From: Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC <pmarc2008@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, May 20, 2010 at 6:19 PM
Subject: [PMARC] Dalits Media Watch - News Updates 20.05.10
To: Dalits Media Watch <PMARC@dgroups.org>
Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 20.05.10
Dalit woman attempts suicide - The Hindu
http://www.hindu.com/2010/05/19/stories/2010051952590300.htm
Public humiliation drives Dalit girl to commit suicide - The Hindu
http://www.hindu.com/2010/05/20/stories/2010052062450700.htm
Madhya Pradesh government pulled up over Dalit discrimination - DLN. com
http://www.dailylatestnews.com/2010/05/20/default-5314-023735
2,000 rendered homeless after demolition drive - The Hindu
http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article433977.ece
Politics of caste census - Ahmadabad Mirror
Caste no bar in South Indian private companies - Hindustan Times
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Caste-no-bar-in-South-Indian-Pvt-companies/Article1-545519.aspx
The Hindu
Dalit woman attempts suicide
http://www.hindu.com/2010/05/19/stories/2010051952590300.htm
Special Correspondent
SALEM: Facing harassment for running a petty shop, a 51-year-old Dalit woman attempted to commit suicide inside the Collectorate campus on Tuesday in protest against the failure of police to arrest a group of persons who ransacked her shop at Saminaickenpatti, at Omalur, near here.
Rajamani, wife of one Raman, came to the Collectorate to submit a petition to the collector during the monthly grievances day meeting here on Tuesday.
All of a sudden she poured kerosene over her body and attempted to light it.
The near-by policemen and general public overpowered her, snatched the match box and saved her.
The police took her to the Town Police Station where she alleged that she and her family were being harassed by a group of persons in the village since they were Dalits.
The group had opposed to the running of petty shop in that locality. A few days back, she alleged, the group came and ransacked her shop. They threw all the goods in the shop on the street.
"Now our family is living in constant fear and could not run the shop too," said Rajamani, who also is the president of Annai Theresa Women Association, a non-governmental organisation.
She told the police that despite a complaint with Omalur police, they had not taken any action so far.
The police registered a case and are investigating.
The Hindu
Public humiliation drives Dalit girl to commit suicide
http://www.hindu.com/2010/05/20/stories/2010052062450700.htm
P.V. Srividya
THIRUMARUGAL (NAGAPATTINAM): Feudal retribution and public humiliation have snapped short the life of an 18-year-old Dalit girl at Thiruchenkaatankudi in Nagapattinam.
Her 'crime'? 'Abetment' of a love affair that led to the elopement of a friend with a boy of the same Dalit caste.
Devi a Dalit, was driven to self-immolation following a public inquiry by the samudaya panchayat (caste panchayat) headed by a 32-year-old community head (naatamai). She was subjected to lashes with a tamarind stick that was delivered by the Odum Pillai (traditional news carrier) of the caste panchayat.
The humiliation drove her to self-immolation within minutes after the meeting. After a ten-day battle, Devi succumbed to the burns at Government Hospital here on Monday.
At Thiruchenkaatankudi, her family stands wronged by their own community.
"We lost our mother when Devi was three-years-old and I brought her up. The day she was publicly whipped and humiliated was also her birthday," recalls Usha, the 26-year-old eldest of the five daughters of the family.
Devi was the fourth daughter and migrant worker in a garment factory at Tirupur, where the girl from the same village married the boy of the same caste.
Following this, Devi was 'summoned' back to the village for a community 'inquiry' for transgression.
"Usually, lashes are delivered below the knees. But, my sister was whipped with the stick on her chest, stomach and thighs over six times. I noticed the bruises only later and this worsened her chances of recovering from the burn injuries as well," says Pushpalatha, the youngest sister.
Almost all villages in East Thanjavur region are said to host such samudaya panchayats. These are extra-legal community panchayats, where women are not allowed to participate.
According to information gathered by Evidence, a Madurai-based NGO, the tamarind stick (puliankucchi) was kept immersed in water for three days to add weight to it so as to cause bruises.
DLN. com
Madhya Pradesh government pulled up over Dalit discrimination
http://www.dailylatestnews.com/2010/05/20/default-5314-023735
By IANS - Thursday, May 20th, 2010 5:08 am
Bhopal, May 20 (IANS) The National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) has issued notices to Madhya Pradesh in four different cases related to alleged discrimination against Dalits, sources say.
The panel, which was in the state last week on a fact-finding mission, has asked the government to furnish replies within 15 days, the sources said.
NCSC chairman Buta Singh and its member Mahendra Boudh had visited Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's native village following media reports that Dalits were not allowed entry into the temples there.
'Though the Dalits were seen worshipping with others when we visited the temple, they left the moment we left the place,' Singh said. He said the show of worshipping was stage-managed by the government.
Singh accused the Madhya Pradesh government of denying Dalits their fundamental right by recruiting general category candidates to fill the backlog of vacancies reserved for Dalits.
He also said the Dalit sarpanch of Shahganj village in Sehore, Santosh Ahirwar, was removed on flimsy grounds after he had won.
'Besides, Dalits have been denied their adequate share of representation in the rural civic bodies in the state,' Singh said.
The NCSC has issued notices in matters relating to atrocities against Dalits and their discrimination in promotion and recruitment, the sources say.
The first case relates to a complaint filed by a family in Chouhan's native village that says they are facing harassment from the villagers and are not allowed to enter the temples. In this case, a notice has been served on the Sehore collector and superintendent of police.
In the second case, the notice has been served to Sehore police superintendent and the Director General of Police in relation to filing an FIR in Kharjana village. The third notice has been issued to the Sehore collector and Shahganj Nagar Palika secretary in connection with the removal of a Dalit sarpanch who had won.
Similarly, the fourth notice has been served on the chief secretary for allegedly violating constitutional provisions and recruiting people from the general category against seats reserved for Scheduled Castes.
The Hindu
2,000 rendered homeless after demolition drive
http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article433977.ece
Rahi Gaikwad
Three-year-old Adnan is moving around naked. "All our clothes are burnt and gone. I could only save one bundle," said his mother Zubeida Sheikh. Her house was among the 1,200 houses bulldozed a week ago as part of the administration's demolition drive in the Anna Bhau Sathenagar slum in Mankhurd, Mumbai.
The slum now is an open stretch of propped up bamboo sticks and rags, barely shielding the people from the beating sun. There has been no cooking in many houses as vessels and stoves were crushed to the ground.
"We have been going to our sister-in-law's place to eat," said Girijabai Dalvi. At meal time, young and old have been queuing up for food with plates in hand at the site where an andolan is currently going on against the demolition drive. The agitation is led by Medha Patkar of the National Alliance of People's Movements, under the banner of Ghar Bachao Ghar Banao Andolan.
What the bulldozers failed to crush was stolen by thieves, who saw opportunity in the mayhem of demolition on May 13. Children lost their schoolbags and books. Over 2,000 people were rendered homeless within hours and since then have been languishing in a place that resembles a dump yard.
"Please write my name. I have nobody." The elderly Sarubai Sonawne, who works as a scrap collector, cut her nose as she fell while running away from the lathi wielding police.
In a city like Mumbai where lakhs migrate each year in search of livelihood, demolitions are a part of life. The residents of Sathenagar claimed that they have been living there for the past 10 years, a claim the Deputy Collector Dhananjay Sawalkar rejected. "They are totally illegal encroachers. This land belongs to the government. We received proof of residence from 2,300 people. A total of 2,900 houses were slated to be demolished. We are implementing the government policy as per the cut-off date of 1995," he told The Hindu.
The government's dalliance with the cut-off date is only worsening the acute problem of lack of low cost housing and the spread of slums.
"First they fixed 1985 as the cut-off date [for rehabilitating those who came to Mumbai before 1985]. This was raised to 1995. Now the discussion in the government is on increasing it to the year 2000. It's already 2010 and they are still discussing," said activist Mohan Chavan.
Ms. Patkar said the government's denial to declare an area as slum is a conspiracy to deny land to the poor as the government has set its sights on building towers. Having challenged the 24-hour demolition notice, she said the drive was carried out even as the matter was pending. Plus, the demolition was not done in an authorised way as per section 4 of the Slum Act, since Sathenagar was never declared a slum, she said. She also brought the ownership of the land in question.
Mr. Sawalkar, however, said that the lease of the Sathenagar land, given to the Bombay Soap Factory in 1977 was terminated in 2005 and now the land belonged to the government. "There is no need to declare an area a slum if the land belongs to the government," he stated.
Meanwhile, the band of Sarubais and the unclothed children left in the lurch grows with each demolition. Choking on tears as she remembered the day her house went down, Kamal Eknath Lokhande said, "That moment I was thinking, where should I go? What a time that was! Even your enemy should not have to face such a situation."
Does the administration or the government think about what will happen to the people when their houses are demolished? "No, we don't think about that," replied Mr. Sawalkar.
Ahmadabad Mirror
Politics of caste census
By Pravin Sheth
Competitive populism promoted by political parties helped quota system survive
Posted On Thursday, May 20, 2010 at 02:56:44 AM
Ignoring the logic behind discontinuing the collection of caste-based data after the 1931 census, the 21st century Indian government is being pushed towards accepting the idea of a caste-based census for 2011. Regional caste-centric parties, Congress and even the Left — vociferous champions of casteless society — are hailing caste census as the basis of development policy for the deprived and backward.
As Ram Vilas Paswan claims, "Caste census is needed to know the status of development among various communities. It could have been done just after the implementation of Mandal Commission report in 1990." He needs to answer how much he, in the forefront of the campaign for Dalit reservation in private sector during UPA-I, could achieve. So again, secular census will be used for a caste-based politics of redistribution!
Not that consideration of caste as a basis of public policy of development with distributive justice is totally baseless or unjust. With its rigid strictures and static structure, India's stratified society is cursed with caste as a bane of our life. Birth was destiny. Even now, some of India's 100 million Dalits are destined to do demeaning work. Such a context had created the political consensus to provide for a quota of 10 per cent reservation for SCs in Indian Constitution. However, this scheme perpetuated vested interest in reservation which deepened the caste divide and led to a politically ordained system — a 'government by quota' for 70 years.
With Congress's dominance threatened in the mid-1960s, it searched for new constituencies and tried to nurse vote banks by dangling quota and politicising the originally fair principle of reservation for the weaker sections. Quotas extended to OBCs (27.5 per cent) in the Mandalised political system in 1989. The Supreme Court restricted the total quota to 50 per cent. Even the pro-Hindutva parties like the BJP, which opposed Mandalised quota, conveniently found a way to make it work for them. In Rajasthan, the BJP actually instituted quotas for the poor "forward castes", a code for caste Hindus.
Soon clamour for reservation for Muslims was raised. This was echoed by the Congress, Laloo Prasad Yadav, Mulayam Singh, Paswan and Mayawati — all eager to play politics of competitive secularism. Rangnath Misra recommended 10 per cent for Muslims, and another 5 per cent for other minorities! Even Muslims and Christians are now demanding reservation on the basis of caste. Who cares about Hindu students from non-Scheduled Castes but from modest backgrounds? They too feel an acute sense of relative deprivation.
Palpably, political reservation announced on the eve of Gujarat assembly poll in March 1985, and acceptance of Mandal Commission Report provoked violent agitations that ousted Madhavsinh Solanki and V P Singh from power. But competitive populism promoted by all political parties helped quota system to survive, and reach a ridiculous level.
Meanwhile, the drama around the Bill for reservation for women exposed the game that Congress-BJP to SP-RLD played. Support earned progressive bona fides, but Mulayam Yadav and Sharad Yadav feared the Bill will lead to the presence of bal katti (bob cut high castes/class) women in legislative bodies. Muslims also nursed that fear. In politics of numbers, new Indian ploys like 'Carry Forward' , 'Creamy Layer' and sub-quota for the 'Most Backward Castes' (Bihar) and lower caste women have further given away the game. Progressive and secular intellectuals kept silence when in the name of social justice through reservation, Yadav leaders with lacklustre performance thrived on divisive politics.
The honest way is to ensure tangible equitable benefits to the disadvantaged through effective delivery system, result-oriented poverty alleviation schemes, provision for de-reservation to take out those advanced after availing reservation and make room for their less fortunate brethren (Affirmative Action policy in USA).
Another remedial measure (employed by Germany) is to enable the disadvantaged to avail themselves of benefits of reserved seats/jobs — without deepening the caste divide and perpetuating reservation as a major currency of votes and competition for victimhood status.
Ridden with complex factors and risky implications for our secular democracy, social activism should guide the new census to transparently reflect 'common good'— discouraging democratic system by quota — for quota!
One of the city's most eminent political analysts, Pravin Sheth dissects the twists and turns of policy in Gujarat
Hindustan Times
Caste no bar in South Indian private companies
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Caste-no-bar-in-South-Indian-Pvt-companies/Article1-545519.aspx
Delhi, May 19, 2010
While India debates whether caste should be included in its population census, industry chamber CII has done its own statistical digging to assess the ground reality. Its findings: despite the absence of reserved quotas in the private sector, scheduled castes (SCs), scheduled tribes (STs) and other backward classes (OBCs) are already well entrenched in southern India's private firms.
The Confederation of Indian Industry data reveals SC/STs make up 16.2 per cent of its member workforce — not far behind the 22.5 per cent reservation mark for these categories of people in government jobs. OBCs account for 51.8 per cent.
The survey was across 270 firms (10 per cent of CII firms) in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Puducherry, where average SC/ST population is 19.3 per cent.
A similar exercise is on for the north and will be followed by surveys in the west and east.
"The findings in the south show there is already a fair representation of SC, ST and OBC in the private sector," CII president Hari S. Bhartia told HT.
Tamil Nadu appears to employ a higher number of SC/STs, owing to the presence of a large base of textile and apparel manufacturing units, the survey carried out by Feedback Ventures said.
Excluding Puducherry, the four states have 44 per cent of the total urban OBC population, according to a 2006 parliamentary standing committee report. That year, the government had asked industry to prepare base-line data on SC/ST employment to ascertain industry-wise progress later on.
Industry leaders oppose mandatory job quota. "Voluntary action would get better results," Bhartia said. "Companies will continue to invest in the 4Es — employability, education, entrepreneurship and employment — with the focus on employability. This may be an incremental method of addressing this social issue but is a surer way of doing things, and in alignment with the inclusiveness agenda of the government."
--.Arun Khote
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of "Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC")
..................................................................
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.
Visit web site | Reply to sender | Click here to unsubscribe
The email is intended only for the recipients. The owners of the Dgroups cannot be held responsible for the contents of the email message.
No comments:
Post a Comment