Source: The Times of India dated 27.6.23- Chennai Edition

 

India Trains Dalits To Clean Sh*t Through Caste System: Suraj Yengde At India Today .

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Why a 34-year-old Dalit rebel has India’s ruling elite running scared

SAGARIKA GHOSE

A bearded, bespectacled 34-yearold sparks fury among ‘nationalist’ TV anchors. The BJP denounces him as divisive and anti-national, teargas- and water-cannonarmed police stop his public rallies, and FIRs are registered against him for the Bhima Koregaon violence even though he wasn’t even at the site.

Why is the establishment so terrified of Jignesh Mevani? Is it because in a climate of fear he dares to openly and audaciously mock PM Modi? Or, because he’s bringing the roaring power of the gathering Dalit revolution into politics, and posing a frontal ideological challenge to Hindutva? Jignesh is combining a caste battle with a wider class war; he’s attacking the very foundations of so-called Hindu unity and behind him stands a youthful army.

 He’s not the first Dalit rebel. In the 1970s, Dalit Panthers attacked caste elitism. But the Panthers soon transmogrified into timid lambs of the ruling class. Former Panther Ramdas Athawale is today a tamed member of the BJP government. “Tilak, tarazu aur talwar, inko maaro joote chaar,” bellowed Dalit activist Kanshi Ram in the 1990s, unleashing fury against upper-caste rulers. The anger evaporated once the Bahujan Samaj Party gained power and allied at various times with the ‘Manuwadi’ BJP and upper caste-led Congress. Kanshi Ram’s heir Mayawati was a powerful symbol of Dalit assertion, but collapsed in a welter of corruption scandals, even destroying Ambedkar’s repeated injunctions against hero worship by building her own statues. The Dalit political leadership constantly failed the Dalit revolution, Ambedkar’s descendants were orphaned. In the vacuum, the Sangh moved in to assiduously cultivate the Dalit vote. As Mayawati reduced herself to a Jatav chieftain and benefits of reservations in Maharashtra flowed mainly to Mahars, other Dalit subcastes were successfully lured into the Sangh fold, often with promises of caste Hindu status. The Ambedkarite revolution was betrayed by its leaders’ moral bankruptcy.

Yet youths like Rohith Vemula who saw themselves as part of the Ambedkarite mission continued to spread awareness of Ambedkar’s gospel in campuses. Dalit bahujan writers like Kancha Ilaiah powerfully articulated the Dalit’s “buffalo nationalism” centred on the black buffalo rather than on the white cow. Dalit intellectuals like Chandra Bhan Prasad praised the British Raj for liberating Dalits from Manuwad. Prasad built a temple to Goddess English, Ilaiah called for the re-writing of the Purusa-sukta, the Vedic hymn that assigns upper castes different places in the divine body but leaves out the perpetually polluted “achhut”.

Into this ferment has exploded Jignesh Mevani. His campaign crucially focused on unemployment and individual freedom. ‘They say Adani-Ambani, we say jobs, they say love jihad, we say love zindabad,’ he yells. Mevani represents the new wave of educated Dalits committed to a no-holds-barred attack on brahmanical Hindutva’s icons like Rama and Dronacharya, demander of Eklavya’s thumb.

Since the advent of the Hindu rashtra, attacks on Dalits have spiked. The assertive Dalit is now daring to keep a pointed moustache like a thakur, Dalit grooms often ride a horse and carry a sword, enraging agrarian middle castes resentful of Dalit success. NCRB data records a sharp rise in crimes against Dalits in 2016 from previous years. Mevani, who shot to prominence after the horrific beating of Dalits in Una by “cow protectors”, is rightfully incensed. He is furiously emphasising the Dalit ideological challenge and counter-culture to hierarchical Hindutva: beef eating and cattle trade as a Dalit way of life, English education as a Dalit right, the right to wear Ambedkar’s prescribed modern dress of trousers and shirt. Mevani refuses to be co-opted. He wants equal space, not sops; respect, not condescension. The caste elite has never been able to accept Dalit pride and Mevani opposes everything Modi represents: cowworshipping Hindutva, big business and clampdown on Constitutional freedoms. Most frightening of all, Jignesh Mevani has just achieved an impressive election win.

He is holding up a mirror to society, once again reminding as Ambedkar did, that without social democracy, political democracy is meaningless. Why is it that with a Dalit President and an OBC PM, India still remains riven by violent caste divisions and a Manuwadi mentality? He’s giving the revolution the angry determined leader it has so far lacked, and aiming to create a cross-class nationwide youth coalition. And in the aftermath of Vemula’s death, Una and rise of the Bhim Army, rebellious youthful crowds are flocking to him. His war cry of Dalit pride, equality and assertion undercuts the united Hindu identity. No wonder the ruling regime is terrified of Jignesh Mevani.

Source : The Times of India dt 14.01.2018

Aug 20 2017 : The Times of India (Chennai)

FOR THE RECORD - Dalit Prez? That's a fig leaf and means nothing when Dalits are under attack





It was to escape the tyranny of untouchability -experienced even at IIT-Madras where she was a research associate -that Sujatha Gidla left for the US at age 26. But casteism followed her there too. In her memoir Ants Among Elephants: An Untouchable Family and the Making of Modern India, the 54-year-old pieces together the uncertain life of her family in Andhra. Gidla, who is the first Indian woman to be employed as a conductor with the New York City Subway, tells Joeanna Rebello Fernandes why untouchability is not yet a thing of the past.

What is the Dalit experience in America?
Are you blackballed there by fellow Indians?
Yes, of course. In fact after my first interactions with Indians, I dumped them and just have foreign friends now. One of my classmates who came here before me let me stay with her until I found a place. But I felt I was unwelcome. My sister, who's a doctor, was subjected to it back home and here too.When pursuing her residency in New York, at one class when the speaker hadn't turned up yet, an Indian resident doctor announced, “I am a Reddy , let's all say which caste we belong to.“
When it was my sister's turn, another Indian resident looked at her like, “Let us see how you will say what caste you come from.“
My sister said, “I am an untouchable“. If she said something else, the others who knew what she was would say she was lying. If she said nothing, they would guess why . When the foreign residents asked, `What is this caste?', the Hindus told them it is something that denotes your status in Indian society .This upper caste Tamil resident also went around telling everybody my sister was an Untouchable. She suffered a lot on account of it. In fact immigrant associations in America, established ostensibly to celebrate their culture, are actually caste groups.TANA (Telugu Association of North America) is nothing but a Kamma caste organisation. There's another one, ATA, for Reddys.Some like the American Association of Telugu Brahmins (AATB) don't even hide behind “celebrating Telugu literaturecultural“, they are openly based on caste. When the right-wing Hindu American Foundation (HAF), an extremely wealthy and powerful organisation, threatened to sue the California Education Board if they didn't redact the references to Indian caste system in the state's school history textbooks (their claim was that their children would be taunted for it) it was the Dalit Freedom Network in America that fought to keep it in, because it is a fact of history.

You talk about the time in a bar in Atlanta when you told a guy you were untouchable, and he said, “Oh, but you're so touchable“. Is it difficult to explain `untouchability' to Americans?
Very . Their question is how can you distinguish one caste from the other? It's easy to distinguish race by skin colour. We live in a caste society but we're not in a position to explain how it works. I try to explain how people are segregated by caste, especially untouchables. Their speech is different caste-wise, as is the way they dress, body language...That's how I try to explain it. But people outside the country cannot really comprehend the inhumanity of the caste system.
Hasn't the lot of Dalits improved postIndependence?
It is very much worse for Dalits after Independence. For 3,000 years, as long as the caste system has been here, there has been violence against untouchables but not in this organised, widespread way .Whatever upliftment happened was during the last decades of the British rule and early years of Independence. Ambedkar was the key figure in establishing reservations in education and jobs for untouchables as well as tribals and backward castes. The few Dalits we see able to climb up the economic and social ladder, it is mainly due to reservations. But the thing is, reservations made a difference to only a thin layer of people.Everybody says Ambedkar was great -yes, Ambedkar was great, in that he used the historical opportunities that came up after WWII and during Independence. But we can see how it has not made much difference for millions of untouchables. As a Marxist, I say it is not reservations but a fundamental social change that is needed.
India does have a Dalit President...
It's not even a fig leaf but a slap in the face of untouchables. It's like saying, `Oh you're all complaining we're not doing anything for you, here, take this guy...' It doesn't mean anything, and the main thing is that Dalits are under attack.
Even Christianity and Communism seem to have reinforced caste-based discriminations.Is there a larger lesson to be learnt from this?
I'm a Christian but it didn't mean I escaped caste. Caste is not related to religion, it is a social institution. There is casteism among Muslims and Christians as well. Communists are supposed to change social relations, but in India they have failed to because none of the Indian communist parties take into consideration the fact that caste is a special kind of oppression that exists in Indian society apart from class.

Both BJP and Congress have used Ambedkar

Interview with noted policymaker Narendra Jadhav

Economist and educationist Narendra Jadhav has written and edited 35 books. Four years ago, Mr. Jadhav was asked by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to chair a committee and prepare a master plan for a memorial and an international centre for B.R. Ambedkar. The committee finalised its report on September 12, 2012, and waited for things to move. They never did. As political parties clamoured to honour Ambedkar on his 125th birth anniversary that went by recently, Mr. Jadhav spoke to Anuradha Raman on how the Congress frittered away an opportunity to work on the master plan, and how the Bharatiya Janata Party has, in turn, also let him down. Excerpts:

When Mr. Modi laid the foundation for the Ambedkar International Centre on April 20, what was going through your mind?

I was very happy that Mr. Modi has carried on from the earlier proposals of the previous government to create an international centre in honour of Dr. Ambedkar.

You were the chairman of a committee set up by Dr. Singh four years ago, to do exactly what Mr. Modi did a few days ago. Why didn’t the Congress act before?

That it has taken so long hurts. In 1991, Ambedkar’s birth centenary was celebrated. He was also given the Bharat Ratna posthumously. Two very important projects were discussed then — one, to create a National Memorial at the place where Ambedkar lived and breathed his last 

in a bungalow on 26, Alipore Road. He had moved in after resigning from Nehru’s Cabinet in 1951 and stayed in this house till 1956. A lot of Dalits, including me, regard the place as Nirvana Bhumi. The second idea was to have an international centre in Lutyens’ Delhi, which could become a place for scholars to come together and share thoughts and ideas dear to Ambedkar, particulary in the area of social justice. There were many movements and agitations in the Congress regime by several pressure groups to get the projects started. Not much happened.

Mr. Modi said it’s taken 20 years for the Ambedkar centre. The Congress was in power for 15 of those years.

The National Democratic Alliance was in power for five years. In 2004, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government took over the bungalow and converted it into a makeshift memorial.

Was this done to appease the Dalit community before elections?

Possibly. But I don’t think there is anything wrong in that. In a parliamentary democracy, to understand the vote banks of different strata of society is perfectly normal. What makes me a little unhappy was that this was just a makeshift memorial. There was nothing extraordinary about it. It did not do justice to the idea of a memorial. It was like, ‘you want a memorial. Here it is’.

Was that an insult to the memory of Ambedkar?

I don’t see it as an insult. But I saw it as a strategic move and not a move from within. There were some pictures and books of Ambedkar, that’s all. There was no move to work on the international centre. When UPA-I came, nothing happened. There were strong demands, particularly in the early part of UPA- II; so, finally, in 2011, Dr. Singh decided to do something about it and created a high-level committee with me as the chair and other experts, with a mandate to create a master plan for a world-class memorial of Ambedkar. The second [demand] was to create an international centre, which the NDA government had not done. In record time, in September 2012, my committee completed the master plan for both. Regrettably, things did not move as rapidly as they should have even after that.

Did you bring it to the attention of the Prime Minister?

Yes. Time and again. In fact, they could have laid the foundation stone before the code of conduct was announced. They could have done something, which Mr. Modi eventually did.
How do you reconcile the BJP’s attempts to woo Dalits with the party’s stand on ‘ghar wapsi’?
Going by newspaper reports, two things are happening. Some people in the BJP and RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh] are giving an impression that Ambedkar was a hindu sudharak (reformer) and the corollary to that is he was against Muslims and Christians. ‘Ghar wapsi’ is being compared to Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism. Both are misleading and untrue. In fact, he took the Muslim League’s support to get into the Constituent Assembly. On Hinduism, Ambedkar said he was born a Hindu, but would not die a Hindu. He made a distinction between Vichar Dharma and Aachar Dharma. The former, the philosophical underpinning of Hinduism, is wonderful. It is the practical aspect — how you practise Hinduism in everyday life — where problems arise. So, in asking Dalits to come into the fold, where is the BJP going to place them in the social structure? Which caste are you going to assign Dalits?

How have the Congress and the BJP treated Ambedkar?

Both parties have made use of Ambedkar and not given him a dignified treatment. In fact, both parties have offended him when he was alive. And these issues range from the Hindu Code Bill, to personal insults, to the non-implementation and diversion of the Tribal and Scheduled Castes sub-plan.
Though the BJP did not have much exposure at the Centre, they still have lots to explain for. What is the attitude of the BJP government to the Tribal and Scheduled Castes sub-plan? During this year’s budget, the Finance Minister has reduced the allocation for the sub-plan by Rs. 19,000 crore. A lot of people feel you have reduced the income tax on corporates [on the one hand], and on the other, you reduce the budgetary allocation [to the sub-plan]. Where Dalits are concerned, there is not much to choose between the two national parties as far as their views on Ambedkar is concerned.

Then how do you say the BJP has honoured Ambedkar?

I will support anyone, including the MIM [Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen] of the Owaisis, if they do something strongly to honour Ambedkar. My loyalty is to Dr. Ambedkar and I will stand by anybody who works to honour his memory and work.

You were once associated with the Congress?

I was never part of any political party. I had the privilege of working with Dr. Singh for nearly 30 years and then, later on, I also had an opportunity to work with Sonia Gandhi as a member of the National Advisory Council. That association makes some people think I am a Congressman, but I am not a formal member of any political party.
Yet, you chose to contest from a Congress ticket?
I was hoping to contest on behalf of the Congress. The BJP, too, has been trying to persuade me to contest from 2004. In 2004, when I was with the RBI [Reserve Bank of India], the Congress approached me. In 2009, I was inclined to contest. I knew nobody in the top level of the Congress. Dr. Singh was the only contact. Unfortunately, he was unwell. I could not connect [with him]. The BJP approached me, but I did not want to betray Dr. Singh, who had been a father figure to me. Then, in 2014, I spoke to Dr. Singh and he was keen that I contest from the Congress. By then, the idea of holding primary elections had come up from Rahul Gandhi. Of 16 constituencies chosen for the primaries, two were from Maharashtra. I thought this was a terrible idea.
They compared it to the American primaries. Not comparable at all. All those elected through the primary process lost their deposits in 2014. That tells you something. So, I didn’t contest, though I was confident of winning the actual elections and losing the primaries. In principle, holding primaries was a good idea but badly implemented.

Source: The Hindu

Q & A - `Fears over Sanskrit are emotional ­ with - clear caste and religious overtones'

Ganesh Devy is a Padma Shri awardee and Unesco Linguapax laureate who headed the People's Linguistic Survey of India 2010. Speaking with Robin David, Devy discussed why qualms around Sanskrit are emotional, effective ways of preserving Sanskrit's heritage ­ and which languages merit equal attention:

Why do you say the current debate over reviving Sanskrit is more emotional than practical?

Today, very few people claim Sanskrit as their first language ­ it's not possible to buy a train ticket or even get Ayurveda medicine us ing Sanskrit. It is not a language of use any more. It's not been a language of use in India since the 17th century ­ and we're now in the 21st century. So, to whip up emotions about losing Sanskrit, then reviving it, is a purely emotive effort.

It is true that modern Indian languages are based on Sanskrit. But it is also true that modern Indian languages have been in existence for nearly 1,000 years now and can be studied seriously on their own. For great scholarship in English, you no longer have to study Latin and Greek.

It's an emotional issue ­ and it has very clear overtones of caste and religious identities.

You've fought to ensure certain languages don't die ­ why shouldn't Sanskrit be amongst those languages?

I fight for languages spoken by peo ple in communities. They need to live on, so that the communities can continue their existence with dignity.

Some languages are seen as less important. Tribal languages are seen as inferior and backward. That is not desirable. But with Sanskrit, no one will ever look at its use as a sign of backwardness. On the contrary , if there's an individual who can speak or write Sanskrit, that's seen as a sign of scholarship. The fear is, we might forget the legacy of Sanskrit, rather than the life of Sanskrit. We have to make that distinction. There are ways of managing that fear by preserving manuscripts, building good libraries, digitising Sanskrit literature. Look at how the French take care of their language.

All Indian languages together constitute less than 1% of the international web space, which is not good.

If we strive to protect all our Indian languages, that would lead to a much better situation.

Many see English as a threat to Sanskrit ­ your view?

It definitely isn't. The use of the two languages is different. In India, we've managed successfully to allow languages to have different roles in our lives.

Our banking is done in English but our birth, death and marriage rituals are in Sanskrit. Certain domains of our lives are dominated by Persian even today ­ our entire entertainment domain is managed by languag es that spring out of Persian.On the other hand, cricket comes from an English ethos.

To disturb the good harmony between different languages is not a good thing for India.

Which Indian languages de serve as much emphasis as Sanskrit?

Tamil, Telugu and Bengali ­ these are spoken by very large numbers and will survive this phase of lan guage decline.

From a business point of view also, these will be important in the future.

Source: The Times of India dt 15-12-14.

Students, scholars condemn ABVP threat

Ms. Sathe was arrested in April 2013 on charges of supporting naxal activities

A day after Mumbai’s St. Xavier’s College retracted its invitation to Dalit activist Sheetal Sathe following threats from Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, Ms. Sathe sent a statement on Thursday clarifying that she stayed away only because she did not want to jeopardise the college festival ‘Malhar’.

“The only reason she is not on stage is not out of fear but out of deep appreciation for the courage and integrity of St. Xavier’s College,” said documentary film-maker Anand Patwardhan, on her behalf. Ms. Sathe’s statement said the college principal, Father Frazer Mascarenhas, had merely warned them of the threat and not told them not to attend.

Radhika Talekar, a student of arts faculty said, “This is cultural censorship. She is innocent until proven guilty by the law and it is her right to speak as she is out on bail.”

Ms. Sathe was arrested in April 2013 on charges of supporting naxal activities. She was released on bail two months later.

The moderator of the panel discussion, S. Anand, founder of the Navayana publishing house, said preventing Ms. Sathe from attending the event was a collective shame. Kancha Ilaiah, former head of political science at Osmania University, said the increase in communal atrocities by the organisations affiliated to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh shows that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had no control over them.

source : The Hindu dt 15-8-14

Just 5% of Indian marriages are inter-caste: survey

30 per cent of rural and 20 per cent of urban households said they practised untouchability

Just five per cent of Indians said they had married a person from a different caste, says the first direct estimate of inter-caste marriages in India.

The India Human Development Survey (IHDS), conducted by the National Council for Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and the University of Maryland, also reported that 30 per cent of rural and 20 per cent of urban households said they practised untouchability. The IHDS is the largest non-government, pan-Indian household survey. It covers over 42,000 households, representative by class and social group. Its findings, yet to be made public, were shared exclusively with The Hindu. When married women aged between 15 and 49 were asked if theirs was an inter-caste marriage, just 5.4 per cent said yes, the proportion being marginally higher for urban over rural India.

There was no change in this proportion from the previous round of the IHDS (2004-05). Inter-caste marriages were rarest in Madhya Pradesh (under 1 per cent) and most common in Gujarat and Bihar (over 11 per cent).

Survey finds practice of untouchability

The India Human Development Survey said what female respondents interpreted as a “different caste” is likely to have been subjective, but ultimately closer to the lived reality of an inter-caste marriage.

“Questions on caste are some of the most complex questions Indian surveys can ask. The same person will say ‘I am Baniya’ today and say ‘I am Modh Banik’ tomorrow; both would be correct,” Sonalde Desai, a demographer who is Senior Fellow at NCAER and Professor of Sociology at the University of Maryland, who led the IHDS-II, told The Hindu.

“So the IHDS took a simple approach and asked women whether their natal family belongs to the same caste as their husband’s family, allowing us to bypass the complex issue of defining what caste means and get subjective percept-ions from our respondents,” Dr. Desai said.

The NCAER survey also asked respondents if they practised untouchability, following it up with a question on whether the respondent would allow a lower caste person to enter their kitchen or use their utensils.

A third of rural respondents and a fifth of urban respondents admitted to practising untouchability. The practice was most common among Brahmins (62 per cent in rural India, 39 per cent in urban), followed by Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and then non-Brahmin forward castes.

The only other estimate on the extent of inter-caste marriage came from an indirect method. Comparing the answers that the husbands and wives of the same household gave to the National Family Health Survey, researchers Kumudini Das, K.C. Das, T.K. Roy and P.K. Tripathy found that 11 per cent of couples in the 2005-06 NFHS stated different caste groups.

“This was an indirect way of estimating the extent of inter-caste marriages. We cannot say if it was accurate, but it was a way to approach the truth,” Dr. K.C. Das, Professor in the Department of Migration and Urban Studies at the Mumbai-based International Institute of Population Sciences (IIPS), explained to The Hindu.

Source: The Hindu dt 13-11-14

'The wall stands tall'

Pa. Ranjith, the director of Madras, delineates the many layers of his film in a conversation

Madras has been highly appreciated for its authentic portrayal of life in north Chennai.

Well, it was about time somebody showed it as it really is. For some reason, while Tamil films have had honest portrayals of life in cities like Madurai and Coimbatore, north Chennai has always been shown rather insincerely. I have received several calls from people in slums to thank me for the film. One guy who called me said that he did not sleep for three days after seeing the film, as he relate so closely to Anbu’s character. Another small boy from a slum asked, “Why have you made a movie about us?” He used the word ‘us’. It pleased me immensely.

The North Chennai slang was particularly impressive. Johnny’s (a character in the film) dialogues were a riot.

Thank you. You should know, however, that a few popular critics were unconvinced about the dialect. One person said that I hadn’t used words like ‘kaidha’ or ‘kasmaalam’ in the film. Thanks to Tamil cinema, many people still imagine that it’s these words that constitute what they refer to as ‘Madras baashai’. Nobody there talks like these people think they do! I guess it’s too much to expect people to know these things, considering we have always shown people from north Chennai only as rowdies or comedians.

You’ve agreed that the film is a commentary on the Dalit situation. Why was that your aim?

I wanted to show their situation as it is. I doubt any other Tamil filmmaker, except perhaps V. Sekhar, has shown it as honestly. I wanted to show that these people are taken advantage of by those who claim to be their representatives. Unless they rise through education and awareness, this situation will not change.

What was your childhood like? Did it motivate the story in a way?

I guess you could say so. I grew up in Karalapakkam, near Avadi. In these outskirts, areas are segregated into ‘ooru’ and ‘colony’. Those who live in the ‘colony’ usually belong to the lower castes and are neglected. I grew up in a Karalapakkam colony, and saw firsthand the difference in treatment meted out to my community. From schools to playgrounds, we were always treated differently. Many characters in my film resemble people I grew up with there.

Do you believe that such casteism as it exists within the city?

Caste politics in the city become most obvious during events such as marriages. Almost every locality in the city has a slum, but do you not see how different they are… how little the dwellers interact with their wealthy neighbours? Do you not see that they are strategically placed by the Cooum river? When you search for a rented apartment, do you not see how they want you to abstain from non-vegetarian food, and even if they are fine with it, they want you to stay away from beef?

Beef is taboo here, isn’t it? Tell me a bit about the whole beef-as-taboo theme. Is it because some groups consider the cow to be holy?

I was happy to show my protagonist eating beef in my debut film Attakathi. It happens in reality, so why must we pretend it doesn’t? One of my friends submitted a short story to a popular regional magazine about a man who eats beef biriyani at night. The story was selected and published, but all references to beef biriyani were changed to mutton biriyani! Unavu kooda saadhiya maarudha inga? (Will even food become a casteist issue?) We must have conversations about these things. A rooster is representative of a Hindu god too. Several animals represent several gods. They don’t seem to be taboo, though, do they? My point is that we don’t think about how such little things continue to exist unseen under the blanket of public consciousness.

You seem passionate about such topics. Will all your films be political in nature?

I think they will at least have some minor commentary on the subject. I won’t ever preach though. Enough is not spoken in the public domain about to educate some undermined invisible classessocieties. Look at the our shirt we are wearing. Just Think about the number of people who have worked on it to bring it to us. The person who stitched it, the person who transported it, the person who washed it… you get the idea. We are nothing if we are not supportive of each other, and are mindful of the work other people put in to get us every possession we value.

Were you saying through this film seems to say that somebody from the community members must rise up for themselves? to stand for its people?

In fact, I was trying to show that the people who rise from the community end up taking advantage of the very group of people they promised to help. Underprivileged people must ask some questions. Why is north Chennai so unglamorous? Why are we living by the Cooum? Why are we given a narrow strip to live on? Why’s a large family made to live in a 10x10 unit? Job opportunities, water problems…

Recently, a Hindu boy married a Dalit girl, and the ensuing uproar resulted in 285 Dalit huts being burnt down in Dharmapuri. This didn’t happen in some random disconnected part of India. This happened in our neighbourhood. What’s to stop it from happening to us? People should think.

Your film started with reality. Why not keep it real until the end? For somebody who’s so particular about realistic portrayals, some scenes in the second half (mainly fight scenes) weren’t really in sync with reality.

We decided that until the fight scene in the second half, we’d make realistic cinema. After that, we’d make commercial cinema. It was a point of demarcation.

Why not keep it real until the end?

For commercial reasons, we had to make some compromises.

Were you worried that the audience may not see through the layers of Madras?

Not really. I think we have among the most intelligent audience, one that appreciates all kinds of cinema. They simply want to be entertained.

Did you tell the producer know at the outset that you had these political layers underneath the story?

I told him I wanted to portray north Madras in an authentic manner, and that I wanted to show the problems rampant there. I was simply asked not to stir trouble or do anything overly controversial. I don’t think I’ve done either. The original purpose of the film, of course, was to entertain.

Both your protagonists (Attakathi and Madras) are not really the most sophisticated, city slickers. Do you think you can step away from the life you have seen, and make a film about, say, an educated, wealthy, trendy businessman?

Why not? I have a script called Manjal which talks about the problems in such a person’s life. I may even make it my next film, who knows?

The wall lives and breathes in your film…

I wrote it as a living thing. In every scene that had the wall, I wrote how I wanted it to look. ‘The wall looks grim.’ ‘The wall stands tall.’ ‘The wall looks menacing.’ ‘The wall is basking in sunlight.’ I enjoy creating the ambience in a story. In fact, I created a team to set up life in the background. If you plan to watch Madras again, focus this time only on the people in the background… you will notice how incredibly realistic they are. Not a single character will be out of place, doing something they shouldn’t be.

No smoking, drinking or alcohol scenes were shown in Madras too. Was this a conscious decision?

Yes. I think too many films romanticise alcohol and cigarettes unnecessarily. I don’t think it’s something to be celebrated. Of course, if it’s indispensable in a story, I may end up filming it. But if I can help it, I won’t. Similarly, my films will never have anybody mocking a transsexual or a bald person or a mentally/physically challenged person in the name of humour. I’ve never found such scenes to be funny.

What pleases you the most about the appreciation that Madras has received?

That other filmmakers may now be motivated to make similarly authentic movies about slum dwellers, and portray them as one of us. That some guy somewhere now realises that all north Chennai men are not scary criminals.

*This report has been corrected for editing error

Source: The Hindu dt 19-10-14

College retracts invite to Dalit activist after ABVP threat.

Sheetal Sathe was arrested on charges of backing Naxal activities

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has forced St. Xavier’s College here to retract an invitation extended to Dalit activist and singer Sheetal Sathe. Ms. Sathe was arrested in April 2013 for allegedly supporting Naxal activities and later granted bail.

She was invited by the organisers of St. Xavier’s annual festival, ‘Malhar’, to participate in a panel discussion on ‘The invisibility of caste’ on Thursday. With the ABVP threatening to disrupt the festival if she was allowed to attend, the organisers withdrew the invitation on Wednesday.

An ABVP delegation visited the college a few days ago and warned both the management and the students against inviting Ms. Sathe. “She is an anti-national. Such people should be barred from entering colleges because they will influence the youth. If the college sticks to its stand, we will close down Malhar,” Yadunath Deshpande, ABVP’s Mumbai organisational secretary, told The Hindu.

Clamping down on such programmes was “in the national interest,” he claimed.

Ms. Sathe is a member of the Pune-based radical cultural group Kabir Kala Manch.

Ambedkar vs Gandhi: the risks of village empowerment

           The death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, drove home the growing irrelevance of the father of the nation. In West Bengal, not a single state cabinet minister attended the formal ceremony held by the Governor. In Mumbai, mayor Sunil Prabhu clean forgot about the usual ceremony, and blamed the lapse on the bureaucrat who had failed to remind him. This should surprise nobody in a country where, according to a newspaper poll some years ago, two-thirds of all voters thought that Sonia Gandhi was related to Mahatma Gandhi. 

    Of course, the Mahatma’s teachings continue to inspire many. Arvind Kejriwal and other Aam Aadmi Party leaders wear Gandhi caps, calling themselves the true philosophical heirs of the Mahatma. They emphasise decentralization and empowerment of mohalla committees, drawing on Gandhiji’s vision of self-ruling villages. 
    But they need to deal with the philosophy of another person who lived in Gandhi’s shadow in their lifetime, but has posthumously beaten the Mahatma hollow. This is Bhimrao Ambedkar, the icon of all dalits. 
    Gandhi wanted the central government to have very limited powers. He wanted villages to rule themselves the traditional way, through sarpanches and panchas (village chiefs and councillors). But Ambedkar declared that villages were cesspools of cruelty, caste prejudice and communalism. No human rights would be safe if left to dominant groups that had oppressed minorities for centuries in the most inhuman fashion. 
    When the Bombay Legislative Council debated enhanced powers for panchas through a Village Panchayats Bill, Ambedkar lashed out. “A population which is hidebound by caste; a population which is infected by ancient prejudices; a population which flouts equality of status and is dominated by notions of gradations in life; a population which thinks that some are high and some are low — can it be expected to have the right notions even to discharge bare justice? Sir, I deny that proposition, and I submit that it is not proper to expect us to submit our life, and our liberty, and our property to the hands of these panchas.” 
    Ambedkar’s analysis continues to ring true eight decades later, despite innumerable constitutional safeguards, laws and political speeches. Village empowerment seriously endangers minorities. Last year’s mass killing of Muslims in Muzaffarnagar district, UP, started with a Muslim boy stalking a Jat Hindu girl. The killings were formally sanctioned by hate speeches at a Jat Mahasabha meeting. 
    In Punjab and Haryana, village councils called khap panchayats act as de facto courts settling rural disputes on everything from land and cattle to matrimony and murder. They break every rule and law on human rights. Their decisions range from banning women from wearing western clothing and using mobile phones to supporting child marriage and sanctioning the lynching of young couples in so-called “honour killings”. These killings typically happen when the young girl and boy are from different communities, but also when the youngsters belong to the same Hindu gotra. 
    Let nobody think this occurs only in the barbaric north. A fortnight ago, a 20-year-old woman in West Bengal was gang-raped by 13 men on the orders of a village court, as punishment for having a relationship with a man from a different community. 
    Tamil Nadu is supposedly much more civilized than Haryana. But in 2012, Vanniyars (members of an intermediate caste) burned the houses of 268 dalits after a dalit boy eloped with a Vanniyar girl. This was just one of many such elopements. Vanniyar leader Ramdoss sneered at “stage-managed” love marriages, saying dalit men were trapping Vanniyar women by claiming to be in love and later duping them. He appealed for an alliance of caste Hindu organizations against dalit assertion, a ban on intercaste marriages, and amendments to the law on preventing atrocities against dalits and tribals. This is not an isolated incident in Tamil Nadu. In several panchayat elections where the post of sarpanch is reserved for dalits, no dalit has dared come forward as a candidate for fear of reprisals from upper castes. 
    World Bank research confirms that, the world over, central governments tend to be far more egalitarian and secular in outlook than villages. What Ambedkar said of hidebound Indian villages is a global truth. 
    There still remains a strong case for devolving powers and budgets to panchayats for various rural projects. But this must be accompanied by safeguards against sectarian misuse. Merely reserving some panchayat seats for women and dalits is no guarantee whatsoever of justice or fair treatment. 
    Arvind Kejriwal thinks that enlightened brahmins will prevent sectarian misuse at the mohalla or panchayat level. This is laughable. It’s okay to wear a Gandhi cap, but please listen to Ambedkar too.

Source: The times of India dt 9-2-14

Against caste in Europe

Anti-caste campaigners in the United Kingdom score a major victory with the E.U. passing a resolution to put caste within a global rights framework. 

THE ringing indictment of caste-based discrimination and prejudice contained in a strongly worded resolution that the European Parliament passed last month has put this particular form of human rights abuse firmly on the international agenda. Equally importantly, the resolution has served to drag this pernicious institution out of the shadows of the South Asian migrant experience in Europe where it has long remained hidden and into the public domain of legal and institutional scrutiny.

Passed by an overwhelming majority of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), the resolution received cross-party support. Its passage was preceded by a discussion in which members from all parties condemned the practice and made specific suggestions on how it could be eradicated.

Caste, according to the resolution, is a “distinct form of discrimination rooted in the social and/or religious context, which must be tackled together with other grounds of discrimination, i.e., ethnicity, race, descent, religion, gender and sexuality, in E.U. [European Union] efforts to fight all forms of discrimination”. It also called for the E.U. to include the issue in legislation and human rights policies while raising it “at the highest level” with the governments of caste-affected countries.

The resolution has had a positive impact for anti-caste campaigners in the United Kingdom, where caste practices and caste-based discrimination are widely prevalent among Asian populations. This is hardly surprising. British Asians now comprise 7.5 per cent of the population of the U.K. Those of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi descent—among whom the practice of caste is most prevalent —accounted for 3.07 million out of a total population of 63.23 million in the 2011 Census.

In the U.K., caste functions with impunity within a larger socio-political environment in which the rule of law and equality before the law are rights that are institutionalised. It operates in below-the-surface cultural spaces where institutional oversight does not usually reach. In the multicultural society that the U.K. has become, the growth of identity politics has consolidated the hold of traditional ties and practices among immigrant groups. These so-called personal spheres—the home, the joint family, places of worship—are fiercely protected by community bosses from “interference” of any kind. And it is here that the most discriminatory of traditional practices—caste among them—flourish.

Source: Front line 

Atrocities that no longer shock

While the Delhi rape incident saw mass protests for justice, crimes against Dalits hardly evoke such outrage, which is why the killers in the Laxmanpur-Bathe massacre have got away

The response by the state to the 2012 Delhi gang rape case was immediate and effective — a commission to review legislative protections and recommend amendments, and a new enactment. The judiciary responded similarly — death penalty for the accused and although there was indignation about the “leniency” towards the juvenile involved in the crime, there was overall a sense of satisfaction that the ends of justice had indeed been met. But all through this saga, a persistent voice from Dalit intellectuals and activists kept asking whyKhairlanji did not provoke this kind of national outrage and why India is unmoved by the most gruesome massacres of Dalits.

The October 9 verdict of the Patna High Court in the Laxmanpur-Bathe massacrebrings this question up yet again: a painful reminder of the continuing legitimacy of the caste system and aggravated assault, making a mockery of the rule of law.

On a plain reading of this judgment, it is not disputed that 58 persons — men, women and children, all Dalits — were killed after being shot by a mob of over a hundred men armed with guns, in a concerted attack on the intervening night of December 1-2, 1997. It is also not disputed that survivors in this village were eyewitnesses who had lost entire families in the massacre, and had narrowly escaped murder themselves. There was a delay by the police in recording the statements; persons identified by the eyewitnesses were not named in the statements in the first instance; there was a delay of three days in reaching the FIRs to the Chief Judicial Magistrate; there was blood in the homes of the victims and survivors; “copious blood” on the banks of the river Sone; and blood smeared on a boat on the riverbank; the murderous mob shouted slogans in praise of Ranvir baba and dispersed on the sound of a whistle; footprints of 100-150 persons on both banks of the river suggested to the investigating officer that the mob had crossed the river towards Sahar but he did not cross the river in his investigation. The investigating officers recorded statements by the survivors that several of the men named as perpetrators were members of the Ranvir Sena who had criminal antecedents.

DELAY

The case was committed to the court of sessions in 1999, but typically as with many atrocity cases, the trial did not begin for 11 years till the High Court issued fresh instructions in November and December 2008. By this time, of 91 witnesses, 38 had turned hostile. Of the 50 accused sent up for trial in 1999, 44 finally faced trial, some having died in the interim. The Sessions Court sentenced 26 persons to death in 2010 after convicting them of murder, criminal conspiracy and atrocity — 13 years after the massacre.

The witnesses cited dispute over wages and standing crop as the reason for the attack — a demand for an increase in wages from one-and-a-half kilos of food grain to three kilos. The perpetrators were not an unknown mob from a strange and distant land. They were landlords in the same and neighbouring villages, who the victims and their families knew well and worked for. They were all from the dominant, landowning castes.

They attacked in the dead of night, flashing torches to search for the victims, and the witness-survivors were hiding from attack — yet they recognised the men and named them. But they had also witnessed unimaginable violence and had lost several members of their families in the attack. Their testimonies through the investigation speak of their hurtling from one house to another discovering more bodies than survivors, and the sound of wailing that rent through the night.

LOOPHOLES

The High Court of Patna speaks of loopholes in the evidence on record: the delay in reaching the FIRs to the Chief Judicial Magistrate; the fact that names were not recorded on the first visit the day after the massacre by witnesses who had lost all their family members in the attack; the impossibility of recognising perpetrators from places of hiding; the impossibility of risking lives to go onto the terrace to identify people from the mob; the impossibility of fixing the identity of individuals in a mob from a distance; inaccuracies in recording the exact location of hiding during the massacre; absence of evidence on any dispute between the dominant landowners and the Dalit wage workers.

Where do these refutations leave us?

Fifty-eight people in a small Dalit hamlet were massacred. There is no denying that. The attackers, says the High Court, were unknown men from Sahar across the river Sone in Bhojpur district, who have not been apprehended. Instead the wrong people who bear no responsibility for the crime have been convicted, says the court. How can we be sure?

This is the trouble with caste atrocity. The fact that perpetrators are in an immediate relation of dominance with victims and survivors and are easily recognised counts for nothing. Can we even begin to understand the courage and determination of poor and traumatised Dalits? The outcome of this case demonstrates yet again how difficult it is to keep a case alive, to keep memories raw and open in the face of an almost certain betrayal by the state, and how tough it is to keep fighting against the conspiracy — between upper caste perpetrators, their collaborators in the establishment and their apologists in a caste-ridden society.

Why not Khairlanji? Why not Karamchedu? Why not Laxmanpur-Bathe? Why does this country not come to a grinding halt in the face of atrocity of the worst kind? Justice can only be said to be done when those that are most vulnerable are able to access it without difficulty. It is our collective failure and a national shame that we allow the space for this travesty again and yet again.

Source: The Hindu dt 15.10.2013

(Kalpana Kannabiran is professor and director, Council for Social Development.)

Caste discrimination a global evil, says European Parliament

 Resolution points out various forms of violence against Dalits,    especially women.

 An estimated 260 million people affected worldwide.

 In India, lack of protective non-discrimination measures in  labour market and private sector adds to inequalities.

The European Parliament (EP) has recognised caste-based discrimination as a human rights violation and adopted a resolution condemning it and urging European Union institutions to address it. The EP consists of 28 member-countries of the EU.

Acknowledging that caste-affected communities are still subjected to ‘untouchability practices’ in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, the October 10 resolution stressed the need to combat discrimination based on work and descent, which occurs also in Yemen, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal and Somalia.

In December last, the EP passed a similar resolution, expressing alarm at the persistence of human rights violations against Dalits in India. Last week’s resolution recognised the presence of caste-based discrimination globally and pointed out various forms of caste-related violence against Dalits, especially women.

The EP reiterated serious concern over violence against Dalit women and other women from similarly affected communities in societies with caste systems, who often do not report it for fear of threat to their personal safety or of social exclusion. It pointed out the multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination based on caste, gender and religion, affecting Dalit women and women from minority communities, leading to forced conversions, abductions, forced prostitution, and sexual abuse by dominant castes.

Caste discrimination continues to be widespread and persistent, affecting an estimated 260 million people worldwide, despite the governments of some affected countries taking steps to provide constitutional and legislative protection, the EP said.

It noted that caste-based discrimination occurred in diaspora communities, untouchability practices took on modern forms and the affected communities faced restricted political participation and serious discrimination in the labour market.

“In a few countries, such as India, mandatory affirmative action has to some extent contributed to the inclusion of Dalits in the public sector, but the lack of protective non-discrimination measures in the labour market and the private sector adds to exclusion and growing inequalities,” it said.

The International Labour Organisation estimates that an overwhelming majority of bonded labour victims in South Asia are from the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, and that forced and bonded labour is particularly widespread in the agriculture, mining and garment production sectors, which supply products to a number of multinational and European companies.

The National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights welcomed the EP resolution.

Source: The Hindu Dt 15.10.2013

Lack of unity a hurdle to abolition of untouchability: Thirumavalavan

Fighting for the abolition of untouchability is not the responsibility of Dalits alone but of all democratic forces, according to Thol Thirumavalavan, president of the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK). However, while the Left parties and Dravidar Kazhagam were vociferously opposing it, Dravidian parties and Tamil nationalist groups were hesitant to do so, he said.

Mr. Thirumavalavan, who has completed 23 years as VCK leader since he took over in 1990, spoke about the state of Dalit politics in the State in an interview toThe Hindu.

Answering a criticism by Dalit intellectuals that his party lacked autonomy and had to depend on Dravidian politics, he said, “It is only in electoral politics that we are dependent on Dravidian parties; in matters related to policies, ideology and struggles, the VCK is not under the influence of Dravidian politics. We are not dependent on them, but we are staying with them (…saarndhu irukkavillai, serndhu irukkirom).

The Pattali Makkal Katchi’s move to form an anti-Dalit front and demands such as scrapping of the SC/ST (Prevention of Abolition) Act were not only against Dalits, but also a threat to democratic values and social justice. “When the whole world in the 21 century is speaking the language of human rights, strengthening democratic principles and wants to lend ‘voice to the voiceless’, the PMK is campaigning for such a retrograde move.”

He noted that in situations such as the Pappapatti and Keeripatti local body elections and the Dharmapuri inter-caste marriage issue, his party’s struggles were against the State government. “Annihilation of caste is our aim, and we are confidently treading the path, and so we are autonomous. In the case of electoral politics, even the Communists are part of the Dravidian party alliance.”

Speaking about the VCK’s growth since he took over in 1990, he said the party had a base in all districts and not confined to the north, as reported in the media.

However, the VCK was a party of the oppressed and the most vulnerable sections of society, so it is unable to build a strong infrastructure. “After the DMK and the AIADMK, the VCK is the party which has a mass support base. Post 2008 elections, many non-Dalits have become part of VCK and it is a welcome sign.”

Agreeing that lack of unity was a problem for Dalits, he said there should be unity based on uniformity. ‘Dalit’ was an all- encompassing political term, but in Tamil Nadu a few Dalit organisations were creating divisions among them. The VCK had no problem joining hands with Puthiya Tamilagam and was ready to work with it based on an identified uniformity.

“Dalit unity in terms of achieving political and social mobility is very important,” he said.

Talking about the Allahabad High Court ruling banning caste-based rallies, the MP saidcaste and religion-based rallies should be banned, but there was no clarity on what one meant by caste or religious rallies. Mobilisation of vulnerable sections like Dalits could not be seen through the same lens as one does of rallies of dominant castes which demand abolition of the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the marginalised.

sOURCE: The Hindu dt 18-8-13