Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 14.03.14
Dalit woman gang-raped in UP- The Times Of India
Indian girl tonsured for 'speaking to friend'- Aljazeera.Com
Dalit intellectuals' voices should be heard on Arundhati Roy's Ambedkar introduction- Two Circle
Don’t Set Up Port Near Pulicat Lake, Warns HRF- The New Indian Express
Proceedings against Guru stayed- The Hindu
The Times Of India
Dalit woman gang-raped in UP
DEORIA (UP): A Dalit woman was allegedly gang-raped in Lar area here by three persons who also tried to kill her, police said here on Thursday.
The incident took place on March 11 when the 42-year-old woman was returning home after cooking at a function.
The accused — Vidhyachal, Gopi Gaur and Harilal Rajbhar — who hired her for cooking at the function, dragged her to a field and raped her.
They also tried to kill her. She was seriously injured in the attack.
The woman was rushed to a hospital, where her condition was stated to be stable.
Police have lodged an FIR in this connection and launched a manhunt to nab the accused.
Aljazeera.Com
Indian girl tonsured for 'speaking to friend'
Minor girl tonsured and paraded with blackened face by village elders in Bihar after being found talking to boyfriend.
The police have arrested six people so far for Tuesday's assault on the girl [Nand Kishor Singh]
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A girl in the eastern Indian state of Bihar was tonsured and paraded after her face was blackened by village elders as a punishment for talking to her boyfriend.
The police have arrested six people after the incident on Tuesday in Kadwa Tola village of Purnea district, about 300km from the provincial capital, Patna.
The 14-year-old girl, an orphan, lives in the village with her grandparents. Her grandfather is a cycle-rickshaw puller.
According to the girl’s complaint to the police, the village court ordered the punishment after she was caught talking to her boyfriend. The girl belongs to the Dalit (backward) community, whose members often face discrimination in India’s caste-ridden society.
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“They tied us and kept us in a room for whole night and next day the village court slapped the judgement,” the girl told Al Jazeera.
The villagers imposed fines of Rs 12,000 ($195) on both the boy and the girl for their “act of indiscretion”.
“But they let the boy go when his family promised to pay the amount and since we are poor, my family was unable to pay the fine and they meted extreme humiliation to me,” she said.
“They first shaved my head and then blackened my face with ash and paraded me in the village,” she said.
A local police official said that some villagers had caught the girl talking to the boy at the Gulab Bagh market yard while returning from her school.
“Altogether six out of total seven named accused persons in the case have been arrested and sent to jail”, Shweta Gupta, officer-in-charge of Purnea Women police station, told Al Jazeera.
Among those arrested is the village headman, who presided over the court.
'Unrepentant'
Police officials said some of the villagers were still unrepentant, saying the punishment was for maintaining “social discipline and moral propriety”.
Several Indian provinces are notorious for village councils (locally called Khap Panchayats) that have no legal sanction, but yet adjudicate over personal matters.
Scores of boys and girls have died in suspected honour killings ordered by such councils for daring to fall in love defying caste and cultural restrictions.
In West Bengal state, a woman was allegedly gang-raped recently as punishment for being found with her lover.
Two Circle
Dalit intellectuals' voices should be heard on Arundhati Roy's Ambedkar introduction
By Vanya Mehta, TwoCircles.net,
Since the publication of Arundhati Roy’s introduction to The Annihilation of Caste, called “The Doctor and the Saint,” intellectuals and Dalit activists have spoken out against her as a choice for the introduction as well as her over-emphasis on Mahatma Gandhi’s story over Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar’s story.
The article written by Scroll.in’s Shivam Vij argues that Arundhati Roy should be allowed to write about Dr. Ambedkar even though she is upper caste. Mr. Vij also picks on Dalit activist Anoop Kumar for supposedly not having read the text. This is true for many debates, even the pro-RSS radicals who stood outside Caravan Magazine’s office burning copies of the Swami Aseemanand article, probably hadn’t read the text.
I begin my criticism by extracting this line: “You would think, therefore, that Dalit intellectuals would only be happy that Arundhati Roy is engaging with the text,” Mr. Vij responds in the Scroll.in post. My qualm is this: an upper-caste Brahmin has no right to expect or demand Dalit intellectuals to behave, respond, or “only be happy” over any particular idea. In fact, we should expect debate, discord, and frustration, because the Dalit cause has been long ignored and subjugated for centuries.
Without getting the chance to actually contact Dalit intellectuals to further investigate their point of opinion, I can see that their quotes to the Hindu are not quite as radical as made out by Mr. Vij. For example, Bojja Takaram does not say that Ms. Roy should not write, or that the book should not be republished. He only says that the preface focuses more on Gandhi than on Ambedkar. When examining the text of “The Doctor and the Saint,” I myself can see quite a heavy emphasis on re-writing the Gandhi narrative, rather than a detailed focus on Ambedkar. Not to mention, at least these so-called “radicals” are not calling that it never be published, unlike the Wendy Doninger-type opponents.
The space in the public discourse for Dalit activists and intellectuals is extremely narrow. As professors and authors for Dalit issues, especially those who have spent years and years researching and pouring through Dr. Ambedkar’s work, there is a certain uncomfortable reaction bound to come out of the surface to see Ms. Roy’s response. Rather than expecting Dalit intellectuals to be “happy,” we should engage and question and give them a space in places like Scroll.in to actually express their viewpoint.
Without this, writing about inner-circle Dalit debates from an upper-caste perspective does their cause a disservice. While we “Brahmins” seek to understand “their” perspective or disagreements, if we don’t give them a space or a column in the media discourse, our words are nothing.
The New Indian Express
Don’t Set Up Port Near Pulicat Lake, Warns HRF
The Human Rights Forum (HRM) on Thursday demanded that the Union Government should immediately drop its proposal to construct a major port in the vicinity of Pulicat Lake in Vakadu mandal of Nellore district as the move would jeopardize the livelihood of thousands of people.
A 10-member team of the HRF visited Pulicat Lake to study the bio-resources in the area on Wednesday. It found fault with the Ministry of Environment for reducing the eco-sensitive zone from 10 km to 2 km radius around Pulicat Sanctuary.
The HRF pointed out that apart from being a rich Ecological Sensitive Zone(ESZ), the lake also sustained the livelihood of hundreds of fishermen, Dalits and Yanadis (tribals). Terming the Centre’s move as environmental vandalism, it lashed out at Jairam Ramesh, who had earlier served as Environment Minister.
The Hindu
Proceedings against Guru stayed
For his alleged offensive remarks against Dalits
The Madras High Court Bench here on Thursday stayed criminal defamation proceedings initiated by a lawyer against ‘Kaduvetti’ J. Guru, Pattali Makkal Katchi’s (PMK) floor leader in the Legislative Assembly, for his alleged offensive remarks against Dalits in an interview telecast in “Makkal Tholaikatchi” on December 16.
Justice G.M. Akbar Ali also dispensed with his appearance before the Kumbakonam Judicial Magistrate court in Thanjavur district until further orders. The judge passed similar orders with respect to the television channel’s managing director who was also arrayed as an accused in the defamation proceedings initiated by advocate S. Vivekanandan last year.
Guru’s counsel M. Subash Babu contended that in the television interview, his client had made only a general statement about youngster’s trying to marry wealthy women in the guise of falling in love with them without any reference to a particular caste. However, the advocate had lodged a false defamation complaint “with a mala fide intention and due to political vendetta.”
“The first petitioner is a leader of one of the opposition parties in Tamil Nadu. He is a Member of the Legislative Assembly representing Jayankondam constituency and fighting for the welfare of the downtrodden and the backward communities. He is also fighting for social causes such as communal reservation, total prohibition and other such issues,” the counsel added.
In the petition filed in the High Court to quash the defamation proceedings, the accused claimed that the Magistrate should not have entertained the complaint since it did not contain the ingredients required to order prosecution under Section 500 (defamation) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. “There is no substantive material or evidence to show that such remarks were made by the first petitioner,” it read.
News Monitor by Girish Pant
.Arun Khote
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of “Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC”)
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of “Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC”)
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