From: Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC <pmarc2008@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, Mar 23, 2010 at 6:52 PM
Subject: [PMARC] Dalits Media Watch - News Updates 23.03.10
To: Dalits Media Watch <PMARC@dgroups.org>
Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 23.03.10
Clash of castes in Maddur - Express Buzz
Dalit girl's rape issue rocks Assembly - The Pioneer
http://www.dailypioneer.com/243937/Dalit-girl%E2%80%99s-rape-issue-rocks-Assembly.html
Outfit seeks separate state for dalits - Express Buzz
TD stalls House again on NREGP - Express Buzz
Demand for releasing Ambedkar movie in TN - Express Buzz
Cut off by caste - Front Line
http://www.flonnet.com/stories/20100409270703000.htm
Express Buzz
Clash of castes in Maddur
MANDYA: History was made in S I Honnalagere of Maddur taluk in Mandya district when around 100 Dalit families forced entry into the temple of the local deity Bevenamma to offer special prayers on Sunday.
Dalits have, for generations, stood outside the temple to pray. They even paid Rs 750 per family for the renovation of the temple, and offered rice and jaggery for the inauguration, but the upper caste Hindus still kept them out, they claim.
Around 11 am on Sunday, they gathered at the temple carrying fruits, flowers and sweets. The upper caste Hindus did everything possible to prevent them from entering the temple — from verbal abuse to nearly coming to blows. When all else failed, they pulled out the priest and asked him not to conduct the puja.
But the Dalit familes entered the temple, offered puja and returned home. Now, they fear ostracisation by upper castes. Shops in the village are closed and landless Dalit labourers fear they could lose their jobs as a backlash by the upper castes, who have already held talks with villagers.
It all started when Nagaraj galvanized the Dalits and made a representation to the Deputy Commissioner, the SP and others seeking police protection to make the offering possible at the temple.
Based on the petition, Additional SP Rajanna convened a meeting between representatives of both the sides, where the upper caste Hindus are said to have refused entry to the Dalits.
The Dalits, however, ignored the warning and entered the temple, amidst slogan-shouting by the upper castes.
The police have pressed in additional forces and imposed prohibitory orders.
The Pioneer
Dalit girl's rape issue rocks Assembly
http://www.dailypioneer.com/243937/Dalit-girl%E2%80%99s-rape-issue-rocks-Assembly.html
Sunil Kumar | Dehradun
Uttarakhand House witnessed unruly scenes on Tuesday, on the issue of nine-year-old Dalit girl's rape in Haridwar. Raising the issue in zero hour, the BSP MLAs demanded punishment for the guilty and compensation for the victim.
It was only after the Government announced compensation of Rs 2.5 lakh that the BSP MLAs ended their protest. The BSP MLAs alleged that police are patronising the accused and therefore, they registered a case on March 19, a day after the incident occurred. Police even tried to cover up the incident and help the accused by delaying medical examination of the victim.
Opposition leader Harak Singh Rawat too supported the BSP and demanded justice for the victim and her family. They demanded action against the guilty police officers, who intentionally delayed filing the case.
Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prakash Pant said that the victim's family told the police on March 19, and a case was registered under the SC Act, the same day. The medical examination of the victim has confirmed rape. The police have even arrested a person on March 20.
Pant assured the House that victim's family will be given all support, including security if needed. Taking cognisance of the Opposition's allegation, Speaker told to the treasury bench to take strict action against the guilty police officials.
Intially, Speaker tried to persuade the Opposition MLAs to have their seat but they refused to do so. Thereafter, the Speaker adjourned the House till 4 pm and later extended twice for 15 minutes each. As the House re-assembled, the Opposition leader demanded action against the police officer for delay in registering a case. Later, Pant announced Rs 2.5 lakh compensation to victim's family.
Later, Opposition told the House that two No Objection Certificates (NOCs) were issued to Asbestos factory, placed at Luxar, Haridwar in single day by Pollution Control Board (PCB). They demanded discussion on this issue. During discussion opposition leader alleged that by giving NOC to asbestos company they are playing with people health. Although this matter is not only associated with the company but also with state. World Health Organisation (WHO) report says 90000 people died due to asbestos per year and 144 countries have banned use of Asbestos in their country. Due to this people become TB, cancer and handicapped patient.
He alleged that there is serious flaw since the permission to establish this factory and NOC to the factory by PCB. Congress MLA Tilak Raj Behad demanded action against the guilty officials. Replying to opposition allegation Pant said that before giving permission Environment Ministry had invited public hearing. In which a congress MLA had expressed happiness for the establishment of such factory. Later state allowed them to buy land for the establishment of Asbestos factory. Pant also disclosed that there is no ban in the use of Asbestos in India so Speaker refused to accept the petition for further action.
Express Buzz
Outfit seeks separate state for dalits
BHUBANESWAR: The State Ambedkar Chinta- Chetana Parishad, an organisation of tribals and dalits, has demanded a separate state for the two backward sections of the society.
The working president of the organisation Debaraj Naik has said in a statement that the separate state should be created with 40 percent of the land of Orissa.
He has threatened that if the State Government failed to fulfil the demand, the Parishad will launched a statewide agitation to press for it.The demand for the separate state has been made before the State Government and the Centre.
Naik said that a meeting of tribals and dalits have been convened here on March 28 to discuss the issue and take necessary steps.
Criticising the State Government for shedding crocodile's tears over the plight of the people of these backward sections, the Parishad alleged that in name of education, the tribal girls have been pushed to sexual exploitation.
He alleged that the constitutional provision for equality has not been implemented properly as a result of which Dalits and tribals are still at the lower strata of society.
Demanding that the authorities should amend the land settlement acts so that land can be transferred to the dalits and tribals, Naik alleged that 99 percent people of these two sections do not have land. Besides, a majority of dalit and tribal people are yet to get any homestead or agricultural land even so many years after independence because of there is no sincerity in implementation of the decisions made for their welfare, he said.
He warned that if corrective action was not taken, things will go out of hand soon
Express Buzz
TD stalls House again on NREGP
HYDERABAD: The main Opposition Telugu Desam Party has once again stalled the House today demanding a discussion on the alleged irregularities in implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme (NREGP) in the State. As the Opposition members were not ready to hear his plea of resuming their seats and to cooperate for continuation of House proceedings, Speaker N Kiran Kumar Reddy was forced to adjourn the House (for half-an-hour) within five minutes after commencement of the session at 9 a.m.
It may be recalled that the State Assmebly was forced to adjourn for the day on Saturday without transacting any business when the TDP members stalled the House by insisting on a debate on NREGP.
Pandemonium broke out when the Speaker disallowed the adjournment motion notice given by the TDP on the issue.
As soon as the session met for the day today, the Speaker went ahead with the Question Hour proceedings after disallowing the adjournment motion notices given by various political parties which included the experiment of a vaccine for cervical cancer by the PRP, funds allocation for Dalits welfare (BJP), beneficiaries failing to get land under the land distribution programme (CPI) and lack of minimum support price to farmers for paddy (CPM).
However, the TDP members disrupted the proceedings by insisting on immediate discussion on NREGP.
Intervening, Legislative Affairs Minister D Prasada Rao remarked that the TDP, in fact, was not serious on the issue and was trying to stall the proceedings even when the Government was ready to have a debate.
The issue subsided when all the party floor leaders agreed to take up various issues such as power supply, drought, NREGP, mining, Muslims reservations etc. in a phased manner, at the Business Advisory Council meeting convened by the Speaker during the House adjournment. The House which resumed after one-and-a-halfhour continued with the Question Hour proceedings without any obstruction.
Express Buzz
Demand for releasing Ambedkar movie in TN
CHENNAI: All India Moovendar Munnetra Kazhagam on Monday demanded immediate release of the Tamil version of a film which portrays the life history of Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar.
The movie hit the screens across the country except TN a decade ago. However, no political party which boasts of following the ideals of Ambedkar seems to have raised the issue.
"The inordinate delay in releasing the movie on one of the greatest leaders that India has ever produced is nothing less than prevalence of untouchability in film industry," charged N Sethuraman, president of the AMMK here on Monday. " Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar was made in English and dubbed in a slew of Indian languages including Tamil," he recalled.
Directed by Jabbar Patel, the movie was produced by the National Film Development Corporation in association with Union Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and Maharashtra government, in which Mammootty played the role of Ambedkar.
He urged the TN government to come forward to release the movie. "Otherwise, we are ready to purchase the rights and screen it in the State," he said.
'MK does not deserve award'
The Makkal Desam Katchi (MDK) has said it would oppose the conferment on the 'Ambedkar Sudar' award to Chief Minister M Karunanidhi. Pointing to the SC/ST Commission's remark that Tamil Nadu witnessed the seventh highest rate of atrocities against Dalits, MDK president Sathai A Packiaraj said the government was yet to react to the remark.
"Karunanidhi does not deserve the award which itself is an attempt to distract attention from the SC/ST Commission's revelation," said Packiaraj. VCK leader Thirumavalavan had announced the award to the DMK patriarch just a day after the SC/ST Commission recommended that the TN government take steps to curb the atrocities against Dalits
Front Line
Cut off by caste
http://www.flonnet.com/stories/20100409270703000.htm
MEERA VELAYUDHAN
Dalit women's concerns about social acceptance and specific forms of discrimination need a nuanced approach.
Since the mid-1990s, Dalit women's groups and platforms have expressed three concerns: impact of state policies, patriarchal bias of Dalit movements, and upper-caste/middle-class leadership of the women's movement. Since then concerted efforts have been made to highlight these through common actions and other forms of engagement. These have led to wider alliances not only at the national level but also internationally, with other marginalised sections and communities facing specific forms of discrimination. This approach has also led to the inclusion of caste discrimination in various United Nations conventions to which national governments, such as India's, are signatory and hence need to respond with time-bound reports, action plans and mechanisms.
On the other hand, Dalit women's concerns are now a specific but integral component of informed interventions, be it by international bodies such as CEDAW (the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women), the European Parliament and the Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination, where parallel reports are presented, or by civil society platforms such as the World Social Forum or conferences of women's groups in India, or in discussions around the Union Budget and the 11th Plan.
More recently, climate change financing and governance mechanisms are being addressed in terms of the differential impacts of climate change on communities that play a key role in sectors that are most likely to witness changes – agriculture and water resources – as well as face historical disadvantages. Yet, the grim reality of Dalit women's lives persists.
Social acceptance and the multilayered nature of the caste system inform not only the social but also the economic and occupational aspects of the lives of Dalit women. Their occupational pattern is impacted by resource rights such as land and credit, access to education and modern skills, and restrictions on labour mobility. Several village studies (Thorat, 2005) have pointed to exclusion in the hiring of labour and low wage rates, the discrimination being greater in the case of Dalit women than men. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) Report (2007) "Equality at Work – Tackling the Challenges", with limited access to education, training, and resources including land and credit, Dalits are generally not considered for any work involving contact with food and water meant for non-Dalits. They also face discrimination in a wide range of work opportunities in both the public and private sectors.
A persistent form of discrimination in South Asia has been caste based, the report states, pointing to the continuing practice of Dalits being engaged in the most menial jobs of clearing excreta and removing dead animals. Thus, social origin becomes a powerful obstacle to equal opportunity not only in highly stratified societies but also where social segmentation is less rigid, since action to overcome this barrier covers a range of sectors and policy measures that need coordination between, and the competence of, different areas of government.
A study (Action Aid, 2000) of 555 villages in 11 States, including Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa and Gujarat, held that in 36 per cent of the villages, Dalits were denied casual work in agriculture. Denial of use of water sources (well, pond and tubewell) and restrictions on access to common property resources (grazing land, fish ponds and other resources) in 21 per cent of the villages affected Dalit women's entitlement to medicinal and food plants and increased their burden of household tasks. Also, Dalits were denied the right of sale of vegetables and milk in the village cooperatives or to private sellers.
A study of water accessibility in eight villages in Gujarat (Soni, Jayashree, 2006) indicates the hardship and humiliation Dalit women face in the collection of water. Dalit women wanted separate water spots or sumps to avoid quarrels at the time of collection and over the location of collection.
In Kanpar village, a separate tank was allocated to Dalits. After a few years, when upper-caste women found out that Dalit women collected more water in less time, since their number was small, they began to push aside the Dalit women, forgetting untouchability, and turned the water tap into a "general" tap, with Dalit women having to stand aside. Studies conducted in the same villages in the 1970s and late 1990s had pointed to the prevalence of a similar practice of denial of access to water resources.
Food security
Considering food security as an entitlement, the public distribution system (PDS) and the midday meal scheme (MMS) assume significance for Dalit women in ensuring the survival of their households and education for children, in particular daughters. A survey (Thorat & Lee, 2010) conducted in 531 villages in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu exposed patterns of caste-based exclusion and discrimination in the government's MMS and PDS. In Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu, the MMS is predominantly located in dominant-caste localities.
In Uttar Pradesh, the distribution of dry grain to children of government schools takes place in dominant-caste localities in 90 per cent of the respondent villages, while in only 10 per cent of the villages the distribution is conducted in Dalit localities. Access can also be conditional and depend on the state of inter-caste power relations. Often, Dalit children's access to the MMS is cut off by dominant castes to assert their domination. The opposition to Dalit cooks, mainly women, also represents a power struggle over livelihood rights, that is, Dalit entry into new livelihood domains such as government employment as MMS cooks at the village level.
Intrinsic to these denials and exclusions is violence, in particular against Dalit women and girls. A study of 500 women (Irudayam, Mangubhai, Lee, 2006) from 32 panchayat unions/blocks/mandals in 17 districts of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry, and Uttar Pradesh showed that the most frequent forms of violence included verbal abuse (62.4 per cent), physical assault (54.8 per cent), sexual harassment and assault (46.8 per cent), domestic violence (43 per cent) and rape (23.2 per cent). Other forms of violence included forced sex work, kidnapping, medical negligence, sexual exploitation and child sexual abuse.
The multiple sites of abuse included public spaces, home, workplace, the perpetrator's home and government offices. Those who inflict violence included dominant-caste landlords, police and forest officials, business persons, goondas and thugs, professionals, those involved in politics, other dominant caste members and other Dalit persons. The issues included Dalit women's perceived sexual availability, rejection of sexual advances and attempt to leave forced sex work; women breaking caste norms, accessing resources, speaking up, and participation in religious and cultural life; arrest of family members; and women's assertion of their rights to land/wages/forests/common property resources, indebtedness, upward social mobility, exercise of political rights, failure to be dutiful wives, failure to bear sons, control over earned income, inheriting marital property, or showing the spirit of independence.
In 40.2 per cent of the cases, women were unable to secure justice from the law and the community. Women were also prevented from seeking justice by the perpetrators, the police and sometimes even by family members. Only in 1.6 per cent of the cases were women able to secure informal form of justice. The study highlighted the need for government policy that understood the intersection of caste and gender.
Role in Panchayats
Another study (Irudayam, Mangubhai, Sydenham, 2009) on women's role in panchayats in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat shows that only one-third of the 200 women researched were able to, with support, act with freedom to win panchayat elections. Eighty-five per cent were pushed into panchayat politics by dominant castes or husbands (as proxy), and only one-third of the 119 panchayat presidents were able to work with freedom, with only 35.3 per cent of them calling panchayat meetings, 31.9 per cent chairing the meetings, and 27 per cent voluntarily signing resolutions. Only 21 per cent voluntarily authorised panchayat payments and only 23.5 per cent approved contracts for panchayats. Among the representatives who served as proxies, about 59 per cent served as proxies to husband/male relatives, and others to people of the dominant castes and political parties. Over 52.4 per cent of the 166 panchayat presidents and members attended many or all meetings, while only half of them raised development-related issues.
In the case of over half of the 90 women who raised issues, the issues were not discussed or approved. Dominant-caste members used abusive language or refused to share information with Dalit women representatives and prevented them from speaking.
Separate seating arrangements and pressure to stand up before dominant-caste members and use separate utensils for tea or food during meetings were the other discriminatory practices. The status of being a proxy, fear, lack of confidence, lack of knowledge, poor level of education, and traditional caste and gender roles were cited as related issues that led to low political participation, according to 120 Dalit women (72.3 per cent) members.
Lack of access and entitlements to resources leads to the denial of rights, such as the rights to livelihoods and civil rights, mainly through varied forms of violence, thereby affecting Dalit women's ability to protect and assert themselves. The lack of rights to justice and protection by the law, in the context of violence and denials that Dalit women face, reinforces the caste hierarchies and the unequal power relations in society. Hence, addressing Dalit women's rights remains key to building an egalitarian society.
Meera Velayudhan works as Policy Analyst (Gender and Culture) at the Centre for Environment and Social Concerns (CECS), Ahmedabad. She has been involved in gender studies and advocacy since the 1980s and is currently part of women and land rights networks, both in Gujarat and at the South Asia level.
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.Arun Khote
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of "Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC")
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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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