Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 05.04.14
Dalit man ‘beaten to death’ by Yadav girl’s family in UP- The Indian Express
An Ambedkar for our times- The Hindu
In riot-scarred UP town, Dalit woman married to a Muslim seeks unity vote- The Indian Express
Dalit Chaitanya Yatra begins- The Hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/news/
CRIMINALISATION, FREEBIES: STOP STUNTING YOUTH SPIRIT- The Pioneer
Note: Please find attachment for HINDI DMW (PDF)
The Indian Express
Dalit man ‘beaten to death’ by Yadav girl’s family in UP
A 25 year old Dalit man was Thursday murdered allegedly by the family of the girl he was having an affair with in Wajidpur village under Mau Aima police station area here.
The girl belonged to Yadav community while the victim was from Pasi community, the police said.
Police said they got a call about a man being thrashed in the village and when they reached there they found the body of Raju Bharatiya, a resident of Sarangapur village. Police said there were injuries, apparently caused by a blunt object, all over his body and ligature marks around his neck. Though a post-mortem report is awaited, they suspect he was strangulated to death after being beaten up. “Raju’s father lodged a complaint on the basis of which an FIR has been registered against Jagdish Yadav and his three sons. They have been booked under Section 302 of the IPC, and various sections of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities Act),” said SO (Mau Aima), Raj Kumar Sharma.
Circle officer (Soraon) Dr Ram Yash Singh said: “Raju and Jagdish’s daughter had known each other for over a year as she was staying at her grandfather’s home to pursue her studies and Raju, who worked in a local music group, was known to her cousin. Raju developed a friendship with her, as he used to frequent the house where she stayed.”
The two allegedly eloped around Holi. “It is being said the girl’s family had traced them and brought her to her father’s house. Raju traced her andThursday went near her house with a friend. The girl’s family saw Raju and beat him up. His friend escaped,” he added. No arrests have been made so far and the girl’s entire family is absconding.
The Hindu
An Ambedkar for our times
Today, Ambedkar certainly outshines every other leader in terms of public acceptance. However, the incidences of casteism also show parallel growth. This paradoxical phenomenon can be explained only by separating the real Ambedkar from the unreal one
In an interview published in Outlook (March 10, 2014), Arundhati Roy says, “We need Ambedkar — now, urgently” — it was in connection with the publication of a new annotated edition of Ambedkar’s text, The Annihilation of Caste, brought out by Navayana, a New Delhi-based publishing house. Ms. Roy wrote a 164-page essay titled “The Doctor and the Saint” as an introduction to the book, which has now become 415 pages thick, expanding the core text of just about 100 pages.
Behind the controversy
Her introduction has already created an unseemly controversy in Dalit circles, reminiscent of the debate in the 1970s in the wake of incipient Dalit literature, about who could produce Dalit literature. The protagonists of Dalits insisted that one had to be born a Dalit to do that. The controversy now reflects a similar identitarian obsession that one had to produce a caste certificate (Scheduled Caste) to introduce either Ambedkar or his text. It is intriguing however why such a controversy has cropped up only in the case of Ms. Roy especially when scores of non-Dalits have written on Ambedkar and his writings earlier. Is it because of her celebrity status or of her infamy as a Maoist sympathiser as perceived by middle class Dalits? The latter is more probable. For them, anything even remotely connected with communism is enough to evoke despisal and disapproval.
Whatever be the motivation behind this uproar, it is surely unwarranted. Ignoring the outpouring of nasty “one-liners” in social media, the main objections, at a reasonable level, to her writing this piece appear to be her undue projection of Gandhiji to introduce Ambedkar or to her being qualified to do the job in the first place or even her purported introduction not being an introduction to the text that followed. Even if one concedes the validity of these viewpoints, they need not have been expressed with such vehemence and negativity. As a matter of fact, the creative writer in Ms. Roy chose not the text per se but the stand-off between Ambedkar and Gandhiji in the context of Gandhiji’s reaction to the text in his magazine Harijan. She imagined that she could bring forth the problem of castes far more effectively if she used the contrast between Ambedkar and Gandhiji, who best represented moderate Hindu society, than dealing with the subject matter in a dry and mechanical manner. As for the qualification, while she took great pains to understand the issue she wrote on, her writings never reflected any aura of authority beyond a commonsensical objectivity necessitated by her style. Perhaps, and therefore, they appeal more to common people than to the so-called intellectuals.
Ambedkar, real and unreal
The most interesting argument however came not from Dalits but, paradoxically, an upper caste journalist (“B.R. Ambedkar, Arundhati Roy, and the politics of appropriation” by G. Sampath,Livemint, March 18, 2014).
Challenging Ms. Roy, it said that if she wanted the bauxite under the Niyamgiri hills to be left to the Adivasis, why did she not leave Ambedkar who has been the only possession of Dalits to Dalits themselves?
Interestingly though, the implication of the argument can be dangerous insofar as any engagement of the “other” defined as such on the basis of caste can be dismissed as illegitimate. May be, Ambedkar symbolises the cultural good of Dalits, but still, to ghettoise him to Dalits alone will mean downright disrespect to him and incalculable harm to the cause of Dalits. Niyamgiri left to the Adivasis implies a progressive interrogation of the prevailing developmental paradigm, while leaving Ambedkar to Dalits will mean retrogressive destruction of the annihilation-agenda of Babasaheb Ambedkar.
The controversy has surprisingly gone past the main point — that it is the bland business logic of the publisher that has fundamentally drawn Ms. Roy into writing the introduction. With her stature as a Booker Prize awardee, later amplified by her fearless pro-people stands on various issues on various occasions, the book was sure to go global. Moreover, it can well be imagined that her writing would certainly create a controversy, as has happened before. All this would mean a bonanza for any publisher in boosting sales of the book. Whether Navayana had consciously thought it out this way or not, these established product strategies of a publisher cannot be grudged by anyone as, after all, s/he has to follow the grammar of business.
Notwithstanding the “anti-caste” tag Navayana tends to wear of late, publishing adulatory and cultish literature on Ambedkar is not the same thing as supporting the annihilation of castes. Once this controversy raked up by a few dies down, the vast majority of Dalits would rather take pride in the point that even Arundhati Roy joined them in worshipping their god. Every such form of Ambedkar adulation has indeed been reinforcing the caste identity and directly distances the annihilation project.
The acceptance of Ambedkar does not necessarily equate itself with the spread of an anti-caste ethos. Today, Ambedkar certainly outshines every other leader in terms of public acceptance. No other leader can rival him in the number of statues, pictures, congregations, books, research, organisations, songs, or any other marker of popularity of/on him. Curiously, his picture has become a fixture even in movies and television episodes.
However, the incidences of casteism as indicated by cases of caste discrimination, caste atrocities, caste associations and caste discourses, etc. also show parallel growth. This paradoxical phenomenon can be explained only by separating the real Ambedkar from the unreal one, cast into the icons constructed by vested interests to thwart the consciousness of radical change ever germinating in Dalit masses. These icons package the enigmatic real Ambedkar into a simplistic symbol: an architect of the Constitution, a great nationalist, the father of reservations, a staunch anti-communist, a liberal democrat, a great parliamentarian, a saviour of Dalits, a bodhisattva, etc. These icons of the harmless, status quo-ist Ambedkar have been proliferated all over and overshadow a possible, radical view of the real Ambedkar.
Which Ambedkar?
Notwithstanding the intrigues behind the promotion of such icons by vested interests with active support from the state, the evolution of Ambedkar, the pragmatist sans any ideological fixation, all through his life, makes him intrinsically difficult to understand. A young Ambedkar who theorised castes as the enclosed classes, the enclosure being provided by the system of endogamy and exogamy, expecting the larger Hindu society to wake up and undertake social reforms like intermarriage in order to open up castes into classes is in contrast to the post-Mahad Ambedkar, disillusioned by the rabid reactions from caste Hindus, turning his sights to politics to accomplish his objective. Were his threats of conversion to Islam for a separate political identity for Dalits, or to force caste Hindus to consider social reforms? Then there is the Ambedkar of the 1930s, anxious to expand his constituency to the working classes sans castes, who founded the Independent Labour Party (ILP), arguably the first Left party in India, and walked with the communists but at the same time one who declared his resolve to convert to some other religion to escape castes. What about the Ambedkar of the 1940s, who returns to the caste, dissolves the ILP and forms the Scheduled Castes Federation, shuns agitational politics and joins the colonial government as labour minister or the one who wrote States and Minorities, propounding state socialism be hardcoded into the proposed Constitution of free India? Or Ambedkar, the staunchest opponent of the Congress or the one who cooperated with the Congress in joining the all-party government and accepted its support to get into the Constituent Assembly? Or even the Ambedkar who developed the representation logic culminating in reservations, expecting that a few advanced elements from among Dalits would help the community progress or the one who publicly lamented that educated Dalits had let him down? Or the Ambedkar who was the architect of the Constitution and advised Dalits to adopt only constitutional methods for a resolution of their problems or the one who disowned it in the harshest possible terms and spoke of being the first person to burn it down? And finally, the Ambedkar who kept referring to Marx as a quasi benchmark to assess his decisions? Or the one who embraced Buddhism and created the ultimate bulwark against communism in India to use the words of one of his scholars, Eleanor Zelliot, or even the one who would favourably compare Buddha and Marx just a few days before bidding adieu to the world, saying their goal was the same but that they differed in the ways of achieving them — Buddha’s being better than Marx’s? These are just a few broad vignettes of him, problematic in typifying him in a simplistic manner. If one goes deeper, one is bound to face far more serious problems.
Ambedkar is surely needed as long as the virus of caste lingers in this land but not as a reincarnation of the old one as most Dalits emotionally reflect on. Not even in the way Ms. Roy would want him to come now and urgently. He will have to be necessarily constructed to confront the far messier problem of contemporary castes than that obtained in his times.
(Anand Teltumbde is a civil rights activist with CPDR, Mumbai.)
The Indian Express
In riot-scarred UP town, Dalit woman married to a Muslim seeks unity vote
Much of western UP appears to have been impacted by the riots in Muzaffarnagar last year, and campaigning too has acquired communal overtones. But in one constituency of the region, a 29-year-old Dalit woman married to a Muslim is seeking votes in the name of Hindu-Muslim unity.
Running for the Lok Sabha for the first time, Anju alias Muskaan is the Rashtriya Lok Dal candidate from the reserved seat of Bulandshahr. A Jatav, Anju is married to Farman Ali, a businessman and member of the RLD.
The Ajit Singh-led RLD, which fielded eight Muslim candidates in the 2012 Assembly elections, has not nominated a single Muslim for the Lok Sabha polls, aware that the riots have strained ties of its core Jat supporters with Muslims.
Anju, who joined the RLD a little over two years ago and became the head of its Bulandshahr women’s cell, says she is aware of caste equations working in her favour but underlines that her focus is not to reach out to only her own community or that of her husband to swing the votes. “Bulandshahr has 4 lakh Muslims, 3.50 lakh Jats and 2.50 lakh Dalits. I also hope to get the votes of (RLD ally) Congress supporters,” she said.
“I hold public meetings in both Dalit and Muslim majority villages. Having entered into an inter-religion marriage, I cannot think of singling out communities for votes. I have met both Hindus and Muslims. Baaki toh Ishwar ke upar hai (the rest is up to god).”
Ali said they have been married nine years. “After college hours, she would wait for her father at my friend’s shop. That’s where I met her. We married in March 2005. We had to leave our homes because of opposition from our families. We went to Allahabad and got married in court. We lived in Baghpat for some time. It took our families nearly a year to accept us. There has been no problem ever since,” he said.
They have an eight-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter. Anju says she knows the riots have given rise to communal tension but she has faced any hostility.
“Bulandshahr was earlier represented by Kalyan Singh but it has remained a backward area. There is no development, nothing has been done to address the problems of farmers,” she said.
In the last Lok Sabha elections, SP’s Kamlesh Valmiki took Bulandshahr with the backing of Kalyan Singh. The constituency has a significant presence of Lodhs and Kalyan Singh’s return to the BJP is expected to boost the chances of its candidate Bhola Singh. The BSP has fielded Pradeep Jatav.
The Hindu
Dalit Chaitanya Yatra begins
http://www.thehindu.com/news/
Union Minister J.D. Seelam on Friday kicked off the Dalit Chaitanya Yatra from Anantapur in the company of another Minister Panabaka Lakshmi.
The yatra, which was kicked off after garlanding the statue of Ambedkar at Anantapur, received a little more than a lukewarm response in the town.
Speaking to the press, Mr. Seelam said that the Congress is not the sole cause for bifurcation and that the consent from all political parties, except the CPI(M) had forced the party to go through with bifurcation.
Nonetheless, he opined that the Seemandhra region is presented with a unique chance to grow in an unprecedented manner with the help of a Congress Government at the Centre, which would facilitate such fast growth.
Even as he said that the UPA government led by the Government had ensured enough safeguards for the realisation of fast growth in the bifurcation bill, he argued that the Dalits owe it to the Congress for bringing about their upliftment.
Meanwhile, Ms. Panabaka Lakshmi said that the Congress manifesto is part of a new deal for the Dalits in the country as it sought to explore employment avenues for them in the private sector too by trying to arrive at a consensus on the issue with the industry.
The meeting was also attended by Tirupati Congress MP China Mohan, besides former Minister Dokka Manikya Vara Prasad.
Leaders of the Congress party urged the cadre to take the pro-Dalit message in the Congress manifesto to people and ask for their support.
The Pioneer
CRIMINALISATION, FREEBIES: STOP STUNTING YOUTH SPIRIT
Saturday, 05 April 2014 | MANAS JENA
The development of a State primarily depends on its human resources and planning for its effective utilisation. Youths in the age group of 13 to 35 years in the State constitute 42 per cent of the total population of the State who are the productive forces of the society and need focus attention of the State in its planning and development prospective building.
The youths are not homogeneous as they are divided geographically, educationally, and in different social groups but the State can integrate them with common interest for their development by recognising their diversity. The National Youth Policy- 2014 and State Youth Policy- 2013 are references which are a reflection of the attitude of the ruling parties towards the youths.
The youth policies are more focused on education and employment. The employment policy of today is more favorable for urban and educated youths who are mostly looking for formal sector jobs. The employment exchange, career counseling centres, skill development and pre-examination orientation programmes are limited to the educated youths. Urban upper class youths can be easily integrated to the changes in the job market which is not possible in case of marginalised youths. There are a majority of rural uneducated and semi-literate, school dropout youths who are very insignificantly featured in our policy discourses. There is absence of career counseling and information centre at high school, college and panchayat level to guide the youths from the very beginning.
In 2011, three lakh youths registered their name in different employment exchanges of the State. The placement rate was 1.23 per cent for the same year. The live register position of the State for the year 2011 shows about 11 lakh applicants are job seekers through employment exchange out of which 9.5 lakh are educated job seekers and 1.5 lakh are below matric.
The most burning concern for the State is distress migration of youths from villages in search of employment. The most recent incident of migrant youths named Jialu Nial (30) and Nilamber Dhangada Majhi (28) in Kalahandi drew the media attention. Their hands were chopped off by some Dalals. Youths in tribal areas are joining political extremism and violence. Young women are feeling unsafe and trafficking of poor young women is continuing unabated in many parts of the State. These days in almost all the villages of the State youths are migrating in search of livelihood, because the State investment in rural areas to generate employment is very marginal. There is visible urban and rural gap in all spheres. The State has not adequately invested for skill development of the rural youths. The number of ITIs in the State in comparison to other States is very less.
There has been very less effort to train youths on modern trades to meet the emerging demand of employment. There are only 610 ITIs in the State having 67,000 seats for skill development. The employment scope in agriculture and allied services is not expanding due to traditional method of cultivation and number of other problems with agriculture. The youths are not being encouraged in agriculture as modern farmers. The manufacturing sector is not expanding to supplement employment. The areas having industries and mines also have failed to generate employment for the local youths.
It is evident that in December 2013, about 5,000 youths had gathered at the Rajiv Gandhi stadium, Jajpur, for a recruitment event where police lathicharged to manage the anger of the unemployed youths. Jajpur district has 11 steel industries, 20 chromite mines and many other ancillary units in the pipeline but it is unfortunate to note that many of the youths from the district are also migrating to outside Odisha. It is because the employment generating efforts are not being integrated to the need of local youths. Same is the situation in Angul, Jharsuguda, Sundergarh and Kalahandi mines and industrial areas where local youths have been agitating in demand of job and other forms of employment opportunities.
The rural youths belonging to SC and ST communities are mostly illiterate and very few of them are semi literate and literate as it can be seen in the dropout rate in high school level which is higher in case of SC and ST students (61per cent for SCs and 65 per cent for STs in 2011-12). Adivasi children have problem in reading, writing, spelling Odia as a language along with other issues. The youths of Dalit, Adivasi communities and Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs) are facing socio-cultural barriers while accessing employment in their locality either in Government or private sector because of their social identity. They are not getting adequate family support to sustain and build their career. Many of them are leaving schools and colleges to earn a living and support their families. In the absence of local employment and very marginal scope for self employment, they have no option but to migrate to urban destinations mostly located outside Odisha. They have very minimum skill to cope with job market dominated with caste and gender bias in recruitment. It is reported that young boys and girls of SC and ST communities are working in Kerala and Tamil Nadu fishing sector, textile and garment industries of Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu and engaged in construction work in Karnataka, Gujarat, AP and West Bengal. Thousands of young girls are working as domestic help in almost all metropolises including Bhubaneswar. The SC and ST youths are very rarely encouraged to grow as entrepreneurs of the community with credit and other hand holding support by local banks and Government officials as many of the aspiring youths of primitive tribal groups are lagging behind in many respect to come to compete in the market. The development of SC and ST youths will not be possible by charity and welfare.
Youth should not be seen as beneficiaries of charity rather they should be promoted with culture of dignity and hard work. The comparative advantage with the youths of a particular social group and area specific plan can be made to intervene in such kind of situation. The skill development programme for SC and ST youths is mostly beneficial to private companies and institutions that are using a lion’s share in the name of skill development. Some of the trades provided in the name of skill development like housekeeping and home nursing are the other names of modern day domestic servant. The self employment schemes like MGNREGRA and SJSY are not being effectively integrated with skill development programmes. The landless youths can be provided land with support under different schemes for sustainable self employment.
The forest related employment activities can be generated for tribal youths in the locality. There is a need for improvement of production technology and quality of life in the rural habitations with availability of drinking water, electricity, communication, health, education, sports, cultural and entertainment centers.
During elections, youths are used by ruling parties for wrong political acts and used for political violence like booth capturing etc. The development works in rural areas are mostly controlled by mafias by misusing local youth power and private industries are using them as goons to suppress local people’s movement. The criminalisation of youth is a matter of concern. The flow of liquor, addiction, violence, discrimination, hate based on identity, pornography literature and video, bribe and tendency for earning easy money need to be discouraged among youth.
As alternative, youths should be inculcated with spirit of good citizenship by promoting constitutional values, human rights, dignity, scientific temper, democracy, tolerance, patriotic feeling, brotherhood, hard work, self help, non discriminatory attitude towards fellow beings which are highly required to change the social culture among the youths so that they become good human beings with civic sense and politically responsible citizens.
They should not be encouraged as beneficiaries of welfare programme with free laptop, cycle and making grants for cultural activities in villages.
(The writer is a rights activist who can be reached atojaabbsr@gmail.com)
News Monitor by Girish Pant
.Arun Khote
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of “Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC”)
Pl visit on FACEBOOK : https://www.facebook.com/
..............................
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.
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of “Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC”)
Pl visit on FACEBOOK : https://www.facebook.com/
..............................
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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