Thursday, January 26, 2012

Dalit women face three-fold discrimination from birth- WNN

Dalits Media Watch

NewsUpdates 26.01.12

 

Dalits bear the brunt: Congress - IBNLive

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/dalits-bear-the-brunt-congress/224146-60-117.html

Dalit women face three-fold discrimination from birth- WNN

http://womennewsnetwork.net/2012/01/25/dalit-women-discrimination-from-birth/

Can Mayawati win over Punjab's dalit heartland?- The Times Of India

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Can-Mayawati-win-over-Punjabs-dalit-heartland/articleshow/11634994.cms

Punjab polls: Dalit self-pride holds key in fertile Doaba- The Times Of India

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Punjab-polls-Dalit-self-pride-holds-key-in-fertile-Doaba/articleshow/11635098.cms

Demand for scholarships to SC/ST students in HPS- The Hindu

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/article2833902.ece

'Eunuchs can't be part of law dealing with SC/ST abuse'- Indian Express

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/eunuchs-cant-be-part-of-law-dealing-with-sc-st-abuse/903787/

 

 

 

 

IBNLive

Dalits bear the brunt: Congress

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/dalits-bear-the-brunt-congress/224146-60-117.html

 

BHUBANESWAR: The campaigning by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik for the panchayat polls has picked up pace and so has the Congress demand for his resignation over the Pipili gangrape case and a CBI probe into it. The scheduled caste department of the OPCC on Tuesday staged a demonstration at the PMG Square and burnt the effigy of the Chief Minister over the issue. Besides the Pipili gangrape case, several other incidents of atrocities against women have come to the fore during the last one month, a OPCC release said.

 

Most of the victims are Dalit girls and women, Congress leaders alleged citing instances at Bhadrak, Balasore, Baripada, Paikmal and Konark. Kanyashrams in tribal areas have also become unsafe for the inmates, the party said.

 

President of the scheduled caste department Ripunath Seth alleged that as the Home Department is under the Chief Minister, police, in most cases, are trying to hush up the cases rather than going after the accused. Congress leaders, including former ministers Jagannath Patnaik and Suresh Kumar Routray, Sibananda Ray, former MLA Nimai Sarkar, convener of the scheduled caste department Bankanidhi Behera courted arrest.

 

The OPCC also condemned the alleged attempt to kidnap a girl here on Monday. The incident reflects the deteriorating law and order situation in the State and laxity of the police administration, OPCC general secretary Arjya Kumar Gyanendra said.

 

Reiterating the allegation against Naveen that he flouted the model code of conduct for the panchayat polls while campaigning at Tangi on Sunday, Gyanendra said he had been doing that ever since the polls were announced. He threatened that the Congress would oppose the violations by launching agitations across the State if these did not stop.

 

WNN

Dalit women face three-fold discrimination from birth

http://womennewsnetwork.net/2012/01/25/dalit-women-discrimination-from-birth/

 

 (WNN) Opinion Bhuj, India:  There are two Indias, and Dalit women have learned to survive in both these worlds.  Take a look at two related but opposing headlines in The Hindu last month.

 

January 5, 2012: Dalit woman sarpanch emerges as poster girl for gender issues

January 11, 2012:  Dalit woman paraded naked in Chavan's hometown

The former is a story of a community leader working to create a model village in Bikaner, Rajasthan by addressing gender inequalities.  Her story is even more powerful due to the fact that she did not attain her seat as part of the reservation quota for Dalit women in the legislature.  Under Tara Devi's leadership, maternal and infant mortality has decreased significantly, there have been no cases of girls dropping out of school, and there are 1,014 girls to every 982 boys (this ratio can not be found even in the progressive state of Kerala).

 

The latter is a story of an upper class girl eloping with a Dalit boy.  The mother of the boy was then stripped naked and beaten in her hometown by the girl's powerful family.  Cases like this one are all too common despite the 1989 passage of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. Five people, including the girl's parents, were arrested, but incidents of violence against Dalits continue to be commonplace.

 

Dalits, previously known as Untouchables, constitute one-fourth of the Indian population.  They consist of many different castes with varying practices, beliefs, and languages. The government of India refers to Dalits as Scheduled Castes, and has ensured their rights within the Constitution. Yet the rights enshrined on a piece of paper are not an indication of facts on the ground.

 

This is especially true for Dalit women, who simply for being born as such, are discriminated three-fold by society.  They face caste discrimination as they are outside the caste system altogether, they face gender discrimination in a country that already values the boy child over the girl, and they face class discrimination as they are at the bottom of the socio-economic spectrum.

 

The caste, gender, and class they are born into condemn these women to a lifetime of discrimination that is almost impossible to overcome.  Combined, these factors increase the likelihood of having an unpaid or underpaid labor intensive job in the unorganized sector (outside the realm of government regulation).  It increases the rate of sex selective abortions within the population.  In fact, the sex ratio of women to men in India is a dismal 927/1000, but among Dalits it is even lower at 922/1000.  Furthermore, Dalit women have a life expectancy of only 50 years due to inadequate access to health care.

 

But there is also another side to India and to Dalit women that I can attest to after living and working alongside them – one that says, "impossible is nothing."

 

I lived with a Dalit family in Kutch, Gujarat, an arid region on the Northwest coast bordering Pakistan.  I learned from them that living on less than 2 dollars a day does not necessarily make you unhappy.  It just means you are forced to find a way to live your life with far fewer opportunities than others.  I can see that this lack of opportunity is precisely what makes them so resilient, because they have had to create structures and opportunities for themselves.

 

There are some Rabari women (traditionally of the herding caste) in my village that still avoid touching Dalit women when they go to collect water together, or they wash the tap after it is touched by a Dalit.  If a Rabari woman does touch a Dalit by mistake, she will immediately go home and wash herself so as not to let the contamination spread.

 

Now juxtapose this image with one where respect is shown in the Kutchi Dalit community by an elder when he or she touches a young girl's hair with both hands extended (instead of by the young girl bowing down to touch the elder's feet like you will see in almost every Bollywood movie).

 

Perhaps it is what Charles Tilly would call a hidden transcript – a silent defiance within the community for all that would refer to them as untouchable. Perhaps it has something to do with a young girl being told too many times that she needs to bow down to the rest of society, and this is that one miscreant act that declares otherwise. Perhaps it is a coincidence. Perhaps it is not.

 

Either way – I spent a year living and working alongside Dalit women in rural India.  And all I know is I value that elder's gentle touch on my head.

 

The Times Of India

Can Mayawati win over Punjab's dalit heartland?

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Can-Mayawati-win-over-Punjabs-dalit-heartland/articleshow/11634994.cms

 

BALLAN (JALANDHAR): It's not easy to drive on NH-I these days between Phagwara and Jalandhar with roads dug up for the ongoing three-laning work. One has no option but to follow an auto-rickshaw that is wide enough to block whatever road available, and fitted with a loudspeaker blaring out a speech by BSP leader Mayawati interspersed with songs. 

The traffic din can't drown out the name of Ravidasa which is mentioned several times in one of the songs. This is Doaba, the dalit heartland of Punjab, which India's most powerful dalit leader must win over if she wants to have any real presence in Punjab. Will she succeed this time? 

The answer perhaps lies barely 20 km away on the road, leading up to Pathankot from Jalandhar. Dera Sachkhand at Ballan village is the most sacred place for the dalits, mainly Ravidasis, of the area. Its growing clout can be gauged from the fact even Congress's Amarinder Singh came for the `darshan' of chief guru Sant Niranjan Dass on Tuesday. But while the sant blesses people, he refuses to talk politics. 

Dass, who escaped an assassination attempt in Vienna, instead allows his manager Amrik Birdi to talk. "BSP candidates have sought our support but the sant believes that only people who behave as mahapurush should be voted for,'' says Birdi, adding that CM Parkash Singh Badal too will be visiting the Dera which has played the lead role in making the community assert its cultural and political identity. 

Another follower, who doesn't want to be identified, is more forthright. "The dalit community in Punjab is not Jatav like Mayawati and will not like to waste its vote on BSP; instead it will choose the lesser evil between the Congress and Akalis,'' he says. He cites the example of nearby Khanna seat, the valmikis have decided to vote for Akalis. The Sehajdhari Sikh community, of which many are dalit, have decided to back Congress. Like always, despite becoming politically more assertive, the dalits seem to be choosing between these two main parties only. What cannot also be ignored is that despite having a Jat Sikh leadership, both Congress and SAD (Badal) have given enough representation to dalits. 

Maywati drew a blank in 2007 with the party getting about 4% of vote share. The dalit czarina's best performance came in 1996 when she entered into an alliance with the Akalis winning three out of four seats. 

"This was important because it proved that religio-cultural ethos negate the existence of exclusive caste categories for electoral gains in the state,'' says Pramod Kumar, the head of Institute for Development and Communication. 

Conventional wisdom has it that Mayawati failed mainly because Punjab dalits mainly comprised Ravidasis, Valmikis and Majhabi Sikhs who could not relate with Mayawati's Jatav identity. "Punjab has been more liberal in terms of religious practices which has made it difficult for Mayawati to create a vote-bank solely on her Manuwadi plank,'' adds Kumar.

 

The Times Of India

Punjab polls: Dalit self-pride holds key in fertile Doaba

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Punjab-polls-Dalit-self-pride-holds-key-in-fertile-Doaba/articleshow/11635098.cms

 

JALANDHAR: Hummer wich aounde putt chamaran de (chamar kids arrive in Hummer), panga na le chamara de nal (don't get into a fight with chamars), Ravidassan di chandi (Ravidasis are doing great) and fighter chamar are some of the songs which the fertile Doaba region in Punjab is grooving to as it goes to polls next week. Until not so long ago, it was yaari jattan di, tu jatt di pasand and jatt di daang, songs which became popular even outside the state.

It's not that the mighty Jatts (Jat Sikhs) have stopped singing and dancing. Just that Doaba, where Punjab's 29% Dalit community swells to 35%, is witnessing a social churning like never before, with the dalits asserting themselves socially, culturally and even politically. Punjab has one the highest dalit population in the country.

It's perhaps appropriate that in a state which loves to sing and dance, the assertion is manifesting in music, says dalit folk singer Kulwant Kajla. ''You will be surprised to know that the demand for such songs is not just restricted to Doaba and Punjab but also abroad,'' he says, adding that he will soon come out with his own chamar album.

Kajla, whose song param sant Ravidasa was a chartbuster, should know. Kajla was one of the few singers who helped introduced dalit machismo in Punjabi songs in 2008-09 to counter Jat Sikhs. "Some people had reservations initially but soon they joined us when they realized that there was nothing to be ashamed of in being a dalit,'' he adds. It's not uncommon now to spot vehicles, especially two-wheelers, with stickers saying putt chamaran da.

Kajla is a follower of Jalandhar-based Dera Sachkhand which claims to have millions of followers spread all across the globe. In the UK alone, it is said to have 26 Ravidasa temples. Its guru is none other than Sant Niranjan Dass who was attacked by a group of extremist Sikhs, allegedly Jat, in Vienna in 2009. Another guru, Sant Ramanand, was killed in the attack, though. It was this attack in the Austrian capital which laid the foundation for dalits seeking a more assertive cultural and political identity. In just a few months music became the most powerful tool to galvanize the youths who responded by abandoning the Guru Granth Sahib, the Sikh holy book. The movement gained further momentum in 2010 when Sant Niranjan Dass announced a new holy book for Ravidasis called Amrit Bani.

Doaba also accounts for the maximum number of NRIs from Punjab who helped their family members in the region by sending them money regularly. It is also not uncommon to see dalits living in mansions and driving luxury cars.

 

The Hindu

Demand for scholarships to SC/ST students in HPS

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Hyderabad/article2833902.ece

 

The Telangana SC and ST Parents Association of the Hyderabad Public Schools condemned the government's failure in providing scholarships to all SC/ST students admitted to the schools in the general category.

 

While students admitted under the SC/ST reservation are being provided full scholarships from class 1 to 12, the association demanded that nearly 160 other SC/ST students admitted under the general category too be provided the scholarship.

 

"While all other private and government institutions have scholarships for SC and ST students as per G.O Ms No. 182; in HPS, SC/ST children admitted in the general category in both the Ramanthapur and Begumpet Schools have not been given a rupee this year," said Telangana JAC leader Addanki Dayakar.

 

"Notices stating that students will not be allowed to attend classes if the fee is not paid before February 2 too have been given. Their parents being extremely poor cannot afford this fee," he added.

 

Officials of the Social Welfare department, however, informed that a total 50 SC and ST students, selected by way of a lottery system, are being given full scholarships in the Begumpet, Ramanthapur and Pulivendula branches of the school.

 

They said that it was not possible to provide scholarships to all SC and ST students admitted into the schools even through the general category as they had limited funds at their disposal.

Agitated association members demanded that the scholarships for all students released on or before January 30, in view of the last date of fee payment. They warned that the government's non-compliance with their demands would warrant dire consequences.

 

Indian Express

'Eunuchs can't be part of law dealing with SC/ST abuse'

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/eunuchs-cant-be-part-of-law-dealing-with-sc-st-abuse/903787/


The inclusion of eunuchs in a legislation, which at present criminalizes verbal abuse against scheduled castes and tribes, may not be feasible, the state government told the Bombay High Court on Tuesday.

 

Assistant government pleader G W Mattos made the statement in response to a public interest litigation demanding equal rights for eunuchs. The PIL, filed by NGO Salvation of Oppressed Eunuchs (SOOE), pointed out common verbal abuses used to describe members of the community, and demanded that such remarks should be treated on par with derogatory remarks made against scheduled castes and tribes. However, Mattos on Tuesday told the Bench of Chief Justice Mohit Shah and Justice Roshan Dalvi that the suggestion is "far- fetched."

 

Speaking to Newsline, the lawyer said, "The act which deals with the subject (The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989) deals with offences against specific communities, and it would not be logical to extend the same legal provision to members of the transgender community."

 

Meanwhile, lawyer for the union government Rui Rodrigues cited newspaper articles which reported that the Centre is proposing to introduce legal provisions to deal with the issue. He, however, said that he would have to seek information.

 

The case has been adjourned till March 8.

 



-- 
.Arun Khote
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of "Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC")
...................................................................
Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre- PMARC has been initiated with the support from group of senior journalists, social activists, academics and  intellectuals from Dalit and civil society to advocate and facilitate Dalits issues in the mainstream media. To create proper & adequate space with the Dalit perspective in the mainstream media national/ International on Dalit issues is primary objective of the PMARC. 

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