From: Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC <pmarc2008@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, May 8, 2010 at 7:26 PM
Subject: [PMARC] Dalits Media Watch - News Updates 08.05.10
To: Dalits Media Watch <PMARC@dgroups.org>
Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 08.05.10
Dalits can't enter MP CM's village temple - IBN Live
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/dalits-cant-enter-mp-cms-village-temple/114762-37-64.html
Dalits can't enter homes for votes - The Times Of India
2 weeks on, dalits of Mirchpur fear going back home - The Times Of India
Caste in the stone age - The Times Of India
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Caste-in-the-stone-age-/articleshow/5906263.cms
Bharani files plaint against officials again - Express Buzz
http://expressbuzz.com/cities/bangalore/bharani-files-plaint-against-officials-again/171853.html
Rights panel slams Gujarat govt for ignoring Dalit - DNA
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_rights-panel-slams-gujarat-govt-for-ignoring-dalit_1380164
IBN Live
Dalits can't enter MP CM's village temple
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/dalits-cant-enter-mp-cms-village-temple/114762-37-64.html
Posted on May 07, 2010 at 10:36 | Updated May 07, 2010 at 20:11
Bhopal: Believe it or not, Dalits are not allowed to enter into temples in the native village of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan. Untouchability is still a way of life despite the tall claims of the chief minister about working towards social justice and harmony in the state.
The 40-odd Dalit families of the village Jait are still denied entry into the village temple.
"I'm not allowed to offer my prayers at the temple. I'm being told I'm a Dalit 'chamar'. What wrong have I done? How am I different from others," asks Vijayanti Bai.
But now Vijayanti Bai and others have decided to raise their voice against this discrimination. They have complained to the district administration. Opposition Congress meanwhile has been quick to take up the Dalit cause.
Suresh Pachauri, president of Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee, says: "It is very unfortunate that untouchability is still being practiced here. If this is the case in the chief minister's village you can well imagine what is happening in other places."
With the heat on them, upper caste villagers are now on the backfoot. Sher Singh Chauhan, a villager says, "people come here from all across the state and no one is denied entry into any temple. All these allegations are motivated."
Untouchability and discrimination on the basis of caste is a common practice in many parts of Madhya Pradesh. But this place is the birth place of MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan who himself is an OBC and talks about Dalit uplift and social harmony in every public meeting.
The Times Of India
Dalits can't enter homes for votes
Senthalir S, TNN, May 8, 2010, 04.04am IST
BANGALORE: The IT capital boasts of a cosmopolitan culture, but what can it say of caste contours a doorstep away? Rural Bangalore is carrying the vestiges of timeless caste — this time in the gram panchayat election campaign that has inequality ingrained in it.
This stark reality hits you at Anekal taluk, 40km from IT ethos — dalits are not allowed inside the houses of non-dalits for many reasons but also for the gram panchayat election campaign. The experience is literal: dalits stand at a fair distance from the homes of non-dalits to talk to them about elections.
Take the case of T M Gopal, a dalit candidate contesting from Praja Rajakiya Vedike for Tyavakanahalli in Handenahalli gram panchayat of Anekal taluk. He has been campaigning for the last one-week in Tyavanahalli, S Medahalli and Sultanpalya villages coming under Handenahalli gram panchayat.
''It is easy to enter dalits' houses and discuss my agenda for the village with them. But we are not allowed to enter the houses of non-dalits. We stand outside and ask for their vote,'' said Gopal. All the candidates from dalit community have similar experience during campaigns.
There are 12 candidates in the fray in Handenahalli gram panchayat. Of them, 6 are contesting for the reserved seat, 4 in general category and 2 for backward category seats.
The Times Of India
2 weeks on, dalits of Mirchpur fear going back home
Nandita Sengupta, TNN, May 8, 2010, 03.34am IST
MIRCHPUR: Two weeks since the arson that killed two and destroyed 18 houses, fear stalks dalits in this village in Haryana's Hisar district, chasing them out, abandoning their homes. The majority has fled.
Some are camping at the deputy commissioner's office at Hisar demanding a separate rehabilitation colony away from Jat supremacy, a handful of oldies stays put in their burnt-down quarters.
A truck loaded with household goods readies to move out of the village. Anywhere but here, says Krishna, in her 50s, her weather-beaten face set in despair. "I don't want to leave my home, we built it after so much hardship," she says. Her husband barks out to her to simply shut up and get going, refusing to divulge their destination.
The fear is palpable in the quiet around the dalit sections, snorting pigs the only sound. "Kyun hamare sath hi aisa hota hai baar baar?" asks a young man, holding up the remains of a TV set. Immediately after the incident, every young woman and child was packed off. "It was the first thing ensured," says Sunil Pal Valmiki, of Bharatiya Dalit Jan Mahasabha. If there were further attacks, women would bear the brunt is the collective wisdom. In an incident three years ago, five dalits were paraded naked.
No government representative has come to tell the attacked community how things can unfold. Even in Hisar's deputy commissioner's office, where a group of about 100 have staged a protest under limp banners, it's been silence from the authorities.
Interestingly, while the nation awaits some semblance of justice for the attacked and penalty for the attackers, the reality unfolds on somewhat different lines. Things apparently wouldn't have spiraled into a big hullabaloo had Rahul Gandhi not visited. He 'complicated' matters. It 'spoilt the case,' says Pal. "Ab tak thanda hojata. Ab aage nikal gaya." The general view is that caste atrocity is almost a ritual. Attack, compensate, make-peace only to ensure the arrested are freed.
Gandhi's visit 'worsened' meant some heads had to roll. "Had the khap sympathized with the dalits the very day of the attack, the agitation wouldn't have taken place. Agitation karne mein to ye sabse aage hai," says Pal. "Peace," he says, is the only way ahead.
Currently, a list of 105 names of Jats who formed the mob has been sent to the authorities. The khap panchayat has extended an olive branch — "their focus now is to ensure freedom of the arrested and cancellation of the 105 names," says Pal. That seems to be the main issue.
The dalits have several advisors, a layer of activists pulling at them. One lot tells Hisar's camping families to return, "They're dependent on Jats. If they go into a separate colony, they'll be sitting ducks," says Pal. But the activists want no compensation. "Jitna dalit garibi se free ho rahe hain, utna gaali galoj maar peeth hota rehta hai," says Sudesh Kumari, of Jan Sangharsh Samiti.
The protesting dalits have reached the point of 'Enough', they say. "Jat ke paas power hai. Paisa, population, rajniti. But we too have a power. The power of bhookh, garibi, aur vote dalne ka power," says Virendra Rana, 26, as he squats next to Kamla Devi.
But with each passing day, the voices are falling silent, belying the hectic negotiations going on between Jat panchayats, the administration and dalits too: activists turned mediators.
The administration on its part is mute spectator. Ask deputy commissioner O P Sheoran, also a Jat, and he'll rattle off a list of 'compensation': money, jobs, quintals of wheat and other materials. What more can dalits want? What about justice and rehabilitation? "That's a policy decision, what can I say?" smiles Sheoran.
The Times Of India
Caste in the stone age
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/India/Caste-in-the-stone-age-/articleshow/5906263.cms
TOI Crest, May 8, 2010, 11.19am IST
Ever heard of a body that can not only annul a marriage but also convert husband and wife into brother and sister? Well, an extra-constitutional authority called khap panchayat has been traditionally allowed to exercise such extraordinary powers, destroying families and claiming the lives of innocent couples. And, thanks to the cowardice of the political class, khap panchayats — medieval caste institutions found mostly in Haryana, western Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan — are now also beginning to look like super legislatures.
For, in deference to the numerical strength of khap panchayats, politicians did not dare protest any violation of the freedom to marry a person of one's choice. If anything, former chief minister of Haryana, Om Prakash Chautala, supported their demand to amend the Hindu Marriage Act providing a statutory backing to their traditional ban on marriages within the same gotra and within the same village.
The contention of these retrograde elements is that any marriage that takes place in violation of their restrictions should be deemed to be between brother and sister. Their anxiety to prevent incest is however gratuitous as the law already deals with it adequately through the concept of 'sapinda' (third generation in the line of ascent through mother and fifth in the line of ascent through father). The khap panchayat notion of extending prohibited relationships to the whole gotra and the whole village creates a category of people running into thousands or even lakhs.
Though khap panchayats have traditionally engaged in honour killings in the course of their vigilantism, the judiciary got the full measure of this crime for the first time only on March 30, when it imposed death sentence on five perpetrators and life sentence on one khap member for the double murder in 2007 of Manoj and Babli, a newly married couple belonging to the same gotra in Kaithal. The couple was murdered even after being provided security by the court. If the pattern of impunity in honour killings ended with this one, it is thanks to the exceptional courage displayed by Manoj's mother Chanderpati and the trial judge Vani Gopal Sharma. Thanks to the clout wielded by khap panchayats, Sharma was subsequently forced to seek a transfer fearing for her life.
Besides breaking marriages, khap panchayats have a record of instigating caste atrocities against Dalits. One such case came to light last month in a Haryana village called Mirchpur where Jats, jealous of the growing prosperity of Dalits, especially Valmikis, allegedly engineered an arson attack in which 18 houses of the targeted community were destroyed and, worse, a man and his polio-stricken daughter were burnt alive.
Mercifully, this incident provoked an unusually angry reaction from the political establishment. Congress chief Sonia Gandhi sent a stinker to Haryana chief minister B S Hooda saying it was a "matter of shame and horror" that such an incident occurred at all, that too in the presence of the police. "This cannot be allowed to pass without firm and severe action against those responsible for the crime," Sonia thundered. Equally significant, her intervention was followed by a visit to Mirchpur by Rahul Gandhi. It is just as well that the first family of the Congress responded to the Mirchpur tragedy as the 20-year-old atrocities law, which is a legacy of Rajiv Gandhi, has been subverted across the nation by local authorities through errors of omission and commission.
Express Buzz
Bharani files plaint against officials again
http://expressbuzz.com/cities/bangalore/bharani-files-plaint-against-officials-again/171853.html
Last Updated : 08 May 2010 10:05:54 AM IST
BANGALORE: Retired IPS officer Subhash Bharani is in no mood to spare the state government till it implemented the provisions of SC/ST (prevention of atrocities), rules 1995.
Bharani has filed another complaint with the Vidhana Soudha police against the chief secretary, the secretary to the chief minister, home secretary, director general of police and director of prosecution. The Vidhana Soudha police had declined to register a complaint against the top bureaucrats of the state on May 5.
The latest complaint says "If police have not registered the case against the officers, they will face the consequences under the provisions of SC/ST prevention of atrocities, rules 1995." Bharani addressed the complaint to the inspector of Vidhana Soudha police station. "It is the bounden duty of the police officials to register the case. Failure to do so, the station house officer has to face consequences thereof," it says.
"You, being a responsible police official, ought to have registered the complaint without any explanation," said Bharani in the complaint. "If you fail to register the case, you will be subjected to prosecution under the Act." Any irresponsibility of non-registration of the case, the concerned police official will be liable for all the consequences, he said in the complaint.
Bharani told Express that he would file a private complaint at a special court dealing with atrocities cases on Monday.
DNA
Rights panel slams Gujarat govt for ignoring Dalit
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_rights-panel-slams-gujarat-govt-for-ignoring-dalit_1380164
Kapil Dave / DNA
Friday, May 7, 2010 15:56 IST
Gandhinagar: The status of Dalits and downtrodden classes in Gujarat has always been far from exemplary, which again came to the fore recently when the State Human Right Commission (SHRC) slammed the state government for not giving rightful job to a Dalit hospital dresser-sweeper for 25 years despite labour court and Gujarat High Court's order.
Amrut Chagan Bhangi joined a government medical centre at Ramgadhi village in Meghraj taluka of Sabarkantha district in March 1980 as a temporary part-time dresser.
Bhangi served for six years and six months till August 23, 1986 and thereafter was dismissed without being made permanent. As per the Dalut Parmar Committee and various labour laws, any person who has served for more then 240 days, shall be given permanent job. However Bhangi was not given his rightful job.
He went to the labour court for justice. The court on October 11, 1989 ordered the Sabarkantha district panchayat health department to reinstate him with full pay and with full payment of arrears. Against the labour court's order, the district panchayat went to high court for appeal.However, the high court also observed that Bhangi has been wrongfully removed from the job instead of his being permanent.
On April 10, 1992, the HC rejected the panchayat's appeal and noted: "No infirmity or error is pointed out in the judgment passed by the labour court.Hence (the appeal is being) rejected.''
Thus even though the HC upheld the labour court's order, Bhangi has not been reinstated in his job till today. However, instead of giving permanent job as dresser, in 1998 the panchayat took him as part-time sweeper without any benefits. Due to lack of any employment in the small village, Bhangi accepted his fate and despite injustice he did not fight for his rights.
However, in June 2009, Bhangi appealed to the State Human Right Commission. The commission was shocked to learn the details of the case and contempt of high court order by the state's panchayat department. The commission ordered on February 1, 2010 to the district development officer, Sabarkantha, and district health officer to reinstate Bhangi in job and wrote to the principal secretaries ofthe state general administration, finance, panchayat, rural housing development and rural development department, health & family welfare department and labour & employment department to ensure justice.
The commission in its order observed: "The petitioner is from a very backward class and the government has failed to provide him justice for more then 24 years. ''
However, despite the commission's order, the state government has not acted upon it, so Bhangi has again approached the SHRC and appealed for justice. Bhangi told DNA: "Despite labour court, HC and now the SHRC's orders, I have not been given justice so I have once again approached the commission. I don't have money to go to Supreme Court so commission is my last hope for justice now.''
--
.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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