportunism and abandonment of moral responsibility.

Permit us to remind you, dear minister, that the VC did not think/feel it worthwhile enough to meet the grieving students on that fateful night. We are reminded ad nauseam of the threat that students posed to him and continue to pose to him. Students who already had lost a dear friend were accused by the ABVP of violence, and, this is important – students who throughout their struggle since those intense first days following Rohith’s death until now have maintained their poise, their maturity, through all their struggles and protests and have never resorted to violence.

Could the Vice-Chancellor of the University not meet and console them in that most vulnerable, heartbreaking moment? Even when nearly 300 teachers requested the VC to come and assured him of a space to meet students along with them, the VC’s sense of authority prevailed over his sense of duty and responsibility. This was a defining moment Ms Irani, when the VC could have regained his moral stature and humanity in the eyes of the students. He clearly let history slip through his fingers.

Rohith is not there with us any more. His four friends suspended along with him are, his larger group of friends in this university and growing group of friends across the country are.

What we expect from you is very minimal. Do not turn this into a fight against students who have nothing to rely upon, no power – political or social – no connections, no money, not even a home.

Please understand this – the minority status you love to claim for yourself cannot in any way be equated with the state of disprivilege and dispossession that many of these students battle on a daily basis. All our students have is the hope of a future which education can possibly bring – to quote Rohith – “from shadows to the stars”.

Do not blight their hopes, their dreams. Help us ensure each one of us is sensitive to cater to their needs inside classrooms, in labs, in hostels, outside, everywhere. As teachers, as ministers, we have much more to offer – truth, equality, justice, hope and inspiration. Not melodrama.

The Prime Minister has extolled your speech tweeting ” Satyamev Jayate”. Whose Truth? We ask.

SC/ST Teachers’ Forum & Concerned Faculty, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad.

Scroll.in

The one sure-fire prediction for 2016 Budget: Dalits and Adivasis will be tricked again

http://scroll.in/article/804320/the-one-sure-fire-prediction-for-2016-budget-dalits-and-adivasis-will-be-tricked-again

Carrying forward a long tradition, the 2016-’17 Union budget will probably allocate large sums of money for the welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. On the ground, though, it is unlikely the funds will actually reach the intended beneficiaries.

In the last budget year of 2015-’16, as much as Rs 77,236 crore was supposed to be allocated for Scheduled Castes out of the Annual Plan Budget of Rs 4,65,277 crore. In actual fact, less than half of this – 30,851 crore – was allocated. And then, of this, only 8,793 crore (a little over a quarter) was directed specifically towards the development of Dalits as per the guidelines of the Planning Commission.

Where did the rest of the money go?

To find the answer, the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights, a forum seeking to eliminate caste discrimination, studied the Detailed Demand for Grants of several ministries and filed queries under the Right to Information. The research revealed that funds supposed to be allocated to Dalits (according to the 12th Plan) are slashed at two junctures: first, at the point of allocation itself and, second, at the moment of usage. Most of the money allocated for Dalits, it found, gets diverted to general welfare projects by the government.

“The Dalit and Adivasi Budgets, instead of directly reaching millions of needy SCs and STs and planning for their development in education, health, civic amenities, skill development and entrepreneurship, have become mere accounting measures,” said Paul Divakar, general secretary of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights. “Specific schemes are supposed to be scaled up or designed to cater to them. Instead, they are spent on general purposes like large hospitals located in cities, flyovers, stadiums, and other large infrastructure which, no doubt may be used by the overall population in general.”

Divakar cites an instance from Bihar. “The Dalit budget was used to connect dominant caste village habitations to the main road,” he said. “But the tract from the caste village to the Dalitbasti has been left untouched.”

The figures for allocation for Scheduled Tribes reveal similar discrepancies. In 2015-’16, Rs 40,014 crore was supposed to be allocated for adivasis, but Rs 20,000 crore actually was. And what went directly to them in the end was just Rs 7,399 crore. Put another way, 18.5% of the allocation due.

Like with Dalits, there seems to be no effective monitoring system to ensure that the spend allocated for tribals does in fact benefit them and doesn’t get diverted into general expenditure.

All governments

This state of affairs cannot be blamed on the Modi government alone. The following figures show how this farce has played out in budget years before the last one.

State budgets

The problem extends from New Delhi to the states.

In each state, the allocation of public expenditure for Scheduled Castes and Tribes should be decided by their percentage in the state’s population. But some states don’t abide by this, allocating less money than the population percentage demands. Worse, in these states – as also where the allocation is fair – the money is often diverted.

For instance, the Aam Aadmi Party’s Delhi budget (2015-’16) assigned Rs 3,214 crore for Dalit welfare. But only Rs 231 crore (or 8%) ultimately went towards the intended purpose – the remaining 92% (or Rs 2,973 crore) was diverted, according to the findings of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights. Diverted where? Other welfare schemes that weren’t specifically meant for Dalits.

Here are a few other examples of states diverting the spending meant for Dalits and tribals:

Odisha (in 2014-’15): The ruling party Biju Janata Dal rerouted Rs 172 crore from the Scheduled Caste Sub Plan towards major irrigation and road improvement projects, and Rs 12.41 crore towards the construction of buildings for police welfare.

Jharkhand (in 2014-’15): From the Rs 97.75 crore allocated by the building and construction department under the Tribal Sub Plan, Rs 50 crore was spent on constructing a circuit house. Another Rs 25 crore was diverted towards a court, and yet another Rs 21 crore towards a government residential building. That’s Rs 96 crore out of Rs 97.75 crore gone. In 2013-’14, the previous budget year, Rs 7 crore was redirected towards purchasing a trainer aircraft and a motor glider.

The list goes on. There are many more instances in other states, and other years.

National reviews

Not surprisingly then, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes castigated state governments in review of the implementation of the Scheduled Castes Sub Plan.

Here are a few quotes from its reports or minutes of its meetings with states:

“When the commission drew the attention to unutilized funds under SCP, principal secretary (SC Welfare) replied that some major departments failed to draw SCP funds due to which funds remained unutilized.”

— – A meeting with the Madhya Pradesh government (June 19-20, 2008)

“The commission desired to know… why less expenditure was incurred as compared to the population of SCs… information sent to the commission was not satisfactory.”

— – A review of Uttar Pradesh (September 20, 2007)

“…There was a wide gap between allocation and expenditure as a whole and also in few of the individual schemes…”

— – A review of Kerala (June 29, 2009)

Funds in education

Let’s now look at a sector that has come under the spotlight after Rohith Vemula’s death – education.

The most recent figures for the University Grants Commission funds for Scheduled Castes and Tribes are from 2012-’13 (this is because, despite RTI applications, the government provided older figures). In that year, in the case of Scheduled Castes (covered under the Special Component Plan), out of Rs 1047.33 crore, only Rs 107.86 crore went directly to the intended beneficiaries in the form of scholarships and coaching.

The rest? There’s no saying.

Instead of transferring the money to individual beneficiaries, Rs 277.48 crore was provided for Grants in Aid to institutions and Rs 609.49 crore for Capital Assets.

And how did these benefit Dalits? Take Rs 44.03 crore (out of Rs 277.48 crore) that was given to central universities for specific programmes, such as paying faculty for additional coaching of Dalit students. Or take the funds allocated under Capital Assets to create assets such as subsidised or free hostels for Scheduled Caste students. Neither of these were used for their original purposes, and were instead used for general institutional expenses and asset building, says the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights.

The same holds true for the Tribal Sub Plan. Out of Rs 507.2 crore, only Rs 35.56 crore goes towards scholarship and coaching (directly beneficial to Scheduled Tribe students).

‘Downright fiscal crime’

If governments stated publicly that they wouldn’t abide by the 12th Five-Year Plan’s recommendations on the allocation for Dalit and tribal welfare, or if they spelt out the amounts they intended to divert, such budgets could at least be openly supported or opposed. But this isn’t the case.

“This is basically a downright fiscal crime,” said Divakar.

It does smell like one. What is more worrying is that despite parties having politicians and ministers from Scheduled Castes or Tribes (including Social Justice and Tribal Affairs ministers), they haven’t addressed the loopholes that let this problem continue during and after each budget.

News monitored by AMRESH & AJEET