From: Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC <pmarc2008@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, Mar 6, 2010 at 3:19 PM
Subject: [PMARC] Dalits Media Watch - News Updates 06.03.10
To: Dalits Media Watch <PMARC@dgroups.org>
Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 06.03.10
"When it is menial task, onus still falls on Dalits" - The Hindu
http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/06/stories/2010030655080200.htm
At Tamil Nadu temple, caste is history - The Times Of India
Most gender atrocities against Dalit women: P. Sivakami - Thaindian News
(March 8 is International Women's Day)
The Hindu
"When it is menial task, onus still falls on Dalits"
http://www.hindu.com/2010/03/06/stories/2010030655080200.htm
D. Karthikeyan
| They must be given jobs in tune with changing economy, says survey |
MADURAI: A persistent form of discrimination in India has been caste-based discrimination. For this ignominious form confines Dalits to occupations often involving the most menial tasks such as scavenging, removal of bodies, carcasses , garbage and night soil.
For the Dalits, hierarchical ritual incorporation through roles as scavengers, funeral servants and drummers are the remnants of a function of a complex socio-historical structure within which a social group is assigned a ritual status specifying a degree of purity or pollution attached to it.
Even at a time of market-oriented economy, the Dalits are excluded from a wide range of work opportunities in the area of production, processing or sale of food items, domestic work and the provision of certain services in the private and public sectors.
A survey conducted by a non-governmental organisation in Madurai, Theni, Dindigul and Virudhunagar districts reveals that Dalits are still performing these menial tasks. They enter manhole drainages to clear the silt; remove the blockages and carry the silt on their head to dispose it of.
Study reveals that most of these works are carried out without any protective gear. The survey was conducted only in certain areas. A questionnaire with three sets of questions (51 questions in total) was given to 303 workers in the four districts. The respondents include 212 males, 91 females, among whom 289 were Dalits, 12 were Christian Dalits and two belonged to Scheduled Tribes.
The most important fact of the survey is that the workers are not subject to a single polluting job but have to perform a series of menial tasks that are considered to be polluting. Among the 303 workers, 10 were working as mortuary keepers; 135 were engaged in carrying and burying the bodies; 186 in removal of dead cattle; 60 in beating drums to announce death; 131 were involved in removing night soil; 200 were drawn to clean the toilets, 205 were among those who removed garbage and 12 were involved in tanning and preserving leather. Most of the workers were doing multiple jobs.
Most of the workers had to work for 8 to 12 hours a day and there were a few who had to work for more than 12 hours. They earn an income between Rs 400 and Rs.12, 000 per month and most of them fall in the bracket of Rs.4, 000 to 6,000.
Among the 303 workers, 63 were employed in villages, 104 under panchayats, 56 in municipalities and 80 in municipal corporations. Most of the workers said that social ostracism due to the nature of job did exist in villages and neighbourhoods. They also suffered from ailments like insomnia and mental depression which had also led them to alcoholism.
Many workers among the interviewed were in the grip of the crude form of usury, 'Kandhuvatti' money lenders. A. Kathir, executive director, Evidence, which carried out the survey in February, said that the Government should conduct an extensive empirical survey and come out with a white paper.
The Dalits who were involved in these menial tasks should be emancipated and provided with jobs in accordance with the changing market economy and ensure equality under the Constitution. The amount of compensation to workers who died of asphyxiation while performing these tasks should be increased.
The Times Of India
At Tamil Nadu temple, caste is history
TNN, Mar 6, 2010, 01.55am IST
MADURAI: Three years after deep caste divisions stopped them from celebrating a temple festival together, on Friday dalits beat the drums as per tradition and Thevars led the procession to an ancient temple.
The rare show of caste amity took place in Pillaiyarpuram village, in caste-sensitive Tirunelveli district in Tamil Nadu, where the villagers worshipped together at the Vadabathira Kaliamman temple.
Tirunelveli SP Asra Garg led a posse of 600 policemen to provide security backup in the village. He said the festival was held after marathon talks were held on Friday to convince the Thevars to allow the dalits to take part in the ritualistic tradition of drumbeating after which they were allowed to offer prayers at the temple. The village dalit leader, S Gurusamy, told TOI: "We will be happy if this continues." The silk clothes offered by the dalits were used to adorn the deity.
Though the non-dalits from eight villages enjoyed the rights of conducting ceremonies in this temple during the annual festival during March every year, the dalits also participated in it and were the drumbeaters.
There was harmony until 2007 when a minor dispute led to a clash and strains developed between the two groups — a case is pending in this regard in the Madras HC. The revenue department and police held a peace meeting and it was decided that the festival would be held on March 5 and 6.
The non-dalits were allowed to enter the temple and perform the ceremonies, while the dalits entered the temple and offered prayers.
Thaindian News
Most gender atrocities against Dalit women: P. Sivakami
(March 8 is International Women's Day)
March 5th, 2010 - 5:35 pm ICT by IANS -
By Madhusree Chatterjee
New Delhi, March 5 (IANS) India's leading feminist Dalit novelist-cum-politician P. Sivakami feels that most gender atrocities in the country are committed against Dalit women.
The former senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer gave up her job to become a full-time writer in 2008.
"In the society that is known as mainstream, the problems of Dalit women are considered separatist. They face the worst expressions of male chauvinistic society - atrocities like raping, profiling, physical assault and murder," Chennai-based Sivakami, who has just completed her new novel "The New People" in Tamil told IANS.
"But, I don't think the problems are separatist at all. They reflect the general bias at the grassroots against women as in tribal societies," she said.
Sivakami, who has often made headlines with her radical views, contested the Lok Sabha election on a Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) ticket from Kanyakumari in 2009, but lost. The same year in December, she floated her own political party, Samuga amathuva Padai (Forum for Social Equality).
"When we talk of women's empowerment, we give priority to those who live below the poverty line — malnourished and poor women. Even in that respect, Dalit women are the worst affected," she argued.
Stressing that incidence of domestic violence is highest among Dalit women, she said more men drink and assault women at home because they do not make enough money.
As far as their health statistics is concerned, nearly 100,000 women die at childbirth every year and a large number of them are Dalit women, the writer said.
Sivakami feels that the concept of education for Dalit women is yet to take root in the society.
"Consequently Dalit feminists, who speak for their women and spearhead causes like inter-caste marriages, are often branded separatists. They may be on the periphery — but they ironically form the core issues because they speak for large numbers who have been affected by discrimination. The Dalit feminists need more encouragement from the country to emerge from their shells," she said.
Sivakami's first book "Pazhaiyana Kazhidakum" in 1989 took on patriarchy in Dalit society and courted controversy. It was translated into English in 2006 with the title "In the Grip of Change".
Her second book "Anandayi" will be published by Penguin-Books India this year. A poet, essayist and a prolific short story writer, she is also the founder of a Dalit literary mazagine "Pudhiya Kodangi".
"The magazine is named after a musical instrument that is used to drive away evil spirits," Sivakami said.
The writer does not treat herself as a person with a caste identity because "she is beyond it".
"Caste is the real hurdle India has to cross. I think it is a mainstream problem — and not of the Dalits alone. We need more authentic spaces to discuss caste because whenever I go to villages to discuss caste with the Dalits, it becomes full of political overtones. The entire country is rooted in caste," she said.
For an upper caste Hindu, "a village sounds romantic, but for the Dalit, it sounds like the corporation (public) toilet. The Dalit communities are forced to prostrate before upper castes and they are ghettoized working as landless labourers and living in clusters on the fringe of the village," she said.
The writer believes that "assuming a bigger identity of Dalit encompasses gender discrimination, class discrimination, discrimination against transgenders, and all the issues that the marginalised society faces.
--
.Arun Khote
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of "Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC")
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Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre- PMARC has been initiated with the support from group of senior journalists, social activists, academics and intellectuals from Dalit and civil society to advocate and facilitate Dalits issues in the mainstream media. To create proper & adequate space with the Dalit perspective in the mainstream media national/ International on Dalit issues is primary objective of the PMARC.
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