Conditions of Dalit in India

[t.shonku]

Dalit killed for digging own well

Satyajit Joshi

Pune, May 04, 2007

Gautam is a police constable in Satara’s Man taluka, but even he could not save his brother-in-law Madhukar Ghatge. Ghatge (48), a Dalit farmer and a father of three, retired from the Railways a few years ago and moved home from Mumbai to farm on his family’s 5-acre plot here he was murdered last week by upper-caste villagers who did not want him to dig a well on his own property. It would have been the first well in Kulakjai village on land owned by a Dalit.

The police said Ghatge was hacked so violently that even the earth-moving machine he was using at the time was damaged.
‘They left him to die’
“They were armed with axes and iron rods. They attacked him and left him to bleed to death,” said Ghatge’s 21-year-old son Tushar, a law student at a local college.
Ten people have been arrested and charged under the Atrocities Act and special police teams deployed.“They said his well would mean less water for the common well in the village,” said Tushar.
Ghatge tried to reason, saying he had acquired permission from the zilla parishad and panchayat samiti and had promised to share the water in times of scarcity, but the crowd grew menacing.

Back at the Harijan basti on Saturday, Ghatge’s neighbours gathered at his house to pay homage. They put up photographs of Dr B.R. Ambedkar, champion of the Dalit cause, and Gautam Buddha — most basti residents have converted from Hinduism in a bid to escape the stain of their caste.
Friends and relatives from Mumbai sat in stunned silence.“A special police team has been deployed to avoid any trouble,” said Satara District Superintendent of Police Prakash Mutyal.
It’s always been a peaceful town, he frowned.


Link to the original article

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Dalit-killed-for-digging-own-well/Article1-220288.aspx



India world's largest Democrazy ! OMG it's Democracy

[t.shonku]

Gujarat: Dalit students protest against manual scavenging (http://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/2009/09/13/gujrath-dalit-students-protest-against-manual-scavenging/)

Posted by Rajeesh on September 13, 2009
Ahmedabad : A huge number of Dalit students marched through the city roads on Monday. They were protesting against manual scavenging which is still practised in Gujarat. The rally started from Vadaj and ended at Gandhi Ashram, where a public hearing was held.
The students, who study in government schools are still being forced to clean toilets in their schools. Bhagwati Parmar, 13, a resident of Paliyad village in Botad taluka of Bhavnagar said, "I dropped out of school in 2004 when I was in class III and would go along with my father to dump garbage. But, now I live with my mother after my father died of kidney ailment. We live in utter poor conditions and so I have to go to clean or sweep when someone asks me to do so. I still go to Darbargadh for cleaning work, 2 to 3 times a month and also collect trash from the roads with other girls. For this, I get Rs 5 to Rs 15 with which we buy milk to make tea. It is necessary to make ends meet."
Gautam Dodiya, 15, who lives in Dhoda village in Umrala taluka of Bhavnagar district said, "I stay with my mother after my father’s death, he was an alcoholic. I studied till class V and then left school because I was asked to clean urinals and toilets there. But, to earn a living I still go once a month to clean soak pit and I get Rs 200."
Similarly, Bharatkumar Chandubhai, 13, who lives in Aslali village in Matar taluka of Kheda district said, "I study in a government school in my village. Even I faced the wroth of being a Dalit. I am told to clean up urinals in my school once a week."
"Manual scavenging is a forced caste-based occupation where more than 1.3 million people in the country are affected by this practice," said Manjula Pradip trustee of Navsarjan trust.
Dalit children, mainly whose parents are scavengers, are forced to do menial works like cleaning toilets and classrooms and they are also discriminated in schools, she alleged.
The students, who took part in the rally accused school authorities of forcing them to clean rubbish. "Scavenging has been outlawed in the country but it is still practised in a developed state like Gujarat," said Martin Macwan, a social activist, alleged. TOI (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/city/ahmedabad/Dalit-students-protest-against-manual-scavenging/articleshow/4904290.cms)


http://indianvanguard.wordpress.com/2009/09/13/gujrath-dalit-students-protest-against-manual-scavenging/






Another example of shameless feudal system

[t.shonku]

Dalit killed for demanding wages


Indo-Asian News Service



Bhopal, May 30, 2010



A Dalit in a Madhya Pradesh village only wanted payment of wages due to him -- but what he got was death. Mason Ramesh Jatav was allegedly killed after he demanded Rs 4, 000 for the work he had done for farmer Shriram Lodhi, police on Sunday said. Thirty-eight-year-old Jatav was killed in Shivpuri district on Friday night when he had gone to Shriram's house with his wife to demand back-wages.

According to police, Shriram and his relative Gabdu Lodhi took the couple to a nearby field and killed Jatav, a resident of Sirsona village, about 350 km from Bhopal.
"The two smashed Jatav's head with a huge stone," a police officer said.
Jatav's wife fled from the spot and lodged a complaint with the Karera police station. By the time police reached the spot, Jatav had succumbed to his injuries.
The police officer said Shriram and Gabdu were absconding.

Link to the article
http://www.hindustantimes.com/Dalit-killed-for-demanding-wages/Article1-550624.aspx








Another example of Democracy

[t.shonku]

Dalit attacked for touching water pump

23Jun07


A Dalit man approaching a community water pump would not have imagined what crime he was about to commit. But as he washed his hands, a group of people came down upon him, beat him up and also filed a police complaint against him.

http://atrocitynews.files.wordpress.com/2007/06/dalit_beaten.jpg


Ramlal, 40, sustained three fractures in his hands Sunday as the mob beat him up with sticks and iron rods for touching the pump, in Takholi village in Tonk district, over 100 km from here.
While Ramlal was admitted to a hospital, one of the alleged attackers filed a complaint against him in the Mehendwas police station.
The victim’s family said they were threatened that their house would be burnt down if they approached police. ‘But we finally decided to lodge a complaint on Monday,’ said Shamu, a relative of Ramlal.
‘One Murari Yadav has lodged a police complaint against Ramlal for attacking him on Sunday and a group of Dalit community members filed a complaint on Monday. We are probing the matter and offenders will be punished,’ a senior police official said.
Source: Zeenews (http://www.zeenews.com/articles.asp?rep=2&aid=378386&ssid=68&sid=lif)




India still world's largest democracy

[t.shonku]

Dalit beaten by upper caste villagers for smoking

Hemender Sharma (http://ibnlive.in.com/byline/Hemender-Sharma.html), CNN-IBN (http://ibnlive.in.com/agency/CNN-IBN.html)


Updated Apr 20, 2008 at 10:02pm IST



Bhopal: Halki Bai, a Dalit woman from Madhya Pradesh’s Biharipura village, does not have any idea where her husband and son have gone. The only thing she remembers is an attack on their house allegedly by the village Thakurs.
She said her husband was mercilessly beaten up and asked to leave the village with a warning not to show his face again.

“The Thakurs do not behave properly with us. It is not just this incident, they do not allow us to fetch water and we are forced to carry our shoes on our heads while passing in front of their houses,” Halki Bai said.


The immediate provocation for the Thakurs' action was apparently a Dalit smoking without taking permission during a funeral procession. Halki Bai is not the only woman whose husband has been forced out of the village. All male members of the 15 Dalit families in the village have fled and individually reported to the police.
On Saturday, it was the turn of Chaaokiri Chaudhary who alleged the police refused to listen to any complaint against the Thakurs. “I have been forced out of the village. I want justice. I want to go back,” Chakori said.
Meanwhile, SP of Jabalpur Markand Devaskar denied the allegations by the Dalits and said, “There are some complaints and we have taken action but there is nothing like Thakurs forcing the Dalits out of the village."
Almost all political parties including the ruling BJP in Madhya Pradesh are trying to woo Dalits to make a good votebank. These votes can make the decisive difference but when it comes to making a difference in the life of a Dalit, no one seems to be bothered.
(With inputs from Deepesh in Jabalpur)

http://static.ibnlive.com/pix/sitepix/04_2008/jabalpur_dalit313.jpg

(Picture of the victims house and his wife, house all broken up )



India world's largest democracy, USA endorses India and supplies India with arms so that India can kill some more Dalit and Adivasis.

Nazi Thugs !!!!!!!!

[t.shonku]

Dalit Woman Humiliated And Victimized In Allahabad
By Vidya Bhushan Rawat
09 July, 2010
Countercurrents.org
Her one eye is completely turned red at the moment as the upper caste goons threw slippers at her. The entire body bears the brunt of the brahmanical violence on July 3rd, 2010 at the Sheetalpur Tikari village under Tharwai police station in Allahabad. Her cloths were torn and the goons tried to pee on her mouth but the police kept her in the police station for 24 hours and try to deny anything like that happened. This is the story of Lalli Devi, 45, who was constructing a house allotted to her under the Indira Awas Yojna when Devi Sharan Mishra, a local money lender and well connected person came along with some other members and demolished the house. As Lalti tried to reason with the man, she, her husband Gulab and her son aged 12 years were beaten mercilessly by these goons. Her huts where she used to sleep and cook were completely razed to the ground. ‘It was the incident at around 8 am on Saturday when I was cleaning my chulha’, said Lalli. ‘Eight members lead by Devi Mishra just entered in with lathis and thrashed me after beating my husband and son. Sir, they put me on ground, put their feet on my chest and tried to pee on my mouth. I resisted but they torn my cloths, hit at me and threw slippers at me which hurt my eyes. It is aching now and has turned red. I am still not able to breathe properly’, said Lalti when I visited her. There is no place for them to sleep. Its rainy season and given the nature of our villages, Lalli and her family has no way to save them from the fury of nature.
According to police officials, there was a land feud between the two which was in the court and there was a stay on it. When Lalli Devi was constructing her house given to her under Indira Awas Yojna, Devi Mishra and his gangsters demolished it and also razed her other huts to ground, beat up her husband and thrashed her when she reacted. She was humiliated and her body bears the mark of the thrashing.
This incident happened about 30 kilometers from Allahabad town on July 3rd, 2010 in the morning hour around 8 am. This nondescript village resembles the old structural villages of India which Baba Saheb Ambedkar described as ‘den of feudalism, nepotism and corruption’. The village in darkness. The village has 5 families of Yadavs, 10 families of Patels (OBCs), 25-30 families Passies (Dalits) and nearly 20 families of Brahmins. Nearly 10 families belong to Telis i.e. Guptas and one family belong to Dhaikar, a Dalit community which is engaged in bamboo weaving work. They make bamboo baskets and other related things. And see the tyranny of the caste system in the village, none of the communities coming to her rescue. The Brahmins, as master manipulators are using all techniques to disturb her. They are in power structure every where. She is alone. The Kurmis near her do not feel for her, the Pasis are known to resist yet not a single person is ready to speak. The terror of these Brahmin is so high that a Dalit woman says, ‘why do you speak to us. Are you not able to see our faces and judge as what is the situation here’? Lalli Devi know this situation as she says, ‘ Most of the people saw me being dragged on the ground and my cloths torn but no body want to speak as they fear the powerful’.
A police Jeep is picketing in front of her house. She went to police station to lodge her complaint but she was not only hounded but kept at the police station for 24 hours. Daily Amar Ujala and Hindustan reported it on July 6th and later the local news channels started running the story on their prime time which suggested that Lalli Devi was attacked and her cloths were torn but police deny she was paraded in the village. However, the question is whether hiding things make the grave incident less grave? For the police officials, it is like any other land dispute. They term it as a fight between two leaders for lording over the Dalits and other communities in the region. The Brahmin politics of Allahabad is well known to be explained here. But for the information of the readers, the Member of Parliament is a former pracharak of BJP but now his ‘heart’ is changed and hence is a man of ‘social justice’ in the BSP, though his brother’s heart still beat for BJP and hence he is MLA from that party. The other brother has just achieved victory for MLC on BSP ticket. None of them had visited so far. But the leaders from other political parties are also visiting her. I do not know but Lalli Devi tells that she was given support of Rs 3000/- by one politician and Rs 1000/- by the other. That is the cost of the dignity and respect of a Dalit woman in India.
The police officers on duty are mostly agreeing that she was beaten up and ‘sab kuchch galat hua’ but they are not ready to accept that ‘her dignity’ was attacked. When I ask them whether any case has been filed under Prevention of SC-ST Atrocities Act, they answer in affirmative but that has to be verified at later stage and action need to be seen. The culprit Devi Mishra’s supporter charge that the Lalli Devi is working on behalf of village Sarpanch Yogesh Tiwari who function as a Sarpanch pati, defecto Sarpanch of the village.
Antecedents of the culprits
Most of the villagers say that the Brahmins play power politics in the village and that Devi Mishra is a moneylender. As we know well that in Uttar-Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, the moneylenders suck your blood more than even the corporate. Here the interest rates are exorbitantly very high. According to the villagers, it very according to the ‘favor’ done by the moneylenders but nonetheless it starts from a minimum interest of 5% per month but normally is 10% month. Most of the villagers actually mortgage their papers and the problem is that at the time of receiving the money, they do not really bother to check the contents of the agreement and later are trapped in the game and therefore lost their land or other immoveable assets.
Devi Mishra’s supporter say that Lalli Devi does not own that land in which she was constructing her Indira Awas as the land was legally belong to him as he bought it from him, while Lalti Devi says that her father in law was a habitual drunk and nobody ever took him seriously. She also says that her husband also is not keeping well and has hearing problem. The fact is that she lives in the Abadi i.e. human settlement side which is never recorded and on the ground the grave reality is that Mishra and his goons assaulted her. Even if everything that Lalli Devi was saying wrong, that does never justify the grave violence inflicted on her by the arrogant brahmanical forces of the region and the dubious role played by the local police which was unable to arrest the culprits.
Though nobody is verifying things yet some of the dalits on the condition of anonymity informed that Devi Mishra is a Junior Engineer with some government department. According to them, he does not go to his office. Probably, it is a common decease in UP and elsewhere that the upper caste benami officers. It is up to the government to think over it and take action against him if it is proved that he is a government servant. Not only should his job records be produced to the court but also all those who connived with him in this misdeed should be arrested.
The village and the lonely woman
As Baba Saheb Ambedkar said that the caste system has never provided any unity of the oppressed and hence annihilation of caste is essential for social justice but how and who would be interested in it as annihilation of the caste itself mean elimination of the brahmanical social order? This hierarchical structure keeps people isolated and it is the biggest obstacle in the unity of the oppressed people ghettoized in their own shells. Here also if one see the isolation of Lalli Devi, one only realize how prophetic Ambedkar was in his analysis of our ‘great’ ‘villages’ which has ascending order of respect and descending order of contempt as the community that Lalli belong to does not serve any political purpose for those for who vote matters the most. Just adjacent to her huts are people, who are not ready to share her pain and agony. Women are inside their house. In the local PDS shop, I meet an old man who refuses to answer my question. I ask him Baba just tell me what happened to Lalli and this man says ‘ sab karmo ka phal hai’, everything is the result of her karma’. I ask Baba, what is your caste and this man inform me that he is a ‘Kurmi’ which is a powerful backward community. Yes, she does not belong to your caste and hence you are not bothered about her, I scold him. Near him, is a lonely woman who brick house is just adjacent to Lalli. Yes, Uma Devi is a Teli by caste. A single woman, she narrates her plight as how her land was snatched and converted by the powerful Brahmin in the village and she was thrown here. Uma is a lonely woman, left by her husband and rejected by her family, she live a life of pain and agony. She does not speak. The villagers speak for her as if she can not speak. The cruelty of village life is reflected in the eyes of Uma. Even a child can scold her in front of every one to the ‘delight’ of all the elders.
She shares the pain of Lalli but only say that she was not at home. Every one is speaking the same language of not being there. How is it possible in the village where you can see huge crowd on a small issue, that a woman is being robbed, molested and none of them has seen it. The police will work for a few days and after some time when ‘situation’ comes back to normalcy. Villagers know it well that they will have to respond again and as there is no ‘witness’ to the case, Lalli Devi may not get justice. The only possibility is that a few politicians and administration would try to ‘compensate’ her honor in a few thousands rupees. But Lalli Devi says,’ Sir, I was born here. My parents and grand parents lived her for so long. I can not leave this place. This is my home. I want to die here only’ But the pressure is on her to leave as none is ready to cooperate with her and we all know after several years the judiciary would not be able to give her justice. Lalli Devi knows that politicians are coming; media is highlighting the issue but just for a few days. After that she will remain alone along with her husband and a child. ‘Politicians promise a lot but I know they never come back’, says Lalli.
While Lalli says she did not face any caste based discrimination but the fact is isolation and ghettoisation is a way of life in the villages and accepted norms. As her opponents are charging her as a close associate with Pradhan she says categorically that she neither knows the Sarpanch nor wants to get involved in their activity. How will he be interested in us, she asks.
As I move around in the Pasi locality, lot of signs boards are there putting slogans of NREGS, promising bright future for the villagers. ‘Why should you leave village when the work is at home’, portray a slogan. The question one must ask these people as why migration is increasing. Is it just for work or it is for dignity also. What do we expect from people like Lalli Devi? Will she be allowed to live a life peacefully in the village by the feudal structure?
There is scarcity of water in the village. In the hamlet of Pasis, for over 25 families, they have just one water connection. So it is war among the poor. One family pay Rs 18/- a month apart from basic investment of Rs 3000/- yet no water on time. ‘Of course, water will be here for a few days as Netas come here and TV cameras roam around, but once things die down, nothing happen. It will again be the same politics of Mishras and Tiwaris, says a villager. None of them have land and yet less than 10% of them have the BPL card. It is shameful, say an old man that all the landless people have APL card. As far as the job card is concern, they do not get any work. Poor people do not even know that they have to apply for the job. They feel it is a favor by the village Pradhan or some political party.
Conclusion
Lalli Devi’s honor was violated at Sheetalpur Tikari. Her house has been demolished. Even the police admit that she was beaten mercilessly though they do not agree with everything that Lalti Devi speak. The issue is much bigger here. Is the crime against her less serious? What is the police doing. Has it really taken investigation to a conclusion? How will it destroy the nexus of the money lending upper castes who are illegally grabbing lands of the Dalits in these areas? Our experience shows that the police and authorities try to shut your mouth by compensating the person. They know well that after some days the issue would close down.
Human Rights are meant for each citizens of the country. A truly democratic governance structure should ensure that the most marginalized and tiniest minority must feel safe and secure. Our villages do not provide that confidence where the women like Lalli Devi feel secure and can live a life with freedom and dignity. The goons can come any time and assault her and our structure try to compensate it in a few thousand rupees while condoning the racist nature of our society. Though the police can not fight such violence, it can best do the work impartially and take the case to a logical conclusion. It will take long time. How can we ensure justice to Lalli Devi. Can our Human Rights bodies take any action against the authorities and follow it up? But if it takes years to get justice then how will Lalli and her family remain free and safe from the violence of the village and that of the goons? Will the police act against its own officers who denied that nothing happened and Lalli was lying?
Indian villages need radical changes. India administration needs bigger changes so that the democratic thought can flourish and women like Lalli Devi do not live in constant fear and humiliation. Can we grow and ensure that each one in the country live in dignity and self respect? Right now, we can only wait for justice to Lalli.


Link to original article

http://www.countercurrents.org/rawat090710.htm







Another incident....................

[t.shonku]

Two Dalits burnt alive after clash over dog

TNN,Apr 23, 2010, 01.20am IST
HISAR: An argument between a Dalit and a Jat (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/JAT) over the former's dog led to near-unbridled violence in a village in Hisar district which was tense throughout Thursday after an 18-year-old physically challenged Dalit girl and her father were burnt alive on Wednesday.
The Dalits refused to cremate the bodies, demanding a CBI probe and compensation, apart from sacking of the Jat tehsildar of Mirchpur village where the violence began. Angry demonstrators also protested in front of the Civil Hospital where post-mortem was conducted on the girl, Suman, and her father, Tara Chand.
A police probe revealed that Rajender, a Jat, and Yogesh from Valmiki (Dalit) community, got into an argument early this week, after the latter objected to Rajender hurling stones at his dog. When the matter reached the panchayat, two representatives of the Valmiki community — Veer Bhan and Karnpal — were summoned but ended up being beaten by the Jats.
file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/abc/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif
Jats are alleged to have torched 25 Dalits houses in the village. ''My father and sister were at home when armed men came raiding around noon and set our house on fire,'' a shocked Tara Chand's son Amar said. An eyewitness to the attack, he hid and saw the gangs doing the rounds.
The police, who have been charged with not taking cognizance of Dalit complaints of threats from Jats over the last three days, registered a case on Thursday and sent additional forces to Mirchpur. ''We have taken 25 suspects into custody and are interrogating them,'' said Anant Kumar Dhull, IG, Hisar range. Among others camping in the village along with the IG are SP Subhash Yadav and DC O P Sheoran. Haryana DGP Ranjiv Dalal said the trial would be conducted in a fast-track court.
Parmod Bagri, president of Hisar Valmiki Samaj, said, ''This (arson) was another Gohana (a village that saw Jat-Dalit feud in 2005) and Jhajjar in which five Dalits were lynched in 2002.''

Link to the article
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-04-23/india/28145858_1_jat-dalit-mirchpur-village-in-hisar-district








Incredible India...............




Haryana: Villagers set Dalit houses ablaze, 2 dead

Hisar, Apr 22: Two people were killed and several others injured when a group of the villagers set a fire to houses of Dalits at Mirchpur village on Wednesday, Apr 21.

An armed group of villagers stormed the locality housing Dalit families and set about a dozen houses ablaze, The Tribune reported.

A disabled girl, said to be suffering from polio, and her father were killed in the incident. While the girl, identified as Suman, was burnt to death in the fire as she was unable to rescue herself; her father, who suffered serious burn injuries, succumbed later in a hospital.

The communities of the Mirchpur village have reportedly been involved in a decade-long fight. The tension resurfaced on Wednesday, Apr 21 noon leading to this incident.

According to The Tribune, the dispute began in 2000 when the Dalit families wanted to dig a pond on a piece of land which they claimed possession to. The villagers were against this. Since then there have been sporadic incidents of clashes and violence have been reported.



Link to the article

http://news.oneindia.in/2010/04/22/haryana-villagers-set-dalit-houses-ablaze-2-dead.html



















More of Incredible India....... see ! and it's incredible DEMOCRACY

[t.shonku]

Teenager murdered for writing love letter to girl of higher caste


An Indian teenager who dared to write a love letter to a sweetheart from a higher caste was beaten and paraded through the streets before being thrown under a train and killed.
Manish Kumar, 15, a member of India’s Dalit, or “Untouchable”, community, was seized by a gang of men as he went to his village school.
He was beaten and his head was shaved before he was thrown on to the tracks, as his mother begged for mercy, witnesses said. It was alleged that police looked on as the incident took place.
A teenager has since been arrested and a policeman has been suspended. Five other men were detained.
“The accused killed the boy for writing a love letter to a girl of the same village. There was a scuffle and he was pushed under a train,” Rajesh Kumar, the superintendent of police in Kaimur, the district of the impoverished northern state of Bihar where the attack took place, told The Times.
Manish died because he was a member of the Ravidas community, a Dalit sub-caste that has been confined historically to working with leather – a profession deemed unclean by Hindus, for whom cows are sacred.
Another term by which the group is known, chamar, is considered a grave insult.
Three months ago the boy sent a letter “expressing his interest” in a girl from the Dhobi community, another Dalit sub-caste, which has traditionally washed clothes for a living – but is fractionally above the Ravidas in the Hindu hierarchy. The note was discovered by the girl’s parents.
Activists said that the murder underscored how even India’s oppressed Dalits were divided by the caste system, an ancient and rigid social structure that dictates that a person’s birth governs their profession and status. Prakash Louis, a sociologist based in Bihar, said: “The intense cruelty of this attack has captured interest, but similar incidents are occurring daily.”
Far from being a fading vestige of “old India”, experts say that the caste system continues to evolve, even as the country experiences an economic renaissance. The Dhobi community in Manish’s area has benefited from education to a greater degree than the Ravidas, and has been able to win better jobs as a result, local activists say. The imbalance has meant that discrimination against Ravidas by better-off Dalits has increased in recent years.
“Caste-based atrocities are common here: rapes, murders, beatings. The privileged prey on the weak,” said Uday Kumar, a director of the Bihar-based Dalit Association for Social and Human Rights Awareness. Similar abuses are reported regularly across India. Alamelu, the leader of a group of Dalit women in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, said: “If a Dalit labourer is a girl, it’s accepted that they will be sexually exploited. Our high-caste landlords might consider us untouchable in the daytime, but at night it’s a different matter.”

Link to Original article
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5197439.ece







India the world's largest democracy , yet you need a license to love someone......

[Toppler]

Yeah, and China is "totalitarian" while India is supposedly "free".
Not defending the Chinese ruthless state capitalism, but it is still light years ahead of India. Even most African nations don't have this kind of backward social structure.

[red cat]

Excellent thread. And yes, in terms of poverty too many regions of India will probably exceed an average African country.

[t.shonku]

‘Double tumbler’ system still in vogue here


R. Arivanantham


KRISHNAGIRI: Gandhiji called them ‘Children of God’. But Dalits in villages such as Mavanatti, Devanthotti, Urigam, Kottaiyur and Thakkatti in Thali block of Krishnagiri district are subjected to the pernicious practice of untouchability in the form of a ‘double tumbler’ system (i.e. one set of tumblers for them and another for people from other communities).
B. Veerabadran, a Dalit youth from Mavanatti village, told The Hindu that owners of eateries kept plastic tumblers near bins outside their shops. Mr. Veerabadran said Dalits were served tea or coffee in these tumblers. After drinking tea they had to wash the tumblers themselves and keep them at the designated place – near the bin. The tea would be poured to the tumblers by the hoteliers who would take care not to touch them.
Many times the food joints do not give Dalits tea or coffee even if the shops have enough milk, sugar and tea or coffee powder.
Young members of the community find it hard to bear this.“Why do we have to face this humiliation? We want the state government to totally eradicate untouchability in society. We want to sit with others in hotels,” they said. They alleged that when they complained to the police about this practice and atrocities against them the police intimidated them and foisted false cases on them.
Superintendent of Police Anisha Hussein told this paper that 48 cases had been booked in different police stations in Denkanikottai and Thali areas. The district administration should take stern action against those practising untouchability, Ms. Hussein said.
Two hundred and twenty two Dalit families live in the patta land and 50 and odd group houses given to them by the district administration in Mavanatti village. Their population is about 1,200. Most of them work as coolis in farm lands and quarries. Some of them have small pieces of land in the area where they cultivate crops.
What a fragile religion is this Ariyan Brahmanism that a Dallit desecrates a holy temple. It means inspite of all the sanctities and purifications, a Dallit desecrates the strongest and holiest of Brahmin's god and his abode. Thus a Dallit is stronger than the holiest and strongest of all the Brahmin gods. What a pity! If a Dallit drinks water from a well, it gets impure. If he drinks from the same tumbler as an Ariyan, it desecrates the body and "Dharma" of a pious Brahmin. Then who will cleanse his soul that has turned impure due to this act. Note the point. "All the gods and goddesses can't make the temple pure and holy again''.
and what a weird "Pseudo Republic" is India where Non Ariyans can not live in peace and tranquility.


Link to article

http://www.hindu.com/2009/03/19/stories/2009031950080100.htm



More example of feudalism . And still you will see Mrs Clinton cheering about India's role in strengthening democracy.




Gang-rape of Dalit woman in Rohtak
Rohtak, July 23
A DALIT woman was allegedly gang-raped by six upper-caste youths in Madina village of Rohtak district on Sunday.
According to the police, the victim a married woman was going on foot to participate in a 'Satsang' (religious discourse) at about 11 am when two youths forcibly pushed her into their car, in which four accomplices of the duo were also travelling.
She was taken to a sugarcane field in Madina village, where she was raped by the six youths. The culprits, residents of Madina village, fled away from the spot after committing the crime.
Following a complaint by the victim a manhunt to nab the culprits was launched, Senior Superintendent of Police A. S. Ahlawat said.
The police have registered a case against all accused namely- Rajender, Manjit, Dharmender, Jagdish, Rajender and Rishi.

Thanks to democrazy Dalit women are not safe

[t.shonku]

Orissa temple 'purified' after Dalit minister's visit


IANS


First Published : 14 Jan 2009 10:13:00 PM IST


BHUBANESWAR: A purification ritual was performed in a Hindu
temple in Orissa Wednesday after a Dalit minister visited the place of worship, a priest said.
Women and Child Welfare Minister Pramila Mallick entered the sanctum sanctorum of the Akhandalamani temple, a highly revered shrine of Hindu lord Shiva at Aradi village in Bhadrak district, some 150 km from here.
Temple chief priest Gokulananda Panda said they performed the purification ritual because Dalits were not allowed to enter the sanctum sanctorum.
The priests closed the temple for over an hour and washed it soon after the minister left, Panda said.
Mallik said she had visited the temple along with her family but didn't know if purification ritual was performed following her entry.
Dalits in Orissa are barred from entering many Hindu temples.
In November 2004, villagers beat up four Dalit women for entering an 18th century Jagannath temple at Keradagarh village in the coastal district of Kendrapada.

What a fragile religion is this Brahmanism that a Dallit desecrates a holy temple. It means inspite of all the sanctities and purifications, a Dallit desecrates the strongest and holiest of Brahmin's god and his abode. Thus a Dallit is stronger than the holiest and strongest of all the Brahmin gods. What a pity! If a Dallit drinks water from a well, it gets impure. Note the point. "All the gods and goddesses can't make the temple pure and holy again''.
and what a weird "Pseudo Republic" is India where Non Ariyans can not live in peace and tranquility.


Link to article

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/uncategorized/orissa-temple-purified-after-dalit-ministers-visit_100142436.html



Now take a look , even a Dalit minister is not safe from discrimination.



What does this prove?

Ans- Democracy in India is an eyewash

[t.shonku]

Excellent thread. And yes, in terms of poverty too many regions of India will probably exceed an average African country.


Thanks for kind words

It is clear from my posts above that democracy in India is of no good ,what India needs is a peoples war.

[t.shonku]

Caste Based Discrimination in India - Hidden Apartheid for Dalits


Created: 2007-09-28 SANJIV PANDITA
“In the rainy season, water mixes with the faeces that we carry in baskets on our heads; it drips onto our clothes, our faces... When I return home, I find it difficult to eat food. The smell never leaves my clothes, my hair. But in summer there is often no water to wash your hands before eating. It is difficult to say which [season] is worse.” - Leelabhen, a Dalit ‘manual scavenger’ (night soil collector) from Gujarat in Frontline magazine 1 . 2 or ‘untouchables’ in India, who occupy the bottom level of India’s rigid caste system. Often termed as ‘India’s hidden apartheid’, the caste system in India has ensured that a large population has been segregated from the mainstream and deemed to carry out the jobs that are dirty and demeaning. Dalits in India have no access to land, live under deplorable conditions segregated from other caste Hindus, and are forced to carry out jobs that are supposed to be ritually polluting for the caste Hindus. This is happening in spite of many measures by the government to improve their situation. Dalits continue to be caught up in the vicious circle whereby they are perceived to be ‘polluted’ or ‘dirty’ people by virtue of their birth and are excluded from mainstream social, religious, and economic life.

Untouchability and the Caste System
Untouchability has its roots in India’s caste system, which is supposed to be more than 1,500 years old. A Hindu can belong to a particular caste by virtue of his/her birth and the lower caste or the out-cast Hindus can never escape this tortured ordeal till his/her death. The caste system in India is often described as the longest surviving social hierarchy, a defining feature of which involves complex stratification of social groups based on ritual purity. There are four basic caste groups, also known as ‘varna’, and in order of precedence they are the Brahmins (priests and the teachers), Ksyatriyas (rulers and soldiers), Vaisyas (merchants and traders), and Shudras (labourers and servants). Shudras, the lowest caste of the four, are supposed to serve the higher castes. Besides these principal castes, there are thousands of sub-castes also known as ‘jatis’. These are all endogamous (marrying within the same caste only) groups that are further divided along occupational, sectarian, regional, and linguistic lines.

A fifth category falls outside the four broad varna groups; people too ‘impure’ to rank as worthy beings were known as the ‘Achuts’ or Untouchables. They were (and still are) often assigned tasks like sweeping, cleaning up filth, disposing of dead animals, leather work and other ‘polluting jobs’ that were beyond the purview of the caste Hindus. Mahatma Ghandi gave them the name ‘Harijan’, meaning Children of God, and he also launched a campaign to have ‘Untouchables’ be renamed ‘Harijan’. However, nowadays the word ‘Dalit’ is the most acceptable word used to address this section of society. It is a Sanskrit word that means ‘broken, discriminated or shattered people ’. Dalits are also further divided into more than 70 sub-castes.

Untouchability was abolished in India in 1950 under Article 16 of the Constitution. Interestingly, Dr BR Ambdekar, himself a Dalit, played a major role in drafting the Constitution. He is also known as the father of the present Dalit movement, which is questioning the whole caste structure. Even though 50 years have passed since the abolition of untouchablity, the practice continues in many forms throughout the country. In many places Dalits are not permitted to draw water from common wells and hand pumps, separate utensils are used to serve them in many tea and food stalls, they are not allowed entry to the temples and Dalit children are made to sit at the back of the classroom. The situation is even worse in rural areas where the majority of the population as well as Dalits reside. In its book, ‘Broken People: Caste Violence Against India’s “Untouchables”’, the Human Rights Watch reports that most Dalits in rural areas live in segregated colonies away from the caste Hindus. In a specific case from the Villupuram district in the state of Tamil Nadu, villages have segregated Dalit colonies; basic supplies like water are also set apart and medical facilities and the better thatched houses exist exclusively in the caste Hindu colonies. Untouchability is also observed at the highest judiciary level. In July 1998 a judge from the Allahabad High Court in Uttar Pradesh had his chambers cleaned with the ‘sacred waters of the river Ganges’ as it had been earlier occupied by a Dalit judge.

The constitution also grants Dalits certain privileges that include reservations (meaning quotas) in education, government jobs, and government bodies. The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 was enacted to prevent abuses against members of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes. The law, however, has benefited few as its implementation is weak. The National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in its 1997 report highlighted: “Whenever Dalits have tried to organise themselves or assert their rights, there has been a backlash from the feudal lords resulting in mass killings of Dalits, gang rapes, looting, and arson etc. of Harijan (Dalit) bastis (villages)”. According to government statistics, in 2001 there were 24,792 registered criminal cases that included murder and rape committed against Scheduled Castes. Yet, it is believed that this is only a tip of the iceberg as the majority of cases are not reported, especially in rural areas. Even registering a case does not ensure conviction of the culprits. Every year, even though more than 1,000 cases are registered, actual convictions are just a meagre one to three.

Dalit women are often sexually harassed and assaulted by men of the upper castes. A government investigator told the Human Rights Watch in Tamil Nadu, “No one practices unsociability when it comes to sex.” There are many reports where Dalit women have been stripped and even paraded naked for showing dissent, demanding more wages from landowners, or even for crossing the path and not bowing in front of the men of upper castes.
http://amrc.org.hk/files/Image/alu_issue53_05.jpg

Going off the Deep End: Dalit worker cleaning the sewers in New Delhi
Credit: Pranjal Goswami

Caste and Labour
All humans are born unequal in the caste system, and what can be observed from the four major ‘varnas’ is that the labouring caste (or class) is lowest in the social hierarchy. The caste system invariably has ensured that manual labour has no dignity. Even though in present times caste Hindus have seen occupational mobility, the status of Dalits has remained more or less unchanged. A small fraction of Dalits have benefited from the reservation (quotas) and moved into a new sphere. However, the majority of Dalits are still engaged in their age-old hereditary occupations of cleaning, landless labouring, and leather work etc. Dalits are still engaged in the most exploitative forms of labour. Many work in agriculture, manual scavenging, and sewerage work.

Landless Agricultural Labourers
“I think it is untouchability more than anything else that is responsible for the denial of human rights to this group of people. In fact untouchability is central to caste. I do not see untouchability as a social evil and to call it a social evil is to trivialise it enormously. It is and has been for a very long time an extremely sophisticated economic and political strategy for ensuring a perpetual pool of demoralised, cheap labour that has no sense of its bargaining power. This forced labour or free labour is not accounted for in the gross domestic product of the Indian economy.” (P Sainath, a writer on developmental issues)

Most Dalits live in rural India, involved with agriculture mostly as landless workers. Even though there have been a range of land reforms in India, more than 86 percent of the Dalits are either landless or near landless. In an agrarian economy, land is a prime asset that determines the standard of living and social status. The caste system has systematically ensured that Dalits own little or no land as this benefits other castes who need cheap labour. Landless agricultural men labourers work all across India for few kilogrammes of rice or Rs 15 to Rs 35 a day and always much below the official minimum wages; women are paid even less. Many times these workers take loans from their employer and end up working for either very low wages or none at all, due to the high rate of interest on the loans; they are just like bonded labourers. According to the Human Rights Watch, an estimated 40 million people in India are bonded labourers, a majority of them are Dalits. This is in spite of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976. Under this act payment of less than the minimum wage for the purpose of working off a debt amounts to bondage.

Manual Scavenging
The term ‘Manual Scavenging’ is used to describe the daily work to manually clean and remove human faeces from dry (non-flush) latrines (lavatories) in most parts of India. These workers, almost all women, are also referred to as ‘night soil workers’, a nineteenth century Victorian euphemism that hides the repugnance of the ‘shit’ that people really mean. Manual scavenging is a caste-based occupation and is invariably carried out by Dalits. These manual scavengers are known under different caste names in different parts of the country, such as Bhangis in Gujarat, Pakhis in Andhra Pradesh, and Sikkaliars in Tamil Nadu.

Mahatma Ghandi raised the issue of the horrible working and social conditions of ‘Bhangis’ more than 100 years ago in 1901 at the Congress Meeting in Bengal. Yet it took about 90 years to outlaw the practices. The Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993 punishes the employment of scavengers or the construction of dry latrines with imprisonment for up to one year and/or a fine of Rs 2,000 (US$45). However, the employment of manual scavengers persists widely though ‘illegally’. In 1992, a nation-wide scheme was launched for their rehabilitation and substantial funds were allocated for this purpose, but only a handful of scavengers benefited. The failure of this scheme is evident from the fact that there are more than one million manual scavengers in India.

Interestingly, Karnataka was the first state to ban the practice as early as the 1970s, but the practice continues there to this day. There are about 10,000 to 15,000 manual scavengers clearing away the human shit in the Hi-Tech capital of India, Bangalore, also known as the ‘Silicon Valley of India’, the state capital of Karnataka.

The plight of these workers was documented by the BBC in 2002. Babu Mathew, a human rights activist and professor at the National Law School in Bangalore, said in the BBC report, “There is a long tradition of misusing Dalits for this dirty work. It just shows there is no human value for Dalits. By law it is abolished but in reality night soil allied activity is practised even today.”

The work is most inhumane. The mostly women workers are equipped only with a broom and a tin plate, with which they have to remove human faeces from dry latrines. The excrement is piled into baskets, which the scavengers carry on their heads to a dumping place that can be several kilometres away. The stench is so strong that some Dalits work under a strong dose of alcohol in order to numb their senses. In spite of the horrendous work conditions they suffer, the wages they receive are a real pittance. Those working for the Urban Municipalities receive about Rs 30 to 40 a day (less than US$1) and those working privately are paid Rs 5 (US$0.11) a month for each house they clean. Manual scavengers are never provided with even basic protective gear like boots or gloves, making the task much more difficult and increasing these workers’ susceptibility to viral and bacterial infections.

A 40 year old manual scavenger, Manju, employed by the local urban municipality in Gujarat described her daily routine, wages, and health to the Human Rights Watch: “In the morning I work from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. cleaning the dry latrines. I collect the faeces and carry it on my head to the river half a kilometre away seven to ten times a day. In the afternoon I clean the gutters. Another Bhangi collects the rubbish from the gutters and places it outside. Then I come and pick it up and take it one kilometre away. My husband died ten years ago; since then I have been doing this. Today I earn Rs 30 a day (US$0.75). Nine years ago I earned Rs 16 (US$0.40), then Rs 22 (US$0.55), and for the last two years it has been Rs 30. But the payments are uncertain. For the last two months we have not received anything. Every two months they pay, but there is no certainty. We are paid by the Nagar Palika municipality chief officer. I have often gotten sick: fevers, headaches, breaking and spraining hands and feet, fatigue, and dizziness. It is all dirty work”

Due to the highly unhygienic conditions these workers are easily susceptible to diseases like respiratory infections (like tuberculosis), gastrointestinal disorders, dermatitis (severe skin problems), and chronic bacterial conjunctivitis (eye infections). The uncomfortable working posture and lifting loads for long distances also causes back- and body-ache.

Manual scavengers live in segregated colonies, separate from the other caste Hindus. At tea stalls, they are served in separate tea tumblers, which they have to handle and clean themselves—no one else touches them. Ashok Salappa, member of government-run Safai Karmachari (sweepers) Monitoring Committee in Bangalore told the BBC “I feel ashamed that it is still happening even after 53 years of Independence. They are treated worse in the society. Even the other Dalits (who do not work as manual scavengers) do not come near them. They are the Dalit among the Dalits.” Poverty among the manual scavengers is also grave. The situation is worst for the scavengers working for private houses. Apart from the Rs 5 a month they are also given food leftovers as a ‘bonus’; many a time they have to beg for it. Their children are also caught up in this quagmire. Due to the excessive workload, their children also have to help them with their work. Under these circumstances, it is almost impossible for their children to become educated, even though government may claim, ‘it is free’.

There have been many attempts to rehabilitate the scavengers. After Ghandi, many other Ghandians attempted to improve the conditions of scavengers. However, their efforts are often termed ‘patronising’ as they did not question the root cause of untouchability and why only Dalits, their children, and grandchildren should do this foul work, instead they focus on their acceptability among the caste system and provide them with better brooms and more sanitary equipment. At present, there are many activists, many of them Dalits themselves, who are working for social change. However, the rehabilitation task is very difficult. Martin Macwan, founder of the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Navsarjan based in Gujarat, who works for the abolition of manual scavenging, finds it difficult to find alternative employment for them. He finds it even more difficult to convince them that they are worthy of doing other jobs; years of abuse and oppression have left their psyche scarred and their rehabilitation requires more compassion and sensitivity.

Sewerage Work
“It is a familiar sight for residents: A frail man, drenched in raw sewage, looking out from a manhole. He dives into the sewer, scoops a bucketful of the dirt, comes out and hands it over to a co-worker before plunging again. On most occasions, the worker repeats this inhuman operation several times and yet manages to survive the hazards. But there are several unfortunate men who have lost their lives while making a livelihood by cleaning the city’s sewers with a network of about 3,000 km length. The underground sewers of Chennai [Tamil Nadu] have become death traps for workers and little seems to have been done to prevent the loss of innocent lives. Last week, 30-year-old Ramesh choked to death when he stepped into a Metro water sewer at Pulianthope. On Wednesday, Shanmugham (47) met with a similar fate at Purasawalkam. On both occasions, firemen reached the spot after the workers died …” - ‘Underground Sewers or Death Traps?’ (The Hindu, 16 March 2004)

Banning manual scavenging did not stop the exploitation of Dalits. Exploitation has taken on a new form over many decades and it is purely the cities that have built underground sewerage systems. The workers, all men, are assigned to carry out the maintenance of sewers and also to unclog them—a normal procedure in many countries one might think. But what makes it horrific in the Indian context is that the work is carried out under vile conditions—the worker, without any protective gear, dives into the raw sewage through a narrow manhole and cleans the sewer manually. The work is even more hazardous than the manual scavenging that the women do, as the worker is immersed completely in raw sewage. In India, industrial waste is also directly mixed with domestic sewage exposing workers not only to biological hazards but also to dangerous chemicals. Many organisations in New Delhi, Mumbai, Chenai, and Ahmedabad have raised the issue of these workers and many studies also have been conducted.

Kamdar Swasthya Suraksha Mandal (KSSM) an NGO in Ahmedabad carried out one such study with sewerage workers there. It was found that the Sewerage Department of the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation employed 1,200 workers who were either divers or involved in cleaning the sewers. The majority of these workers belonged to the ‘Bhangi’ (Dalit) community. The study revealed the presence of toxic chemicals like chlorides, hydrochlorides, sulphates, nitrates, and even metals like mercury, lead, and chromium. Workers were diving into the sewers without any proper protective gear and had no knowledge about toxic chemicals or the hazards they posed. KSSM also carried out a medical check-up of the workers and found about 680 ailments among them. Workers were suffering from illnesses like respiratory diseases, urinary tract infections, a range of skin diseases, eye disorders, gastrointestinal ailments, and even lung cancers. As per the study, workers had no access to basic amenities like drinking water and they received no safety training.

Safety equipment is either outdated or nonexistent for these workers. Based on this study, the KSSM filed a public interest litigation case (PIL) in the Gujarat High Court, which in 2001 issued notices to the Gujarat State Government and the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation to improve the working conditions of these people. However things have hardly changed. The National Geographic Magazine published a report on the Dalits, ‘Untouchable’, and subsequently made a video documentary, ‘Lesser Humans’. The report shows the inhuman conditions under which the Dalits continue to work in Gujarat, diving into and cleaning the sewers. According to the report, more than 100 workers die every year in sewer ‘accidents’ due to inhalation of toxic gases (methane etc.) or drowning in excrement. Many activists call it ‘Cold Blooded Murder’ where Dalits are sacrificed cleaning up the shit of the rich or upper caste people. Yet, no one is punished and almost no compensation is paid to the families of these victims. No official data are available about the number of workers who are killed cleaning the sewers; estimates based on newspaper reports give a rough figure of well over 1,000 a year across India.

The Society for Participatory Research in Asia (PRIA), an NGO based in New Delhi, carried out a study on sewerage workers in Patna (state capital of Bihar). The working conditions were similar to those in Gujarat and all the workers were Dalits. They lived in segregated housing with minimal amenities.

“Rainy seasons are worst when the sewers get flooded. The manholes have a small circumference and we have to dive without any rope attached and at times it is difficult to find the way back due to the dark waters. Many of our colleagues have perished and we might also die but this is the only livelihood we have. No one here lives to old age, if one does not die in an accident, a disease kills him,” one worker reported to the PRIA researcher.

The Centre for Education and Communication (CEC), another NGO based in New Delhi is also carrying out one such study among the sewerage workers in Delhi (see picture on page 11). Some of the preliminary findings from the study, which will be published soon, indicate that the only safety equipment workers are provided with is the safety belt. Pranjal Goswami, one of the researchers on the study lists the key findings as:
• Few workers in age group 50-59; most die before retirement
• 35 percent illiteracy
• Monthly wage for daily wagers Rs 2,950 ($67)
• More than 40 percent of workers are not permanent though more than 90 percent of them have been working for more than five years continuously
• 60 percent of workers enter manholes more than 10 times a month
• Acute illnesses: eye irritation (79 percent), upper respiratory tract irritation (57 percent), difficulty in breathing (38 percent), skin rash (60.5 percent), cut and injury (91.5 percent). Chronic illnesses: fatigue (76 percent), watering/burning of eyes (36 percent), cough (72.5 percent), skin irritation (41 percent), skin roughness (36 percent), skin rash (45.5 percent), lower backache (27 percent)
• Little awareness about hazards at work; no initiative from authority to generate awareness; lack of supervision
• No knowledge about protective gear except safety belts which they sometimes use
• 35 percent immunised against tetanus; no immunisation for hepatitis B or typhoid fever

Banning dry latrines in 1993 has had little impact on the ground. In any case, just banning them will not solve anything until there are proper sewerage systems. Due to non existence of a sewerage network, in many places residents construct ‘septic tanks’, the cleaning of which is again carried out by Dalits. Even the introduction of flushing toilets seems to have shifted the problem into a different direction and created even more hazardous conditions for Dalits as they have to dive into the sewers to maintain them. The many commissions, directives, and legislation concerning Dalits have just moved the problem in a different direction and the core issue remains unchanged. Dalits continue to work in the most deplorable conditions. Ironically instead of improving the work conditions or investing in machinery and protective equipment the municipalities have started to subcontract the sewerage cleaning jobs to private contractors so that they escape prime responsibility. This has resulted in even lower wages and absolutely no security for the Dalits. Even if the working conditions for the Dalits are improved the bigger question still remains, ‘Why should only Dalits do the dirty jobs?’ It seems that there is no political will to change the cycle. Even the general population seems to be insensitive to this issue—a Dalit dying in the sewers is a non-event. With so little wages and no benefits it is hard to understand how any Dalit can get any sort of education for their children to make use of the wonderful reservations (quotas) that the government has promised; it seems the only reservation they have 100 percent is to work in filthy sewers.




Link to the article


http://amrc.org.hk/node/580/print


More examples............

[t.shonku]

Please see the following video in You Tube your blood will boil

Link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LIS2FAzbw34

[t.shonku]

Prof THORAT REPORT EXPOSES CASTE APARTHIED IN AIIMS (http://endcampuscasteism.blogspot.com/2007/06/prof-thorat-report-exposes-caste.html)



In the country’s top medical college, Sateesh Meena is not allowed to dine or play cricket with upper caste students. Neither, he says, is any other Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe student.


Daily life at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences resembles that in the country’s feudal outbacks and Apartheid-era South Africa, a government committee has discovered, confirming findings reported by The Telegraph.


“Some would just get up and walk away when I would sit at the table (in the mess),” said Jiten Dash (name changed, like Meena’s), according to transcripts of conversations the panel had with SC and ST students.


The committee interviewed 25 reserved-category students — half their total number at the institute — of whom almost all said they were told “not to play basketball or cricket by the upper caste students”. “Football and volleyball (that the upper castes don’t fancy) were the only sports we were allowed to play,” Meena said.


The committee claims “enough evidence” that the discrimination is “linked” to the “proactive role the AIIMS administration played” in fanning anti-quota sentiments on campus.


During last year’s anti-reservation agitation, AIIMS authorities had allowed student protesters from other institutions, too, to gather on the campus. No other central institution did so.


Most of those the committee interviewed alleged the teachers ignored Dalit students in class and deliberately failed them in exams, especially the practical tests.


“Even in internship, they are harassing (us)… now they are threatening us about the exams that are coming,” a medico complained against teachers. “Last year, out of seven students… six were failed — nearly by one or two marks.”


Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had personally intervened to set up the three-member committee, headed by University Grants Commission chairman Sukhdeo Thorat, after this newspaper reported the campus discrimination.


The panel confirmed the finding that reserved category students were bullied into vacating their hostel rooms, leading to an SC/ST ghetto being formed on two floors of Hostels 4 and 5.


Each of the 25 interviewed said that despite a ragging ban, they were humiliated when they had joined. “They would call us to their rooms and order us… ‘tell us 10 reasons why you should get reservation… if you don’t we’ll beat you’,” one of them said.


“These incidents happen every year. Whenever a new batch joins they are treated like this,” a general category student confirmed.


The authorities ignored repeated complaints from the SC and ST students, encouraging their tormentors.


One Dalit boy who tried to join general category students in a game of basketball was thrashed, the committee noted. Another boy was told to “get out” by the cook when he walked into the mess where the upper castes dined.


The committee said the institute, despite requests, “has not taken any initiative to arrange remedial coaching in English, basic courses or any other spheres for SC/ST students as is required by central government educational institutions”.


Unlike many other central institutions, it lacks a grievance cell for SC and ST students. The committee has recommended that AIIMS set up an “equal opportunity office (EOO)”, answerable to the institute’s governing body and not the hospital administration.


The panel has also suggested that committees in AIIMS at every level — dealing with student, faculty or administration issues — have SC/ST members.The committee last evening submitted its final report to health minister Anbumani Ramadoss


http://telegraphindia.com/1070507/asp/frontpage/story_7744209.asp







Look another example

[RED DAVE]

Another example of shameless feudal systemLynching in nonfeudal America.

http://withoutsanctuary.org/

ED DAVE

[Toppler]

When I saw the picture of the man with half of his body immersed in raw sevage I realized this:

India is like a piece of shit and chopped off rotten ear of a dead homeless man, mixed together, draped in gold foil. The Western media always try to present it as a thriving democratic developing country, while it is more hellish than Sub-saharan Africa, despite a far higher GDP per capita. This basically means that almost all the money is made in the pockets of the elites. Not a cent actually goes to the poor people. It is not just the poverty, the entire society is fucked up, the caste system, the fact that woman have less actual rights than in Saudi Arabia, at least there they are well fed, in India the woman always eat only the scraps, meaning children who are malnourished even before birth, meaning low IQs, meaning that the cycle will go on because hunger causes stupidity and stupidity causes hunger. At least the Africans make the best out of their poverty, as evidenced by the fact that "only" 28 percents of kids there are actually hungry.

What the fuck is wrong with India and the rest of the subcontinent (Pakistan and Bangladesh) who are even more fucked up? Moldova has a similiar GDP per capita to India, yet the absolute poverty there is 2.4 percents and under 2 dollar poverty is 11.5 percents. In india absolute poverty is 37 percent and below 2 dollar a day poverty is 75.6 percents. It is beyond my mind how can 2 countries with almost the same GDP per capita in PPP terms be so different. India has 7x as much under 2$ a day poverty as Moldova and 16x as much extreme poverty as Moldova. When a country makes Moldova look rich and prosperous, you know it is an unbelievable shithole. Actually, literally a shithole http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFn_oYgfDsc&feature=player_embedded . No offense to Indians through, I think through that any Indian leftists are aware of this state of affairs, Kudos to them for opposing it.

[t.shonku]

Dalit children beaten up for going to school




Express News Service (http://expressbuzz.com/searchresult/express-news-service)


First Published :
02 Nov 2009 02:57:00 AM IST Last Updated :


MADURAI: Twelve Dalit children aged between eight and 13 have been hospitalised here after they were allegedly beaten up by some youth belonging to an upper caste Hindu community.
The attackers, who were allegedly not happy about the children receiving a formal education, wanted to send a message across to all the parents in the Dalit community, about the repercussions if they decided to send their children to school.
When the children, most of them girls, were returning from school on Friday, they were stopped on their way and beaten up by a group of caste Hindu youth. They also reportedly hurled verbal abuses at the children by referring to their caste, before beating them up.
While attacking the children, one youngster reportedly said, “It is only because you people are getting educated that you rush to the police station all the time. This is to teach your parents not to send you to school.”
Police have registered a case under Prevention of Atrocities Act following a complaint filed by the Dalits. Earlier this year, three Dalits and as many caste Hindus were arrested here following clashes between the two groups.



Link to original Article

http://expressbuzz.com/States/tamilnadu/dalit-children-beaten-up-for-going-to-school/117380.html



Even the Dalit Children are being targeted

[t.shonku]

Ragging of Dalit girl, Ladhar orders probe
Ashok Kaura


Phagwara, August 20


Though ragging in educational institutions has been banned by the government and the the Supreme Court, the practice was witnessed in a Phagwara college recently and the victim girl belonging to the Dalit community is in depression and even has attempted to commit suicide.
Dazy, daughter of Pirara Lal of Gali 4, Satnampura, Phagwara, and class XI (medical) student, was allegedly ragged in a toilet of a college in Phagwara. After knocking the doors of the college principal and local civil and police authorities, Pirara Lal today appeared before Jalandhar Division Commissioner S.R. Ladhar and narrated the entire episode of ragging of his daughter by a few senior college students who stripped her and hit her on the head in the toilet. He alleged that the principal did nothing to take action against the accused despite repeated requests.
The girl was being medically treated by a psychiatrist and physicians in private and the Civil Hospital, Phagwara, from June 15 to August 17, but she was still in depression.
On the other hand, the college principal could not be contacted despite repeated attempts.


Link to Original Article
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100821/jal.htm#2






ATTACK ON DALIT STUDENTS
Atrocities in a Medical College in Delhi



Newsletter July 1999


Medical colleges affliated to Delhi University, had always been fraught with caste discrimination and atrocities on Dalit Medicos. The most glaring of these in the recent times is the brutal assault on Dalit Medicos in the University College of Medical Sciences (UCMS) by the other Medicos belonging to the general category and also by the teaching faculty of UCMS.

Dalit Medicos, especially in the boys’ hostel of UCMS are forced to live on separate floors and they are made to sit on seperate tables in the common mess. The general category (GC) students always abuse the Dalit students by calling them ‘shaddus’ (derogatory term for SC/STs). In the first year of college, Dalit students are asked by their lecturers about their background.

In 1991, during the ragging period, Dalit students were stripped naked and paraded around the college. They were even asked to touch the feet of senior students and were forced to drink water from their shoes.The Dalit students continued to face such humiliaton at the hands of the GC students throughout the years till 1999. On 22nd February 1999, an announcement was made through the public address system installed there by the GC medicos. All general category students were supposed to come down and beat up the 'shaddus'. They claimed that this was a democratic country and everyone had the right to say and do whatever they wanted. The students then brutally assaulted each Dalit student, dragging them out of their rooms, ransacking their rooms and throwing their belonging out from the balcony. They dragged a Dalit doctor, who was on duty, by his hair to the boys hostel which is a distance of atleast 1km. This incident caused two Dalit sikh medicos to hide under the water tank. One of them said that this situation was much worse than the 1984 riots.

The hostel authorities were also quiet on the matter. The warden, Prof. K K Sharma was asked to intervene, but instead of defusing the situation and punishing the guilty he supported the GC students. The entire teaching faculty was also quiet and acted as if the incident was very trivial. The Dalit students complained to the Principal, whereafter a committee of three members was set up wherein Sharma was one of the members. This committee suspended six students from the hostel out of which four were dalits.

The police also supported the faculty and the GC students. They registered the FIR only a week after the complaint of Dalit students. During this time the GC students framed charges of molestation and physical assault on the Dalit students. In the second week of March the Dalit medicos started an indefinite strike in the college. The college and the hostel were closed for a period of one and a half month soon after the incident. But so far no action has been taken against the guilty.

Saheli expressed its solidarity with the striking students and participated in the demonstrations along with other democratic organisations.


Link to Article
https://sites.google.com/site/saheliorgsite/caste/attack-on-dalit-students






Dalit student stabbed during ragging in Rajasthan town
Special Correspondent
JAIPUR: A Dalit student was beaten and stabbed in front of the polytechnic college in the district town of Jhalawar in Rajasthan on Tuesday when he refused to comply with the demands of a group of boys, apparently during a ragging attempt. The boy, Ravindra Nawalia, brought this predicament upon himself reportedly when he refused to disrobe.
The first year student was coming out of the college when he was accosted by six persons, including two outsiders, at the gate. When he refused to remove his cloths, the miscreants first beat him and then stabbed him.


Link to Article
http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/24/stories/2008092455811400.htm






Medical student hangs himself in Patna, probe ordered

27 Jan 2011 Sunny, in his early 20s, was a resident of Chapra district, and was staying at a private lodge in Mahendru locality near the college campus. In a complaint lodged with the police, Sunny's father said that ragging had claimed his son's life, an official said. A police officer at Sultanganj told IANS that Sunny's body was found hanging from the ceiling of his room. "At present, we are not in a position to say what prompted him to end his life. The matter is being probed," the police officer said. Sunny's relatives said he was suffering from depression after being ragged on the campus. However, PMCH authorities denied the allegation.


More attrocities being committed against Dalit students to stop them from getting a proper education.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

What is "ragging" exactly? Is it just a nickname for some kind of ritual humiliation?

Also, how does one tell a Dalit from any other caste? Are they made to wear specific clothing or something, because they just look Indian to me.

[t.shonku]

What is "ragging" exactly? Is it just a nickname for some kind of ritual humiliation?





Yes ! you have guessed it almost correctly , but calling ragging as “ritual humiliation” would be somewhat of an understatement , let me explain to you in detail.

Ragging can range from mental humiliation to physical humiliation and sexual exploitation too. Ragging ranges from stripping naked to violent beatings by iron rod, torture by electrocution , injury by burning cigarette, rape, stabbings, murder by drowning etc etc. Basically all the Guantanamo stuff.


Sometimes even dalit girls and boys are made naked and their picture or videos are taken by cell phones and made into porn CDs and viewed all over India

[t.shonku]

Dalit girl paraded naked in Mumbai

TNN,Jul 10, 2010, 01.22am IST


MUMBAI: Cases of attacks on dalit women aren't confined to rural India: last month, a young dalit girl was stripped and paraded in a southern Mumbai (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/topic/Mumbai) locality. The local police has arrested 10 women and two men and slapped them with cases of atrocities. However, Sharada Yadav, the main accused, is out on bail.
Said senior police inspector Rajan Bhogale: "All the suspects named by the victim, including Sharada Yadav, were arrested in the case. We charged them under the Prevention of Atrocities Act. But Sharda Yadav was granted bail by the court." The 22-year-old dalit girl Mita Kamble (name changed), who was stripped and dragged out of her house at Darukhana, Reay Road, by a mob of mostly women, said: "They all shouted that dalits like me should not live in this area. They kept hurling abuses on me."




An incident from Mumbai city




Dalit woman paraded naked

26 June 2006




BHOPAL: A Dalit woman village head was beaten, stripped and paraded naked through her village in Madhya Pradesh by gun-wielding local goons after she refused to give them money from the village fund. According to reports, six men attacked the woman sarpanch, Indira Kushwaha, 45, on June 17 in Mahoikala village of Chattarpur district of Madhya Pradesh after she refused to give them Rs.50, 000 from the village development fund. The men thereafter attacked her sons.

The police, who were supposed to protect her, reportedly refused to help.

Indira told reporters at Chhatarpur Thursday: "They came to my house, thrashed me black and blue and paraded me naked through the whole village at gunpoint."

"Local goons Lakhan Shukla and Santosh Shukla had been harassing me for the last six months for money. They used to say that I had been given money for the village development since I was the sarpanch. They also said the money should be given to them because I, being a Dalit, would not know how to spend it."

"On the evening of June 17, when I turned down their demand, the two, armed with rifles, came to my hut, dragged me and my children out and started beating me. Lakhan and his men then stripped me and paraded me naked in the village," she alleged.




Source- TOI



More example of shameless feudalism

[PhoenixAsh]

Excellent thread! Thank you.

I have not been able to read all your posts. Have you covered the Devadasis and Jogoni yet?

Also...the horrid situation of the Dalit is not limited to India alone. It is estimated that over a million Dalits are sold and bought for slave labour world wide....both as modern slaves and for the sex industry.

[PhoenixAsh]

Many Dalits try to escape the Hindu caste system by converting to Islam or Christianity or Buddhism.

But the cast system is so all pervasive that even in these religions the Dalits face discrimination and social stigma.

In Islam and Christianity nobody will marry someone form the Dalit caste or will extend them the same social curtecies.....nor do they have any hope of reaching and attaining any position within the church.

The largest part of Dalit who convert chose to convert to Buddhism....mainly because its the only religion which has in its corre tennant the complete equality of all human beings. and though Buddhists do treat dalit better than other religions...even in Buddhism Dalits are not completely accepted by those from higher castes and in the Buddhist monasteries they are considered to be a seperate group within the Sanga (community)

Whats more...outside their new chosen faith...these Dalits are also losing any so called protection (:rolleyes::mad:) which they "enjoyed" being designated by the constitution as "scheduled caste members"....making them even more vulnerable, if that is even possible.

Now...to come back to the so called protections offered in the constitution as "Scheduled caste Members" ... The government is supposed to reserve 25% 9or so) of all jobs for them and offer them education. But there really are very little educational facilities for Dalits and with the largest part of the group being underfed; illiterate and under- or uneducated they can't even get these jobs supposedly reserved for them because they simply are not qualified.

What is more...this program is extended based on caste principles....which means that those who benefitted from them will in essence continue to benefit from them through generations. And that was instrumental and one of the main reasons why the Dalit cast in itself was divided in subcastes.


To further show what a preposterous hoax these so called Scheduled Caste Member-jobs are...recently these jobs were designated for other impoverished castes as well...meaning that the lowest class of all can benefit even less of these reserved jobs.

Now I am not arguing that these other castes do not have the right to these jobs...but I do wat to argue that the Indian government doesn't actually do anything serious to mend the situation at all....and in fact only uses these so called empowerment tactics as a way to garnish Dalit political support.

Its utterly repulsive....

[PhoenixAsh]

Also, how does one tell a Dalit from any other caste? Are they made to wear specific clothing or something, because they just look Indian to me.

I like to know that as well.

But I suspect its based on the fact that the caste system designates which jobs you can take and can't take and which actions you can take and not take. In the rural community I think its also largely based on direct knowledge of lineage.

[t.shonku]

Excellent thread! Thank you.

I have not been able to read all your posts. Have you covered the Devadasis and Jogoni yet?

Also...the horrid situation of the Dalit is not limited to India alone. It is estimated that over a million Dalits are sold and bought for slave labour world wide....both as modern slaves and for the sex industry.


Thanks for interest in my thread !

Yes I will try to cover Devadasis and Jogini also ! And yes your are right the whole sex slaves and bonded labour topic ( bonded labour is a practice common in South India, all the dangerous chemical Industries , fireworks industries use bonded dalit labour who are mainly children) is a very important topic which I intend to cover.The whole topic is a vast one and will take time for me to do some research and find articles related.

Anyways keep on visiting this thread I will post new articles from time to time.And if you find any good related article please do post it.

By the way I am also thinking about starting threads on condition of Tribal Adivasis and Muslim minorities in India.

[red cat]

Also, how does one tell a Dalit from any other caste? Are they made to wear specific clothing or something, because they just look Indian to me.

Mainly from their surnames. Then there are other factors such as appearance etc. which are the result of their historical social position. Also, the social tag of being a dalit is always there. If you know a person then some of your upper-caste acquaintances will tell you if he is dalit.

[t.shonku]

Now...to come back to the so called protections offered in the constitution as "Scheduled caste Members" ... The government is supposed to reserve 25% 9or so) of all jobs for them and offer them education. But there really are very little educational facilities for Dalits and with the largest part of the group being underfed; illiterate and under- or uneducated they can't even get these jobs supposedly reserved for them because they simply are not qualified.




The whole reservation thing is a bag of lies the government made that to blunt down the Dalit movement . Only few Dalits who are traitors to there own kind ( I mean government loyalist) get the privilege.Most of the seats are "declared empty because of lack of suitable candidates" which is off course a big lie. They sell away those seats to rich corporate Indian and rich Non Residential Indians (NRI quota) .

Off course the same treatment is given to the tribals as well , basically the whole so called "reservation" and "protection" is an eyewash meant to make a fool of all the Dalits and Tribals and blunt down their struggle. But in recent years Dalits and Tribals of younger generation are getting smart and lot of them are either passively or actively supporting the People's War led by the great CPI(Maoist) party.

Yes another important thing you would notice if you carefully go through my posts. Those Dalits or Tribals who even manage to get into educational institutes are so violently ragged and tortured by students of higher castes that they drop out, this process is also helped by teachers who encourage ragging and intentionally fail the Dalit students in exam.

[red cat]

Only few Dalits who are traitors to there own kind ( I mean government loyalist) get the privilege.

It is mainly them, but other dalits too get the benefits sometimes. However, they are negligibly small in number, and mostly the privileged dalits become appendages of the ruling class for suppressing their own people.

[t.shonku]

Mainly from their surnames. Then there are other factors such as appearance etc. which are the result of their historical social position. Also, the social tag of being a dalit is always there. If you know a person then some of your upper-caste acquaintances will tell you if he is dalit.


Big thanks goes out to my wise friend Comrade Red Cat !

HE IS ABSOLUTELY CORRECT !

That is exactly the way Dalits are spotted and then made victim of inhumane torture.

This reminds me of Nazi Germany , Gustepo , SS, Himmler ..........

[PhoenixAsh]

The whole reservation thing is a bag of lies the government made that to blunt down the Dalit movement . Only few Dalits who are traitors to there own kind ( I mean government loyalist) get the privilege.Most of the seats are "declared empty because of lack of suitable candidates" which is off course a big lie. They sell away those seats to rich corporate Indian and rich Non Residential Indians (NRI quota) .

Off course the same treatment is given to the tribals as well , basically the whole so called "reservation" and "protection" is an eyewash meant to make a fool of all the Dalits and Tribals and blunt down their struggle. But in recent years Dalits and Tribals of younger generation are getting smart and lot of them are either passively or actively supporting the People's War led by the great CPI(Maoist) party.

Yes another important thing you would notice if you carefully go through my posts. Those Dalits or Tribals who even manage to get into educational institutes are so violently ragged and tortured by students of higher castes that they drop out, this process is also helped by teachers who encourage ragging and intentionally fail the Dalit students in exam.


Yes....thats what I said. We completely agree on this.

The Dalits postion is being mined and misused for political gain and economic gain. So called consesssion offered are there to placate and create an appearance of caring while its not the interest not the goal of the government and the ruling class to help the Dalit or other lower castes at all.

In fact...its the exact opposite...its their interest and goal to get these people to stay where they are and create division within these castes itself. After all...actually solving the problem would rob them of cheap labour and would equate to these people political power beyond a mere function as voting stock (I do not know the proper term...but we in Holland call it voting stock as in life-stock...actuallly meaning that its not your purpose to think but to vote as they say).

[t.shonku]

It is mainly them, but other dalits too get the benefits sometimes. However, they are negligibly small in number, and mostly the privileged dalits become appendages of the ruling class for suppressing their own people.

You are right !

But the number of other Dalits who used to get privileges ( very few in number) are decreasing , that is because government has been recently introducing some draconian laws to stop them from getting education (corporates who happen to be merchant class and hindu high cast are behind this) ,at the same time the ragging has increased rapidly spear heading the anti-Dalit campaign are right wing Hindu extremist and nationalists, also you have to keep in mind that the corporates don't like Dalits and as a result huge number of their seats are being sold secretly to corporates and NRIs. Off course few traitor Dalits who are well connected to government are still eating the fruits of so called "democracy" . Off course this traitors will be later used to kill other Dalits, simple theory of "divide and rule is being applied"


But in long term this will haunt India government , mark my words , a lot of intelligent and angry Dalits will be joining the Peoples War just like their Adivasi cousins have done.Just like famous singer Kabir Suman said one day this oppression will lead to a revolutionary explosion.

[t.shonku]

After all...actually solving the problem would rob them of cheap labour and would equate to these people political power beyond a mere function as voting stock (I do not know the proper term...but we in Holland call it voting stock as in life-stock...actuallly meaning that its not your purpose to think but to vote as they say).


Yes ! you have nailed it in the right spot, that is exactly the case. It's all about cheap labour and exploitation . Moreover both Dalits and Adivasis are used in jobs that a normal Hindu will not do, jobs that are back breaking, dirty,dull and DANGEROUS. Like in mining industries , tanning factories, toxic chemical factories, large road constructions ( keep in mind under the hot Indian summer sun). I have also heard that the Adivasis are used to carry dangerously radioactive waste products in some nuke facilities without any protection.

[RED DAVE]

More example of shameless feudalismThe hideousness of all this is undeniable.

But that doesn't make the situation in India feudal. Similar atrocities, including reservations, lynching, discrimination in employment, education, housing, etc., have gone on in the USA and still go on. But that doesn't change the fact that the USA and India are capitalist.

RED DAVE

[Dimentio]

The most crazy thing is that they legitimise the caste system by designating special amounts of jobs to specific castes. In reality, they should abolish the caste system.

[t.shonku]

Dalit woman, daughter paraded naked, raped and killed in Maharashtra


From our correspondent

The village of Khairlanji near Nagpur is an unremarkable settlement of brick huts and cement houses. Less than 200 families live here. Dirt roads run between flat farmlands, and the eye sees great sprawling distances.

There was always a gaping silence in this village, even before 29 September 2006 when an upper caste mob, according to eyewitnesses, paraded a mother and her 17-year-old daughter naked, raped and killed them. Two other members of the family, brothers aged 19 and 21 also were murdered. Their bodies were dumped in a canal.

Thirty-eight men have been arrested and they are being held under police custody. The gruesome incident occurred 780 km from Mumbai. Why this happened is a mystery that readily resolves itself depending on who you are talking to. Some say one Siddharth Gajbhiye, a police patil (village cop) had an affair with 45-year old Surekha, wife of Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange and mother of three children.

This, apparently, churned the villagers who, after a string of events, took the drastic step. Others say the Bhotmanges, a land-owning Dalit family, were battling a land dispute with the upper castes.

They owned five acres of land once, back in 1996, before two acres were taken away to build a road. Then again, when their land was demanded for road construction they objected, and the tensions caused by that defiance resulted in their slaughter.

Whatever be the cause, there is not much doubt over what happened on the evening of 29 September 2006. A mob broke down the frail door of a house that is nothing more than a heap of loose bricks without the adhesion of mortar. The mob was armed with bicycle chains, axes and bullock cart pokers.

Surekha and 17-year-old Priyanka, a 12th standard topper, were paraded naked through the village. According to eye-witnesses, one of them was even strapped to a bullock cart.

They were then taken to a crude open-air theatre stage where, according to villagers, people yelled to the sarpanch to let them sexually assault the women. Meanwhile, Priyanka's brothers, 21-year-old Sudhir and 19-year-old Roshan, were murdered. After Priyanka and her mother were raped, they were also murdered.

The body of Priyanka was fished out from a canal on 30 September 2006. The other bodies were recovered a day later. In the hut of the Bhotmanges, a bottle of chilli powder is still spewed all over the dirty floor, supposedly used to disorient the women during their rape.

A red underwear is still crumpled in the corner next to the kitchen, and a wrench and a rolling pin lie askew in front of a scattered Buddhist altar. While the carnage was underway, the head of the family, Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange had managed to escape.

It is not clear what exactly led to this assault. A chain of disconnected events, however, emerge from police records. On 3 September 2006, Siddharth Gajbhiye who was accused of having an affair with Surekha Bhotmange, was beaten up by a mob.

Neighbours say Siddharth was a known friend of the Bhotmanges and used to help them during some incidents connected to the land dispute. Gajbhiye filed a police complaint against 15 men, 12 of whom were arrested and released on bail on 29 September 2006, the day of the rape and murder. The 12 men were spotted by eyewitnesses among the rampaging mob.

The first photographs of Priyanka's body that were taken by a social organisation showed rods sticking out from her genitals. But when her body was taken to the Mohadi hospital for the post-mortem, the sticks and rods had disappeared.

The post-mortem report by Dr AJ Shende dated 30 September 2006 clearly indicates that "no injuries noted to the external genitals" were found on her body, nor was there any decomposition. The pictures showing foreign objects stuffed inside her are the only proof that a sexual assault occurred.

The second post-mortem executed on both Surekha and Priyanka, dated 6 October 2006, noted that now, "the bodies of both the deceased were heavily decomposed and the injuries over the perineum region and external genitalia could not be identified." The forensic swabs that were taken to Nagpur to ascertain semen presence have tested negative.

Suresh Sagar, police superintendent of Bhandara district in which the village is situated, is one of the few who is overseeing the case. He denies the occurrence of rape, despite the eyewitness accounts. Pankaj Gupta, inspector general of Nagpur, also denies that rape had taken place.

He says Surekha and Siddharth were close, that villagers did not approve of their relationship. He also said Siddharth gave emotional and financial support to Surekha. He even bought her a mobile phone. Bhaiyyalal, her husband, says none of this is true. He hints that many things have been misconstrued to paint a bad picture of his family.

According to Siddharth Gajbhiye, some of the perpetrators are BJP members. A report issued by the Manuski Advocacy Centre mirrors this statement. Bhaskar Kawad, one of the four main suspects, is said to be related to a local politician.

The people of Khairlanji are not very vocal on the matter. V Khandate says he was in a hospital recovering from chikungunya on 29 September 2006. The Khandate household is just two homes away from the main village area where the public beatings and rape allegedly took place.

The time was approximately 7 pm (according to Airtel phone records), but they say they were asleep at that time. Upas Rao Khanate, the sarpanch of the village, says he also was sleeping and has no knowledge of the events of that night.

Rajendra Gajbhiye is willing to speak as he is the brother of Siddharth. He had called Priyanka that evening after hearing that a mob had been looking for his family but had gone looking for the Bhotmanges instead when they couldn't find them.

She told him that her family was being attacked. For his willingness to speak he was beaten and threatened, he says, by AR Rajurkar, the principal investigating police officer.

Bhaiyyalal, for his pain and suffering, has been offered a cheque for Rs 450,000 by the Maharashtra Government. The Atrocities Act mandates that Rs 200,000 be paid to the survivors for every family member murdered in mob violence. No offer has been made to refer his case to the CBI to save the investigation from local prejudices.

Bhaiyyalal, with his whole family wiped out, wants the perpetrators to hang. His desperate wails, unburdened to anyone who is willing to listen, now echoes in the desolation of Khairlanji's perpetual anonymity. The little media interest that surfaced when the bodies were first fished out from a canal has now almost entirely disappeared.




(Source: The Times of India)


India has such a sick system. Maoist will cure it.

[t.shonku]

Silicon Valley landlord's sex slave victim a Dalit girl

(Special Story)
(By Mukundan C. Menon)

Although the illfamous millionaire landlord of Silicon Valley (Berkeley), Lakireddy Bali Reddy, and his close relatives are all set to plea guilty of sex slavery before the Oakland Federal Court on March 6, not many in both U.S. and India knew that Reddy's teenaged victim of sex slavery, who died on November 27, 1999, was a Dalit hailing from his own native village in Krishna District of Andhra Pradesh. At the time of death, she was five-weeks' pregnant.
The 17-year old minor girl's original name was Usha Kiran, daughter of old-aged Dalit Christian couple, Prathipatty German and Lakshmi German. They live in Reddy's native village of Velvadam, about 30 kms from Vijayawada, South India's largest railway junction, and 300 kms. from Andhra Pradesh capital twin-cities of Hyderabad-Secunderabad. Velvadam, with a population of around 8,500, falls within Mylavaram Assembly constituency.
Lakireddy Bali Reddy, who could easily call the shots in Andhra Pradesh through sheer money power, brought Usha Kiran to U.S. in August 1999 under the false name Seetha Reddy (a caste Hindu name) and as hailing from neighbouring Khammam district. Usha's younger sister, aged 15, was also brought along with her. When Usha's gruesome death out of poisoning due to carbon monoxide leaked from a defective gas heater took place in November 1999, her younger sister fell unconscious but escaped death. Also present was their apartment companion, Lakshmi (20), daughter of Yellanki Venkateswaralu, belonging to their native Velvadam village in A.P.
The incident took place at the 1,100 East Bay Apartments owned by Reddy household's "Reddy Realty". Including two restaurants in Silicon Valley, Reddy controls $ 70 million worth property and with an estimated monthly income of $ 1 million from rentals alone.
With the active support and involvement of his close family members, including sons and brother, Reddy had brought to U.S. around 500 persons, mostly hailing from poor families in and around Krishna District, during the past one-and-half decade. At least fifty per cent of them are said to be minor girls. Following Reddy's arrest and indictment in early last year, the U.S. consulate at Chennai had stopped issuing visa to Krishna District applicants in general and those from Velvadam village in particular.
Astonishingly, when Usha's death took place, the Reddy's claimed that her parents, Venkateswara Vemireddy and Padma Vemireddy, were with him in U.S. However, investigations revealed that the self-styled parents were yet another illegal immigrants brought by Reddy. What is more: Padma was not even Venkateswara's wife, but own sister! Venkateswara, who came posing as a computer engineer, was actually working in Reddy's restaurant. So were the girls. Following Usha's death, eye-brows were raised as to why both the parents stayed in a separate apartment, and not along with their daughters. The one who actually stayed with the three girls was the millionnaire landlord, who, as well as his son, had sex with all of them!
In fact, Usha and other girls were victims of sex slavery. Hailing from poor families, and who can speak only their mother-tongue Telugu, they were literally under the control and influence of the multi-millionnaire upper-caste landlord in Silicon Valley. Considering the political and money-clout that Reddy wielded in native Andhra Pradesh, the fearful girls were forced to suffer in silence for fear of Reddy's reprisals against their poor parents back at home village.
Reddy spent lavishly in and around his village to command respects. He built five temples of Lord Krishna. He used to reach the native place twice in a year, for Hindu festivals of Sivarathri and Ganesh Pooja, donating around Rs. 5 lakhs for each annual festival.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, whose TDP is an important ally within BJP-led NDA ruling the Union Government, is not interested to pursue any case against Reddy. Naidu fears that any such exposure by the government would be a set back to his cherished dream of "Americanisation of Andhra Pradesh"! After all the millionnaire's scandal and Usha's death took place when Vajpayee's Indian Government and Naidu's A.P. administration were in full gears to give a memorable welcome to President Bill Clinton! Therefore, following newspaper reports, the probe conducted by A.P. police was winded-up within ten days for "lack of a complainant against Reddy". The Opposition Congress-I is also not interested to apply pressure on Naidu government apparently due to APCC-I President, Dr. Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy's daughter is married to Lakhi Reddy Bali Reddy's son.
Upper-caste rivalry was floated by Reddy community members in defence of the millionnaire. They term the whole episode as "mudslinging campaign" unleashed by their arch-rival Khammas. Reddys and Khammas, the foremost upper-caste and influential landlords of Andhra Pradesh, are sharply divided in Congress and Telugu Desam respectively. Their rivalry to wield political power in Andhra Pradesh started soon after India's Independence. After the reorganisation of States, the Congress party under Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy, took full control of the State affairs defeating the Khamma rivals within Congress. The Khammas had to wait till January 1983 when cine-actor N. T. Rama Rao floated Telugu Desam to defeat Congress Party for the first time in A.P. and to establish the "Khamma Raj". Except for the interluding 1989-94 period, the Telugu Desam control the reigns and present Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, though a former Congress Minister prior to 1983, continue the Khamma legacy established by his father-in-law, NTR. While the Khammas and Reddys seldom engaged in mutual violence, they showed a remarkable unity in committing atrocities against Dalits and other weaker sections like the Backward Community Kapus in all the three regions of Andhra Pradesh - Telangana, Costal Andhra and Rayalaseema.
For example, the Karamchedu Dalit massacre in 1985. Karamchedu is in Prakasham District, close to Krishna District. In 1985, the most atrocious Dalit massacre took place under the leadership of the local landlord Chenchu Ramaiah, who was father of Dr. Venkateswara Rao, NTR's elder son-in-law. Dr. Venkateswar Rao was also the then Health Minister in NTR Government. Following the massacre, the entire Dalits fled from Karamchedu and lived for years in make-shift-tents at Chirala town, 8 kms. from their native village. Although Chenchu Ramaiah figured as the first accused for the massacre, the case was not proceeded. After a couple of years, several Dalit witnesses to the massacre, including the prime witness 72-year old Dalit woman, were killed in their Chirala camp. When the case was reaching nowhere, a squad of People's War Group of Naxalites shot and killed Chenchu Ramaiah at his Chirala home. It was with this incident that the PWG could muster support for the first time in and around Prakasham District in Costal Andhra region.
In fact, the remnants of feudalism, upon which the upper-caste landlords in Andhra Pradesh still strive, can be witnessed in the ongoing sexual exploitation of the likes like Lakireddy Bal Reddy. One's having more than one wife and concubines is still being regarded with sort of respect and money-power by the ordinary village folks. According to a senior police officer, until the Naxalites wielded influence in villages of North Telangana districts in recent years, there was a customary practice of brides belonging to the village, or brought from outside by village grooms, spending the first few days of their marital life in the local landlord's palace. Feudal practices like this came to a halt since, due to the Naxalite movement, the villages now remain with "absentee landlordism" and with the landlords migrating to district towns or capital twin cities of Hyderabad-Secunderabad. Polygamy is no secret even among top politicians. A former Congress Reddy Chief Minister had four wives, while a former Union Minister belonging to Telugu Desam had three! The apartment blocks in areas like Chickedapally of Hyderabad city is known to be filled with concubines of politicians, top officials and businessmen.
This is why the democratic sections within India viewing the proceedings at the Oakland Federal Courts as and when Lakireddy Bal Reddy and his relatives prepare to plead guilty tomorrow. Reddy is on a $ 10 million bail, while his son, Vijay Lakireddy (31), was freed on $ 5 million bail. Others who face charges are: Reddy's elder son Prasad Lakireddy (42), Reddy's brother Jayaprakash Lakireddy (47) and sister-in-law Annapurna Lakireddy (46). All of them are charged with conspiring to bring Indians illegally into U.S. since 1986, utilising false identities and sham marriages. Reddy faces additional charges of trafficking minors for illicit sex and tax evasion, while Vijay Lakireddy is also charged with helping his father to smuggle girls into the country for sex. Although they were indicted in February 2000 on nine counts, it was later brought down to five counts indicating chances of a plea agreement.


Link to the article
http://www.ambedkar.org/News/SiliconValley.htm







Examples of Dalit females used as sex slaves.

Sick society

[t.shonku]

Dalit woman, daughter paraded naked, raped and killed in Maharashtra


From our correspondent

The village of Khairlanji near Nagpur is an unremarkable settlement of brick huts and cement houses. Less than 200 families live here. Dirt roads run between flat farmlands, and the eye sees great sprawling distances.

There was always a gaping silence in this village, even before 29 September 2006 when an upper caste mob, according to eyewitnesses, paraded a mother and her 17-year-old daughter naked, raped and killed them. Two other members of the family, brothers aged 19 and 21 also were murdered. Their bodies were dumped in a canal.

Thirty-eight men have been arrested and they are being held under police custody. The gruesome incident occurred 780 km from Mumbai. Why this happened is a mystery that readily resolves itself depending on who you are talking to. Some say one Siddharth Gajbhiye, a police patil (village cop) had an affair with 45-year old Surekha, wife of Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange and mother of three children.

This, apparently, churned the villagers who, after a string of events, took the drastic step. Others say the Bhotmanges, a land-owning Dalit family, were battling a land dispute with the upper castes.

They owned five acres of land once, back in 1996, before two acres were taken away to build a road. Then again, when their land was demanded for road construction they objected, and the tensions caused by that defiance resulted in their slaughter.

Whatever be the cause, there is not much doubt over what happened on the evening of 29 September 2006. A mob broke down the frail door of a house that is nothing more than a heap of loose bricks without the adhesion of mortar. The mob was armed with bicycle chains, axes and bullock cart pokers.

Surekha and 17-year-old Priyanka, a 12th standard topper, were paraded naked through the village. According to eye-witnesses, one of them was even strapped to a bullock cart.

They were then taken to a crude open-air theatre stage where, according to villagers, people yelled to the sarpanch to let them sexually assault the women. Meanwhile, Priyanka's brothers, 21-year-old Sudhir and 19-year-old Roshan, were murdered. After Priyanka and her mother were raped, they were also murdered.

The body of Priyanka was fished out from a canal on 30 September 2006. The other bodies were recovered a day later. In the hut of the Bhotmanges, a bottle of chilli powder is still spewed all over the dirty floor, supposedly used to disorient the women during their rape.

A red underwear is still crumpled in the corner next to the kitchen, and a wrench and a rolling pin lie askew in front of a scattered Buddhist altar. While the carnage was underway, the head of the family, Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange had managed to escape.

It is not clear what exactly led to this assault. A chain of disconnected events, however, emerge from police records. On 3 September 2006, Siddharth Gajbhiye who was accused of having an affair with Surekha Bhotmange, was beaten up by a mob.

Neighbours say Siddharth was a known friend of the Bhotmanges and used to help them during some incidents connected to the land dispute. Gajbhiye filed a police complaint against 15 men, 12 of whom were arrested and released on bail on 29 September 2006, the day of the rape and murder. The 12 men were spotted by eyewitnesses among the rampaging mob.

The first photographs of Priyanka's body that were taken by a social organisation showed rods sticking out from her genitals. But when her body was taken to the Mohadi hospital for the post-mortem, the sticks and rods had disappeared.

The post-mortem report by Dr AJ Shende dated 30 September 2006 clearly indicates that "no injuries noted to the external genitals" were found on her body, nor was there any decomposition. The pictures showing foreign objects stuffed inside her are the only proof that a sexual assault occurred.

The second post-mortem executed on both Surekha and Priyanka, dated 6 October 2006, noted that now, "the bodies of both the deceased were heavily decomposed and the injuries over the perineum region and external genitalia could not be identified." The forensic swabs that were taken to Nagpur to ascertain semen presence have tested negative.

Suresh Sagar, police superintendent of Bhandara district in which the village is situated, is one of the few who is overseeing the case. He denies the occurrence of rape, despite the eyewitness accounts. Pankaj Gupta, inspector general of Nagpur, also denies that rape had taken place.

He says Surekha and Siddharth were close, that villagers did not approve of their relationship. He also said Siddharth gave emotional and financial support to Surekha. He even bought her a mobile phone. Bhaiyyalal, her husband, says none of this is true. He hints that many things have been misconstrued to paint a bad picture of his family.

According to Siddharth Gajbhiye, some of the perpetrators are BJP members. A report issued by the Manuski Advocacy Centre mirrors this statement. Bhaskar Kawad, one of the four main suspects, is said to be related to a local politician.

The people of Khairlanji are not very vocal on the matter. V Khandate says he was in a hospital recovering from chikungunya on 29 September 2006. The Khandate household is just two homes away from the main village area where the public beatings and rape allegedly took place.

The time was approximately 7 pm (according to Airtel phone records), but they say they were asleep at that time. Upas Rao Khanate, the sarpanch of the village, says he also was sleeping and has no knowledge of the events of that night.

Rajendra Gajbhiye is willing to speak as he is the brother of Siddharth. He had called Priyanka that evening after hearing that a mob had been looking for his family but had gone looking for the Bhotmanges instead when they couldn't find them.

She told him that her family was being attacked. For his willingness to speak he was beaten and threatened, he says, by AR Rajurkar, the principal investigating police officer.

Bhaiyyalal, for his pain and suffering, has been offered a cheque for Rs 450,000 by the Maharashtra Government. The Atrocities Act mandates that Rs 200,000 be paid to the survivors for every family member murdered in mob violence. No offer has been made to refer his case to the CBI to save the investigation from local prejudices.

Bhaiyyalal, with his whole family wiped out, wants the perpetrators to hang. His desperate wails, unburdened to anyone who is willing to listen, now echoes in the desolation of Khairlanji's perpetual anonymity. The little media interest that surfaced when the bodies were first fished out from a canal has now almost entirely disappeared.

Apparently, this is just another crime story in India today.

(Source: The Times of India)


Shameless state

[t.shonku]

Devadasi System in Indian Temples




- Zoya Zaidi




http://www.sikhspectrum.com/images/zoyazaidi.jpg Zoya Zaidi
Devadasi system is not only exploitation of women, it is the institutionalized exploitation of women; it is the exploitation of Dalits, the lower class of untouchables; it is the religious sanction given to prostitution of helpless economically and socially deprived women; It is the glorification of humiliation of women. Inherent in this system is the fascistic belief that a certain section of human population, the lower caste, is meant to serve the ‘higher caste’s superior men’. Inherent in it is the feudal-lord-temple-priest-nexus, where the priest, already having a psychological hold over the minds of simple people to the point of dictating their way of life, uses his power to give ‘religious sanction’ to the practice by declaring it ‘sacred’, and thus cajole and lure simple minded villagers into this worst form of prostitution.

Devadasi literally means God’s (Dev) female servant ( Dasi), where according to the ancient Indian practice, young pre-pubertal girls are ‘married off’, ‘given away’ in matrimony to God or Local religious deity of the temple. These girls are not allowed to marry, as they were supposedly married to the temple. She ‘serves’ the priests and inmates of the temple, and the Zamindars (local land lords) and other men of money and power, in the town and village. The ‘service’ (read sexual satisfaction) given to these men is considered akin to service of God. The Devadasi is dedicated to the service of the temple Deity for life and there is no escape for her. If she wants to escape, the society will not accept her.

The Devadasi system is still flourishing in parts of India, especially in the South and specifically in the states of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. Ironically, these are the techno-savvy states now synonymous with Indian progress in the global market.

If you take the beautiful country road from Dharwad, Karnataka, you will reach the small temple village of Saundatti in South India. It is in this village that the Devadasi tradition, one of the most criticized forms of prostitution in India (1), is still practiced. Despite the governmental ban, hundreds of girls are secretly dedicated to Goddess Yellammaevery year.

http://www.sikhspectrum.com/052007/images/z1.jpg Renuka temple in Saundatti
There are more than 450,000 Devadasies trapped in this form of prostitution, deified and glorified by the heinous religious sanctions. According to the 1934 Devadasi Security Act, this practice is banned in India. This ban was reinforced again in 1980s but the law is broken every day. Poverty and ‘Untouchablity’ contribute to the persistence of this terrible practice.

http://www.sikhspectrum.com/052007/images/z2.jpg Devadasi Yellamma poses for the camera http://www.sikhspectrum.com/052007/images/z3.jpg Priest Yedurayariah at the Renuka temple
Continuing Practice of Dedicating Dalits as Devadasies

A report commissioned by the National Commission for Women (NCW) in India reveals the shocking reality of how thousands of Dalit women continue to be forced into the Devadasi system in several states of India. Estimates suggest that girls dedicated to temples in the Maharashtra-Karnataka border area number over 250,000 and are all from the Dalit community of untouchables. More than half of the Devadasies become prostitutes. (2)

According to a survey carried out among 375 Devadasies by the Joint Women's Programme, Bangalore for the NCW, 63.6 per cent of young girls were forced into Devadasi system due to custom, while 38 per cent reported that their families had a history of Devadasies. The survey pointed out that Devadasi system is more prevalent among three Scheduled Caste communities - Holers, Madars and Samgars in Karnataka. Nearly 40 per cent of them join the flesh trade in cities and the rest are involved in their respective villages. A Devadasi, in a way, is considered "public property" in the village. Devadasies who do not become prostitutes struggle to survive as agricultural labourers or maidservants.

Most Devadasies are single. However, 65 per cent of the Devadasies were associated with a patron. About 95.2 per cent have children. And among those with children, more than 95 per cent could not register the names of their patrons (as the fathers of their children) in school admission records. The overwhelming majority of Devadasies (95 per cent) earn less than Rs 1,000 a month. (3)

What is in a name?

In Andhra Pradesh these Devadasies are called Joginis, while in Jejuri in Maharashtra they are called Muralis. They are known by different names in different areas. Jogan Shankar gives the names by which they are known in various parts, such as Maharis in Kerala, Natis in Assam, and Basavis in Karnataka. In Goa they are called `Bhavanis', and `Kudikar' on the West-Coast, `Bhogam-Vandhi' or `Jogin' in Andhra Pradesh, Thevardiyar' in Tamil Nadu, `Murali', and 'Jogateen' and 'Aradhini' in Maharashtra. In Karnataka, old Devadasies are called as `Jogati' and young Devadasies as `Basavi'. The term `Basavi' refers to feminine form of `Basava' a bull which roams the village at will without any restriction. Hence `Basavi' alludes to the foot loose position of the woman. (4)
Genesis and growth of Devadasi system
There are many opinions about the genesis and growth of this system. For a comprehensive understanding of the dominant schools of thoughts, many factors have to be taken into consideration while trying to trace its origin and development. Factors like religious beliefs, caste system, male domination and economic stress have been recognized as the stimulants behind the perpetuation of this phenomenon.
The beginning can perhaps be mapped out in the inscription found in temples. The word Emperumandiyar which was used in the senseof Vaishnavas before 966 A.D. got the meaning of dancing girls, attached to Vishnu temples, in inscriptions of about 1230-1240 A.D. in the time of Raja Raya III. [Raghavacharya: I, 118]. In many quarters the emergence of the Devadasies has been linked to the downfall of Buddhism in India that the Devadasies were Buddhist nuns can be deduced from many evidences: They are unknown to ancient India. Jaatakas, Kautillya or Vatsayana do not mention them, but later Puranas found them useful. The system started only after the fall of Buddhism and records about them start appearing around 1000 A.D. . It is viewed that the Devadasies are the Buddhist nuns who were degraded to the level of prostitutes after their temples were taken over by Brahmins during the times of their resurgence after the fall of Buddhism.
http://www.sikhspectrum.com/052007/images/z4.jpg Devadasi Drummer- Miniature Painting The Devadasi system was set up (Times of India report dated10-11-1987) as a result of a conspiracy between the feudal class and the priests (Brahmins). The latter, with their ideological and religious hold over the peasants and craftsmen, devised a means that gave prostitution a religious sanction. Poor, low-caste girls, initially sold at private auctions, were later dedicated to the temples. They were then initiated into prostitution.
According to the famous Indian scholar Jogan Shankar, following reasons played a major role in supplanting the system with firm roots:
1. As a substitute for human sacrifice, being and offering to the gods and goddesses to appease and secure blessings for the community as a whole;
2. As a rite to ensure the fertility of the land and the increase of human being and animal population;
3. As a part of phallic worship which existed in India from early Dravidian times;
4. Probably sacred prostitution sprang from the custom of providing sexual hospitality for strangers;
5. Licentious worship offered by a people, subservient to a degraded and vested interests of the priestly class; and
6. To create a custom in order to exploit lower caste people in India by the upper castes and classes.
On the basis of historical studies and research one can see the way this ‘sacred prostitution’ established itself and grew to become a part of Indian society. Vasant Rajas, ‘Devadasi: Shodha ani bodha’, (Marathi), Sugava Prakashan, Pune, 1997, mentions of an inscription of 1004 A.D., in Tanjor temple mentioning the numbers of Devadasies as 400 in Tanjor temple, 450 in Brahideswara temple and 500 in Sorti Somnath temple. According to Chau Ju-Kua, ‘Gujarat contained 4000 temples in which lived over 20,000 dancing girls whose function was to sing twice daily while offering food to the deities and while presenting flowers.’ Eminent Indian historians like R.C Mazumder and U.N Ghoshal have corroborated these facts. They have acknowledged a ‘high proportion’ in the number of the Devadasies in the temples during the medieval period.
http://www.sikhspectrum.com/052007/images/z5.jpg Devadasi, the court singer- Miniature painting Sadly, due to continuation of the factors responsible for the birth of this system, the tradition has maintained itself over the centuries. It is found in all parts of India, but was more prevalent in the south. In some parts of Maharashtra and Karnataka it is still prevalent and has become a source of exploitation of lower castes (5).

Dalit Devadasies

It is interesting to note that the untouchables belong to the Dalit community and are lower caste Hindus, though, otherwise are not allowed to drink water from the same well as the rest of the higher caste people of the village. They cannot eat from the same plate or sit in the same place as upper caste people. They work mostly as night-soil cleaners.
When it comes to sex they are not only ‘touchable’ but are actually forced into sex by the higher caste Hindus and practices such as the Devadasi system are invented to facilitate and perpetuate their exploitation.
It is these powerful sections of the society, who control not only the economic and social activates but also the minds of the poor villagers that pose the biggest impediment to elimination of this evil. There is a crying need for a more comprehensive legislation to emancipate these vulnerable girls (2).

A word about Untouchables or Dalits

Caste permeates every pore of Indian society in hidden and insidious ways. It is so complex that few Indians understand it completely, although it is present in our lives in subtle and not-so subtle ways. Even though the caste hierarchy is a Hindu construct, conversion does not always help: Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs and Muslims often still cling to their caste identities when searching for marriage partners.

Many sociologists believe the caste system in India originated as a way of dividing labour and as a method of exercising social control for maintaining order. Its power – and almost absolute acceptance – stems from the fact that caste derives religious sanction for India’s majority from the 4,000-year-old Manu Sashtra or the Laws of Manu. According to this, society was divided into four broad social orders, or varnas, at the head were the Brahmins, a priestly class, who are the most pure. From the arms came the Kshatriyas, the warriors and rulers. From the lower limbs were born the Vaishyas, the traders. And from the feet the Sudras, the lowest caste, destined to serve the other three.

‘Untouchables’ were considered so impure and polluting that they were not even included in the system by Manu. This translated into their complete exclusion from society. Their hamlets were outside the village, and they could not even talk to or walk on the same path as the other castes, much less touch them. When the British ruled in India, they left this caste distinctions alone to avoid unrest. In some ways they even reinforced it, finding Brahmins useful as clerks and administrators who served the British Empire faithfully. Today, in India, the Untouchables call themselves ‘Dalits’, which means ‘Broken People or the Down-trodden people’. There are almost 180 million dalits in India alone and at least another 60 million around the world who face caste discrimination of various kinds. (6)
Perpetuation of Devadasi System
Traditional empires being despotic restricted trade to the palaces and temples, forbidding the common masses from trading or traveling. Only priests, the royalty and certain privileged merchants (who were closely regulated) traded and traveled. And one lucrative trade that the priests and princes often monopolized was the oldest and most despotic of all, prostitution.

Doubtless the girls were seduced by a theology of mysticism, just as the widows who, as suttees, threw themselves on their dead husbands’ funeral pyres believed they were attaining spiritual purity, but the sexual economics of female exploitation provide a candid explanation of what was happening. (7)
Legends to support Devadasi system
To keep the Bahujans and Dalits under control, stories were manufactured and incorporated in various Mahatmyas in the Puranas. There are three important legends, we should know about. It may be useful to know these traditional stories told by Brahmins and believed to be true by the sufferers themselves. Vasant Rajas, "Devadasi: Shodha ani Bodha", (Marathi), Sugava Prakashan, Pune, 1997, has given the account of various legends in Puranas concerning this practice.
Legend of Renuka or Yallamma
According to this legend, Renuka appeared from the fire pit of 'Putra Kameshti' Yadnya performed by a Kshatriya king Renukeswara. She was married to Rishi Jamdagni. The couple had five sons including Parasurama. One morning she was late in coming home from the river as she was sexually aroused by watching the love play in river, of a Gandarva raja with his queens. This enraged Jamdagni who ordered his sons to kill her. All other sons refused and were burned to ashes by the Rishi's curse, but Parsurama beheaded her. The Rishi gave him three boons. By first, Parshurama asked to bring back to life his four brothers. By second he wanted his mother to be made alive. But her head was not available. So Parshurama cut the head of a woman from 'Matang' caste, and Jamdagni revived his wife with Matangi's head. By third he wished to be free from the sin of matricide. But Renuka was cursed by Jamdagni to have leprosy and was banished from the hermitage. However, some ‘Eknatha’, 'Jognatha' Sadhus in the forest cured her. She returned back to Jamdagni who pardoned her and blessed her that she will attain great fame in Kaliyuga
Temple of Renuka was built in 13th century in Soundati hills. The Jains believe that Renuka is their 'Padmawati'. For centuries, the devotees of Renuka, who are mostly Dalits and Bahujans, assemble there twice a year on Magha and Chaitra full moon days for pilgrimage and offer their daughters to make them Devadasies.
B. S. Kamble from Sangali dist. mentions the influence of the blind faith over Dalits to an extent that a backward class member of legislature had established a shrine of Renuka image in Bombay Mantralaya ["Sugawa", Marathi journal, Ambedkar prerana issue, December 1998, p. 51]
Legend of Renukamba
There is a temple of Renukaamba, built in 14th century, at the top of Chandragutti hill in Shimoga district in Karnataka. The gullible masses from Dalit and Bahujan communities are made to believe that Renukaamba Devi is the incarnation of Renuka or Yallamma of Saundatti. The specialty of this temple is that Dalit women must go naked to worship this Devi. It is called 'Betale Seva' or 'Nagna Puja' i.e. naked worship.
A legend in the Purana says that if the girls go naked and pray to the Devi they get good husbands and married women get all their wishes fulfilled, the childless women get children, and that those Shudra women and girls who do not follow these traditions meet with a lot of calamities.
The chief Minister of Karnataka had to appoint a committee to investigate whether "Nagna-puja" has any religious sanction of Hindu Sastras. The report was submitted in 1988 and states that there is no such sanction in Hinduism. In 1992 a ban was imposed on "Nagna-puja". There was a hue and cry raised against it, but since then it has stopped.
Legend of Khandoba
The third deity of Devadasies is Khandoba of Jejuri, although there are eleven 'pithas'. It is the 'kul-daivat' of dalits, though many others worship him including some Muslim devotees, who presumably were dalits, and worshipped this deity before their conversion to Islam. Even robbers would attend the annual fair and finalize their plans there. They were, presumably, of ex-criminal tribes, which was a part of the Dalit community. Brahmins have homologized this deity and made out stories that Shankara took this form of Martanda, to protect the Brahmins from the Asuras.
People offer their sons and daughters to this deity. The terms used are Waghya for male and Murali for female. It is a form of Devadasi. Murali, whose token marriage is performed with Khandoba, remains unmarried throughout her life and leads a life same as the Devadasi of Yellama. After Ambedkarite awakening in the Matang society, who forms the majority of Murlis, this practice has declined albeit not completely stopped.
Jogam Shankar gives more details:
'Muralis' are girls dedicated to god Khandoba in their infancy or early childhood by their parents. "Poor deluded women promise to sacrifice their first born daughters if Khandoba will make them mothers of many children. Then after the vow the first-born girl is offered to Khandoba and set apart for him by tying a necklace of seven cowries around the little girl's neck. When she becomes of marriageable age, she is formally married to Khandoba or dagger of Khandoba and becomes his nominal wife. Henceforth she is forbidden to become the wedded wife of any man, and the result is that she usually leads an infamous life earning a livelihood by sin. Some of these girls become wandering muralis. Others become ordinary public women in any town or city, while a few are said to live for years with one man.
The parents of such girls do not feel ashamed to take her earnings, because they belong to Khandoba, and what they do is not considered a sin in the eyes of his devotees. Kunbis, Mahars, Mangs and other low castes make Muralis of their daughters in this fashion" (Fuller: 1900: 103). High caste people of the region also worship Khandoba but their mode of expressing reverence to the god differs. Thus "Not a few high caste people visit Jejuri to pay their vows; but they never give their own girls to Khandoba but buy children from low-caste parents for a small sum of money, which is not a difficult thing to do and offer them instead of their own children". (Fuller, Marcus B., "The wrongs of Indian Womanhood", Edinburgh:Oliphant Anderson and Ferrier, 1900). [Jogan Shankar, p. 50](4)
Devadasi: A pan-Indian practice
The Devadasi system is not just concentrated in one part or region of India - it can be found all over India, in Goa, Asam, and Orissa apart from above mentioned south Indian states.
The famous Lord Jagannath Temple in Orissa has been associated with the Devadasi system for several hundreds of years. In Orissa, the history of the Devadasi system can be traced back to the 6th and 7th century during the reign of Sailadbhawa dynasty. The queen Kalawati had employed many Devadasies for serving the Lord Jagannath. There was a time where devoting oneself in the temple was considered to be highly prestigious. At that time, girls from even rich, aristocratic families were also offered.

According to tradition, a Devadasi is a woman married to a god, and thus Sadasuhagan -- at all times married and hence at all times blessed. In reality, she becomes the wife of the powerful in the community. At that time the Devadasies had to maintain strict discipline. They were considered a personal possession of the temple and were not allowed to mingle with the rest of the people. They were not allowed to keep in touch with men.

It is probably during this period that the ancient classical temple dance forms like Odissi (Jagannath Temple Orissa), Kutchipudi (Andhra Pradesh) and Bharatnattiyam (Tamilnadu)developed and flourished to reach their zenith. However, in the course of time discipline declined and the Devadasies came to be viewed as objects of desire by the rulers and the priests. (8)

Branding of Deavadasis
We have the valuable testimony of Al-Biruni to the effect that the kings maintained this institution for the benefit of their revenues in the teeth of the opposition of the Brahmana priests. But for the kings, he says, no Brahmana or priest would allow in their temples women who sing, dance and play. The kings, however, make them a source of attraction to their subjects so that they may meet the expenditure of their armies out of the revenues derived there from.
The truth is that Brahmins and kings used to fight for the possession of these girls. Ultimately the conflict was resolved by an understanding and Devadasies were branded on their chest with emblems of 'Garuda' (eagle) and 'Chakra' (discus) for kings and 'Shankha' (conch) for Brahmins; Branded just like animals, slaves or Jew women in Auschwitz. (4)
Modern Devadasi: A giant step backwards

It was only as late as 1975 when awareness of this deplorable act came to the fore. Around five hundred women gathered in Kohlapur to discuss and find solutions to this problem. In 1985, a conference was held at Nipani which gave strength to the voice demanding the abolition of the Devadasi system. Gradually the demand to end this practice increased and compelled the Karnataka government to pass an act banning the Devadasi system. Some of the provisions in the Karnataka Devadasi (Prohibition of Dedication) Act of 1982 are:
· Anyone found guilty in helping a girl to become a Devadasi or even attending the ceremony is liable to get 3 years prison term and would be fined upto maximum Rs 2000/-
· Parents and relatives would be fined upto maximum Rs 5000/- if they are found guilty encouraging the girl to be dedicated
But these are just few of the preventive measures. At times the arm of law falls woefully short in protecting the unsuspecting girls. As a result, the Devadasi tradition is still prevalent in many parts of India and, according to Farida Lambey, vice-principal of the Nirmala Niketan College of Social Work, it continues to "legitimize" child prostitution. In some Nat communities in Rajasthan, many families openly usher their young daughters into prostitution, insisting that it is part of the community’s tradition.
But as Ms Shubhadra Butalia of Karmika says “The Devadasi system is a form of open prostitution. Poor people dedicate their daughters to the system in the name of appeasing the gods.” But how many more girls will be sacrificed for the sake of appeasing the gods. (8)
Muralis and Waghayas of Jejuri

http://www.sikhspectrum.com/052007/images/z7.jpg [B]Devadsi Temple to Lord Khandoba in Jejuri, Maharashtra Keep your hands off Khandoba woman
Your Lecher
Show me your money first
-- Arun Kolatkar in Jejuri
The government of Maharashtra finally woke up to this fact in 2004 and appointed a study committee to take stock of the Devadasi system in Maharashta. Based on the committee's recommendations, the Maharashtra government recently passed the Anti-Devadasi Bill to
‘provide for a comprehensive law to abolish the practice of dedication of women as Devadasies to Hindu deities, idols, objects of worship, temples for religious institutions and to protect the women so dedicated against exploitation’.
The Bill will abolish the Devadasi system and penalize the perpetrators of this crime with a fine of Rs 10,000-50,000 besides rehabilitating Devadasies through alternate employment and homes. There is also a provision for the formation of district and state-level Devadasi control groups, consisting of persons from civil society organizations. These groups will have the power to make recommendations to the government towards abolishing the Devadasi system.
According to Minister of Women and Child Welfare Harshavardhan Patil, ‘We found that despite the 1934 Devadasi Security Act, the tradition is still prevalent...Therefore, we have passed a more stringent Bill, which will soon come into force.’ However, the government is yet to give a firm commitment on exactly when the Act will come into force.

Dr Neelam Gorhe, an MLA who has worked closely with Devadasies through her NGO, the Stree Adhar Kendra, is skeptical:

‘the state government's intention might be good but it does not have any specific measures for eradication and rehabilitation. It has not even found out just how many Devadasies there are in the state; so how are they going to go about the rehabilitation? Without specific numbers, what kind of funds will they allocate?’

According to Gorhe, in the south Maharashtra districts of Kolhapur and Sangli alone, they’re at least 200 Devadasies, who live in poverty and have taken to prostitution in the name of God.
http://www.sikhspectrum.com/052007/images/z8.jpg Devadasi system perpetrators in Jejuri, Maharashtra There are no exclusive remand homes for Devadasies in the state. When they are rescued, they are placed in general remand homes, where they are taken care of until they turn 18. The older women are generally given vocational training. They usually find employment in cottage industries or as domestic help after this.

In Jejuri - a small temple shrine on a hill made famous by poet Arun Kolatkar's collection of poems 'Jejuri' - Devadasies are known as Muralis. Here, as mentioned earlier, there are also the male counterparts of the Devadasies, known as 'Waghyas' - dedicated to a lifetime of service to Lord Khandoba when they were still little boys. Often, a Waghya shelters a Murali, and many form relationships. The result of this is that several Muralis give birth to children, which further stigmatizes these women and girls because they are expected to remain faithful to God.

A visit to Jejuri gives an insight into how the Devadasi system works. Today, there are about seven groups of Muralis and Waghyas living in Jejuri. Most of them live in shanties around the temple, often in groups of two or three. They spend most of their days in the temple premises, retiring to their homes only to sleep. A majority of them are middle-aged, poor, and express anguish that their 'pure calling' has been tarnished. Says Ratnamala Jadhav, now in her 50s, who has been a Murali ever since she can remember, ‘We earn about Rs 3,000 a month through dance performances on auspicious occasions.’ Their status as servants of the Lord also makes rehabilitation difficult.

An eight-year-old Murali is living in a remand home in Pune after she was rescued from Jejuri last year. Locals say that when she was just a few months old, she was found under a bamboo basket in one of the corners of the temple, with a garland around her neck, turmeric on her forehead, and her hands and legs tied with a rope. Members of a local labour organization took her into their custody, but because the child was 'offered' to Lord Khandoba already, they did not dare bring her up in any other way. A 60-year-old woman living near the temple voluntarily offered to look after her. However, since last year, she began harassing the little girl, by forcing her to beg and goading her to encourage male attention.

A local journalist got to know her story and sought the intervention of advocate Varsha Madgulkar, a local social activist. Both of them whisked the girl away from the clutches of her foster mother and registered a police complaint. The journalist, Vijaykumar Harishchandre, says,

"Even the police were hesitant to initiate any action because she was a 'Murali' and they feared the wrath of Lord Khandoba. However, with the intervention of the officers of the Women and Child Welfare Department, she was finally rehabilitated in a remand home in Pune."

The entire exercise took one month. Comments Madgulkar, "Due to superstition and in the name of religion, hundreds of such innocent girls lead a hellish life."(9)


The Plight of Joginis
Anjamma’s Story



http://www.sikhspectrum.com/052007/images/z9.jpg Anjamma is a Jogini ‘My mother died when I was three. When I was seven, my brother got polio and was paralyzed. My father had to take out a loan and I went to work rolling bidis (cigarettes) to help pay it back. But it was not enough and the landlord to whom my father owed the money said that he should send me to be dedicated to the goddess to earn more money. I didn’t want to go. I felt very bad. My father said: ‘If you don’t obey me, I will die.’ So I went to the temple. All my relatives came. I had a new sari and many jasmine garlands. The priest called a man to tie the wedding tali[necklace] around my neck. The man was Rangasamy and he was 25 years old. I was eight.
Three times a year we Joginis used to go to the temple for important festivals. Everyone worshipped us and treated us well. We danced and went into a trance. Everyone fell at our feet and called us goddess. On those days we became very important. The rest of the time they made fun of us.

When I was 12, I came of age (puberty). Rangasamy kept coming and telling me: ‘I tied tali on you, why don’t you sleep with me?’ I said no. But everyone in the village said: ‘Child, you are a Jogini. It is your duty. You have to sleep with him.’

He had a wife and two kids. He gave me money and rice. After one year I had a child, a baby boy. Soon after that, he abandoned me. I went to Bombay for construction work to support my child. When I returned to the village another fellow called Raghav was very nice to me. He said to my father: ‘I will protect her.’ He also had kids. I became pregnant again and had a girl. But he left me after six years.

I joined the ‘Joginis’ organization. I decided to fight the system. To prevent my sisters from suffering like me. I go to temples now and stop the Jogini dedication. People said: ‘After sleeping with so many men, what’s your problem?’ The upper caste men started saying we spread AIDS. I said: ‘You sons of *****es, motherfuckers, bastards, go tell that to your wives and mothers. I’ll get the government to do DNA tests on all Jogini kids and you can take them. I’ll take the Joginis away and look after them. I’ll expose each of you who sleep with us and then abuse us.’ Yes. They’ll shut their mouths and run when they see me now.’ Interview by Mari Marcel Thekaekara. (6)

Ashama

http://www.sikhspectrum.com/052007/images/z10.jpg Ashama
‘Since the day of the initiation, I have not lived with dignity. I became available for all the men who inhabited Karni. They would ask me for sexual favors and I, as a Jogini, was expected to please them. My trauma began even when I had not attained puberty.’ (Testimony of a 35-year-old former Jogini named Ashama)
The Devadasies, spread all over India, lead intolerable lives. They have been quenching the thirst of millions of upper caster Indian males lusts. Since the inception of this deplorable system, the Joginis have been subjected to merciless subjugation and injustice (10).
Many of these women were tiny girls when they became Devadasies, "dedicated" to the sect by poverty-stricken parents unable to pay their future dowries and hopeful that a pleased goddess would make the next pregnancy a boy. Tradition has for centuries locked Devadasies into a proscribed and highly stigmatized social role. Forbidden to marry or work outside the temple, they have spent their lives tending the shrines and decorating altars, singing and dancing, telling devotional stories and collecting coins from worshippers to support themselves and their religious work.

http://www.sikhspectrum.com/052007/images/z11.jpg They continue to face discrimination and indignities on the basis of caste, remain politically powerless and suffer from acute poverty, oppression and exploitation. They run high chances of acquiring sexually transmitted diseases. Although in independent India, many steps have been taken to prevent the system and rehabilitate the Devadasies, they are not enough to improve the situation as the root cause of poverty continues to push young girl to the roads of ‘sacred prostitution’. (10)
I would like to conclude with my poem Devadasi’s Saga on the plight of these Devadasi, wherein I have tried to empathize with these exploited women.

Devadasi’s Saga


I could hear the temple bell
Ringing in my ears,
The day I was born
To an unwedded mother, or rather
My mother was “married” to the temple!
But,
The Temple was not my father!
I could hear the temple bells
Ringing in my ears…

I could hear the temple walls,
Heaving sighs in the dead of night,
Sighs of satisfaction…
I could hear my mother’s sobs,
Intermingle with the sighs,
Sighs of dissatisfaction…
As I slept on the cold-rough stone,
My cradle in the darkest chamber,
Where light hardly ever entered,
I missed a father’s loving touch,
When I asked my mother,
She said:
The temple was my father!

Then one day, through the
Half shut doors, I saw:
The priest heaving and hawing,
Full of sweat…
The pained surprise in my mother’ eyes,
(On being so exposed),
Silently beseeching me
With helpless tearful eyes:
“Go away! You’re still too young!”

But one day, I grew up!

I felt the “touch”,
A creeping crawling, lustful touch,
The expression in the priest’s eyes,
Matched the touch,
As he held me in his clutch…
Nausea welled up in my throat:
It was not a father’s touch,
I could feel it in my innocent bones…

Then Another, and Another…

Now, I am “My Mother”…

Like her, I do not know,
The father of the baby in my womb…

Like my mother, I am going to
Tell, my daughter:
“Temple is your father!”

This has gone on for centuries,
And still goes on…
This will go on forever…

I am the Devadasi of the Temple…
Temples may crumble…
But,
I will go on
Forever…


Author and Copyright©: Zoya Zaidi
Aligarh (UP), India



References

1) Devasi-http://theglimpse.com/newsite/printarticle2.asp?articleid=198

2) http://uk.geocities.com/dalitsnuk/dalitrights/issue6.html

3) http://www.infochangeindia.org/archives1.jsp?secno=1&monthname=June&year=2002&detail=T

4) http://ambedkar.org/buddhism/Devadasies_Were_Degraded_Buddhist_Nuns.htm

5) http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring02/Chattaraj/genesis.html

6) http://www.newint.org/features/2005/07/01/combatting_caste/

7) http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1072-2362622,00.html

8) http://www.paklinks.com/gs/archive//t-54857.html

9) http://www.boloji.com/wfs5/wfs630.htm

10) http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring02/Chattaraj/plight.html



Photo Sources


http://theglimpse.com/newsite/printarticle2.asp?articleid=198

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring02/Chattaraj/genesis.html

http://www.boloji.com/wfs5/wfs630.htm

http://www.newint.org/features/2005/07/01/combatting_caste/

http://iml.jou.ufl.edu/projects/Spring02/Chattaraj/plight.html




More examples

[red cat]

This is why usually women are the first ones to rebel against the feudal state of India.

[t.shonku]

India: 3500-yrs of massacres of Dalit-Sudra Blacks by Arya-Brahmins



History is usually written by the victors. The Dalits have not had a voice for thousands of years. The Dalit discrimination has to be aired by all peace loving people on the planet. Many Dalits believe that the discrimination perpetuated against them for centureis is based on thier ethnicity and the color of their skin. Dalit leaders have proposed that their status in the Hindu caste system is based on their Dravidian roots. Dalits leaders are openly calling for the mass conversion of the 150 million Dalits to Islam which would offer them equality. The Hinduvata reaction to the conversion of Dalits is ferocious and violent. The poor penury stricken Dalits must remain in bondage for perpetuity!
This article lists the atrocities against the Dalits. Rape and murder have been institutionalized. 3 to 6 million women have been raped for being Dalit. 3 million Dalits have been killed for being Dalit. Indian secularism has not touched the 150-250 million Dalits or the 150 million Muslims.


More than 60 per cent of Dalits are landless. Over 40 million of them are bonded labourers. Dalits are the worst victims of labour coercion
“The 1991 Government survey of India states that on an average day, two Dalits are killed, three Dalit women are raped, two Dalits’ houses are burned and fifty Dalits are assaulted by people of a higher caste.”
” High-caste Brahmins formed a private army, the Ranvir Sena, to stop communists from encouraging Dalit field workers to demand higher wages “
Amnesty International lists 300 million abused Indians & Kashmiris, Naxalites.
“India is being ruled by castes, not laws”-Indian state machinery supports License to kill Dalits. Amnesty Int 2008 report excoriates Horrid “India” (http://rupeenews.com/2008/05/29/amnesty-int-2008-report-excoriates-horrid-india/)

The Recent History of Brahmin Massacres of Dalit Blacks
http://web.archive.org/web/20050404114158/http://dalitstan.org/holocaust/graphics/skulls.jpg
Mass Murder of Dalits : Ethnic Cleansing in South Asia
An Account of the 3500-Year Arya-Sudra Race War During the Last 10 Years
“Indra protected in battle the Aryan worshipper, he subdued the lawless for Manu, he conquered the black skin.”[ Rig Veda I.130.8 ]
A history of massacres by Venkitesh Ramakrishnan Frontline Vol. 16, ( Feb. 27 – Mar. 12, 1999 ) No. 05 For immediate release May 1, 2007, Posted on: May 2, 2007
This bigoted genocide contineus in 2008. Here are a few stories of the actual genocide for the past 20 years
” The black skin, the hated of Indra, were swept out of heaven “[ Rig Veda IX.73.5 ]

“… The religion based on caste system has annihilated millions of Dalits over the centuries. About three million Dalit women have been raped and around one million Dalits killed from the time of Independence. This is 25 times more than number of soldiers killed during the wars fought after independence. That is why Dalits do not need Aryan culture or Hindu Dharma based on caste any more. …” [Dr. Tulsiram]
MUCH blood has been spilt in Bihar in caste violence over the past three decades. Between the first reported caste-based massacre, at Rupaspur Chandwa in Purnea district in 1971, and the latest bloodbath, at Narayanpur village in Jehanabad district on February 10, there were 59 recorded instances of mass murders, in which about 600 people were killed. The majority of these were directed at Dalits and were carried out by the private armies of the upper castes, such as the Ranvir Sena, the Bhoomi Sena, the Brahmarshi Sena, the Sunlight Sena and the Savarna Liberation Army. The Dalechak-Bagholia killings of 1987 and the Bara carnage of 1992 were perpetrated by a naxalite group, the Marxist Coordination Committee (MCC).
Killing of a woman, a Shudra or an atheist is not sinful. Woman is an embodiment of the worst desires, hatred, deceit, jealousy and bad character. Women should never be given freedom.” Bhagvad Gita (Manu IX. 17 and V. 47, 147)”
Similarly another holy script of Hindu religious book preaches looking down upon women by terming a woman equal to a dog, crow and shudra (a low cast poor Hindu who has no rights in Hindu society).
“And whilst not coming into contact with Sudras and remains of food; for this Gharma is he that shines yonder, and he is excellence, truth, and light; but woman, the Sudra, the dog, and the black bird (the crow), are untruth: he should not look at these, lest he should mingle excellence and sin, light and darkness, truth and untruth.” – Satapatha Brahmana 14:1:1:31.
According to Oliver Mendelsohn and Marika Vicziany, authors of The Untouchables: Subordination, Poverty and the State in Modern India, a comprehensive account of the phenomenon of untouchability, the caste-based massacres are brutal manifestations of the “violent and primordial casteism” that has overtaken Bihar. The authors point out that although the naxalite movement is by and large dedicated to and partly composed of Dalits, it is sometimes referred to as caste politics in the guise of radical political activity.
According to government statistics, instances of atrocities against Dalits rose dramatically after 1977, the period when the political identity of the backward castes of the State found assertive expression in the elevation of Karpoori Thakur, a leader from a backward caste, as Chief Minister. Similarly, there has been an upsurge in atrocities against Dalits between 1989 and 1999, the period which coincided with the chief ministership of Laloo Prasad Yadav and, lately, his wife Rabri Devi.
” Stormy gods who rush on like furious bulls and scatter the black skin.”[ Rig Veda IX.73.5 ]

One explanation for this is that the upper castes, who had political, social and administrative supremacy during much of Bihar’s recent political history, were responding to the elevation of leaders from backward castes to political power by stepping up attacks against lower-caste populations. Another explanation is that the governments of Karpoori Thakur and Laloo Prasad Yadav were lax in controlling the upper-caste private armies.
Irrespective of the level of accuracy of analyses such as these, the fact remains that the number of attacks against Dalits and other lower-caste people has gone up every time a backward caste leader rose to power. The period between 1990 and 1999 witnessed 35 instances of caste-based massacres, the total number of victims being about 400. More than 350 of those killed were from among the lower castes.[ ill. - At Lakshmanpur-Bathe on December 1, 1997, when 63 persons were killed in an attack by the Ranvir Sena. ]


The Ranvir Sena, which has been active since 1994, is one of the most dreaded private armies in the history of the State. According to informal estimates, the Ranvir Sena, which was formed by the partial or complete merger of upper-caste private armies such as the Savarna Liberation Army and the Sunlight Sena, has killed at least 200 Dalits in the last five years. Ranvir Sena leaders boast that at least 125 of these killings were carried out after July 1995, when the group was banned by the Bihar Government. As the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation has pointed out repeatedly, the ban existed only on paper.

In addition to organised massacres of the residents of entire Dalit villages, the private armies practise unlawful and dehumanising programmes aimed at insulting members of the lower castes and preventing their rise in society. The Savarna Liberation Army’s “mass rape” campaign, conducted between March and July 1992 in Gaya and Jehanabad districts, was one of the most heinous among these. More than 200 Dalit women between the ages of six and 70 were raped by a group of activists of the Savarna Liberation Army. Each of these incidents was given publicity by the perpetrators of the crime.

“ The Aryans enforced the caste system on the Black population (the original inhabitants of India), with a cold-blooded racist logic with [w]hites on the top, mixed races in the middle and the mass of the conquered Blacks at the bottom. Rajshekar, `Dalit: The Black Untouchables of India’, p.44.
Ranvir Sena leaders claim that the operation was intended to avenge the killing of 34 Bhumihar landlords at Bara by the Maoist Coordination Centre (MCC). It was a “lesson” to the Dalits, that if they tried to take on the landlords the women of their communities would be humiliated. Ranvir Sena activists claim with a macabre sense of glee that the operation was “very effective”. The stigma attached to rape victims is such that the operation broke the morale of Dalits of many villages.

Given the prevailing socio-political climate in Bihar, the Senas operate with impunity, justifying their presence with the cycle of retaliatory violence spawned by naxalite groups. Sociologists have pointed out that resort to measures that merely address the violence as a law-and-order problem will not be enough to smash these Senas. Such steps, they say, have to be coupled with bold and far-reaching measures such as land reforms, which address the fundamental problem of economic exploitation and social discrimination of landless agricultural labourers from among the Scheduled Castes by upper-caste feudal landowners. “ Author : Venkitesh Ramakrishnan,
Design : Krishna Rao, Dalitstan Journal, Volume 1, Issue 2 (Oct. 1999)

Link to the article
http://karachitelegraph.com/?p=8337


The most dynamite article till date, read it 3500 yrs of history..

[t.shonku]

DALIT DISCRIMINATION IN ARTS CULTURE MUSIC SPORTS;





ARMY AND OTHER FORCES IN UNIFORM*




India is basically, a too bad Nation. And what is worse, it has an intolerant Society. It only tolerates Injustices and Dalit Exploitations. It is thus in many respects, extremely unreasonable unfair and unjust Nation. It does not even give the victims; any space and room to turnaround think or respond. Worst victims, amongst all in the Country, are no doubt SC&ST Dalits.

The SC&ST Dalits, have been not only discriminated, but harassed and criminally victimised in all forms of crude violences, but are also subjected to unimaginable atrocities exploitations oppressions and suppressions. What totally unbearable is that, the Dalits are not at all allowed to respond and react. They are forced to accept the Atrocities, as due and destined right punishments. Often, they are invariably not allowed to even cry in pain. They are definitely not permitted to protest, or say anything.

There had always been, in protest, lots of Dalits’ Poetry, composed and written in silence; and many sayings written in private. Imagine their ingenuity, in composing all those Classic Protest Songs and Sayings, often as forms of Folklore or even Prayers to their own small gods and goddesses in the Villages and Slums. One has to only refer to the great work, Grama Devathalu, that means Village Deities, by the once famous fire-band Sidharamaiah, of Bangalore University, Karnataka, who later became a Member of the Karnataka Legislative Council. He was appointed directly into Bangalore University, and also made then a MLC, only to purchase and silence him, as well as Temper-Down, Cool Him and Mellow-Down his Fiery Writings and Speeches.

The Indian Society is always on the lookout, to grab and take away what are others; be they the animals fodder food homes land wealth women and girls, especially the charmingly beautiful young and well built ones. And now, the Indian Society is after the well educated and better placed SC&ST Dalit Grooms earning a lot. Such Boys and prospective Grooms are poached and trapped, for the poor relatively not so good looking, even ugly and spoilt, not so much educated girls and unmarried women or the widows, from poor dominant caste families. That, especially for those, who are not in a position to afford to spend or pay to marry them off, with their heavy huge dowry, or the conventional prices offered by brides’ parents and family and the associated big gifts.

As better prospective educated well-employed, better-earning SC&ST Boys and Grooms are lost to the cheap girls and women of the dominant caste hindus. Thus, SC&ST Dalits loose, many likely good grooms for their girls, whom generally none else marry to live with, unless the girl herself is highly educated, better employed and earning a lot, or is extremely good looking beautiful and very charming. Otherwise in many cases, SC&ST Girls who are picked up for marriage by the dominant caste hindus, referred to generally as DCHs, are dropped when their charm wanes. It is, invariably sooner than later, in a matter of some months or a few years. Even otherwise, the life of such SC&ST Girls and Women, are too miserable to narrate.

DALIT DISCRIMINATION IN ARTS CULTURE MUSIC SPORTS;
ARMY AND OTHER UNIFORMED SERVICES

ARTS

The SCs&STs as Native People bonded to the Earth, associated with Land and Soil, and tied to Nature, excel in Arts, both Performing Arts and Fine Arts. But SCs&STs are always denigrated for their Arts and Culture, as cheap ones of the Primitive People, Tribal Dances and Arts, or some Folk Songs, Rural Music, Jungle Dances, Village Arts, and thus neglected and trashed. Or they are crudely taken around to perform, and are displayed and exhibited in the Main Thoroughfares, Stages and in some Platforms of Delhi during the Republic Days. Sometimes, they are asked to Dance and Entertain, Visiting Dignitaries to please and honour them. But on the other hand, the brahmins and dominant caste hindus, who silently copy some of the SC&ST Dongs Music Dance and other Performances, are allowed to go around the whole Country, or sponsored or taken around the whole World in Phases, for performing always before some elite audiences at special venues and Theatres, for a big fee, consideration and huge returns.

The brahmins are thus, made to go abroad jet-setting and hoping all-around the World as Cultural Ambassadors, and Great Musicians and Artists of this Country.

Many of the Cultural Exchange Programmes and MOUs being signed during the Visit of Foreign Dignitaries; and those inked by the Indian President or PM and others Visits with the Heads of other Countries, are fully utilised by those jet-set dominant caste hindu cultural ambassadors.

Performing Arts –

There have been many eminent, well-known and most Popular SCs&STs in the spheres of Performing Arts. Particularly in the Fields of Drama and Stage, Cinema, and TV.

Cinema

There were many SC&ST Heroes, Heroines, Comedians, Jokers, Entertainers, Villains etc in the Cinemas. The famous Tamil Comedian, NS Krishnan of Madras, is the most eminent amongst them all. He was followed by many, till the brahmins had entered; usurped the scene completely by many respects.

Dance

There were a few SC&ST Popular Dancers. They had all soon vanished in thin Air and been Forgotten.

Fine Arts

There had been many eminent World-Class Practitioners, Teachers and Principles of the Schools and Colleges of Fine Arts. They were really so many Painters, Sculptors etc, right from the eminent Ram Kinker Bhoj, almost the most famous of them all, from Shanti-Niketan, West Bengal.

ARMY

Not much of a Study hand been made about, Dalit Discriminations in Arts Culture Music Sports; and in Army and other Uniformed Services, except for some quite old work by a Japanese Scholar in Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. That was, sometime during the early eighties.

Lots of empirical studies, collected information, buried texts, individual knowledge and accounts, about such discriminations and negligence are available scattered around the Country and Abroad. They may be available, with a few concerned and interested Individuals.
In fact the website – dalitindia.com – did compile some data sometime back and posted it, with the expectation that there could be lots of other inputs by many SCs&STs. But sadly those expectations, as usual were belied.

SPORTS

Games and Sports, generally keep the poor and all the underprivileged busy happy and engaged. Thus, Sports being poor peoples’ big entertainment or their business, it is natural to expect the poorest of the poor, the SC&ST Dalits in large numbers in many Sports Teams all over the Country. But sadly again, we can hardly see any SCs&STs being eulogised or promoted in the Country. It is not that, the SCs&STs are not playing or are not in the teams. There are good many. But when it comes to selecting the School Team, choosing the College Team or making the University Team, or Representing the District, Region, State, Zone or the Nation, the SCs&STs are a strict No No No.

The SCs&STs were, and even now are invariably sidelined. And, they are often forced to sit-down and be just the spectators. Otherwise they are made to sit in the benches as Reserves even if included in the Teams, or dropped at the first opportunity, even if by chance they have played, to show their talents, and proved that they can play well to win. There are too many such sad stories here.

The extent of corruption favouritism nepotism and demand for sex and sexual favours while making selections, forming teams, and choosing the Players in any Match, is too well-known here.

Tennis

One may recall during the US Presidential Election of Jimmy Carter, there was a sort of negative Campaign ABC – Anybody But Carter. Also in the Tennis World, there was once the famous three – the ABC that stood for the Promising Young Players in the International Circuit – Vijay Amrithraj from India, Bjorn Borg of Sweden, and the American Jimmy Connors. The last two went on, truly as expected, to become the Tennis Greats. Vijay Amrithraj, matched surpassed and dominated Tennis, only in India, though he played great Tennis, even in International Circuits.

In the International Circuit, Vijay Amrithraj, often faltered and failed. Partly the blame rests at the doors of Govt of India, its Sports Ministry, and the Indian Tennis Federations, all of which saw to it that, Vijay Amrithraj was humiliated discriminated. He was criticised at the slightest opportunity, along with his elder brother Anand Amrithraj, himself a great Tennis Player. All the above, were all just to pull down Vijay Amrithraj, as the brahmins of this Country could not digest and tolerate the sight of a black, the utterly Coal Dark Boy, that too a SC with his Brothers dominating, the highly paying glamorous World of Tennis, in this Country and as well as Abroad. Those in spite of his great game and contributions to Indian Tennis, including starting Amritraj-Brittania Tennis Academy at Madras, which had produced the next generation of Tennis Greats like Leander Paes for India.

The brahmins here could also not bear the fact that, it was only the Vijay Amrithraj’s elder brother Anand Amrithraj, who first became the Indian National Tennis Champion, by dethroning the then No 1 Tennis Player, Ramanathan Krishnan of Madras, the blue eyed boy of Govts, and a darling of the brahmins, as he himself was a brahmin from Tamil Nadu. Then came Vijay Amrithraj, to rule the roost; likely to be followed then by, his younger sibling Ashok Amrithraj. All these, naturally upset the brahmin Psyche, especially when the Amrithrajs were Tamil Christian SC Dalits, originating from the Kolar Gold Fields in the then Mysore State, which was the Nursery of SC Dalit Developments and Growth. Hence, the brahmins then in power and position, conspired in many ways, not to allow Vijay Amrithraj Progress, and also completely block his younger Brother from Playing for the Nation, in the most important and popular Davis Cup Matches.

The brahmins did everything they could do in the rule books, to effectively sabotage everywhere Vijay Amrithraj. The brahmins also completely blocked and marginalised his younger brother Ashok Amrithraj. They brahmins also tried their best, and worked very hard to somehow replace Vijay Amrithraj himself, though he had often given his heart out, and played with all his capacity energy might to win Matches for the Nation.

Vijay Amrithraj’s Game was in many ways legendary, especially in Davis Cup Clashes, against big teams of big Sporting Nations playing Tennis for Ages. Recorded Tennis History of those days shows that, Vijay Amrithraj and his elder brother Anand Amrithraj, playing Singles, Doubles and Reverse Singles, nearly came up once to win the Davis Cup for the Country. But, they were forced by the GoI to Concede the Matches and Title, due to India’s International Politics. That is now almost forgotten.

These are only a few examples of brahmin conspiracy and on going sabotage in the Country. These are only the tip of ice-berg. The Truth stinks here.

National Game of Hockey

In the National Game of Hockey, many SC and ST Players like the great Manuel, Peter; Topno Brothers and Tirkey had played for the Nation. But, they were never really honoured, or are being remembered ever. Many of them, spent their post-hockey days, sadly in total misery and utter poverty, and only died as Paupers.

Foot-Ball

Similar is the case, in the most popular game of Football. SC&ST Players like the then Mysore and East-Bengal Teams’ Damodharan or Damu, were there playing for India. They were never encouraged or promoted, like the few brahmin players or the others from the dominant caste hindu communities.

Cricket

Cricket which has now become a street game, had seen many SCs&STs. Some of them were great outstanding players, at times even much better than the highly promoted Tendulkar. But they were all, cleverly rather cunningly, eliminated repeatedly and almost very openly though silently.

Table Tennis

Table Tennis is the most Populous Game amongst Children. Many great SC&ST Players were there; who were all systematically sidelined marginalised and eliminated; almost to a plan by the brahmins and dominant caste hindus.

Billiards and Snooker

There were a number of great SC Players in Billiards and Snooker, especially from Bangalore and Mysore, who had made the National Grade. Where they went, and where they are now, no body knows.

Field and Track Events

In the Field and Track Events, there were many individuals, who had blazed through the Stadiums in their heydays, hardly to be recognised and awarded.

One can not forget the Golden Girl, Miss Vanajakshi of Mount Carmel College, Bangalore. She was a great SC Girl, in the Field and Track Events. Seeing her records and performances, the then Mysore Division of Southern Railway picked her up. Because of her Record-Breaking contributions to the Mysore Division, she was transferred to the HQrs Office of Southern Railway at Madras, to favour and benefit the Madras Division, in getting Divisional and Inter-Divisional Sports Meet Championships; the Team and Individual Championships, for Madras and the Madras Division.

Miss Vanajakshi, was an Outstanding Sports Woman, a Champion excelling in almost all Field and Track Events, particularly in the 100 and 200 metres Races, Long Jump and High Jump. She was a very sophisticated and too stylish Sports Woman in the Stadium; was a treat for the eyes to watch, for style and track-suits which were then rarely used. Not only was she always Individual Woman Champion, but she held the All-India Record in her most Favourite event of High Jump, more than a Decade.

These are forgotten facts, remembered by only a few. In an All India Railway Function, to honour outstanding Sports Men and Women past and then of the Railways, by the then Railway Minister, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan in 1996-97, Railways could not even locate and invite Miss Vanajakshi to Delhi, even when specifically told to. Yes, to that extent great SC&ST Athletes are neglected by the Officials Universities Banks PSUs Departments Ministries and Govts everywhere, be it in the Union Territories, States and at the Centre.

MUSIC

Music is no doubt, the most memorable heartfelt vibrant and visible of Performing Art, that touches captivates and captures the heart mind nerves imagination body and soul. Since it is practically inborn, and intrinsic with every living species, it has been taken for separate discussion here, from all others Arts.

Music it is said is in the blood bones minds and steps of the People, who live in close proximity with Nature. Then, there is no wonder that the SC&ST Dalits, as the true Children of the Earth, bound to their Lands and thus integral with Nature, are born as Singers and Dancers. Truly, it is so.

It is also, said well here that –

Without Beats there are No Rhythms,
Without Rhythm there can be No Ragas,
Without Ragas there can never be any Songs,
Without Beats and Songs there can be No Steps;

Without Drums there can be No Beats,
Without Leather there can’t be any Drums,
Without Skin or Skinners, there can be No Leather,
Without Leather, traditionally there can’t be any Drums;

Without Dalits there can be No Leather,
Without the Dalits, there is No Leather, No Drums,
Without Dalits, No Body can even Play Drums for Beats,
Without these there can be No Songs, No Music, so No Dances.

But SCs&STs were and still are, carefully kept out of all the Prominent, Paying, Professional Music Performances.

Honestly Speaking – Singing and Dancing were not only relegated to the backgrounds, actually they were so condemned, to be the avocations of street singers, street dancers, beggars or prostitutes. It was and still is, being said everywhere amongst the People that, those who sing or dance, do so only for a cheap living, or their unending carnal pleasures. So the brahmins confined them, to certain lowly Backward Classes, Christians, Muslims. That it is said, till the brahmins realised that there are lots of money in these activities. And also that they can be used to influence and trap the rich people, large traders, senior officials, big governors, and even mighty rulers. So the brahmins, learned and adopted the art of singing and music, as part of their culture growing up and main habit. That, to practice in privacy for the pleasures of the great powerful people, and gain access to their rich private places and individual chambers, to gain very immensely and wield big influences, for their own individual growth comforts, and for the benefits of their families. These, they do even today.

All the above do not mean that, the brahmins learnt their music and dances only recently, as they want the common people here to believe. No, that is not true. Many brahmins, especially those nearer the rulers, always practiced and showed their skills in dancing and singing in exclusive privacy to the kings and princes in the palaces. Thus they were always preying on the ruling families.

The brahmins, with professional training practice and opportunities, given to them in an organised way, by themselves have come to monopolise stage performances, drama, cinema, radio and TV. On the contrary, as studying youngsters with an open mind, especially the SCs&STs were attracted by English and other Western Songs by Abba, Beetles, Bony M, Jim Reeves etc. Upset by the digression and diversion of attention of many of the educated youth, the brahmins first tried to restrict, or even ban all English Music from being broadcast in the All India Radio, especially in the primetime. They in fact denigrated English Music and Songs, and looked down and insulted all those who were attracted to English and English Music.

When the brahmins could not stop the educated youth, they encouraged many brahmins, especially their own educated people – the brahmin Professionals working in the Metros. They asked them to Compose and Play small Notes set to Western Music in Radio as a hobby to start with, at least for business and commercial Advertisements, of small and big firms on good payments, to promote their products amongst the educated youth who loved English Music. Then, they suddenly discovered, a Madras Tamil brahmin woman, singing in the Clubs and some Star Hotels of Bombay and Calcutta. The brahmins, naturally latched themselves quickly on to that brahmin singer, and promoted her high up up, sky high, fully using prominently her brahmin title Iyer attached with her name, till the day she divorced her husband, dropped down even her caste title Iyer, on marrying some rich North Indian. Immediately, they dropped her Sir-Name, and now allow her to perform, only with her maiden name; and not with her new North Indian Husband’s Name. So parochial and calculated are the brahmins, for dominance and gain control over the society. And also absorb money riches and wealth like big dangerous leaches.

With great struggles and against lots of Oppositions and Criticisms, one Mr Illaya Raja, suddenly appeared on the Southern Music World. He started composing Music for the Tamil Cinema, and scored many great big Hits. He had done, so wonderfully well that, he began to dominate the Tamil Cinema etc. He was, very uncomfortably for the till then dominating and monopolistic brahmins, a SC Dalit. The brahmins tried, all best tricks and their known games to undermine sideline put down and marginalise Mr Illaya Raja. And for that, the brahmins and their senior officials, even banned some of his best great hit Numbers, like Paartheylla Ingey, Kettaelley Angey that in the crude ungrammatical brahmanic Tamil Dialect, most extensively used by the brahmins all over Tamil Nadu, meant Have you Seen Here, when you had Asked There, from being Aired from any of the Radio Stations in Tamil Nadu. For, then all the Radio Stations were then practically under their total control. Then there was only the AIR – All India Radio. But what was ridiculous, the same song in Kanada and Telugu Languages, as the Film was dubbed in those Languages, were broadcast from AIR Stations in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, very regularly being the most popular and successful song with too great a hit music. And the Song in Tamil came on the air, only from the Tamil Programmes of the Commercial Broadcasting of Radio Ceylon.

Every brahmin tried their best, to promote many others, in Tamil Music, Tamil Cinema, as an alternate to Mr Illaya Raja, but all of them miserably failed. Then, suddenly realising that SCs&STs are born singers and dancers, they promoted a SC to Sing and also set scores for Tamil Cinema Songs. And when that SC Musician gained some popularity, they brought him over All India Radio and TV, and arranged an Interview. During the course of that live Interview, they asked him, ‘what you think about the Music and Capabilities of Mr Illaya Raja?’ That poor SC fellow said, ‘Mr Illaya Raja is really an Ocean, and before him I am only a small petty well, or at the most a small pond.’ May be, he only spoke the truth, or what he knew or actually felt. But the brahmins, Cheesed-Off dumped him abruptly since then, as they expected that he would criticise, and rubbish the great Music Maestro Mr Illaya Raja. The brahmins, without loosing their hearts went about seriously searching and promoting many others, to finally putdown the great Tamil Musician Mr Illaya Raja.

The brahmins could never putdown Mr Illaya Raja, and he grew by leaps and bounds. Now his brothers and their children, and Mr Illaya Raja’s own son are setting Music to Tamil Cinemas. And thereafter, Mr Illaya Raja, was once invited for Composing Music, by the London Philomenic Orchestra. It is reported that he did it so fast and quickly, almost in no time. But, none was there, Nobody from the Central Govt, Nobody from the State Govts, not even any Representative of the Tamil Nadu Govt, and No Representative from the Tamil Cinema to Receive and Honour him when he Landed in Bombay on his Return from that Trip to London. That was the greatest Insult they heaped on him. And only an handful of News Papers and Magazines Published that Story and very few Criticised the Govts and the Cine World then or later.

The brahmins search to find an alternative to Mr Illaya Raja, ultimately appears to have ended, on finding the popular Musician AR Raguman. In spite of, many big successes, he still could not replace Mr Illaya Raja in the Southern Films. Now Illaya Raja is really an Industry, a Music House, with a Music Family. Almost, all his Siblings and Children are in the Music World. His consent, appears to Signal sure Success and Box-Office Hit, of many Cinemas. So, he and his family, are in great demand to set Music for many Tamil Cinemas, to ensure their Success.

Instrumental Music

There were and are lots of Instrumental Musicians from SC&ST Families, especially in Violin and Drums.

Thappu

Thappu is simple leather Drum, held in one hand and played with the other, or hung around the neck and pressed on to the belly with one hand, and played by beating the leather with another hand, or with a stick in the other hand, or two sticks in both hands, for the Street Music and Dances. Because of its simplicity, it became a fine and fantastic popular Musical Instrument, in the skilled imaginative hands of indigenous SC Dalits. But, as the landlords and the rich, used to humiliate and harass the SC Dalits, to play it for them at their homes and streets, for their Marriages and in Marriage Processions, other Functions, Death Processions etc, for free or a small fee, almost for a Pittance. Hence, the SC Dalits in protest, had given up playing Thappu completely, as that was seen as a form of Social Slavery. Hence as part of their quest for Freedom, their Dignity, Self-Respect and Liberation from Social Slavery, from the exploitative and oppressive Landlords and the caste hindus, the SC Dalits had hung up the Trappe once and for all, almost in all Villages and Slums.

The Dalit Solidarity in boycotting the Landlords and the caste hindus was so strong that, since long, even small girls and women will throw away the Thappu, or the simplest form of it made out of Earthen Neck of a Pot, with the Leather stretched on its Mouth and tied, if they see it with any of their children. That though the simple form of it is made in large numbers, and marketed in hundreds in every village and town, for beating and playing in the streets by the youngsters, during the Eve of the famous South Indian Harvest Festival of Pongal, being celebrated with conventional frenzy by the young children and the old alike, as Bogy.

Since SC Dalits refuse, don’t Play Thappu and its cheapest mud frame version these days, it is the Children of other caste hindus from backward castes, and even many from the DCHs – dominant caste hindus, who play it crudely on the Days of Bogy. The boycott of the Thappu, was and still is very strong, that Thappu Beating, or Playing Thappu, and so the beats of Rhythm of Thappu for Music, had almost vanished.

Because of the big Demand for Thappu Players in Tamil and Telugu Cinemas, and for many Street Performances, it had recently been revived by some individuals, and it is now getting fresh life and re-emerging as a Powerful Protest Voice or Music of the Dalits of South India.

Some Japanese Scholars and Activists, as well as many others have come here recently, as they were interested in Thappu and Thappu Players. Some of them, were therefore sent to many parts of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu in South India, with a few references of Thappu Players. And, what happened to their efforts, is as usually not known, as the scholars don’t generally give any feedback, or send any write up or even give references of their Publications, if any.

DETAILED STUDY AND COMPILATION OF DATA

A Detailed Study and Compilation of Data, on all these Issues and in many such Areas, will go a long way, in understanding the Continuing and ongoing Problems of the existing Biases and continuing Prejudices against the SCs&STs everywhere here in this Country; to keep the SCs&STs Backward. Everyone forgets that as long as the SCs&STs are kept Backward, this Nation is bound to remain Backward, to Lag-Behind in most Spheres of Arts Culture Music and Development.



Link to article
http://www.dalitindia.com/caste/dalit_disc.htm






A detailed report

[t.shonku]

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/photo.cms?msid=1994516

A Dalit Woman being beaten up by a Hindu high caste man with a bamboo in state of Bihar



http://ugc.dhingana.com/uploads/photos/small_650/dalit-woman-beaten-up-by-police-officer-in-up-in-p-16825737624b7d2bd3d1eda1.63918165.jpg
A Dalit woman being beaten up by a male cop(right) while his companion female cop (in left) watches while smiling. ( the Dalit woman's hair have been grabbed)
http://meenu.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/2008032961351301.jpg?w=490
A Dalit woman has been tied to a tree and lynched and her hairs are being cut down
http://www.dalitnetwork.org/eeimages/uploads/dalit_beaten_248.jpg

A Dalit man being tied to tree and lynched

[t.shonku]

I think the above pictures will speak a million words

There are lot of violent pictures in my collection that shows reality of Dalits condition and violence against them, but I am not going post them until and unless the moderator gives me a green signal.

[t.shonku]

http://static.indianexpress.com/m-images/Tue%20Feb%2003%202009,%2013:23%20hrs/M_Id_59815_cops_torture_girl.jpg

A cop beating up a 8yr old Dalit girl



http://a8.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/183911_201623413182760_100000053072618_805904_1004 391_n.jpg


A burnt down Dalit house


http://newstrack.outlookindia.com/images/police_beat_dalit_girl_20090204.jpg

Here the policeman is grabbing hair of a Dalit minor girl ( left side) and assaulting her


http://www.pakistanpatriot.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/dalit-discrimination-in-india-3.gif

Picture of a tortured Dalit woman all covered in blood



http://www.newsofap.com/uploaded_files/news_img/newsofap.com4c3da3d3a82c9Khairlanji_dalit_massacre _case.jpg

Picture from "Khairlanji Dalit Massacre ". Picture of dead bodies of a Dalit couple

[t.shonku]

http://www.ambedkarmission.org/images/2006/Khairlanji/PriyankaandoneofthesonsofBhiyyalalBhotmange.jpg

Pictures of more attrocities


http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_d2TTVjS1ZVo/TMUIU7abXwI/AAAAAAAAAhM/0a-tYAMqDis/s1600/DSC_0144.JPG

Picture of a helpless Dalit

[t.shonku]

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_YVK9luYdliA/SHrcddeP2EI/AAAAAAAADLE/mkU2j6xNZ8o/s320/beaten+back-cropped24LABELED.bmp

Picture of a Dalit man's back beaten up badly with whip


http://dalitandtribe.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/article-snap1.jpg?w=560

Dalit house destroyed


http://thecanaratimes.com/epaper/wp-content/uploads/cache/6255_NpAdvHover.jpg

A Dalit dead hanging from a tree


http://www.sikhtimes.com/bant_singh.jpg


An injured Dalit man after being attacked brutally by right wing goons

[t.shonku]

This is why usually women are the first ones to rebel against the feudal state of India.


I completely agree ! That is exactly the case.

That is the reason why you see so many female soldiers in PLGA, and the kill rates of some of this women have made them legends , this women are simply the best, they can put "Nikita" , "Kill Bill" babes to shame, about a year ago a group of PLGA fighters led by a female commander entered into an enemy base and killed all the enemies and took away their assault rifles in state of West Bengal.

But what many people simply don't know why this tribal women became real life Nikita at the first place, well people who has gone through my posts will get an idea as to why? Many such women have in past been brutally raped by government forces.


My salute and respect goes out to this great women, they are the true life "Charlies Angel" . They are the true angel who are saving life by and protecting women from government rapists and killers

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Caste is sort of the deep dark secret in India. The upper middle classes I met would tell me that it was no longer a problem, and they seemed to genuinely believe that. But I heard a very different story from Dalits. The biggest problem is in rural, often conservative areas, where education and critical thought are discouraged in favor of maintaining semi-feudal relations.

It's a complicated problem though, and there's no panacea. There have been reformers within and without the "Hindu" culture arguing against it going back to the Buddha and before, including many of its most influential figures. But their message gets lost or co-opted by the class interests of upper castes. As a result, violent revolution becomes increasingly appealing to many, while urbanites often fail to understand the causes of the violence, or even their manifestations around them.

What's interesting about Dalits is that they aren't even a part of the original Hindu caste system, but exist outside of it (Sudras (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shudra) are the lowest caste, Dalits (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dalit) are actually "untouchable" and therefore quite literally "outcaste").

[red cat]

Caste is sort of the deep dark secret in India. The upper middle classes I met would tell me that it was no longer a problem, and they seemed to genuinely believe that.

They usually don't believe that themselves. Tell such a person belonging to some high caste that you're a dalit and you'll find out.

[Queercommie Girl]

It's horrifying and disgusting, and it shows that Indian feudalism is much less advanced than Chinese feudalism. Chinese feudalism was much more meritocratic. As the great proverb of Chinese theology states:

The God of Heaven has no favourites, the only criteria is Virtue.

The concept de or "virtue" here isn't purely moralistic, but has similarities with the ancient Greek term arete, or "excellence".

In ancient China, if one has sufficient talent and power, one can do anything, even if one is from the lowest of social backgrounds. The great admiral Zheng He, who explored the coast of Africa a century before the Europeans did, was originally a prisoner of war and a Muslim eunuch, yet he rose to the highest levels of the Chinese court. The first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, was originally a beggar, the lowest of the low in society, the lowest "dalit" in the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, since he was a Southern Han Chinese as well, the lowest caste in Mongol Yuan society. Yet he became the absolute ruler of the most powerful empire on earth.

Sorry if this sounds racist, but the Indian system is absolutely disgusting. It's not just "semi-feudal", it's "semi-slavery". It's almost as if the slavelord Shang Dynasty never ended in India. Never mind capitalist and socialist revolutions, India never even had a proper feudal revolution. Not just modern Marxists and Enlightenment era bourgeois thinkers, but even philosophers of ancient feudal China 2000 years ago would find this system absolutely barbaric and backward. The system needs to be completely destroyed through fire and blood.

[Queercommie Girl]

Yeah, and China is "totalitarian" while India is supposedly "free".
Not defending the Chinese ruthless state capitalism, but it is still light years ahead of India. Even most African nations don't have this kind of backward social structure.

I wouldn't defend the Chinese state-capitalist system now, but China under Mao was not "state-capitalist".

[Comrade Wolfie's Very Nearly Banned Adventures]

It's horrifying and disgusting, and it shows that Indian feudalism is much less advanced than Chinese feudalism. Chinese feudalism was much more meritocratic. As the great proverb of Chinese theology states:

The God of Heaven has no favourites, the only criteria is Virtue.

The concept de or "virtue" here isn't purely moralistic, but has similarities with the ancient Greek term arete, or "excellence".

In ancient China, if one has sufficient talent and power, one can do anything, even if one is from the lowest of social backgrounds. The great admiral Zheng He, who explored the coast of Africa a century before the Europeans did, was originally a prisoner of war and a Muslim eunuch, yet he rose to the highest levels of the Chinese court. The first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, was originally a beggar, the lowest of the low in society, the lowest "dalit" in the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, since he was a Southern Han Chinese as well, the lowest caste in Mongol Yuan society. Yet he became the absolute ruler of the most powerful empire on earth.

Sorry if this sounds racist, but the Indian system is absolutely disgusting. It's not just "semi-feudal", it's "semi-slavery". It's almost as if the slavelord Shang Dynasty never ended in India. Never mind capitalist and socialist revolutions, India never even had a proper feudal revolution. Not just modern Marxists and Enlightenment era bourgeois thinkers, but even philosophers of ancient feudal China 2000 years ago would find this system absolutely barbaric and backward. The system needs to be completely destroyed through fire and blood.

Do you use every thread as an opportunity to prattle on about China?

The Caste system in India is one of the most disguisting forms of insitutionalized discrimination, despite it's apparent end, it's clear that much of Indian society is based around this foul system, kudos to t.shonku for showing foul side of indian society to an unfortunatly ignorant western audience.

Does the indian government attempt in anyway to cover up the murders of Dalit? Or explain the killings/discrimination as non-caste based?

[red cat]

It's horrifying and disgusting, and it shows that Indian feudalism is much less advanced than Chinese feudalism. Chinese feudalism was much more meritocratic. As the great proverb of Chinese theology states:

The God of Heaven has no favourites, the only criteria is Virtue.

The concept de or "virtue" here isn't purely moralistic, but has similarities with the ancient Greek term arete, or "excellence".

In ancient China, if one has sufficient talent and power, one can do anything, even if one is from the lowest of social backgrounds. The great admiral Zheng He, who explored the coast of Africa a century before the Europeans did, was originally a prisoner of war and a Muslim eunuch, yet he rose to the highest levels of the Chinese court. The first emperor of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang, was originally a beggar, the lowest of the low in society, the lowest "dalit" in the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, since he was a Southern Han Chinese as well, the lowest caste in Mongol Yuan society. Yet he became the absolute ruler of the most powerful empire on earth.

Sorry if this sounds racist, but the Indian system is absolutely disgusting. It's not just "semi-feudal", it's "semi-slavery". It's almost as if the slavelord Shang Dynasty never ended in India. Never mind capitalist and socialist revolutions, India never even had a proper feudal revolution. Not just modern Marxists and Enlightenment era bourgeois thinkers, but even philosophers of ancient feudal China 2000 years ago would find this system absolutely barbaric and backward.

I can't agree to this fully, because this almost sounds as if every meritorious person got his place in ancient Chinese society. This is not possible in any system other than communism or socialism. The other thing that you wrote about people having talent and power is true, because a talented, "powerful" (read agent of the ruling class) person can really rise to great heights in an exploitative system. That is why, similar to the historical events in China, many great imperial dynasties of India; the Nandas, the Mauryas, the Mamluks etc. were founded by slaves and servants. But let us not confuse this with the broader social conditions in feudal societies of India or China, because we all know that even during the Chinese people's war, women used to be routinely sold as slaves by the feudal warlords and the Kuomintang.

However, it is also a fact that historically both Chinese feudalism and the national bourgeoisie were much more advanced than their Indian counterparts, and China was never fully colonized by a single imperialist power that would strengthen its feudal structure manifold. So if you subtract all the effects of the people's war from the Indian society, it will indeed place itself way behind pre-revolution China.



The system needs to be completely destroyed through fire and blood.Very true.

[Queercommie Girl]

Do you use every thread as an opportunity to prattle on about China?


I just made an objective comparison, which is no more than what many white Westerners here who like to prattle on about the great liberal "founding fathers" of America like Jefferson do, so how come I never see you criticising them?

I'm simply pointing out that to have a virtue-centric theology is more advanced than to have a caste-centric theology like in Hinduism, or even a faith-centric theology like in Christianity and Islam. Do you dispute this?

It seems to me that you are just implicitly racist against the Chinese. Because according to you I can't even state a single positive word about China anywhere.

Fact is, Chinese people generally are still oppressed and discriminated against. Here in the UK we Chinese aren't any less discriminated against than Muslims, despite the Muslims getting all the attention, just in different ways. If you don't recognise that Chinese people still face racism then you are just blind.

If a Muslim wrote a bit about the positive elements of the Islamic civilisation, because such things are simply under-valued in the West, would you be criticising him/her for doing that too? It's the same for the Chinese. Making more people in the West know about world history from a genuinely global and internationalist perspective, rather than just an Eurocentric one, is actually a very important Marxist project in order to fight against racial and cultural inequality.

Look at most history books. They always tend to prattle a lot more about Greece, Rome, Medieval Europe, American history etc, than they ever talk about the civilisations of Asia, Africa and native America. That's what you should be criticising, not what I'm writing here.

[Queercommie Girl]

I can't agree to this fully, because this almost sounds as if every meritorious person got his place in ancient Chinese society.


No. Of course I'm not saying that. I'm saying in Confucianism at least the principle of meritocracy very explicitly existed, but in Hinduism it never did.

Just like capitalism can never genuinely bring about "freedom" for the masses, but at least the concept of freedom very explicitly exist in Western capitalism, but not in pre-capitalist Europe, or even some non-Western capitalist states today.



This is not possible in any system other than communism or socialism.


Of course.



The other thing that you wrote about people having talent and power is true, because a talented, "powerful" (read agent of the ruling class) person can really rise to great heights in an exploitative system.


But not all powerful people are necessarily "agents" of the existing ruling class. Many Chinese emperors really came from very low social backgrounds, and only gained power through armed rebellion. Of course, unlike a Maoist people's war, they could never overthrow the feudal system itself, but simply repeats the cycle further, despite initially using some egalitarian rhetoric from Messiahnic Buddhism and Daoism during the early stages of the peasant rebellion.

However, one could argue that unfortunately in China today the Maoist revolution has ended up just like a "classic successful peasant rebellion" in antiquity.

It would seem that in Indian history, the lowest layers of society, like the dalits, were never able to successfully rise up at all. This is different in ancient China.



However, it is also a fact that historically both Chinese feudalism and the national bourgeoisie were much more advanced than their Indian counterparts, and China was never fully colonized by a single imperialist power that would strengthen its feudal structure manifold. So if you subtract all the effects of the people's war from the Indian society, it will indeed place itself way behind pre-revolution China.


Agree.

[red cat]

No. Of course I'm not saying that. I'm saying in Confucianism at least the principle of meritocracy very explicitly existed, but in Hinduism it never did.

This is probably true. The post-rigvedic caste system is one of the most reactionary social concepts in entire human history.


Just like capitalism can never genuinely bring about "freedom" for the masses, but at least the concept of freedom very explicitly exist in Western capitalism, but not in pre-capitalist Europe, or even some non-Western capitalist states today.



Of course.



But not all powerful people are necessarily "agents" of the existing ruling class. Many Chinese emperors really came from very low social backgrounds, and only gained power through armed rebellion. Of course, unlike a Maoist people's war, they could never overthrow the feudal system itself, but simply repeats the cycle further, despite initially using some egalitarian rhetoric from Messiahnic Buddhism and Daoism during the early stages of the peasant rebellion.

However, one could argue that unfortunately in China today the Maoist revolution has ended up just like a "classic successful peasant rebellion" in antiquity.

It would seem that in Indian history, the lowest layers of society, like the dalits, were never able to successfully rise up at all. This is different in ancient China.I meant that they themselves became a part of the ruling class. Such armed rebellions happened in ancient India too. I gave examples of such empires in my previous post. After these rebellions the caste system would be considerably weakened and sometimes religions such as Jainism and Buddhism would temporarily gain popularity.

[Queercommie Girl]

I meant that they themselves became a part of the ruling class. Such armed rebellions happened in ancient India too. I gave examples of such empires in my previous post. After these rebellions the caste system would be considerably weakened and sometimes religions such as Jainism and Buddhism would temporarily gain popularity.


Unfortunately Maoism in China has now also ended up like this. That's the empirical fact. The egalitarian Maoist people's war has established another "dynasty" in China, just like the egalitarian Buddhist and Daoist peasant rebellions in ancient times.

The revisionist "Red aristocrats" in China today are living a life of luxury just like the feudal aristocrats of Old China.

[red cat]

Unfortunately Maoism in China has now also ended up like this. That's the empirical fact. The egalitarian Maoist people's war has established another "dynasty" in China, just like the egalitarian Buddhist and Daoist peasant rebellions in ancient times.

The revisionist "Red aristocrats" in China today are living a life of luxury just like the feudal aristocrats of Old China.

From the socialist stage that China had attained, a reversal to feudalism was impossible. What we see in China today is capitalism developing into imperialism. This is still a qualitative development over feudalism. Which ancient Chinese peasant rebellion had led to a qualitative change ?

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

It is interesting to read the history on the caste system. It has always had moments where it receded in history, and there have been low-caste monarchs and dynasties. There were also many Hindus who said the caste system was a bunch of trashy religious baggage from the age of the nomads, going back to the times of the Buddha. But every time one of these thinkers got big, reactionary Brahmins would coopt his ideas.

One interesting figure was Basava (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basava), a philosopher and theologian who said the caste system was metaphysical absurdity, contradictory to vedanta philosophies, and needed to be abandoned. Brahmins repressed him and tried to get the local leaders to go against him, but he never changed his beliefs that the caste system needed to be abandoned. But after he died reactionary elements corrupted it, much as Catholicism became corrupt by political power despite calling for respect for the "meek" etc.

Also, whats often forgotten is that the British reinforced the Caste system, despite there being many anti-caste Hindu critics gaining credence at the time, because strong caste delineations made it easy for the Raj to rule India, control the population, and divide local wealth and power without causing civil disorder. India does deserve much blame in this, but its not all their fault.


Iseul; the caste system used to be more fluid in nature, but some Brahmin somewhere in history wrote something called the Manusmirti as the "law" by which all men would live. It reinforced strict caste codes. Before then, it seems, there was the possibility of changing castes or crossing caste lines regarding marriage. But the very conservative writer decided he needed to pen a text which would lay down the rules by which low castes would remain low castes, and it became like a Hindu Leviticus, used to ossify the social aspects of the religious system for all eternity. More than any other philosophical or mythological text from the indian tradition, i think it's the one which has been the most destructive.

Red Cat-the behavior of local Chinese leaders sometimes seems to fit with feudalism quite well in many regards, regarding their relations to the residents of their state. A sufficiently corrupted backwater state capitalism can be very feudal in certain regards. In this respect, many peasants might not have noticed much of a qualitative change.

[red cat]

Iseul; the caste system used to be more fluid in nature, but some Brahmin somewhere in history wrote something called the Manusmirti as the "law" by which all men would live. It reinforced strict caste codes. Before then, it seems, there was the possibility of changing castes or crossing caste lines regarding marriage. But the very conservative writer decided he needed to pen a text which would lay down the rules by which low castes would remain low castes, and it became like a Hindu Leviticus, used to ossify the social aspects of the religious system for all eternity. More than any other philosophical or mythological text from the indian tradition, i think it's the one which has been the most destructive.

A society is never a product of a text. It is rather the other way. The caste system strengthened with time, particularly after the en masse enslavement of Dravidian communities.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

A society is never a product of a text. It is rather the other way. The caste system strengthened with time, particularly after the en masse enslavement of Dravidian communities.

I'd say its a dialectical relationship between a society and its collected philosophical works, where society tries to make its ideas into a concrete, and this concrete then reinforces the social views that came out of it.

[Queercommie Girl]

From the socialist stage that China had attained, a reversal to feudalism was impossible. What we see in China today is capitalism developing into imperialism. This is still a qualitative development over feudalism. Which ancient Chinese peasant rebellion had led to a qualitative change ?

I was being somewhat metaphorical.

But basically what has happened in China is just the same old peasant rebellion stuff repeated on a higher level of socio-economic and technological development.

Mao Zedong once said: Once the Chinese Communist Party begins to officially promote feudal Confucianism again, then the CCP is near its downfall. Now the statue of Confucius has been placed on Tiananmen Square.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I was being somewhat metaphorical.

But basically what has happened in China is just the same old peasant rebellion stuff repeated on a higher level of socio-economic and technological development.

Mao Zedong once said: Once the Chinese Communist Party begins to officially promote feudal Confucianism again, then the CCP is near its downfall. Now the statue of Confucius has been placed on Tiananmen Square.

When I saw that in the news, I got the strange image of Mao rolling over in his class coffin to the surprise of everyone viewing him. Perhaps the leaders of the CCP just have a strong sense of irony? :D

[t.shonku]

They usually don't believe that themselves. Tell such a person belonging to some high caste that you're a dalit and you'll find out.


Yes ! I completely agree with you that is exactly the case in India !

If any one goes through the articles I have posted in this thread regarding ragging in India's top most educational institution , you people will find out that whatever Comrade Red Cat has said is exactly true.

The acts of ragging against Dalits are generally carried out by upper middle class Hindu students with assistance from Professors , so this is a proven fact, Hindus hailing from upper middle class can deny whatever they want but the reports say a very different story.



http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_MT3mLbDV-Ds/SCRaWT8tsQI/AAAAAAAAADw/5O1X2OsZHfU/s400/yfe4.jpg


Look at the picture of this wannabe Hindu Nazis ! Look at the hatred in their eyes !

This people are members of an anti-Dalit organization called "Youth for Equality" ( Please don't be fooled by their name , because they have nothing to do with equality , they are exactly the opposite of that, there are several anti-Dalit ragging allegations against them, they have been accused of practising ethnic cleansing in some of the most prestigious educational organization)

Look at their face and dress , Do they look like an average Indian? , NO! , these are medical students coming from well to do Hindu families , and this kind of hatred politics have been taught to them by their moms and dads.

THERE IS NO DENYING THIS !

[t.shonku]

Sex hell of Dalit women exposed

Luke Harding (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/lukeharding) in New Delhi

The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian),
Wednesday 9 May 2001 02.37 BST

A new report on the plight of lower caste women in rural India reveals a depressing portrait of rape, sexual abuse and harassment, and suggests that it is virtually impossible for victims even to file a complaint at a police station, let alone achieve justice.
An "extremely high" number of sexual assaults takes place on women from desperately poor Dalit or tribal communities - often by landlords, upper caste villagers and police officers, the study, published yesterday, found. But fewer than 5% of cases make it to court, activists estimate.
When the perpetrators are upper caste or come from influential local families, policemen invariably refuse to take a statement from victims - and have even been known to assault the women. They also routinely demand bribes, intimidate witnesses, cover up evidence and beat up the women's husbands.
The police also do little or nothing to prevent attacks on rape victims by gangs of upper-caste villagers seeking to prevent a case from being pursued. Sometimes the policemen even join in, the study suggests. Rape victims have also been murdered. Such crimes usually go unpunished.
The study by Amnesty International was conducted late last year in Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, two of the most backward and feudal states. But its findings can be applied across most of India.
Researchers found that women from so-called untouchable castes were prevented from using the same well as upper-caste villagers, or attending the same temple. Women who ignored these restrictions were often raped as punishment.
"Dalit people have been repressed for years. Even when Dalit women were raped, nobody would say anything about it," Bhanvari Devi, a Dalit from Rajasthan, said. "If a Dalit is riding a cycle or wearing shoes in front of an upper caste person, then they are harassed by members of the upper caste."
Ms Devi said that when she drew water from the upper-caste well in her village, thugs beat her 11-year-old daughter unconscious. She went to the police station to complain but was thrown out and called a "whore". A gang of upper-caste locals then sexually assaulted her at her hut that night,
The study also found that lawyers for victims of sexual assault in few cases to reach the courts would often accept money from the accused and advise their client to drop the case. Police officers routinely dismissed at least 30% of rape complaints as false.
"There is an enormous difference in India between the rhetoric from central government officials and the reality on the ground," Emma Blower, a spokeswoman for Amnesty International, said last night. "There is a hideous amount of violence against women in rural areas."


Link to Article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/may/09/lukeharding






Another article !

I wonder what upper cast Hindus have to say about this

[t.shonku]

Why Do India's Dalits Hate Gandhi?
By Thomas C. Mountain
20 March, 2006


In India, supposedly the worlds largest democracy, the leadership of the rapidly growing Dalit movement have nothing good to say about Mohandas K. Gandhi. To be honest, Gandhi is actually one of the most hated Indian leaders in the hierarchy of those considered enemies of India's Dalits or "untouchables" by the leadership of India's Dalits.
Many have questioned how could I dare say such a thing?
In reply I urge people outside of India to try and keep in mind my role as the messenger in this matter. I am the publisher of the Ambedkar Journal, founded in 1996, which was the first publication on the internet to address the Dalit question from the Dalits viewpoint. My co-editor is M. Gopinath, who includes in his c.v. being Managing Editor of the Dalit Voice newspaper and then going on to found Times of Bahujan, national newspaper of the Bahujan Samaj Party, India's Dalit party and India's youngest and third largest national party. The founding President of the Ambedkar Journal was Dr. Velu Annamalai, the first Dalit in history to achieve a Ph.d in Engineering. My work with the Dalit movement in India started in 1991 and I have been serving as one of the messengers to those outside of India from the Dalit leaders who are in the very rapid process of organizing India's Dalits into a national movement. The Dalit leadership I work with recieved many tens of millions of votes in the last national election in India. With that out of the way, lets get back to the 850 million person question, why do Dalits hate M.K. Gandhi?
To start, Gandhi was a so called "high caste". High castes represent a small minority in India, some 10-15% of the population, yet dominate Indian society in much the same way whites ruled South Africa during the official period of Apartheid. Dalits often use the phrase Apartheid in India when speaking about their problems.
The Indian Constitution was authored by Gandhi's main critic and political opponent, Dr.Ambedkar, for whom our journal is named and the first Dalit in history to receive an education (if you have never heard of Dr. Ambedkar I would urge you to try and keep an open mind about what I am saying for it is a bit like me talking to you about the founding of the USA when you have never heard of Thomas Jefferson).
Most readers are familiar with Gandhi's great hunger strike against the so called Poona Pact in 1933. The matter which Gandhi was protesting, nearly unto death at that, was the inclusion in the draft Indian Constitution, proposed by the British, that reserved the right of Dalits to elect their own leaders. Dr. Ambedkar, with his degree in Law from Cambridge, had been choosen by the British to write the new constitution for India. Having spent his life overcoming caste based discrimination, Dr. Ambedkar had come to the conclusion that the only way Dalits could improve their lives is if they had the exclusive right to vote for their leaders, that a portion or reserved section of all elected positions were only for Dalits and only Dalits could vote for these reserved positions.
Gandhi was determined to prevent this and went on hunger strike to change this article in the draft constitution. After many communal riots, where tens of thousands of Dalits were slaughtered, and with a leap in such violence predicted if Gandhi died, Dr. Ambedkar agreed, with Gandhi on his death bed, to give up the Dalits right to exclusively elect their own leaders and Gandhi ended his hunger strike.Later, on his own death bed, Dr. Ambedkar would say this was the biggest mistake in his life, that if he had to do it all over again, he would have refused to give up Dalit only representation, even if it meant Gandhi's death.
As history has shown, life for the overwhelming majority of Dalits in India has changed little since the arrival of Indian independence over 50 years ago. The laws written into the Indian Constitution by Dr. Ambedkar, many patterned after the laws introduced into the former Confederate or slave states in the USA during reconstruction after the Civil War to protect the
freed black Americans, have never been enforced by the high caste dominated Indian court system and legislatures. A tiny fraction of the "quotas" or reservations for Dalits in education and government jobs have been filled. Dalits are still discriminated against in all aspect of life in India's 650,000 villages despite laws specifically outlawing such acts. Dalits are the victims of economic embargos, denial of basic human rights such as access to drinking water, use of public facilities and education and even entry to Hindu temples.
To this day, most Indians still believe, and this includes a majority of Dalits, that Dalits are being punished by God for sins in a previous life. Under the religious codes of Hinduism, a Dalits only hope is to be a good servant of the high castes and upon death and rebirth they will be reincarnated a high caste. This is called varna in Sanskrit, the language of the original Aryans who imposed Hinduism on India beginning some 3,500 years ago. Interestingly, the word "varna" translates literally into the word "color" from Sanskrit.
This is one of the golden rules of Dalit liberation, that varna means color, and that Hinduism is a form of racially based oppression and as such is the equivalent of Apartheid in India. Dalits feel that if they had the right to elect their own leaders they would have been able to start challenging the domination of the high castes in Indian society and would have begun the long walk to freedom so to speak. They blame Gandhi and his hunger strike for preventing this. So there it is, in as few words as possible, why in todays India the leaders of India's Dalits hate M.K. Gandhi.
This is, of course, an oversimplification. India's social problems remain the most pressing in the world and a few paragraphs are not going to really explain matters to anyones satisfaction. The word Dalit and the movement of a crushed and broken people, the "untouchables" of India, is just beginning to become known to most of the people concerned about human rights in the world. As Dalits organize themselves and begin to challenge caste based rule in India, it behooves all people of good conscience to start to find out what the Dalits and their leadership are fighting for. A good place to start is with M.K. Gandhi and why he is so hated by Dalits in India.

Thomas C. Mountain is the publisher of the Ambedkar Journal on India's Dalits, founded in 1996. His writing has been featured in Dalit publications across India, including the Dalit Voice and the Times of Bahujan as well as on the front pages of the mainstream, high caste owned, Indian press. He would recommend viewing of the award winning film "Bandit Queen" as the best example of life for women and Dalits in India's villages, which is the story of the life of the late, brutally murdered, Phoolan Devi, of whose international defense committee Thomas C. Mountain was a founding member. He can be reached at [email protected]


Link to the article

http://www.countercurrents.org/dalit-mountain200306.htm






A very interesting article ..............

[t.shonku]

"India's 'Untouchables' Live in Sub-Human Conditions: HR Group"
More than 160 million lower-caste "untouchables" in India live in sub-human conditions and face increasing discrimination, violence, rape and murder, according to the Human Rights Watch.
In an in-depth report released on Wednesday, the US-based lobby group urged the Indian government to prevent caste-based oppression through new legislation, saying the abolition of the 2,000-year-old tradition of "untouchability" in 1950 had had no effect.
It said "untouchables," commonly known as "Dalits" or "broken" people, suffered from a "hidden apartheid," with caste violence "since the early 1990s ... escalating dramatically in response to the growing Dalit rights movement."
Between 1994 and 1996, a total of 98,349 cases were registered with the police nationwide as crimes and atrocities against Dalits.
Human Rights Watch said that figure was the tip of the iceberg "given that Dalits are both reluctant and unable, for lack of police cooperation, to report crimes against themselves."
The formal launch of the report coincided with the birth anniversary of B.R. Ambedkar, the "untouchable" author of the Indian constitution and the first leader to rise out of the socially deprived community. India's untouchables, who occupy the lowest rung of the entrenched caste system, have come a long way since 1947. The current president, K.R. Narayanan, is the country's first "untouchable" head of state.
However, in large parts of India their lot has worsened, the report said, highlighting the murderous activities of an upper-caste landlords' militia, the Ranvir Sena, in Bihar. The Ranvir Sena has been responsible for the massacre of more than 400 Dalit villagers in Bihar between 1995 and 1999. Within a span of three weeks in January and February, Sena members killed 34 Dalit villagers in two separate attacks.
"The Senas, which claim many politicians as members, operate with impunity. In some cases, police have stood by as they killed villagers," the report said.
"During the (Sena) raids, the police have routinely beaten villagers, sexually assaulted women and destroyed property." The report said Dalits were still forced to live in segregated villages, denied access to public places including wells and temples and forced into prostitution and slavery.
It called for the immediate disbanding of the Ranvir Sena, stiffer punishment for caste offences, strict implementation of laws and the launch of a national awareness campaign. The report also urged India to allow foreign rapporteurs to assess the situation and called upon the World Bank and other global lending bodies to ensure that anti-discrimination clauses accompanied grants and aid.
Smita Narula, the author of the report, said the ancient Hindu caste system, which totally negated the rights of the lowest caste, was not a "cultural artifact" but "human rights abuse on a vast scale.
Human Rights Watch said an estimated 40 million people, including about 15 million children - the majority of them untouchables - worked as bonded labour under slave-like conditions to pay off their debts.
"Dalits also comprise a majority of agricultural labourers who work for a few kilograms of rice or less than one dollar a day," it said.
The report highlighted the story of Guruswamy Guruammal, a 26-year-old pregnant woman, who was forced to parade naked in public, beaten and then jailed for complaining about a policeman who sexually harassed her.-AFP
(3) The following 23 April 1999 HRW press release describes police responses to recent attacks by the upper caste Hindu militia Ranvir Sena on Dalit villages in Bihar:
<http://www.hrw.org/press/1999/apr> [Accessed 23 Apr. 1999]




More articles.


Atrocities in Dalits' daily life
The oppression of Dalits has been going on for over 3000 years. They are segregated in all spheres of social life: places of worship, education, housing, land ownership, use of common wells, roads, busses, etc. They are the people who have to do the menial and degrading jobs. They are considered to be untouchable. In their daily life untouchability results in, among others, the following consequences (For more day to day examples also go through the press releases).
In a lot of the upper caste (rich) families the servants are Dalits. After the servant has cleaned the rooms, pots and pans, one of the family members will sprinkle 'holy' water to purify all that has been touched by the servant.
Dalits are not allowed to wear shoes; if they wear them, Dalits will have to take off their shoes at times they meet a higher caste person.
In the rural areas, Dalits are not allowed to cycle through the village streets in which the higher caste people live.
The Dalits mainly live in separate communities, outside the actual village.
In general, Dalits are not allowed to sit at the bus stop; they have to stand and wait till upper caste people have entered the bus.
Dalits are also not allowed to sit on the seats, even though they are vacant.
After half a century of Independence even the educated among the Dalits are not free to get a house for rent of their choice to live in.
Most Hindus will avoid having a Dalit to prepare their food, because they fear becoming polluted.
The government has made reservations for Dalits, so that they can enter into jobs in the public sector, parliamentary State Assemblies and universities. This reservation, however, makes them even more vulnerable in the society.
Mira Saroj: Daughter of a toddy tapper in Uttar Pradesh, she is enrolled at Delhi University but jumps in with manual labour at home when she is free from studies. 'Sadly, an educated Dalit women is almost a contradiction in terms', says Mira. (Outlook Magazine, November 16, 1998)
'We may touch a cat, we may touch a dog, we may touch any other animal, but the touch of these human beings is pollution.' (G.K. Gokhale, in Jesus the Dalit by M.R. Arulraja, 1996. Volunteer Centre, 7-1-30/6, Ameerpet, Hyderabad - 16)
For additional information on the situation of Dalits in India, please consult the Research Directorate's July 1998 Human Rights Information Package: India and its 1999 supplement.
This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum. Please find below the list of additional sources consulted in researching this Information Request.
References
Dawn [Karachi]. 15 April 1999. "India's 'Untouchables' Live in Sub-Human Conditions: HR Group." <http://www.dawn.com> [Accessed 15 Apr. 1999]
Human Rights Watch (HRW). April 1999a. [I]Violence Against "Untouchables" Growing, Says Report. [Internet] <http://www.hrw.org/press/1999/apr>> [Accessed 23 Apr. 1999]




Shame on India's democracy..............stupid democracy ............people's war is needed

[t.shonku]

Naxals vow revenge for Dalit family

Piyush Pushpak (http://origin-www.ibnlive.com/byline/Piyush-Pushpak.html), CNN-IBN (http://origin-www.ibnlive.com/agency/CNN-IBN.html)


Updated Nov 17, 2006 at 10:10pm IST


Nagpur : The Khairlanji killings of a Dalit family set off a wave of public outrage in Vidarbha, but also unleashed a political storm over the lack of justice to the Bhotmange family.

What's really worrying the police is Naxalite involvement now.

Violent protests, arson, lathicharges, bandhs and curfews - Vidarbha has been in turmoil for the last two weeks over the killing of Bhotmange's family. The police has been looking for answers, all in vain.
This was before a letter written by the Maoists arrived.
Says IG, Anti-Naxal Operations, Pankaj Gupta, "This letter has come on the letter pad of the CPI (Maoists) This more or less confirms that this is a definite effort on the part of the Naxalities."
The letter condemns the Khairlanji incident and calls upon everyone to join the Naxal agitation against the government and for Dalit rights. All those guilty in the massacre case would be killed, it warns.
The C-60 Anti-Naxal Squad is now on high alert in the region.
"We have put everyone on alert. The letter's contents are not to be taken lightly. They are advocating inciting inciting people against the government."
The state police is taking the Red letter as a clear cut warning and is prepared to tackle any threats, but Dalit leaders are blaming the police for violence across Vidarbha.




Naxals will kill all the Facist

Inqilab Zindabad

[Toppler]

I support the Maoists fully in this case. The Dalits are probably the most disenfranchised large group of human beings on this planet.

[t.shonku]

NAMASUDRAS, THE WORST PERSECUTED “NATION” IN THE WORLD
Hindus vivisected India to break Dalit-Muslim unity

S.K. BISWAS, PRESIDENT, DALIT-BAHUJAN INTELLECTUAL FORUM, 387-A, J&K POCKET, DILSHAD GARDEN, DELHI - 110 095
The Bengali Untouchables, especially the Chandals (Namasudras), were the pioneering in liberating themselves from the Brahmin yoke and thus became the harbinger of the self-conscious independent movement of the Untouchables, by the Untouchables and even for the Untouchables of India. The race, called Chandals, have been one of the most ancient ethnic groups of people who followed Budhism. They had been mentioned in the old Budhist literature and the Sanskrit Ramayana etc. The Chandals were enumerated in the census by the British as Namasudras for the first time in the 1911 Census Report. This was the result of a calculated conspiratory process to hinduise (enslave) this numerically very large group who from time immemorial fought the Brahminism. In a democracy, number of any conscious group matters.
PIONEER OF ANTI-HINDU MOVEMENT

The democratic battle of the Bengal Untouchables that was started under the leadership of Guruchand Thakur from the 1880’s could send the first Indian Untouchable to the Legislature in 1921.
Guruchand Thakur sowed the seeds of ‘Separate Electorate’ for the Untouchables in Bengal long before the Round Table Conference or establishment of Simon Commission in (1928). Soon after 1909, the Namasudra leaders in Bengal demanded:
“We beg to add that, though our religious rites and their observances and social customs are similar to those of Brahmins, we have not the slightest connection with any of the Hindu communities. They have been continually looking down upon us with contempt and malice; have kept us under subjugation and total ignorance. We have been smarting under their yoke of bondage. It is absolutely absurd to anticipate that they would in future mix with us in social and religious performances. Thus we desire to be recognized by the Government as entirely a different community having separate claim to political privileges like Muhammadans.”
A disciple of Guruchand, Mukunda Behari Mullick, fought for ‘Separate Electorate’ since 1921.
NO TEMPLE ENTRY

Guruchand’s father, Harichand Thakur (born 1812) declared the Chandal Untouchables of Bengal as a distinct religious group completely separate from the (Brahmin) Hindu fold and had preached a new religion called “Matua” which tangibly defied all Hindu scriptures like the Vedas and Puranas, Brahmans, gods and goddesses.
He refused to recognize the Hindu places of pilgrimages and discarded all Brahminic rituals. He remained indifferent and never showed even interest in the Untouchables’ temple (Hindu) movement that occurred before his eyes and knowledge. He never supported those Untouchables who were beaten up by the Hindus while trying to enter Kali temple. Instead he built up a self-conscious, independent self-help movement under the banner of powerful Matua religion given by his father. Thus he brought a distinct identity and social consolidation of the Untouchables of Bengal. He brought tremendous socio-cultural awareness and encouraged a fighting spirit against the Brahminical exploitation and social order.
INDIA’S FIRST DALIT GRADUATE

Guruchand Thakur had given a call: “Educate, Agitate, Organise” in 1880 and launched a scheme of establishing schools in villages through an inter-linked network. He established over 1,000 schools in rural Bengal for the Untouchable children. Consequently, Bengal produced the first Untouchable graduate in India when in 1893 Panchanan Sarkar, an Untouchable Rajbansi, graduated from North Bengal Victoria College. He passed MA and LLB in 1897 and 1898 respectively. Raicharan Sardar, an Untouchable Poundra of South Bengal, became a graduate from the Calcutta University in 1901. On failing to get a govt. job, both Sarkar and Sardar remained as advocates. Shyamlal Sarkar, became the first Namasudra graduate in 1903.
DALIT-MUSLIM UNITY

It was Guruchand who was the first to raise demands for reservation in govt. services, a monopoly of the Brahmins and a few of their associates, for the Untouchables. He launched a united struggle with the Muslims of Bengal on this issue. The Dalit-Muslim united front even demanded creation of a separate state of Eastern Bengal with Dacca as its capital to avoid the domination of Calcutta-based Brahmins.
The partition of Bengal in 1905 was a crowning victory for the Dalit-Muslim struggle. A new law was passed giving reservation to the Untouchables and the Muslims of Bengal. “Proportional representation of communities in govt. jobs, the Act of 1906 of Assam-Bengal government” was passed. Shasi Bhusan Thakur, son of Guruchand, was the first Untouchable to get a reserved a job as a sub-registrar. Soon after graduation Kumub Behari Mullick became a Deputy Magistrate in 1908. The deprived people among Muslims were greatly benefitted by the Reservation Act.
GANDHI KILLS FUTURE OF DALITS

Furious Bengali Brahmins launched an agitation against the partition decision of Bengal (1905) by Lord Curzon because their domination over Eastern Bengal, where 80% population was Dalits and Muslims, would come to an end. Consequently the Partition of Bengal was nullified in 1912.
Once they secured govt. jobs, Guruchand’s next target was to capture political power. The Govt. of India Act of 1919 was amended to nominate Untouchables to the legislature. Advocate Bhiswadev Das, a Matua and a disciple of Guruchand, became the first Indian Untouchable to be nominated to the Legislative Council of Bengal (1921).
Five Untouchables—Nirod Behari Mullick, Panchanan Burman (Sarkar), Rasik Lal Chamar, Hem Chandra Naskar and Prassanna Kumar Raikat —were selected to the Bengal Assembly in the 1921 general election.
However the gem of the Namas-udra community, Mukunda Behari Mullick, was defeated by a Hindu stooge from a constituency thickly populated by the Namasudras.
M.B. Mullick, a lecturer of Pali language in Calcutta University, was defeated by a Congress (Untouchable) candidate (Rasik Lal Chamar). He then demanded separate electorate for the Untouchables as such a protective benefit was being enjoyed by the Muslims and Sikhs since 1909 and 1919 respectively. However, M. B. Mullick had to wait till Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar eventually achieved the same at the national level through the Communal Award of 1932 announced by the British. But M.K. Gandhi went on his fake fast-unto-death and snatched away the golden opportunity of the Untouchables to protect and chisel out their own fate.
WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER OF DALITS

Despite being branded enemy of the Untouchables by an impartial third party, the British, Gandhi along with his Hindu conspirators shamelessly continued his intrigues against Dr. Ambedkar and to force them to surrender. There came even a threat to launch wholesale massacre of Untouchables. But alas there was no resistance —not even a counter fast-unto-death to protect the sunshine of liberty in the form of Communal Award of the age-old servile Untouchables.
BENGAL PROTESTs Dr. AMBEDKAR BLUNDER

However Bengal showed a ray of hope. The Depressed Classes Association protested to the Govt. against the “Poona Pact”. They said Dr. Ambedkar should have consulted them before signing the “Pact”. It hailed the “Communal Award” as a “political advantage unprecedented and unparalleled in the constitutional history of India” and condemned the “Pact” as “Dr. Ambedkar’s political blunder”. Both the Namasudra Association and the Depressed Classes Association said Bengal was not bound by the “Poona Pact”.
Dr. Ambedkar too argued in the post-”Poona Pact” era against the mischief of joint electorate.
“The joint electorate is from the point of the Hindus, to use a familiar phrase, a rotten borough in which the Hindus get the right to nominate an Untouchable to set nominally as a representative of the Untouchables but really as a tool of the Hindus.
DR. AMBEDKAR BLOCKED FROM LOK SABHA

By declaring that Gandhi betrayed the Untouchables in the “Poona Pact”, he further disclosed that
“the Poona Pact is thus fraught with mischief. It was accepted because of the coercive fast of Mr. Gandhi and because of the assurance given at the time that the Hindus will not interfere in the election of the Scheduled Castes”.
As a result of the Poona Pact, history of India revealed startling facts that Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was never allowed to get into parliament as an elected member after the constitution was promulgated. Consequent to the “Poona Pact”, the greatest Untouchable organizer and thinker, Kanshi Ram, who founded the Bahujan Samaj Party, also miserably failed to get elected to the Lok Sabha after his initial victory from Hoshiarpur (Punjab) and Etwa (UP). All along he had to be satisfied as a Rajya Sabha member.
At a Pune meeting to condemn the “Poona Pact” in 1982, Kanshi Ram called it the destroyer of hopes of the Untouchables and the starting point of the “Chamcha age”.
BENGALI DALITS ELECT DR. AMBEDKAR

Even the communist Brahmins of India did not like the separate electorate to Untouchables. M.N. Roy (Narendra Nath Bhattacharya) condemned the British “interference” in the affairs of India.
But the politically mature, numerically strong Untouchables of Bengal elected Dr. Ambedkar to the Constituent Assembly thus proving that the Bengali Dalits stood as a Himalayan road-block to the march of Brahminism.
But the cunning BSO destroyed the future of Dalits and Muslims by vivisecting India into three parts. The process of partition was indeed the beginning of disenfranchisement of the Untouchables of Bengal and the Punjab. Maximum concentration of Untouchables was in these two provinces.
Together with the Untouchables, the Muslims could have changed the very history of (undivided) India but the Brahminical jati interest prevailed over the well being of India.
MUSLIMS DID NOT VOTE FOR PARTITION

After the “Poona Pact”, the struggle of the Untouchables got weakened. It was reduced to a saga of survival. And the greatest blow even for the very survival of the Untouchables in the post-Poona Pact era came out of the conspiracy to vivisect the country.
On the July 23, 1947 a decision was taken to partition India into three parts —East Pakistan, India and the West Pakistan. Entire Muslim community was to be driven out to Pakistan. However, only the mainstream Muslims left India.
It was the Hindus and not the Muslims who decided and voted for the vivisection of the country.
In the case of Bengal even “veteran communist leaders” like Jyoti Basu and Ratan Lal Brahman (from Darjeeling) under the leadership of Uda Chand Mahatab, the Maharaja of Bardwan, voted for partition (by 58 to 21) along with Shyama Prasad Mookerjee (Hindu Mahasabha), Bidhan Chandra Roy (INC), Sarat Chandra Bose (brother of Subash Ch. Bose), Kiron Shankar Roy and others. The vivisection was also sponsored by G.D. Birla who perhaps got nervous with the existence of Ispahani industrialist.
Muslim leaders under the presidentship of Md. Nurul Amin with overwhelming majority (by 106 to 35) voted against the partition of Bengal. Still partition took place as the condition of voting was to vivisect India even if only one group votes for partition. And the minority Hindus voted “yes partition”.
BENGALI DALITS MADE REFUGEES

As a consequence of the withdrawal of Muslims from India and the partition of Bengal, Dr. Ambedkar lost both his political ally as well as his membership of the Constituent Assembly. Once again he was thrown into the mercy of Hindus. He had neither the capacity nor any chance to get elected to the Constituent Assembly as his supporters in Bengal were disenfranchised after the vivisection of the country into three different sovereign countries. The powerful Untouchables of Bengal, politically conscious and socially integrated, were reduced to rootless refugees for eternity. (In Bombay, the population of Untouchables was not of much significance compared to Bengal, Punjab and Madras). At this stage his all-time enemies came to the rescue of Dr. Ambedkar who was helped by the Congress to become a member of the Constituent Assembly (which was initially constituted in 1946) once again in July 1947.
J.N. MONDAL AS PAKISTAN LAW MINISTER

Not only that. Dr. Ambedkar was unanimously elected chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Constitution for the “free India” by its seven members on Aug.30, 1947. His strongest support base, J.N. Mandal, (the Untouchable leader of East Bengal), as a consequence of partition of India and Bengal had to resign as Law Minister from the Nehru Cabinet of the interim govt. and shifted to Karachi, capital of the new sovereign country, Pakistan, to join the Pakistan Government as its first Law Minister. In Pakistan, it was none but J.N. Mandal who got the historic privilege to inaugurate the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan.
Both the national leaders of the Untouchables got irrevocably weakened and separated. The two never could come closer to build up a formidable battle against the enemy. These incidents obviously created tremendous international political pressure on India’s Brahminical rulers who to save their face thought Dr. Ambedkar would be a weak and safe candidate to draft the constitution of India. When the enemy helps what remains to be protected?
DALITS LOSE VOTING RIGHTS

Dr. Ambedkar’s movement for separate electorate (for 15%) was nothing but the Untouchables’ freedom movement. The movement was developed into a national movement, a movement of the Bahujan Samaj (80% to 90% population) by Kanshi Ram.
This movement was again scuttled with the enactment of the India Citizenship Amendment Act of 2003 which simultaneously took away citizenship as well as the franchise right of the millions of Untouchables and sudras who came to India from East Pakistan/Bangladesh as a result of the partition in 1947.
The Act was a double-edged sword as it granted double citizenship to the Non-Resident Indians. The Untouchable Namasudra, Poundras and Rajbansis, who had any remote ancestral connection with erstwhile East Pakistan or East Bengal have been terrorized to surrender to the ruling castes or political parties as a result of this Act.
ORPHANS OF THE WORLD

In violation of the International Human Rights (clause 30) that no human being can be without citizenship right and the individual is to choose his citizenship, the millions of Untouchables of Bengal have been denied citizenship and had to go without voting right.
As long as they vote for the Brahminical ruling parties it is OK but when they choose their party they are “non-violently” tortured, strictly as per Hindu laws. There is none to stand by these “orphans of the world”.



Read a new article just found might be informative

[t.shonku]

Muslim-Dalit Relations
By Gail Omvedt
22 May, 2005
Countercurrents.org (http://www.countercurrents.org/)
Islam is a religion of egalitarianism and brotherhood. After the defeat of Buddhism, it maintained these values in India for centuries. Not only did those who became Muslims benefit by escaping from caste restrictions, but Muslim rule also provided a social and political context for the growth of Bhakti movements. Within these, to a greater or less degree, Dalits and low castes sought a religious equality and expressed a devotionalism which heralded a supreme deity not very different from Allah. Syncretic cults also emerged, large and small, and the masses sought to memorialize holy men of whatever faith. The larger of the new cults, such as Sikhism and the Kabir Panth, probably never saw themselves as separate religions or as part of Hinduism or Muslims until recently.
During the pre-colonial period, there was no all-India "Muslim community" or "Hindu community" as such. Indian culture was complex, syncretic, pluralistic. It was this that changed radically during British rule. Making self-interested use of modern scholarship, the "Aryan theory" and the British tendency to identify all who were not Muslims or Christians as "Hindus," the Brahmanic elite formulated what we now call "Hinduism": a religion that was said to be the "national" one of the people of India, but taking the Vedas as its source and privileging the Sanskrit tradition. Previously the word "Hindu" had referred to India as a region; it was "al-Hind" to the Islamic world. Now religion and nation were identified. During this period a process began in which gradually the Bahujan majority began to identify themselves as "Hindus" – and in opposition to these, others began to see themselves as "Muslims" within which an orthodox Islamic identity was emphasized. In this process, the syncretistic and bridging, often local, spiritual traditions that had been created were drawn into the vortex of identifying with one of the two "large" religious communities.
Dalits were caught in this process. They were defined, by the elite, as "Hindus" – though they had few rights within orthodox Hinduism, and were not allowed even into the temples of the Bhakti cults. Almost all elite nationalists, including Gandhi, argued that Dalits should not identify with an "alien" religion but instead seek to reform "their own" religion. Yet it was only by a strange, imposed definition that Dalits could be said to be part of the Vedic- identified Hinduism which had never given them religious or social rights.
During much of the colonial period also, Muslims and Dalits were allies. They had in common a fear – often a hatred – of the dominant Brahmanism. As Ambedkar pointed out in his book Thoughts on Pakistan, between 1920 and 1937 it was Muslims, Dalits and Non-Brahmans who had worked the reforms, holding office in provincial assemblies and working in alliance on issues involving constructing the nation – on programmes which included opening up water tanks, roads, schools to Untouchables. In areas such as Bengal, a strong political alliance was formed between the Namasudra (Dalit) movement and the Muslims, which gained strength because both were predominantly tenants fighting anti-landlord struggles.
However, these alliances did not gain a strong philosophical basis. Most Dalits, even today, do not want to identify either as "Hindus" or "Muslims." But Muslims did not appreciate this and failed to articulate an understanding of the oppressiveness of the caste system. As Muslims divided into more orthodox and more "liberal", it was the Gandhian policies that provided the framework for the more "liberal" approach, that is for those associated with the Congress Party. (The left was on the whole irrelevant during this process since it did not deal with issues of culture). Gandhi sought unity between Hindus and Muslims as a major plank of the Congress – but it was a unity based on accepting Brahmanism within Hindu society. In the phrase, "Ram-Rahim," whatever "Rahim" may have symbolized, Ram represented a feudal, casteist patriarchal king who had killed the Shudra Shambuk for attempting tapascharya. "Ram Raj" had nothing to offer to Dalits. Gandhi was insistent in taking them as part of the "Hindu community" and thus opposed separate electorates for Dalits with a fervor that he never felt with Hindus. In other words, the conditions implicitly put forward by Gandhi for Hindu-Muslim unity included an acceptance of the framework of the caste system as it was imposed on Dalits and other low castes. Muslims were not to interfere in "Hindu" religion.
Ambedkar and other anti-caste reformers offered a different basis for unity, a common opposition to Brahmanism and caste. But this was ignored by liberal Muslims. The orthodox Muslims, in contrast, simply emphasized conversion. This left a situation again, where Dalits seemed to be forced into the "Hindu" framework." Finally, to discourage a Dalit-Muslim alliance those Dalits in Bengal and Hyderabad who had been particular supporters of independent Muslim states had very bad experiences. In Hyderabad, rural Dalits found themselves caught between two pincers of violence, atrocities committed against them both by the Razakars and then by the returning Hindus. In East Pakistan, though Dalits had supported the Muslims, many were attacked as "Hindus" and leaders like Jogendranath Mandal eventually fled back to India.
A solid Dalit-Muslim alliance for the future should be directed to building a prosperous, equalitarian, caste- and patriarchy-freeIndia.
Muslims can make their contributions in three major ways: First, by rebuilding a Muslim culture that regains the artistic and scientific accomplishments of the past, that stands for modernism and an understanding of Islam that brings forth its egalitarianism as well as cultural-artistic achievements. Islam directed to maintaining its identity within a genuinely pluralistic society can be a powerful force for reconstructing the bases of an Indian national community.
Second, by recognizing that within Indian society, there is a special task of fighting the Brahmanism that has become dominant, that maintains casteism and "feudal" attitudes. Freeing Indian culture from the stranglehold of Brahmanism will provide the basis for a genuine national development. This cannot be done with an acceptance of Gandhism as the framework for "Hindu-Muslim unity." It can only be done by listening to the Dalit voice, to Ambedkar, Phule, Periyar, Iyothee Thass – and Mayawati, Kanshi Ram and others today.



An article I found

[t.shonku]

Dalits and bonded labour in India


The Indian Bonded Labour System Abolition Act (http://pblabour.gov.in/pdf/acts_rules/bonded_labour_system_abolition_act_1976.pdf) of 1976 prohibits any service arising out of debt, including forced labour and bonded labour. The legal definition of ‘the bonded labour system’ recognizes force as including not only physical or legal elements, but also including deprivation of alternative choices, economic circumstances, and a derived compulsion to choose a particular course of action, such as providing underpaid or unpaid labour(1).
In spite of the encompassing and seemingly progressive legislative framework, the use and abuse of Dalit bonded labourers in India remains endemic within a range of occupations and branches, both rural and urban, such as agriculture, forestry, fishing, domestic work, and cleaning. A report by Anti-Slavery International (http://idsn.org/fileadmin/user_folder/pdf/New_files/Key_Issues/Bonded_Labour/povertydiscrimination_slavery_ASI.pdf) in 2008, revealed that dalit bonded labourers are employed to carry out the most physically straining and menial types of work in industries such as silk farms, rice mills, salt pans, fisheries, quarries and mines, tea and spice farming, brick-kilns, textile and domestic work(2).
Lack of implementation of the legislative frameworks, failure of the authorities to observe the laws, and impunity of perpetrators are the most common obstacles to eliminating forced and bonded labour in India.
Forced labour in agriculture
Agriculture accounts for approximately 64 percent of the entire population’s workforce and employs far more bonded labourers than all other industries and services in India together, according to a Human Rights Watch report (http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1996/India3.htm). (http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1996/India3.htm) Conditions for bonded agricultural labourers are among the harshest. The work is grueling, days are extremely long, and payment is nominal and may consist of two sole meals a day with a yearly set of clothing.
Agricultural labour is especially linked to caste as the caste structures are deeply entrenched in rural areas. Realities reveal that landlords are high caste, small landowners are of lower castes, and the landless and bonded laborers are almost exclusively dalits. According to Human Rights Watch, caste hierarchies are not only confined to land, but also permeate every aspect of village life(3).
Gender and bonded labour
Patriarchal systems confine women to certain types of occupations, such as domestic work, silk farming, carpet making and weaving. Young girls are commonly recruited to work in spinning mills in India in return for the cost of their marriage or a dowry payment. The parents often wait several years before receiving the money, which is usually less than initially agreed upon.
The dalit women are at the absolute bottom of the social hierarchy. They face discrimination as Dalits, as poor and as women, making them the most vulnerable group. A study by the ILO (http://idsn.org/fileadmin/user_folder/pdf/New_files/Key_Issues/Bonded_Labour/Gender_Issues_in_Bonded_Labour_A_Study_of_Rangared dy_District__Andhra_Pradesh_ILO.pdf) reveals that women are restricted in decision making concerning household resources and control over money. Furthermore, the respondent women suffer food deprivation and malnutrition to a greater extent than the men. Having so-called feminized duties doesn’t relieve the women of other chores. Being women simply adds to their workload. The women express that they find caste discrimination from their landlords to be the most distressing(4).
> Read more about Dalit women here (http://idsn.org/caste-discrimination/key-issues/dalit-women/)

Child bonded labour
Children are particularly vulnerable to forced and bonded labour. Even when in the care of guardians, they are pursued as targets for bonded labour. Various reports and studies (http://idsn.org/fileadmin/user_folder/pdf/New_files/Key_Issues/Bonded_Labour/Bonded_Labour_in_India_incidenceandpatterns_ILO.pd f) have identified bonded child labour in a number of occupations including agriculture, brick kilns, stone quarries, carpet weaving, bidi (cigarette) rolling, rearing of silk cocoons, production of silk sarees, production of silver jewellery, gem cutting, diamond cutting, manufacture of leather products, in circuses, fisheries, shops and tailoring establishments, and domestic work(5).
A Human Rights Watch report (http://idsn.org/fileadmin/user_folder/pdf/New_files/Key_Issues/Bonded_Labour/Small_change-_Child_labour_in_India_s_silk_industry__HRW.pdf) from 2003 estimates that 350,000 children work in bonded labour in India’s child silk thread and weaving industry in the Karnataka and Varanasi districts alone(6). Reflecting national tendencies, the majority of the children are Dalit, SC/ST or Muslims. These children report of working nearly 12 hours a day. As a result of poor and hazardous working conditions the children suffer health problems and diseases as well as verbal and physical abuse from their employers. They report that they never receive the agreed wages, instead often getting just a small portion of the amount agreed upon.
Caste-based forms of bonded labour
Dalits are particularly vulnerable to bonded labour, because of their socio-economic status, but bonded labour is also conjoined with caste in the form of caste-based occupations.
Two well-known forms of caste-based and bonded occupations in India are manual scavenging (http://idsn.org/caste-discrimination/key-issues/manual-scavenging/) and the systems of forced prostitution (http://idsn.org/caste-discrimination/key-issues/forced-prostitution/).

(http://idsn.org/caste-discrimination/key-issues/bonded-labour/india/references-for-bonded-labour-in-india/)
Link to references (http://idsn.org/caste-discrimination/key-issues/bonded-labour/india/references-for-bonded-labour-in-india/)




More articles

[t.shonku]

Low-Caste Dalit children treated as manual scavengers



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7dxWuJw4pYY