anti-caste

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SEPARATE CUPS FOR UNTOUCHABLE CUSTOMERS AT TAMIL NADU TEA STALLS

Madurai villages still practising the two-tumbler system (The Hindu)

“Selvam is a postgraduate who works in a private company. Neither his economic or educational status can guarantee social equality at a tea shop in his village where he will be served tea only in a separate tumbler. [...]

“The village has a population of 90 families belonging to Dalits and 400 belonging to Piramalai Kallars.

“The village had already earned notoriety for its practices of untouchability where Dalits were prevented from using footwear in the caste-Hindu area.

“A few months ago, police intervened and filed cases against those who practised the discrimination after which it was stopped.

“The practice of having two tumblers has undergone many changes with subtler forms to escape the attention of monitoring agencies. Citing pollution, once Dalits were served tea in coconut shells; then came separate glass tumblers for Dalits which they had to wash themselves, while everyone else was served tea in steel cups.

“Then, Dalits were given tea in separate glass tumblers and in order to prevent the mixing of tumblers owners used red/yellow/green paint marks on the bottom of tumblers meant for Dalits. In many places, they were asked to bring their own cups. Now, for Dalits, it is disposable plastic cups and for others it is stainless steel cups. In most cases, Dalits can't sit on benches in tea stalls but have to squat or sit on the floor.

“A recent study by an NGO, Evidence, found that the two-tumbler system is in vogue in 104 villages in Tamil Nadu. Its prevalence was found to be high also in 14 villages in Coimbatore district. The practice was found in 14 villages in Dindigul district and in 13 villages in Salem.”

REPORT: CASTE OPPRESSION OF THE ROMA FOUND ALL ACROSS EUROPE–EAST AND WEST

‘Widespread’ Roma exclusion persists (The Parliament)

“A new report says that many Roma people ‘continue to face discrimination and social exclusion’ across the EU.

“The situation of Roma is on average worse than the situation of non-Roma living in close proximity, it says. [...]

“The report shows that in the member states surveyed, where the overwhelming majority of Roma EU citizens live, their situation in the areas of employment, education, housing and health is on average worse than the situation of non-Roma living close by.

“Roma continue to experience discrimination and are not sufficiently aware of their rights guaranteed by EU law, it says.

“It also found that only 15 per cent of young Roma adults surveyed have completed upper-secondary general or vocational education, compared with more than 70 per cent of the majority population living nearby.

“On average, less than 30 per cent of Roma surveyed are in paid employment, while around 45 per cent of the Roma surveyed live in households lacking either an indoor kitchen, toilet, shower or bath, or electricity.

“About 40 per cent of Roma surveyed live in households where somebody went to bed hungry at least once in the last month because they could not afford to buy food.”

See also:

Roma ‘face same inequalities in west Europe as in east’ (BBC News, May 23, 2012):

“Ioannis Dimitrakopoulos, from the EU Agency on Fundamental Rights (FRA), which co-authored the report, says that Roma in countries like France, Italy and Spain share a common characteristic with Roma communities in Hungary, Romania and Slovakia - in that they were worse off than the majority non-Roma.

“‘That is precisely what we find most shocking. We would have expected to find significant differences, but from the responses of the Roma people themselves and their neighbours, we see few differences.

“‘One would have expected to see that their situation is far better in countries that have better conditions of life for their general population.’”

And see:

The Veiled Plight of the European Roma: New Report Calls for End to Discrimination (International Business Times, May 23, 2012):

“The cultural identity of the Roma people is understood only hazily by outsiders. The so-called gypsies are widely considered shiftless, unmoored and mysterious. But a single stereotype is incapable of characterizing the Roma people all across Europe; in fact, they are as diverse as the myriad countries they inhabit.

“The Roma originated in India, but it seems the bulk of their exodus took place centuries ago. In his 2002 book East European Gypsies, author Zoltan Barany, a professor of world politics at the University of Texas, wrote that ‘linguistic evidence suggests that Gypsies originated in the Punjab. They left perhaps as early as the sixth century and probably due to repeated incursions by Islamic warriors.’ Since then, the Roma have assimilated, to varying degrees, into several European countries.

“Contrary to popular belief, many Roma do not roam. Barany writes that the majority of the 'Gypsies' in Eastern Europe are settled. Except for the necessary shifts that went hand-in-hand with poverty and homelessness, large numbers of Roma established a homestead wherever they were able.

“Today there are at least 12 million Roma living in Europe, with the bulk residing in Eastern Europe. In Bulgaria and Romania, they account for at least 10 percent of the population.

“After centuries of sprawl, separate Roma groups have adapted to their home countries so that they no longer constitute a homogenous group. Some have dark features; others have light skin and blond hair. Some speak Romani, while others speak the lingua franca of their home country. Some are Catholic, some are Muslim, and some are Orthodox Christians.

“But the Roma are still collectively identifiable as outsiders, unified by their shared marginalization. For centuries, widespread discrimination was a constant barrier to their gainful integration into society.”

And see also previous anti-caste posts on the Roma

DEPENDENT UNTOUCHABLE COMMUNITY FLEES “SOCIAL BOYCOTT”

‘Discrimination’ forces 70 Dalit families out of their village in Haryana town (India Today)

“Humiliated, harassed and discriminated against, around 70 Dalit families have claimed that hostile conditions forced them out of their village in Haryana's Hisar district. They alleged that they were facing a social boycott by some uppercaste villagers.

“Protesting the alleged discrimination, these families locked their houses in Bhagana village and moved to the district headquarters. They claimed that the boycott of their community has been going on for over three months and the harassment ranged from being denied water from the community well to the use of abusive language on the streets.

“The boycotted Dalits also claimed that the uppercaste locals had illegally occupied their farm lands while they had been driven out. Camping outside the deputy commissioner's office since leaving their village, they have been demanding justice.

“‘We are in a very bad condition... Upper-class people have threatened the local grocery shop owners not to sell any item of daily use to us otherwise they will be fined Rs.1,200,’ alleged a protestor.

“‘We just asked for some space in the village land where we can feed our cattle and do some farming to earn our daily bread, but we were denied that right also,’ claimed another villager.

“Past incident

“Only a couple of months ago a Dalit man's left hand was chopped off after he drank water from the field of an uppercaste person in Daulatpur village. The man who attacked 26-year-old Rajesh was arrested.

“‘I did not imagine he would attack me with a sickle. He took it out from his blanket and cut my hand. He asked me where I was from. I said Sinyana. Then he asked me which community I came from. He then abused me how dare I drink water from his earthen pot,’ Rajesh said.”

See also anti-caste: FOR USING (AND THUS RITUALLY IMPURIFYING) DRINKING WATER POT LEFT OUT IN FIELD, UNTOUCHABLE SUFFERS HORRIFIC VIOLENCE (February 17, 2012)

And see anti-caste posts on the practice of social boycott

WOMEN’S OPPRESSION IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE CASTE SYSTEM: SOME RECENT ATROCITIES COMMITTED IN DEFENSE OF FAMILY HONOR

Mob lynches woman, man forced to attempt suicide (The Hindu, May 10, 2012):

“Madhavan, a Dalit, has literally escaped the noose and is grateful that he is still alive.

“On Tuesday morning, he was dangling from a sari, after he was forced to attempt suicide.

“But, there was no such luck for Chitra, a 29-year old caste Hindu, who was lynched by a village mob for her alleged relationship with Madhavan.

“The honour killing took place on Tuesday just after dawn in Vandal in Vedaranyam. Chitra and Madhavan were bullied and beaten up. Their crime was that their ‘relationship' was not only extra-marital, but also inter-caste.”

Minor Dalit girl sent out of village for inter-caste affair (The Hindu, May 3, 2012):

“A minor Dalit girl from Bannirsarige in Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka was forced to leave the village by her family and local people for falling in love with a boy from a different caste and, in their view, bringing ‘ignominy’ to the community.

“Suma (name changed), 17, and pregnant, was left to fend for herself after her father and other family members threatened to commit suicide if she did not leave the house.”

Father kills daughter for family honour (Deccan Chronicle, May 2, 2012):

“In a bid to save family honour, a man strangled his daughter at Gedellanka village of Mummidivaram mandal in East Godavari on Monday night as she insisted on marrying her lover who belongs to another community.”

Dalit youth, victim of honour killing (The Hindu, May 1, 2012):

“In yet another case of suspected honour killing, the Tirunelveli district police on Friday arrested four persons on charges of murdering a Dalit youth who fell in love with a caste-Hindu girl.

“According to police sources, S. Elango (25) of Periyar Nagar in Erode was invited for a discussion by his girlfriend's maternal uncle and his former employer Saravanan. When he went to see him in a village near Munnirpallam on August 5, 2011, Saravanan and his associates took Elango to an isolated place and murdered him. The body was thrown into a pond.”

NEPAL’S UNTOUCHABLE PROSTITUTE CASTE CONFINED TO THEIR TRADITIONAL ROLE–AND REPRESSED FOR IT

Caste Blocks Revamp of Nepal's Sex Workers by Naresh Newar (IPS)

“Sabitri Nepali was initiated into the traditional vocation of the Badis before she turned 14. Now, at 30, she is baffled by the changes taking place in a country struggling to climb out of a feudal past and transform into a modern, democratic republic.

“‘My family has survived on this trade for generations. My mother was a sex worker and I continued with the family profession. It was normal for us,’ Sabitri tells IPS in this remote village in Kailali district, 700 km west of Kathmandu.

“Badis, estimated to number 50,000, live in the western districts of Nepal but find work in the towns and cities of Nepal and neighbouring India, including Kathmandu, Mumbai and New Delhi.

“Four years ago the Nepal government banned the Badis from pursuing their traditional occupation after it came under pressure from local communities fearing that the districts where there were Badi concentrations were turning into red light areas.

“But, the government made no move to implement the ban, with the result that local communities formed monitoring groups backed by vigilantes that used violent methods to compel the Badis to give up their sole means of livelihood.

“‘We defied the ban and continued with our traditional occupation. How could we survive without incomes? Think about our children,’ says Kalpana Badi, 35, who like many others uses a surname that readily identifies her caste and her profession.”

See also:

The Badi: Prostitution as a Social Norm Among an Untouchable Caste of West Nepal by Thomas Cox (Kailash: Journal of Himalayan Studies, 1990)

VIDEO SHOWS UNTOUCHABILITY IN A GUJARAT VILLAGE

Why Dalits cannot get a haircut in their own village by Sanjay Parmar (Yahoo! India)

[CLICK HERE TO WATCH VIDEO (1:34)]

“‘The question is simple - why do the Dalits of the village have to go all the way to the nearest city for a haircut when there are three barber shops right there? I posed this question to both an educated Dalit boy from the village and a non-Dalit barber. The barber hems and haws until his prejudice is split wide open, even in his denials. The Dalit youth, ends up saying a lot, despite being in an understandable, evasive hurry. This is the silent vocabulary of caste, of both the oppressed and the oppressor. This is how people really speak when they speak of caste. This is the status quo that must be challenged. This is where the camera comes in between,’ says Parmar.”

WOMEN’S OPPRESSION IS AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE CASTE SYSTEM

Father bludgeons daughter to death for loving low-caste suitor (Bikya Masr)

“The 19-year-old girl Tabassum Khatun had got involved with 21-year-old Imran Khan, who was living as a paying guest in the upper floor of their apartment and was romantically involved with Tabssum the past four months.

“The two had even sought the permission of the deceased’s parents to legalize their relationship in matrimony. However the parents would have none of it, as Khan was from a lower caste.

“On Sunday, night the father Mohammad Kitabuddin Abdul Gafur Shah was awoken with a sudden sound and caught the two in the middle of a clandestine meeting, when in a fit of rage he killed his daughter.”

See also three other cases of caste-related honor killings in the Indian press this week:

Man kills wife belonging to backward class (Times of India, April 23, 2012):

“In a shocking incident, a backward-class woman was murdered allegedly for hiding her caste and marrying an upper caste man in Chitrakoot district. The man and his father have been arrested.

“The man confessed that he had killed his wife. He told the police that he was in love with his wife, who introduced herself as Puja Mishra when they first met. The two got married. When he came to know that she belonged to a backward caste, the man got furious and murdered Puja.”

And:

Girl’s mother, grandmother arrested for honour killing in Ramanathapuram (The Hindu, April 22, 2012):

“Irked over the girl eloping with a Dalit boy, Ilanjiam forced Thiruselvi to consume a pesticide. When the victim refused to do so, she forcibly poured the poison into her mouth. [...]

“The issue had been brought to the notice of the State Director-General of Police. According to him, at least a dozen honour killings were reported across Tamil Nadu in the last three years.

“‘There is a caste angle in almost every case and a majority of victims were women. We have called for enactment of a special law to eradicate honour killings.’”

And:

Dishonour killing: Father kills daughter in Indore (NDTV, April 29, 2012):

“Shivnarayan Verma (45), a resident of Pardeshipura area, choked his daughter Jyoti late on Saturday night, police said today. Afterwards, he went to the police station and confessed.

“According to police, the girl was in relation with a boy who lived near her house and wanted to marry him. But her father was against it as the boy was from another caste.

“The victim had decided to elope on Saturday night, but her father learnt about her plan and tried to stop her. She, however, refused to change her mind, which led to her murder, police said.”

REPORT: GARMENT INDUSTRY IN TAMIL NADU RECRUITS UNTOUCHABLE WOMEN AND GIRLS AS SUPEREXPLOITED LABOR

“Maid in India”: Young Dalit women exploited in Indian garment industry (SOMO [Stichting Onderzoek Multinationale Ondernemingen]: The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (Netherlands))

“Recruitment is targeted at young, mostly unmarried, women and girls, aged between 14 and 25. The majority of these workers have a Dalit (so-called scheduled castes) or other low-caste background and come from poor, often landless and indebted families that depend on irregular income earned as agricultural coolies in the dry south of Tamil Nadu. Orphans and children of single parents are also targeted. When free education ends at the 8th grade (at the age of fourteen) parents or relatives lack the means to enroll children in school. Agents that recruit for spinning mills or garment factories are aware of the situation and may approach poor families at this precise time. Brokers convince parents to send their daughters to the textile and garment factories with promises of a well-paid job, comfortable accommodation, three nutritious meals a day and opportunities for training and schooling. Clothes and household articles are also given to attract the parents. Sending the girls to work in the mills where they will receive daily meals is a relief for the household; the (small) income girls bring in is a much needed addition to the means of the family. The lump sum offered to the girls is a way to meet the social pressure to purchase jewels for their daughters’ marriage. [These recruitment and employment practices are often referred to as 'Sumangali scheme.’]

The Tamil word sumangali refers to a married woman who lives a happy and contented life with her husband with all good fortunes and material benefits. Workers under this scheme are recruited with the promise that they will receive a considerable amount of money after completion of three to five years of employment. This amount could be used to pay for a dowry. In this report, these workers are referred to as ‘scheme workers’. [Often, completing the contract period is a condition to receive the lump sum amount, which is not a bonus but made up of withheld wages.] If the lump sum is added to the monthly wages, the total amount earned in the contract period in most cases does not equal the amount a worker would have earned if she had received the minimum wage for an apprentice in the garment industry.

“[Labour migrants often live in strictly supervised factory-owned hostels where they have little opportunity for contact with their families, let alone with trade unions or labour advocates. Workers make long hours, including forced overtime, in some cases even up to 24 hours on end, for low wages, and under unhealthy conditions. Verbal and physical abuse is frequently reported.]”

Read the full report: “Maid in India”

See also:

Young Dalit women exploited in Indian garment industry (SOMO press release)

DESPITE INCREASING ENROLLMENT, CASTE BIGOTRY HOLDS UNTOUCHABLE CHILDREN BACK IN SCHOOL

In school, biases remain entrenched (Hindustan Times)

“For Dalit students in Perali village in Tamil Nadu’s Perambalur district, the route to school is long and dangerous. To reach the Government Higher Secondary School in the village, they need to carefully avoid streets that run through upper-caste neighbourhoods. They must instead risk the busy traffic of a highway as they circle these localities.

“Violating the village’s unofficial diktat could cost Dalit families their employment, as upper-caste communities control most of the economic opportunities even in the state that, for the past four decades, has seen politics centred on backward communities. [...]

“Statistics offer a reason for optimism, with Scheduled Caste (SC), Scheduled Tribe (ST) and Muslim students increasingly as likely to enroll in schools as students from upper castes. [...]

“But these statistics also hide the challenges these students face once enrolled in school.”

See previous posts on caste bigotry in schools.

WOMEN’S OPPRESSION IN TRADITIONAL SOCIETIES HAS A MATERIAL BASIS

In India, Girls Are Considered ‘Someone Else’s Wealth’ (The Epoch Times)

“According to research [by the Center for Global Health and Research published last year], the selective abortion of girls may account for 12 million missing girls over the past three decades.

“While a boy adds to the family’s wealth in India, a girl becomes part of another family after marriage. She is considered Praya Dhan, meaning ‘someone else’s wealth’ in Hindi.

“In patriarchal Indian society, boys are those who carry forth the family lineage and are responsible for taking care of the parents in old age.

“When a girl is born, along with her comes an excessive responsibility to protect her and through her the family honor, to marry her off to another household and to pay for her dowry.

“While the whole community, particularly in rural areas, breaks out into celebrations when a boy is born, the birth of a girl is usually a hush-hush affair met with either sighs or frowns. [...]

“Women who only have daughters not sons face a general curse and are blamed for not being able to provide an heir to the family lineage.”

YEMEN’S OUTCASTES–EMPLOYED AS SWEEPERS–STRIKE AGAINST EXPLOITATION, CASTE OPPRESSION

Akhdam community angered by government neglect (IRIN)

“Authorities in Yemen are yet to resolve the ‘marginalization’ of the minority Akhdam people, weeks after thousands protested in the capital Sana’a over low pay and lack of work contracts, say community members.

“‘The Akhdam are not simply second-class citizens,’ a protester said from his tent in Change Square. ‘They are more like fifth- or sixth-class citizens; the lowest class in the whole republic.’

“Despite speaking Arabic and practising Islam in the country for over 1,000 years, the Akhdam, who prefer to be called Al Muhamasheen, or ‘marginalized ones’, have never felt a part of the majority.

“The most visible marker of the Akhdam’s status in Yemeni society is the menial occupations they perform. Men roam the streets on 10-hour shifts sweeping and collecting rubbish, while women and children collect up cans and bottles and beg for handouts. [...]

“The prospect of democratic reforms envisaged in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) plan which pulled Yemen from the brink of civil war in 2012 raised hopes that the situation would improve for the Akhdam people, but little has happened yet.

“In early April 2012, for the second time in as many months, some 4,000 street sweepers in the capital went on strike in protest over unfulfilled promises by the government to raise their pay and extend their daily contracts. After only a few days off the job, Sana’a's streets became like an urban landfill site, forcing interim Prime Minister Mohammed Basindawa to negotiate with the disenfranchized group.

“Nabil, a 30-year-old street sweeper living in Mukhayyim Aser, an Akhdam slum near the presidential palace, told IRIN a day after the prime minister promised permanent contracts to the temporary workers, ‘Basindawa has not changed anything.’

“‘My friend has been working as a street sweeper for 35 years and still does not have a job contract,’ he added. ‘That’s why we’re on strike.’”

See also:

Yemen’s untouchables doubtful of change (Al Jazeera, April 24, 2012) [video]

And see:

In revolt, Yemeni “untouchables” hope for path out of misery (Reuters, March 7, 2012):

“Jamal Al-Obeidi, a secondary school mathematics teacher amongst those listening to [Akhdam spokesman] Maktari's speech in early March, expressed typical views in answer to a reporter's questions.

“‘I have nothing against him,’ he said. ‘I would talk to him in the street, I might give him some of my money, but I would not invite him to my home. He is a Yemeni, but he is also a Khadim (servant). God meant for it to be that way.’ [...]

“Prevailing prejudice holds that the men are lazy and unscrupulous, unfit for respectable work; the women, unclean and promiscuous, scrounge off the generosity of others, the conventional wisdom goes.

“‘If a dog licks your plate you should clean it," advises a proverb, "but if it is touched by a Khadim, then break it.’”

ONGOING HISTORY

Sambuka with a smile on his lips
in executing Rama
Eklavya is chopping off Drona’s thumb
with an axe
Bali with his tiny feet is trampling
Vamana into the netherworld
Manu with needles poked in his eyes
his tongue cut
molten lead in his ears
is rolling in the graveyard
On the cruel sword of time stands
the roaring Chandala
inciting
four hounds onto Sankara
That’s it!
The ongoing history
Is a very Chandala history.

–Sivasagar (K.G. Satyamurthy: July 15, 1931-April 17, 2012)

[translated by Archana Chowan]

FINAL VERDICT IN BATHANI TOLA MASSACRE CASE

All accused in 1996 Bihar Dalit carnage acquitted (The Hindu)

“The Patna High Court has acquitted all the 23 persons accused of perpetrating the massacre of 21 Dalits at Bathani Tola in Bhojpur in 1996.

“The carnage took place on the afternoon of July 11, 1996. Upper-caste (Rajput and Bhumihar) landowners of the Ranvir Sena — a private militia of the landlords — stormed Bathani Tola in Bhojpur district's Sahar block in Central Bihar and ruthlessly hacked the Dalits, among them women, teenage girls and babies less than 10 months old.

“Ajay Singh was charged with brutally killing 10-year-old Phool Kumari, Manoj Singh was charged with the murder of the three-month-old daughter of Naimuddin (one of the prime eyewitnesses) and Nagender alias Narendra Singh was charged with slaughtering two women, Sanjharu and Ramratiya Devi. They were awarded the death sentence by the sessions court.

“Bathani Tola, along with Laxmanpur-Bathe (where more than 60 Dalit men, women and children were slaughtered by the Ranvir Sena), have since become bywords for caste massacres that engulfed central Bihar from the mid-1990s onwards.”

See also:

Broken People: Caste Violence Against India’s Untouchables (Human Rights Watch, March 1999):

“The Ranvir Sena was founded by upper-caste Bhumihars in Belaur village, Bhojpur district, in 1994. It first made international headlines in July 1996 with its attack on Bathani Tola in Bhojpur district, Bihar, which left nineteen Dalits and Muslims, mostly women and children, dead. Sixty members of the sena reportedly descended on the village and set twelve houses on fire. Using lathis, swords, and firearms, the attackers continued the onslaught for two and a half hours. The attack was reportedly in retaliation for the earlier killing of nine Bhumihars in Nadhi village, also in Bhojpur district, by the CPI(M-L). The conflict began when CPI(M-L) began organizing the agricultural laborers to demand the statutory daily minimum wage of Rs. 30.75 (US$0.77). Landowners were only willing to pay Rs. 20 (US$0.50). CPI(M-L) members convinced laborers to refuse employment at that wage and called for an economic blockade against landowners. The attack on Bathani Tola, press reports claim, was an effort to weaken the resolve of CPI(M-L) cadres organizing in the village and to prevent a labor boycott on hundreds of acres of land. None of the Ranvir Sena leaders were ever arrested for the Bathani Tola massacre.

“Since its inception, the Ranvir Sena has been implicated in killings, rapes and lootings in the villages of Belaur, Ekwari, Chandi, Nanaur, Narhi, Sarathau, Haibaspur, Laxmanpur-Bathe, Shankarbigha, and Narayanpur. On April 22, 1996, the sena gunned down five members of a marriage party in Nanaur village. The victims were believed to be CPI(M-L) supporters. In 1997 the sena killed three Dalits in Jehanabad district for raising their voice against the rape of a Dalit girl by upper-caste youths.”

And see:

Agrarian Conflict in Bihar and the Ranbir Sena (People’s Union for Democratic Rights, October 1997)

And see further:

A travesty of justice (editorial) (The Hindu, April 25, 2012)

members of the Ranvir Sena responsible for the Bathani Tola massacre (Outlook India)

UNTOUCHABLE STUDENTS PROTESTING CASTE-BASED DIETARY CODE ON CAMPUS ATTACKED BY HINDU-RIGHT

Violence in Osmania University as right wing students groups attack Beef Festival of Dalit students (India Today)

“Violence erupted in the historic Osmania University in Hyderabad on Sunday evening, when student groups representing right-wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad clashed with the Dalit and minority student groups in protest against the celebration of the first-ever ‘Beef Festival’ in the campus.

“The Dalit students were celebrating the ‘Beef Festival’ (Pedda Koora Panduga in Telugu) - cooking and serving of beef in the open - on the OU campus as an expression of their cultural identity and constitutional right.

“The students have been opposing the imposition of what they call Brahminical culture on the food habits of SCs, STs and minorities in the educational institutions.

“However, the event was strongly resisted by the ABVP students stating that it was against the Indian culture and would hurt the sentiments of the Hindus who treat cow as a holy animal.

“The rightwing student groups distributed pamphlets in the last two days asking the students to stay away from the beef festival. They described the festival as a mischief being perpetrated by a few individuals who claim themselves to be Dalit intellectuals and scholars having a political agenda.

“Trouble began at around 6.30 pm, when more than 1,000 students assembled at the Ambedkar Hostel, where the Dalit Students Federation made elaborate arrangements for the festival. [...]

“As the Dalit students were raising slogans, singing songs and eating biryani made of beef, several ABVP students swooped on the venue and ransacked the area. This resulted in the two groups of students attacking each other and pelting stones. Several students and media persons covering the event received injuries.

“As the students continued with stone pelting, the police had to lob teargas shells to disperse the students. The irate mobs also set afire a vehicle belonging to a television channel. [...]

“Beef festival organizer B Sudarshan, a research scholar, said it was unfortunate that some upper caste students tried to disrupt the festival which was going on peacefully. ‘We have not made any slaughter of animals in the hostel premises but only distributed food among the students to acknowledge the age-old custom of Dalits and minorities. We wanted to remove the dirty image associated with beef, as spread by the Brahminical culture,’ he said.”

See also:

The right to eat by S. Anand (Business Standard, April 26, 2012)

And see:

Hyderabad: VHP, Bajrang Dal men purify Osmania University campus (Express News Service, April 28, 2012):

“Just when the dust seemed to have settled at the Osmania University following the controversial beef festival, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the Bajrang Dal on Thursday conducted a ritual at a temple adjacent the Arts College to ‘purify’ the campus.”

And see further:

Is it India’s Rosa Parks moment? by Ajaz Ashraf (Daily Times (Lahore), April 27, 2012):

“For nearly a century and a half, the cow wasn’t just a cow but an incendiary political issue, which periodically ignited many a communal conflagration all around India. Underlying the acrimony was the demand asking Muslims to eschew beef-eating in respect for the religious sentiments of Hindus, who considered the cow holy. It tacitly assumed a monolithic Hindu community united in its veneration of the cow and the need to save her from the Muslim butcher’s cleaver.

“This assumption stands challenged in Hyderabad, not by Muslims, but by assertive lower-caste Hindus who were contemptuously treated and referred to as Untouchables and who now have adopted the nomenclature of Dalit (oppressed) for defining their identity. On April 15, Dalit students organised a beef festival at Hyderabad’s Osmania University, where 2,000 of them publicly partook of the savoury beef biryani even as a singer belted the song: ‘Beef is the secret of my energy.’

“This demonstration of defiance was in support of their demand to have beef included on the hostel’s menu. Their logic was — beef is taboo for high caste Hindus, not the Dalits, sections of other backward castes, Muslims and Christians, whose diet includes beef. In excluding it from the menu, the university, they said, is guilty of showing an unjustifiable predilection for the religious sensitivity of high-caste Hindus. At one stroke was thus shattered the myth of the Hindu community being a monolith.”

“WE NEED THESE PEOPLE”: CHILDREN IN DOMESTIC SERVICE

Maid’s Cries Cast Light on Child Labor in India (The New York Times)

“Indian law offers limited safeguards and limited enforcement to protect such children, and public attitudes are usually permissive in a society where even in the lowest rungs of the middle class, families often have at least one live-in servant.

“‘There is a huge, huge demand,’ said Ravi Kant, a lawyer with Shakti Vahini, a nonprofit group that combats child trafficking. ‘The demand is so huge that the government is tending toward regulation rather than saying our children should not work but should be in school.’

“The International Labor Organization has found that India has 12.6 million laborers between the ages of 5 and 14, with roughly 20 percent working as domestic help. Other groups place the figure at 45 million or higher. Unicef has said India has more child laborers than any other country in the world. [...]

“Mala Bhandari, who runs Childline, a government hot line for child workers, said India’s urbanization and the rise of two-income families were driving demand for domestic help. Children are cheaper and more pliant than adults; Ms. Bhandari said a family might pay a child servant only $40 a month, less than half the wage commonly paid to an adult, if such servants are paid at all.

“Indian law deems anyone younger than 18 a minor. But the Juvenile Justice Act of 2000 also creates a loophole: Children between 14 and 18 are allowed to work a maximum of six hours a day in nonhazardous work. Children younger than 14 are prohibited from working as servants, a statute that is widely flouted. Employers are required to provide daily education and document the child’s daily break hours, though most families ignore such requirements because enforcement is largely nil.

“‘What happens within the four walls of a home, nobody knows,’ said Ms. Bhandari, who contended that while abuse was not the norm, it was not rare. [...]

“Societal attitudes toward servants are often shaped by ingrained mores about caste and class. Many servants, especially children, come from poor families among the lower Hindu castes or tribal groups, often from poor states like Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and West Bengal. [...]

“Raj Mangal Prasad, a children’s welfare official in New Delhi, said the government was not staffed to carry out raids to look for illegal servants. But if it were, Mr. Prasad estimated, several thousand cases would probably be discovered throughout the capital. He estimated that one household out of 20 employed an under-age servant. ‘It’s plain for everyone to see,’ he said. [...]

“But Mr. Kant, the lawyer with Shakti Vahini, said the courts rarely issued harsh judgments in cases involving the rights of domestic help.

“‘There is a general feeling that we need these people,’ Mr. Kant said. ‘Cases aren’t taken so seriously. There is no fear of the law.’

“IF YOU DON’T CLEAN OUR SHIT, WHO WILL?”: CRUELLY INADEQUATE GOVERNMENT SCHEME A SOURCE OF MASSIVE FRAUD BUT NO RELIEF FROM INHUMAN PRACTICE

A Blot upon the Nation (The Hindu)

“Fourteen-year-old Ravi used to be a beneficiary under the Self-Employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers (SRMS) 2007 as his mother cleaned toilets in the village. One day, when she gathered enough courage to quit the job, Ravi's scholarship funds were stopped and she faced hostility from the villagers who said, ‘If you don't clean our shit, then who will?’ Belonging to a family of six siblings, daily life has become difficult for Ravi. His mother is not getting any other job due to the stigma attached to her past one.

“This scholarship, which requires families to be engaged in manual scavenging for at least 100 days in a year, provides a perverse incentive to Dalit households to continue in the occupation. Once the families stop practicing it, the scholarships are also stopped. [...]

“In the absence of a proper mechanism in the implementation of the scheme, the survey found the presence of scheming middle men working in connivance with fraudulent bank officials.

“Middle men or commission agents would visit Dalit bastis telling households to sign on so and so papers as the government had chosen them as beneficiaries of a new scheme. The beneficiaries would never get to know the loan amount, sanctioning officer or other details of the transactions. After a while, the middle men would revisit them and hand over Rs 3,000 to Rs 4,500. Many of these people did not even know why they were being given the money or how much money had been borrowed in their names. In Madhya Pradesh, around 68 per cent of the beneficiaries were taken for a ride by the brokers, in Uttar Pradesh, 63 per cent and in Rajasthan 62 per cent. [...]

“It came to light that Muslim communities such as Hela and Halalkhor have been completely ignored by Government programmes. These caste groups inhabit several states and have been as much a slave of this exploitative tradition as the Dalit Hindu communities.”

INDIA ESCALATES ITS DIRTY WAR ON LEFTIST GUERILLAS AND IMPOVERISHED TRIBALS

Operation Green Hunt Enters New Phase (Sanhati)

“It is quite evident that after the phase of ‘Salwa Judum’ and the phase of ‘Operation Green Hunt’, anti-Naxal operations have entered a new phase variously called ‘Operation Haka’ [meaning driving out the wild animals in tribal Gondi language] and ‘Operation Vijay’.

“While certain media reports present very different pictures of this Operation [see appendixes], both the spokespersons of the Security Forces and Maoists claim that this Operation took place in the Abujhmaad/Maad area fairly deep in the forests; a large number of joint paramilitary forces about 3000 in number participated.

“While the police reports speak of Naxalite camps destroyed, Maoists encountered and arrested, the Maoist spokesperson claims that houses were burnt down, adivaasi villagers were beaten, including beaten to death, and those arrested have not been produced before courts.”

See also:

Security forces launch “Operation Abujhmad” in Chhattisgarh (March 12, 2012, UNI):

“Security forces today claimed to have captured vast areas from the Maoists' control in Chhattisgarh by launching their first and biggest ever anti-naxal operation in the rebel bastion of Abujhmad forests. [...]

“This was for the first time in the four-decade-old Naxal movement, the security forces entered the Naxal-controlled areas of Lalchawad, Pagdu, Bhatpal, Kohukameta, Chotedongar, Irukbhat, Toke, Donderaj, Mardapal, Jatawada and Kurusnar in the deep jungles of Abujhmad, which is considered as the safe heaven of the rebel outfit, the sources said.”

And see:

Naxals allege atrocities by forces on tribals (April 9, 2012, The Asian Age):

“The North-Bastar Divisional Committee (NBDC) in a statement issued to different media organisations here alleged that security forces had unleashed reign of terror against tribals in Abujhmad, said to be the Maoist capital, under the pretext of the anti-Naxal operations in March 13-18, assaulting scores of innocent tribals, leading to death of one of them, torching their houses and looting their foodgrains. [...]

“‘Security forces have launched anti-Maoist operations in Abujhmad to pave way for the Army to set up training centres in the area,’ the statement charged. The anti-Maoist operations, conducted under the code name, “Operation Haka” (meaning driving out the wild animals in tribal Gondi language), were launched simultaneously in more than one dozen villages of Narayanpur and Bijapur districts of Chhattisgarh and Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra, in which around 3000 jawans of CRPF, CoBRA battalion and the police forces of the two states participated.”

MURDERED BY HER BROTHER FOR MARRYING AN UNTOUCHABLE MAN

Honour killing of assistant professor? (The Hindu)

“In what is being described as an ‘honour killing', a married woman was strangulated to death allegedly by her brother at her residence at Alanahalli Layout here early on Tuesday.

“The victim, Smruthi (28), was an assistant professor in Kannada at the Government First Grade College at Kuderu in Chamarajanagar district.

“The accused, Mahadeva, had strongly opposed her marriage to Sudeep Kumar (28), a Dalit, who is an assistant director in the Physical Education Department in Tumkur University.

“Smruthi, a Lingayat, and Sudeep had a civil marriage last November after a seven-year courtship. They wanted to hold a wedding ceremony after getting the consent of their families.

“Smruthi, a native of Periyapatna taluk, who lost her father a year ago, was staying with her grandmother Nanjamma and a friend Savita Hegde. She was pursuing doctoral studies, according to sources.”

MIGRANT WORKERS FROM OTHER PARTS OF INDIA FACE EXPLOITATION, OPPRESSION

Come south, young man, but here be dragons by Madhumita Dutta (The Hindu)

“Tamil Nadu has more than 10 lakh migrants, doing jobs that local workers shun because of poor pay and dangerous working conditions, but they are easy targets of prejudices against ‘north Indians’. [...]

“Hailing from Assam, Bihar, Orissa, Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and even Nepal, these men come to work on private and government construction sites, in small engineering ancillary units, steel rolling mills, lathe, hosieries, foundries, in roadside eateries as well as fancy city restaurants, as security guards and even as farmhands. [...]

“Most of the migrant workers in the State land up through informal arrangements orchestrated by multiple contractors and sub-contractors. Munniraj, a Dalit labour contractor in Hosur, has 650 Bihari workers whom he supplies to the various small-scale engineering units in the industrial area. The workers, who earn anywhere between Rs.3,500-Rs.4,000 per month, give him 10 per cent of their wages, which works out roughly to Rs.2 lakh a month. [...]

“‘I left my job in a food company in Delhi three months back and came here. They used to make me work for 16 hours a day and paid Rs.5,000. Here I have better pay for less number of hours of work. But I don't want to stay here. I feel insecure. Police has made our lives miserable,’ said Nandlal from Gaya who sends his family of six Rs.4,000 every month. As if waiting for a cue, Manas, who had so far not said anything about the police harassment, said: ‘I am too scared to step out of the house after seven p.m., the police patrol stops us and asks for ID proof, and if you don't have one you are taken to the police station for enquiry’. After the bank robbery last month, police have been visiting the slums where large migrant populations live and asking the ‘north Indians' to show their IDs or proof of employment. ‘Where will these migrant people get any proof of employment or any ID for that matter?’ asked Geeta Ramakrishnan of Unorganised Workers' Union. [...]

“The interstate migrant is a much-reviled figure, often unjustly so. Ghettoised and insecure, and lacking any legal or social protection, the interstate migrant workers become easy targets for the state, administration, overzealous nationalist forces and, more worrisome, the local working class.”

TEN YEARS AFTER THE GUJARAT MASSACRE: MUSLIMS SEGREGATED AND ABANDONED

Muslims are Gujarat’s new outcastes: Survey (DNA)

“The 2002 communal riots not only drove Muslims into new ghettos all over the state, they also reduced them to the status of second-class citizens who do not seem to exist for the government. This is the finding of a city-based NGO, Janvikas, which conducted a survey on the status of the minority community in the state after the riots.

“The survey has revealed that Muslims are the new outcastes who, more often than not, are denied basic facilities which are available to people of other communities. Not only that. It appears that this neglect of the community is officially sanctioned for the riot victims find no mention in government records as people who need help. [...]

“About 16,000 Muslims displaced by the riots are still living in relief colonies that are denied even the most basic amenities.

“The 83 relief colonies that were built after the riots are almost all located in Muslim-majority areas. Fifteen of them are situated in Ahmedabad and the support they receive from the state government is negligible. [...]

“There has also been a sharp decline in the earnings of almost every displaced individual. The survey has revealed that the average annual income of displaced Muslims in Ahmedabad has come down by 31% as compared to their income before the riots.”

See also: anti-caste article on the Gujarat massacre

And see: anti-caste posts on the Gujarat massacre aftermath

A CASTE HINDU’S FRIENDSHIP WITH AN UNTOUCHABLE SEEN AS SOURCE OF SHAME FOR THE MAN’S WHOLE FAMILY: RELATIVES ATTACK HIS UNTOUCHABLE FRIEND

Dalit stabbed for friendship with caste Hindu (Express News Service)

“Sivaganga police have arrested two caste Hindus for attempting to murder a Dalit youth for befriending a caste Hindu youth.

“Karmegakannan (21), a native of Periyakottai village in Sivaganga, was stabbed with a dagger at Kovanur village [....]

“‘Muthuramalingam was not happy about Karthigaisamy, a caste Hindu, being friend with me, a Dalit,’ said Karmegakannan.

“The accused, Muthuramalingam, is the brother of Karthigaisamy’s younger sister’s husband.”

See also:

Caste Hindu fights for dalit friend (Times of India, February 23, 2012)

“The important part in the case is Karthigaisamy coming out in support of his friend in spite of earning the ire of his relatives and villagers of the dominant caste.

“He had given a statement to police accusing Thavam and Balamurugan of attacking Karmegakannan, clearly stating all the facts.

“In his statement, he had narrated how Thavam was threatening Karmegakannan to break his friendship with him. He had warned us not to go ahead with the friendship, warning of dire consequences if we continued our friendship, Karthigaisamy stated. On February 16, Karmegakannan called him from a mobile phone stating that he was attacked by Thavam and Balamurugan who left him to die after causing him serious injuries. He had reached a poultry farm in Kovanur village and alerted his friend about the incident. Karthigaisamy rushed to the spot and found his friend in a pool of blood, and rushed him to hospital, he told the police.

“A. Kathir, executive director of Madurai-based NGO Evidence who had sent a fact finding committee in this incident, stated that Karthigaisamy, in spite of hailing from a dominant caste, was leading the legal battle to seek justice for Karmegakannan.”

FOR USING (AND THUS RITUALLY IMPURIFYING) DRINKING WATER POT LEFT OUT IN FIELD, UNTOUCHABLE SUFFERS HORRIFIC VIOLENCE

Dalit’s hand chopped for drinking water from upper caste’s field (The Pioneer)

“Rajesh was called by a private contractor at Daulatpur village for doing labour work in some fields there. The incident took place when he went to the field of Rajender alias Pappu for drinking water from an earthen pot kept there. Pappu was also in the field at that time.

“After coming to know that Rajesh is from a Scheduled Caste, Pappu in a fit of anger allegedly attacked Rajesh with a sharp-edged weapon that left his hand dismembered.”

COMMENT BY AAKAR PATEL ON THE OCCASION OF THE UPCOMING TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE GUJARAT MASSACRE

“The words ‘communal violence’ are misleading, because they indicate a skirmish between equal communities. Violence by civil society in India is one-sided. The Muslims of Gujarat and the Sikhs of Delhi were recipients. The Hindus dished it out. The second aspect is that the participants are usually known to those they kill, maim and rape. The two most violently communalized cities of India are Ahmedabad and Vadodara. In both, it is neighbourhoods that go to war, with outsiders in supporting roles.

“On a later visit to Ahmedabad (a depressing, segregated and oppressively vegetarian city), I was driven through its upper-class neighbourhoods. Here the homes and offices of Muslims had been neatly picked out and burnt. Muslim colonies, what Gujaratis call societies, still had their entrances barricaded as forts. The compound walls had been raised and the gates were blocked, reinforced with metal, wood, whatever was at hand to protect them from their neighbours.

“The third aspect of the Indian riot is that the state steps aside and lets the aggrieved party avenge itself.

“A few weeks later, at a session hosted by Gujarat’s finest scholar of Islam, Asghar Ali Engineer, we tried to make sense of this. The former IAS officer, Harsh Mander, said the British system of administration and policing was so designed that the state could bring its wild citizenry to heel inside two days. That this had not happened in Ahmedabad and Vadodara showed the intention of the state.

“When vengeance is taken, there is a swift return to neighbourhood normalcy and the hatred vanishes. Where did it go? I found this disturbing because I could not understand it, and still don’t.

“Vadodara’s physics professor J. S. Bandukwala, whose house was vandalized, observed something about the 2002 violence. There is still an absence of remorse and absolutely no regret among Gujaratis.

“No truth and reconciliation commission for Gujaratis, or the barbarians of Delhi who cut down 3,000 Sikhs.

“When confronted with their behaviour against Gujarati Muslims, the snarling response of Gujarati Hindus, and I include my friends and family in this, is, ‘Ae loko-e sharu karyun (They started it).’

“One cannot argue against this because chronologically it is true. The use of ‘they’ convicts all Muslims for an incident in which some individuals participated.

“It is difficult to explain to Indians the wrongness of collective punishment. This is because our identity is collective, and so is our behaviour. The understanding that this is wrong comes mainly to those who speak English. Individuals are more easily produced by English because it opens access to the world outside the tribe. It is able to place us outside the narrow definitions assigned to us by Gujarati and Hindi.

“But for most Indians, if they started it then they must suffer for it.

–Learnt in Godhra, forgotten in Jaipur (livemint.com)

INDIAN GOVERNMENT, EXPLOITING REACTIONARY HYSTERIA WHIPPED UP BY MUSLIM CLERICS, WOULD NOT PROTECT RUSHDIE AT JAIPUR FESTIVAL

Rushdie Non Grata by David Remnick (New Yorker)

“The Jaipur Literary Festival, a giddily chaotic celebration of the written word set on the grounds of a Rajasthan palace, ended in misery and embarrassment today, with the organizers bowing to pressure from local security forces and scotching plans for Salman Rushdie to ‘appear’ at the festival, finally, by video link. Rushdie had already been forced to cancel plans to come to Jaipur after he had received intelligence reports—bogus intelligence, as it turned out—that everyone from ‘paid assassins from the Mumbai underworld’ to radical Muslim clerics were sitting in malevolent wait.

“Rushdie’s video image was not allowed at the Festival, but he was on television tonight in India, being interviewed on NDTV, and he spoke out angrily about the “unscrupulous” Muslim groups that threatened him, and an Indian government that failed to act. Speaking from London, Rushdie called the whole affair ‘fantastically fishy’ and blamed the ruling Congress Party and other officials for bowing to electoral priorities and ignoring the priorities of freedom of expression.

“Rushdie pointed out that his work is freely distributed in many Muslim countries, including Egypt, Turkey, and, now, Libya. [...]

“[I]n October, 1988, India, the world’s largest democracy, ordered The Satanic Verses banned. It’s worth remembering that it did so four months before the Ayatollah Khomeini issued his fatwa calling for the execution of Salman Rushdie. The Iranian fatwa was lifted (though no one should have any illusions about the lingering danger) after a decade of wretched hiding, slanders, and violence directed against his translators; the ban on The Satanic Verses in India remains in place.

“The same fear of clerical protest animates the current Indian government, which is far more interested in retaining power than in freedom of expression, much less making life pleasant for Salman Rushdie and his readers. The Congress Party is trying to win Muslim votes in elections in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh next month, and so ‘even minor fulminations’ by regional imams ‘make the local leaders squirm,’ according to an article this week in the liberal magazine Outlook. The Rushdie affair in Jaipur is a pawn in this larger political game. Railing against a banned book that few here have managed to obtain and read is an easy way to stir up populist fervor. Various preachers and extremist politicians latched onto the Jaipur festival as an issue and directed full-throated attacks at Rushdie; old stuff, but it was enough. [...]

“Censorship has been a constant theme since the banning of the The Satanic Verses nearly a quarter century ago. The government, spurred by Hindu and Muslim groups and clerics, rushes in to preserve ‘order’ by decreeing, or tolerating, the suppression of free expression. M. F. Husain, a Muslim painter known as ‘the Picasso of India,’ who died last year in exile, faced a constant onslaught of death threats and lawsuits in India because he dared to paint Hindu goddesses in the nude and in suggestive poses. The Bangladeshi-born novelist and feminist Taslima Nasreen has been attacked and threatened repeatedly by Islamists for her book Lajja, or Shame, about a Hindu family threatened by Muslims. (Nasreen has had to live in Sweden and the United States for years at a time.) Only months ago, Joseph Lelyveld, the former Times executive editor, watched from afar as his new book on Gandhi, Great Soul, was banned in the state of Gujarat as ‘perverse in nature.’ The local authorities got the idea from tabloid reports in England that Lelyveld claimed that Gandhi was gay or bisexual; he makes no such claim. The book remains banned.”

LATHOR ATROCITY: COORDINATED ARSON ATTACK ON ASSERTIVE UNTOUCHABLE COMMUNITY–45 FAMILIES LEFT HOMELESS

Upper caste people torch Dalit houses (Times of India)

“At least 30 houses of Dalits were torched by the upper caste community at Lathor village in Balangir district on Sunday night, following a clash between the two groups over a petty issue.

“The situation had escalated beyond control, with people so incensed that they even torched the fire-fighting vehicle that was brought in to extinguish the fire. No media persons were allowed to enter the village. [...]

“Police sources said four youths from Dalit basti in the village, under Khaprakhol police station, had gone to one Laxmi cloth store on Sunday evening to purchase some cloth. The shop owner Jaydev Meher, along with his two sons Daya and Bharat, reportedly had an altercation with the boys over the purchase, in which one of the Dalit boys was assaulted. The Dalit community took it seriously and decided to teach a lesson to the shop owner for assaulting a boy of their community. ‘The situation went out of control when the Dalits came in a group and attacked Bharat Meher, who was seriously injured and admitted to Khaprakhol hospital,’ said a senior resident of the village.

“According to him, the upper caste people then convened a meeting and marched towards Dalit basti at night. They torched the houses of the basti and within a short span the entire basti was ablaze. ‘We did not get time to save our belongings. We started running towards jungles to save our lives,’ said a resident of the basti.

“[A]bout 193 victims were rescued by police, which includes 33 boys and 85 women, all of whom were given shelter in a local high school.”

See also:

Fact-finding Report on Caste-Violence in Balangir, Odisha (February 19, 2012):

“We were taken straight to the Durgeshwari High School, which was providing temporary shelter to 193 people of 45 families. All of them are Dalits belonging to the Ganda caste. The entire Gandapara [Ganda neighborhood] of Lathore village was gutted down to ashes on the 22nd January by a mob of more than 500 people, most of whom belonged to the Meher caste. Since then, all of them are staying in the school building. We stayed with the affected families, spoke to them at length, visited their burnt locality and also spoke to people in the neighbourhood and in the Meherpara [Meher neighborhood]. What emerged from the variant conversations is that it was not a spontaneous incident, nor was it an incident of inter-caste feud. It was rather a planned attack on Gandapara, where the Dalits were economically, politically and educationally becoming assertive. It was a well thought-out attempt to demolish their growing prosperity and dignity. It was also clear that the people from the [backward] Meher castes were used by the [uppercaste] Marwari baniyas [merchants] and the RSS/BJP to unleash the violence on Gandapara.

“The incident: On 22nd January, a young Dalit boy Ganesh Suna had gone to the market to buy a new shirt. While coming out of the shop the shopkeeper Bharat Meher alleged him for stealing a shirt and beat him up. When Ganesh’s grandfather, an aged person came to confront Bharat, he was beaten up too. They reported the incident to the members of ‘Sri Krishna Club’ of Gandapara and a few men came and confronted Bharat. The people of Gandapara then went to lodge an FIR in Khaprakhol, police station which is 20 km from Lathor. The rest of the men of Gandapara were also in Khaprakhol attending a shradh ceremony. Back in Lathor a baseless rumour was spread that Bharat has been killed by the people of Gandapara. By 2 pm a crowd of around 500 people gathered near a temple. The belligerent crowd was provided with ample alcohol, petrol and kerosene. This crowd then was unleashed on the entire Gandapara where they targeted each and every household. Within the same locality there were houses of people belonging to other castes which were spared. The houses were completely looted first and then broken and finally set on fire. The carnage started at around 2 pm and the fire continued to burn till around midnight.”

CENTENARY OF URDU-LANGUAGE SHORT-STORY WRITER NOT CELEBRATED IN PAKISTAN

Remembering Saadat Hasan Manto (1912-1955) by Tariq Ali (Counterpunch)

“Saadat Hasan Manto’s centenary is being observed quietly by friends and admirers in Lahore. No official recognition or mention. He’s almost become a non-person. Manto died in Lahore in 1955. He was forty-three years old. The life of one of our greatest short-story writers had been prematurely truncated. [...]

“It was the Partition of India in 1947 along religious lines that formed his own attitudes and those of his numerous detractors. The episodes associated with the senseless carnage that accompanied the withdrawal of the British from India loom large in Manto’s short stories. [...]

“Manto was amongst the few who observed the bloodbaths of Partition with a detached eye. He had remained in Bombay in 1947, where he worked for the film industry, but was accused of favoring Muslims and was subjected to endless communal taunts, even from those who had hitherto imagined to be like him, but the secular core in many people did not survive the fire. Manto came to Lahore in 1948, but was never happy. He turned the tragedies he had witnessed or heard into great literature. He wrote of the common people, regardless of ethnic, religious or caste identities and he discovered contradictions and passions and irrationality in each of them. [...]

“Years later he was still trying to come to grips with what had happened:

Still, what my mind could not resolve was the question: what country did we belong to now, India or Pakistan? And whose blood was it that was being so mercilessly shed every day? And the bones of the dead, stripped of the flesh of religion, were they being burned or buried? Now that we were free who was to be our subject? When we were not free, we used to dream about freedom. Now that freedom had come, how would we perceive our past state?

The question was: were we really free? Both Hindus and Muslims were being massacred. Why were they being massacred? There were different answers to the question; the Indian answer, the Pakistani answer, the British answer. Every question had an answer, but when you tried to unravel the truth, you were left groping.

Everyone seemed to be regressing. Only death and carnage seemed to be proceeding ahead. A terrible chapter of blood and tears was being added to history, a chapter without precedent.

India was free. Pakistan was free from the moment of its birth, but in both states, man’s enslavement continued: by prejudice, by religious fanaticism, by savagery.

“In a series of Open Letters to Uncle Sam he marked his displeasure at the state of world politics and Pakistan’s Security Pact with the US. He displayed a remarkable prescience as expressed in this extract from his ‘Third Letter to uncle Sam’, written shortly before his death:

Another thing I would want from you would be a tiny, teeny weeny atom bomb because for long I have wished to perform a certain good deed. You will naturally want to know what.

You have done many good deeds yourself and continue to do them. You decimated Hiroshima, you turned Nagasaki into smoke and dust and you caused several thousand children to be born in Japan. Each to his own. All I want you to do is to dispatch me some dry cleaners. It is like this. Out there, many Mullah types after urinating pick up a stone and with one hand inside their untied shalwar, use the stone to absorb the after-drops of urine as they resume their walk. This they do in full public view. All I want is that the moment such a person appears, I should be able to pull out that atom bomb you will send me and lob it at the Mullah so that he turns into smoke along with the stone he was holding.

As for your military pact with us, it is remarkable and should be maintained. You should sign something similar with India. Sell all your old condemned arms to the two of us, the ones you used in the last war. This junk will thus be off your hands and your armament factories will no longer remain idle.

Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is a Kashmiri, so you should send him a gun which should go off when it is placed in the sun. I am a Kashmiri too, but a Muslim which is why I have asked for a tiny atom bomb for myself.

One more thing. We can’t seem able to draft a constitution. Do kindly ship us some experts because while a nation can manage without a national anthem, it cannot do without a constitution, unless such is your wish.

One more thing. As soon as you get this letter, send me a shipload of American matchsticks. The matchsticks manufactured here have to be lit with the help of Iranian-made matchsticks. And after you have used half the box, the rest are unusable unless you take help from matches made in Russia which behave more like firecrackers than matches.

“Given the circumstances it is hardly surprising that he sought solace in alcohol and drank himself to death. He had written over 200 short stories and had no doubt of his place in literary history and left behind the following epitaph for himself:

Here lies Saadat Hasan Manto. With him lie buried the arts of short-story telling. Here he lies underneath tons of mud still wondering if he was a better short-story writer than God.”

See also:

A Hundred Years of Manto by Shivam Vij (Kafila)

And see:

Manto on the Hindi-Urdu debate (Kafila)

Read Saadat Hasan Manto’s “Toba Tek Singh”

NEW COW SLAUGHTER LAWS IN TWO STATES WITH HINDU-RIGHT GOVERNMENTS TARGET MUSLIMS, CHRISTIANS, TRIBALS, AND UNTOUCHABLES

Of Laws, Cows and People’s Mutinies: Will the beef ban in BJP-ruled states fuel a new Mutiny? by Cynthia Stephen (Round Table India)

“The Gau-Vansh Vadh Pratishedh (Sanshodhan) Vidheyak (Prohibition of slaughter of cow-progeny Bill) just passed in Madhya Pradesh empowers the government to prosecute any person found slaughtering a cow or even transporting the calf for the purpose of slaughter. [...]

“In March 2010, the Karnataka assembly passed the The Karnataka Prevention of Cow Slaughter and Preservation of Cattle Bill 2010 by voice vote after uproarious scenes, and a four-hour acrimonious debate. [...] According to the Deccan Herald, the bill prohibits slaughter of cattle, sale, usage and possession of beef, puts restriction on transport of cattle and also prohibits sale, purchase or disposal of cattle for slaughter.

“The BJP governments in Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh may have brought these laws with the intention of putting pressure on the lifestyle and livelihoods of the minorities. But are these bills acts of political bravado on the part of the BJP? According to the Economic Times, 6th Jan 2012, beef is the most popularly consumed meat in India – 26 lakh tons annually. In comparison, only 6 lakh tons of mutton and 14 lakh tons of pork were consumed in India. The article quotes the US Food and Drug Administration, saying India is in fact the third largest exporter of beef in the world, exporting as much as 1.28 million tons of it!

“In Madhya Pradesh, in particular, there is a large population of tribals - 13 million - for whom beef constitutes a staple. In Karnataka as well, large sections of the state's population will be affected directly once the bill passes into law, including farmers, milk producers, leather workers, most of whom are Dalits and Muslims, and of course the common man. [...]

“James, a young Dalit Activist, is more graphic. ‘You (upper castes) take the best of the cow - its labour, its milk, its offspring, and sell it after you have no use for it. When we find ways to use this resource, you attack us and even kill us (referring to the killing of 5 Dalits in Jhajjar, Haryana, in 2008, who were skinning the carcass of a cow after purchasing it). You are taking our livelihoods from us, even though we make it out of the waste you discard. Is this justice?’

“‘This law will take away food from the poor who cannot afford to buy chicken or mutton’, says another Dalit activist. ‘The cost of mutton, already high, will go up to one thousand rupees’, said Siddaramaiah, leader of the Opposition, during the Assembly debate. ‘Thus you will be thrusting vegetarianism on the people. This is only possible in Hitler's regime. Is yours a Hitler's regime?’”

See also:

Cow Dung Blocks Nuclear Radiation (and Why We Don’t Eat Horses) by Eric Randolph (Kikobor, January 12, 2012):

“An article in The Hindu newspaper yesterday made a pointed comparison to the condition of people in Madhya Pradesh, which has the country’s highest rate of infant mortality and lowest rate of literacy. [...]

“The law has come into force a decade after riots in the state that erupted when Hindu nationalists took to the streets over reports Muslims were secretly killing cows. The riots helped bring the BJP to power in Madhya Pradesh a year later, in 2003.

“The BJP’s campaign against cow slaughter is seen by some analysts as part of its ongoing attempt to create a pan-Indian nationalism out of the myriad identities that exist in India.

“‘Outside a small section of modernised Indians, many still think of themselves not as Hindus, but in terms of caste, language and sect,’ said Ashis Nandy, a leading social theorist with the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies in New Delhi.

“Promoting a ban on cow slaughter, he said, ‘is an attempt to steamroll these other forms of identity and have people think of themselves purely as “Hindus”. It is a cynical attempt to consolidate political support.’”

And see:

Bajrang vigilantes cry cow-slaughter, beat, humiliate Muslim trader (Indian Express, January 7, 2012):

“A Muslim cattle trader’s son was beaten and part of his head, one eyebrow and half his moustache shaved off by alleged Bajrang Dal workers in Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh after he refused to give them money to allow him to ferry cattle which the attackers alleged were meant for slaughter.

“Police rescued the 25-year-old victim, Anish Aslam Kureshi, but charged him with unlawfully transporting cattle for slaughter under a state law for preserving cattle, and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. A sessions court in Chhindwara ordered his release on bail today.

“His attackers, whom the police identified as Bajrang Dal workers, were also arrested, but were charged with minor offences. They were released almost immediately by the Bichhua police station.

“On December 22, a tough new Madhya Pradesh anti-cow slaughter law providing for seven years in jail for eating beef, empowering police to carry out raids on mere suspicion, and putting the burden of proving innocence on the accused received presidential assent.”

ICL ARTICLE ON CPI(M) DEFEAT IN WEST BENGAL

West Bengal After the Elections:
The Political Bankruptcy of Indian Stalinism
Forge a Leninist-Trotskyist Party!

(Workers Vanguard)

“The humiliating rout of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI[M]) in the West Bengal elections last May puts a harsh spotlight on the political bankruptcy of Indian Stalinism and its Maoist variants. The dominant force in the Left Front, the CPI(M) had ruled continuously since 1977, wielding the repressive powers of the capitalist state against the deeply impoverished and oppressed masses of West Bengal. The CPI(M) has committed many crimes against the toilers, but its bloody repression in Singur and Nandigram virtually assured its defeat at the hands of the right-wing Trinamool Congress (TMC).[...]

For a Workers India in a
Socialist Federation of South Asia!

“For the CPI(M), the workers are voting cattle, buttered up with promises and fake Marxist phrases while their struggles are contained and betrayed. To the CPI (Maoist), the workers are—at best—just another urban support group for their rural struggles. In practice, the Maoists end up supporting a section of the bourgeoisie, as with Trinamool in West Bengal.

“Yet it is the proletariat—in the car factories, mines, steel mills and railways—whose labour produces the massive profits that enrich the Indian ruling class. This vibrant working class holds the key to the future. The Indian capitalists and the imperialists to whom they answer are sharply aware of the potential power of this sleeping giant, and continually work to obstruct or prevent the growth of unions, especially in new enterprises. A new labour bill would exempt operations with fewer than 40 workers from almost all basic laws governing minimum wages, payment of wages, working hours and contract work. This would give legal sanction to virtual slave conditions for millions of workers.

“Indian workers have been on the defensive in the face of unremitting capitalist attacks, and strike levels are at record lows. Nevertheless, labour battles in some vital and highly profitable industries have rattled the Indian bourgeoisie. In Gurgaon, a massive industrial area near Delhi, workers have repeatedly struck against the giant car producer Maruti Suzuki. Hundreds of thousands of auto and other industrial workers in the area suffer brutal superexploitation, as their labour creates fabulous profits for Indian, Japanese, American and other capitalist magnates.

“In some of the very areas where the Maoists are leading peasant insurgencies, large numbers of workers in coal and other mines have been waging hard-fought battles from protests to strikes and blockades. In October, a one-day general strike of some 300,000 workers against Kolkata-based Coal India Ltd. (CIL), the world’s largest coal producer, swept the country. With record commodity prices, mining conglomerates worldwide are raking in the profits, and workers from Chile to South Africa have struck for higher wages. Just how massive these profits are may be gauged by the fact that the one-day strike against CIL cost the company 1.2 billion rupees ($25 million).

“A small spark could light this enormous social tinder, but a revolutionary Marxist leadership that fights for proletarian unity and class independence is essential. The fighting power of the proletariat is greatly undercut by the fact that the unions are divided politically. Congress, the Hindu-communalist BJP and various of the Stalinist-derived parties, among others, each run their own unions and there are some 13 separate labour centrals. A working class divided by caste, religion and ethnicity is further fractured by these competing party-linked unions. An authentic proletarian leadership would fight for industrial unions which include all workers in an industry as an elementary defense of the working class.”

[Read the full article]

BANGLADESH: STATE ENFORCES SECTARIAN, ANTI-WOMAN BAN ON BOOK BY COURAGEOUS EXILED NOVELIST

Teacher arrested for having a copy of a book by Taslima Nasrin (AsiaNews)

“The principal of a technical school in the district of Pirojpur (southern Bangladesh) was arrested for possession of a copy of Lajja (Shame), the famous novel by writer Taslima Nasrin. The book has been banned in Bangladesh since 1993 because it is considered blasphemous against Islam the state religion. The teacher, Yunus Ali, faces up to three years in prison.

“The police took him out of the KC Technical and Business Management College after finding a copy of the book in the school library. Ali defended himself against accusations claiming to be the victim of a conspiracy. The inspector Abdul Malek said: ‘Lajja is a banned book. Nevertheless, the principal kept it in the library. He must answer for this crime.’

“In Lajja, Taslima Nasrin, 49, tells the life of a Hindu family persecuted by Muslims. The author had to flee the country in 1994 after receiving death threats from Islamic fundamentalists. Since then, she has lived between India and Europe, without being able to return to Bangladesh. Her family is Muslim, but today she proclaims herself to be atheist.

“Contacted by AsiaNews, Nasrin said: ‘The arrest of this teacher is a sign that Bangladesh is not in reality a democracy but a totalitarian regime. Since 1990, Islamic fundamentalists have silenced my freedom of expression and tried to kill me, forced me to flee my country and leave my family.’

“Now, she concluded, ‘someone is in danger because of my book, and risks his freedom. But Lajja is not a novel of blasphemy: it is just the defense of a persecuted religious [Hindu] minority, one that is constantly harassed by the Muslim majority. I wish the best for this man and for those who are every day deprived of their freedom of expression.’”

See previous anti-caste posts on Taslima Nasrin

HINDU-RIGHT MORAL POLICE MOBILIZE AGAINST WOMEN DRINKING

Hindutva activists try to barge into star hotel (The Times of India)

“Activists of a local Hindutva brigade attempted to barge into a leading star hotel in the city on Wednesday demanding to stop its plan to hold New Year party in ‘western style’. What provoked the Hindutva outfit was the announcement of the hotel that alcoholic beverages would be served free to women who accompany men to the New Year party. Police have arrested and removed 27 activists of the little-known Hindu Makkal Katchi (Tamizhagam).

“They told the management of the hotel not to engage in attempts to infuse Western values into Indian minds.

“‘The Le Meridian hotel has announced ballroom dance party on the occasion of New Year. By inviting couples to the party, the hotel is trying to popularise drinking culture among women. While the younger generation is already addicted to alcohol, the star hotel is now trying to spoil our culture and such parties are encouraging alcoholism among the youths,’ said Arjun Sampath, founder-president of Hindu Makkal Katchi (Tamizhagam).”

PRIESTS, GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL WALLOW IN THE FILTH OF CASTE-RIDDEN TRADITION

The Leftover God (Outlook India)

“The annual Champa Shasti festival held over November and December at the Kukke Subramanya temple in Dakshina Kannada district in Karnataka has an unusual tradition. On all three days, the Shivalli Brahmins are served a multi-course meal in seclusion in the temple precincts. And after they are through, instead of clearing the spread plantain leaves on which the food’s served, Dalits, backwards and local tribespeople are allowed to roll on the leftovers.

“The belief is this ritual will cure the ‘devotee’ of ailments, especially skin-related ones, and will gift a child to those praying for a baby. It’s also considered an ideal form of thanksgiving to the local deity after ‘wish fulfillment’. The ritual, called ‘maade snana’ in Tulu and Kannada, is said to be over four hundred years old but there are no written records to prove such a claim.

“As the tradition reinforces and ‘enacts’ caste hierarchies, where even a Brahmin’s ‘jhoota’ [food ritually contaminated by contact with another’s mouth] is bestowed with powers to cure people from subaltern communities, it had been catching a lot of flak since last year from progressive groups in the state. Especially as this was being allowed in a temple that belongs to the muzrai department, a state-run body which administers Hindu temples.

“Last week, though, saw protests heating up more because after the huge outcry last year, the local administration had promised to end this ritual which violates basic human dignity. Apparently, under ‘pressure from devotees’, the administration allowed the practice from November 28 onwards. Nearly 4,000 people joined up to roll over the leftovers.

“What took the row beyond the usual temple affairs level was muzrai and higher education minister Dr V.S. Acharya’s statement that it was a ‘faith-based ritual and banning it was tantamount to hurting the sentiments of the people’. People immediately started questioning not only his credentials as a trained medical doctor, but also his RSS roots. They began asking if he would similarly allow dowry, child marriage and other social evils as they are also faith-based? [...]

“The complexity of the issue unravels itself when we take into consideration the largely illiterate Malekudiya tribe’s support for the ritual. When the local administration hinted at a ban, members of the ST community went on a rampage, even declaring that they would stay away from building the deity’s chariot, a traditional activity they have performed for years during the festival season. (If the chariot is not built, the festival will remain incomplete without the final procession of the deity.)”

FOUR YEARS AFTER MASS ATROCITY LED BY HINDU RIGHT AGAINST CHRISTIAN UNTOUCHABLES

Remembering Kandhamal by Harsh Mander (The Hindu)

“It was a terrifying Christmas in 2007 for tribal and dalit Christians who live in the second poorest, deeply forested district of Odisha, Kandhamal. Long-smouldering violence targeting them exploded, and was to continue to rage for another full year. During this time, 600 villages were ransacked, 5,600 houses were looted and burnt, 54,000 persons rendered homeless, 295 churches and places of worship destroyed, and 13 schools, colleges and orphanages were damaged. The official death toll was 39, although unofficially the figure is claimed to be closer to 100. 30,000 people were forced to live in relief camps, and it is estimated that nearly half are still unable to return home. [...]

“Although the states of Odisha and Gujarat are located at the furthest eastern and western corners of India, separated by several thousand kilometres, the mass-targeted hate violence in both states, in 2007-08 and 2002 respectively have many striking — and deeply troubling — similarities. Each was characterised by a long build-up of hatred against religious minority residents, there is evidence of systematic advance preparation, state authorities were openly complicit in enabling the violence to persist for weeks and months, the attacks were unusually brutal and targeted women, thousands were displaced and discouraged from returning to their homes, facing organised social and economic boycott. And in both, compensation was tight-fisted and justice systematically subverted. [...]

“In Odisha, once again like in Gujarat five years earlier, the attacks were marked by exceptional cruelty. Kanaka Nayak recalls the horrific mob slaughter of her husband when he refused to reconvert to Hinduism. ‘They spat on him and started to sing and dance around him; they paraded him, and dragged him. They told him “you sing your songs and let Jesus come and save you”.’ [...]

“Women who suffered sexual violence in both massacres continue to live with the agony of memory and silences of shame. One said in confidence to the Tribunal, ‘The attackers removed their mask before they raped me. Earlier, they would respect me. I was shocked that they took revenge on me for my uncle's refusal to convert to Hinduism... Lots of things have changed in my life after that incident. I have been in hiding. I am traumatised, sad, depressed and struggling. I feel ashamed. I am unable to forget about the incident and carry on with life. But I feel I should be strong to get justice.’”

See previous anti-caste posts on Kandhamal

LOW-CASTE NAMES, HIGH-CASTE NAMES

‘Dalit’ kids getting normal names (Republica (Nepal))

“In recent times, the Dalit community has started giving children normal names as opposed to past practice of giving kids odd names so that the names did not match with those of people belonging to higher castes.

“The recent political changes and the ensuing social changes have emboldened the community to give kids normal names.

“‘In the past, priests themselves did not give good names to our children,’ said Chokat Majhi, son of Aghan Majhi of Chorni-7, Parsa. ‘But I named my daughter Pooja,’ he added. Pooja, who is a nursery student, is very happy with her name, he further said.

“Many children who were given odd names are too ashamed to tell their names to people, said Matar Majhi. ‘My father´s name was Tula. But I names my son Raju,’ he added.

Dasai Chaudhary of Bakuliya, Bara, said the Dalit children, in the past, were named according to their color, build, month of birth, day of birth, or behavior.

India Dalit boy ‘killed over high-caste man's name’ (BBC News, December 2, 2011)

“A low-caste Dalit boy has been killed in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh for sharing a name with a man of a higher caste, police say. [...]

“Mr Chaudhary, who belongs to a higher caste, had given several warnings to Mr Sumer to change the names of his boys.

“On 22 November, Neeraj left home after dinner to watch television at a friend's house. His body was found the next day.

“Police said he was strangled.”

CASTE BIGOTRY KEEPS UNTOUCHABLE CHILDREN OUT OF SCHOOL

‘Untouchable’ in the classroom by Sukhadeo Thorat and Nidhi Sadana Sabharwal (The Globe and Mail)

“The pain is perceptible in nine-year-old Shankar’s voice as he recounts how he’s made to sit at the back of the class with other children from a ‘low caste’ group. He says his teacher doesn’t wish to accidentally touch them, keeping them as far away as possible from the rest of the children. His peers from the ‘upper caste’ call him an ‘untouchable’; when he complains to the teachers, they see no issue. ‘You are untouchable – what else should they call you?’

“His sister, who is 8, is asked to clean the classroom – that’s her task because she’s a girl and an ‘untouchable.’ At lunch, Shankar says the children from the other castes are served food provided by the government, while his fellow caste children are asked to wait outside the classroom; should any food remain after the teachers and ‘upper caste’ children have eaten, it may then be offered to Shankar and other children from ‘lower castes.’

“The children’s parents point out that a child who’s gone hungry for several meals is unlikely to be able to pay proper attention to classroom instruction. Shankar’s eyes well up with tears as he responds to questions about life as a Dalit child attending the local school. Other Dalit children tell of similar discrimination, complaining that the teachers don’t pay attention to them, call them outcasts and run down their abilities and enthusiasm for education. That’s why the Dalit children rarely go to school; their visits reinforce the feelings of persecution and discrimination.”

See also anti-caste: CHILDREN BOYCOTT SCHOOL WHERE TEACHERS TREAT THEM AS UNTOUCHABLE (April 25, 2011)

BARRIERS TO CIVIL MARRIAGE IN INDIA TARGET INTER-CASTE AND INTER-RELIGIOUS COUPLES

Thwarting a union (Communalism Combat)

“It is important to mention that any unmarried, sane, consenting adults (where the bridegroom is over 21 years of age and the bride is over 18 and who are unrelated within the degrees of prohibited relationship), irrespective of faith or caste, can get married under the Special Marriage Act. The couple from Rajasthan, who come from an inter-caste background, could have done so too. So why did they decide to have a religious marriage ceremony? It was almost certainly because they wanted to make sure their parents did not receive any intimation about their marriage through the official notice – as would any couple who anticipated threats to their life and liberty. [...]

“Barring Delhi, all other states follow the dangerous practice of sending a copy of the notice of intended marriage to the permanent addresses of the marrying couples [in non-religious ceremonies under the Special Marriages Act]. Thanks to the initiatives of the Delhi government and a landmark judgement by Justice S. Ravindra Bhat of the Delhi high court in April 2009, the practice of sending notices to the homes of couples desirous of solemnising their marriage under the Special Marriage Act was curbed. However, it has not been completely discontinued, as the officials fear the wrath of the parents of marrying couples.

“The administrations in Ghaziabad, Noida and Gurgaon in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana are not even willing to bear the expenses of dispatching notices and they insist that couples provide pre-addressed, pre-stamped envelopes beforehand. Couples also have to publish an advertisement of their proposed marriage in a leading newspaper and submit a copy of the published advertisement to the marriage officer’s office. In Gurgaon, the concerned deputy commissioner’s office has taken the pains to add a column for specifying the applicants’ religion in the ‘Intent to Marry’ form and an additional point about the citizenship of the applicants in the declaration form. I wonder why religion should be mentioned at all in the one legally recognised marriage procedure intended to be outside the realms of faith or caste.

“The Gurgaon office also requires that couples provide envelopes bearing the names and designations of the marriage officers in districts where the applicants permanently reside. I can only speculate on the amount of homework a couple has to do before they file their application. A marriage cannot be solemnised under the Special Marriage Act without receipt of a verification report from the concerned tehsildar; and the report will not, of course, be issued as a matter of routine. The couple has to take great pains to ensure that the report is in fact released by the tehsildar’s office.

“Looking at just a few of the requirements essential for marriage under the Special Marriage Act, one can safely say that no couple would choose to go through the traumatic experience on its own. So those couples who are still determined to get married under the Special Marriage Act are forced to engage an advocate and shell out a large sum of money for his/her fees. Unfortunately, the majority of couples cannot afford the services of an advocate and thus, confronted by various hostile and complex sociopolitical pressures, they are forced to opt for a religious form of marriage.”

UNTOUCHABLE, BACKWARD-CASTE, AND MUSLIM HOUSE-SEEKERS ROUTINELY TURNED AWAY

Hyderabad: Caste and religion of the tenant come into play
(The Hindu)

“What usually begins as the rider ‘Vegetarians Only' scribbled on the rental sign, progresses further into the name, surname, home-town and antecedents of the home seekers till the caste is narrowed upon.

“‘Restrictions in terms of diet are often a ruse. If the prospective tenant has an upper caste tag to his name, he will be given the house despite his diet. The sign is put up only to keep Dalits off,’ says Mallepally Lakshmaiah, a noted Dalit journalist, who found himself in many such situations.[...]

“‘I was spurned by at least 12 landlords in Gachibowli-Madhapur vicinity apparently due to my caste. Majority among them directly enquired about my caste, while a few others said they would prefer vegetarians. It proved to be a Herculean task for me to obtain a house,’ says P. Sudhakar (name changed), a scholar from University of Hyderabad.[...]

“‘I had harrowing experiences during my search for house. An upper-caste landlord in Alkapuri invited us inside the house, and offered coffee before accepting the rent in advance. But once he came to know of our caste, he began to sound evasive. He first said his wife had to be consulted, and asked us to wait. Next day, we went only to receive the money back, that too from outside the main-gate,’ says N. Srihari Madiga, preparing for his Civils exam.[...]

“Faith begets a blunter refusal. Muslims are more often than not ghettoised to specific localities, whereas for Christians it gets more difficult if they are also Dalits.

“‘I encountered many refusals during house-hunting due to discrimination based on my faith. People seemingly willing to rent out hearing my fluent Telugu, would come up with all kinds of excuses after knowing my name. Some bluntly said they didn't want Muslims,’ recalled Syed Mohiuddin, a media professional.

See also:

Urban rules of untouchability (Media Voice, November 3, 2010)

HORRIFIC KILLING IN THE NAME OF CASTE PURITY AND PATRIARCHAL HONOR

Village watched as woman was set on fire by husband, in-laws (NDTV)

A married woman who tried to elope with her Dalit lover met a gruesome death when her husband and in-laws tried to hang her, then set her on fire in Madhya Pradesh.[...]

Guddi, who was married to Dhaniram, was trying to escape from their village with her lover. Her husband and his parents tried to hang her from a tree. When she survived, they allegedly beat her up, poured kerosene over her, and then tried to set her on fire. When that attempt to kill her also proved unsuccessful, they placed her on a wooden pyre and then lit a match.

She was finally killed near a temple while the whole village watched, police said.

See also:

Married woman killed for eloping with dalit (Times of India, October 25, 2011):

Guddi's younger sister Brijesh is married into the same family. She remained a mute spectator while Guddi was tortured to death. Police were surprised that Brijesh, an eyewitness to her elder sister's murder, refused to give a statement or talk about the incident. [...]

Guddi was married into the influential family of farmers more than a decade ago. She was about 15 years younger than her husband. She fell in love with a dalit youth Kamal Valmiki, who visited their village often. On October 2, Guddi eloped with Kamal to Delhi so that her husband and in-laws could not find her.

PREMIER INDIAN UNIVERSITY ALTERS CURRICULUM UNDER PRESSURE FROM HINDU-RIGHT BIGOTS

Historians protest as Delhi University purges Ramayana essay from syllabus (The Hindu)

“Most academicians at Delhi University are feeling betrayed by their own fraternity, the reason — the Academic Council's recent decision to drop from the history syllabus a celebrated essay by the late scholar and linguist A. K. Ramanujan on the Ramayana, despite intense opposition from the history department.

“The essay, ‘Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five examples and three thoughts on translations,’ which forms part of the B.A. History (Honours) course, had attracted the ire of Hindutva activists because it talks about 300 different versions of the Ramayana that abound in our country and beyond. And when the decision to scrap the course was put to vote at the Academic Council meeting this past Sunday, only nine of the 120 members present dissented.

“‘This is definitely not an academic decision but a glaring example of an academic institution succumbing to pressure from the Right wing. The council has severely compromised on its standards and has conveyed to our students the message that only the ideology that is supported by the majority will be accepted,’ said AC member Rakesh Kumar, who was one among the nine to express a dissenting opinion against scrapping of the essay.”

See also:

On the Ramayanas Affair by Mukul Dube (Mainstream, November 5, 2011):

“It is a fact that there are hundreds of versions of the Rama-Sita-Ravana story. In some, Rama and Sita are not a married couple but are siblings. In others, Ravana is not an evil demon but a pious scholar-king. Folklorists know that stories are often modified in the course of geographical dispersion. For example, a folk tale of Delhi featuring a frog and a crocodile, might in Agra or Aligarh be the very same but with a rabbit and a wolf as its chief characters.”

“Are the Rama-Sita-Ravana chronicles stories spun and re-spun by human beings or do they represent historical fact?”

And see:

Silencing Ramanujan (Akhond of Swat blog, October 12, 2011)

“The real problem lies in the way Ramanujan began his essay: ‘How many Ramayanas? Three hundred? Three thousand? At the end of some Ramayanas, a question is sometimes asked: How many Ramayanas have there been?’

“It took me some time to understand why this idea might be so threatening, because the way we were taught to deal with books or essays or ideas we didn’t like was the way put forward in the great epics: the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are filled with debate, with digressions into discussions of what exactly dharma might be. Most of us are intrigued by the multiple versions of the Ramayana—the feminist version, the rough, bawdy village versions, Nina Paley’s elegant cartoon version, they all have their place.

“But if you live in a climate of intolerance, a book that questions the tenets of faith and offers a provocative re-imagining of a religious text might be considered so blasphemous that its author will be persecuted for years (The Satanic Verses). A novel that highlights an inconvenient part of the history of contemporary India, speaking openly of corruption in the Prime Minister’s office and the slow stirrings of narrow-mindedness in a once-great city will be erased from the college syllabus [Rohinton Mistry’s] (Such a Long Journey). Ramanujan’s great essay on the tradition of many Ramayanas threatens those who would prefer one version, their version, and so it is removed, and his voice is silenced.”

And see this interview with historian Romila Thapar:

The richness of the Ramayana, the poverty of a University (The Hindu, October 28, 2011)

Read Three Hundred Ramayanas: Five Examples and Three Thoughts on Translation by A. K. Ramanujan

COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT FOR DEMANDING PAYMENT TO PERFORM TRADITIONAL CASTE-BASED ROLE IN FESTIVAL

Dalits face boycott for refusal to beat drums (Express News Service)

“Dalit families in Kasuvanahalli village of Nagamangala taluk who demanded money to beat drums during the Ganesha idol immersion have been socially boycotted. Upper caste members had approached two Dalits, Shivaraj and Seetharam, to play drums during the Ganesha idol immersion procession.

“When they demanded Rs150 per person as wages, they were summoned near Mayamma temple by the village headmen and abused. When they further refused to play the drums, village headman Mudde Gowda, Parigowda and others abused their caste. They were forced to fetch water from a borewell were cattle are fed.

“The Dalit families were denied entry into the village. In fact, Dalit women have been removed from the self-help groups and humiliated constantly.

“As there was no electricity, the Dalit women had to collect water from a tank only to be threatened by upper caste youths that they would be paraded in nude.

“Meanwhile, MLA Suresh Gowda, who hails from Kasuvanahalli, held a meeting with the two groups and appealed to them to bury their differences. Shivaraj and Mayanna lodged a complaint with Nagamanagala town police station, charging that they fear for their lives and property.”

See also:

‘Rebel’ Dalits ostracised in Mandya (Deccan Herald, October 11, 2011)

DISGUSTING ATTACK TO ENFORCE SYSTEMATIC REFUSAL OF SERVICE ON THE BASIS OF CASTE

Barber cuts dalit’s nose in Mandya (Times of India)

“A barber and his father allegedly severed the nose of a dalit when he went to them for a shave in Kirugavalu of Malavalli taluk on Sunday.

“Police said Chikkamanchaiah, 51, requested Mahadev and his father Mariyayya to shave his beard. The duo not only refused to do it, but also asked him to leave the shop. A quarrel ensued, and Mariyayya grabbed Chikkamanchaiah's hands and Mahadev chopped off his nose. He was rushed to the district hospital where doctors reattached the nose.

“Chikkamanchaiah said poor dalits in the village are not allowed to enter shops. According to him, only rich and powerful dalits have access to barber shops. He requested police and the district administration to act against the culprits and put an end to untouchability.”

IMPORTANT CLASS BATTLE AT MARUTI SUZUKI: WORKERS SHOW THEIR POWER USING SIT-DOWN TACTICS, STRUGGLING FOR THE RIGHT TO ORGANIZE

Maruti workers seize control of Manesar plant wracked by unrest (The Economic Times)

“Striking employees of Maruti Suzuki, India's biggest carmaker, have seized control of a factory hit by weeks of labour unrest, the company said on Monday, as a stand-off that has cost the firm over $150 million descended into violence.[...]

"‘The plant is effectively captive in the hands of striking workers who are bent upon violence,’ the company said in a statement, describing the situation at the factory as ‘grave.’

“Maruti, 54.2-percent owned by Japan's Suzuki Motor, said 1,500 workers were inside the factory on Monday. The plant produces about 1,000 vehicles a day and the unrest has caused a production loss of 2,600 cars since Friday afternoon.

“Supporting strikes by workers at other Suzuki-owned plants in India that supply parts to Maruti's second car factory have resulted in a total loss of production of about $22 million.

“Maruti announced an agreement with striking workers last week to end a month-long strike that has already cost the automaker 6.6 billion rupees ($134 million) in lost output and contributed to a 21-percent slump in September sales.

“The carmaker's total losses due to labour unrest this year stand at close to $250 million, following a 13-day strike by 800 workers in June at Manesar that crippled production and caused more than $90 million in lost output.[...]

“‘The company cannot throw out mobs of people,’a Maruti spokesman said. ‘The action has to come from the police and the authorities.’"

See also:

Speed and Control at Manesar: Why is the Maruti-Suzuki Management Keeping Workers Out of Its Factory (Kafila, September 6, 2011)

“Since June this year, perhaps even earlier, discontent at the Maruti-Suzuki plant has peaked. June saw the eruption of a wildcat strike and a momentary occupation of the factory. Eleven ‘ring leaders’ were suspended. The issue that led to the strike was the appalling intensity of work conditions. The media and the management were content to report it as a dispute over union formation. Yes, the workers at Manesar had wanted to form an independent union. And yes, the management wanted them to remain under the umbrella of MUKU (Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union – the ‘Company’ union – which has remained an effective tool of management control over workers). But the reason that led the workers to express a desire to form their own union – The Maruti-Suzuki Employees Union (which is their constitutional right, by the way) was the ineffectiveness of the company union in addressing their complaints about the increasing intensification of control and speed at the factory. Working at the Manesar plant was becoming torturous and attrition was at an all time high.

“The twelve-day long strike in June did not end in attention being paid to the workers demands about working conditions. The eleven suspended workers were re-instated, pending enquiries. This was translated as a ‘victory’ for the workers by their newly formed (and still unrecognized independent union), even though all the workers had to agree to a penalty of a cut in two days wages for the transgression of their strike. The work conditions stayed exactly as before. According to some, things got worse.”

And see:

Why they strike. Why you should care. (Tehelka, September 24, 2011)

“Here is what a Maruti Suzuki worker says his average day at the Manesar plant is like. You catch a bus at 5 am for the factory. Arriving a second late to punch in your card means a pay cut, but you can’t leave the premises once you’ve entered. At 6.30 am, you exercise and supervisors give you feedback on your previous output. Start work at 7 sharp. Everyone does his one task — assembling, welding, fixing — for a minimum of 8 continuous hours. A car rolls off the line every 38 seconds, which means you can’t budge from your position, ever. You get two breathless breaks during the day. At 9 am, a 7-minute break to drink tea or go to the loo, or both. After a while you might, like many of your friends here, end up taking your hot tea and kachori to the bathroom with you. Then a lunch break of 30 minutes, in which you walk about a half kilometre to the canteen, wait in line with everyone, eat and walk back. Returning even a minute late from any break, or leaving the assembly line for any reason even for a minute, means half a day’s pay cut. Older systems used to include an overseer for every small group of workers who could step in if someone needed to take a breather. But, the cost logic of production is perennially at odds with workers’ rights.

“If we don’t blink at seeing a man climbing down to unblock a sewer for a few hundred a month, it’s likely we think of a Rs 16,000 factory job with a uniform as clean and comfortable. But even the salary is an illusion, as the workers’ salary slips show. A baseline of Rs 8,000 is all most are guaranteed. Take a day from your legally granted casual leave or sick leave, for any reason, and lose Rs 1,500. Take two and lose Rs 3,000, and so on up till half your salary disappears.”[...]

“On 3 June, the Manesar workers formally applied to form a separate union called Maruti Suzuki Employees Union (MSEU). They say the company responded by suspending 11 workers and sending bouncers to force them to sign blank pieces of paper. The workers struck work on 4 June and held a sit-in inside the plant for 13 days till their 11 colleagues were reinstated, though the main issue of unionisation remained unresolved. [...]

“Meanwhile, the file to register MSEU in the labour office was cancelled. Reasons: the employees resorted to an illegal strike; among those who’d signed for a new union, many still retained MUKU membership; some signatures didn’t match with the registered ones. The revolting workers say they’d all resigned from the old union and these technical reasons merely indicate how hand-in-glove the Haryana government is with Maruti Suzuki.”

And see also:

Maruti’s Modern Times clash (The Telegraph (Calcutta), October 19, 2011):

“The Maruti Suzuki workers were recruited when they were about 18 years of age in 2006. The Manesar plant opened in February 2007 and the first batch of trainees became permanent workers only last year. Almost immediately, the workers were urged to become members of the Maruti Udyog Kamgar Union (Muku) that is the only workers’ outfit in the company’s Gurgaon plant. (Manesar is about 18km south of Gurgaon).

“The workers were hesitant. As more batches of trainees became permanent workers, the demand to form a union — basically the right to collective bargaining — was raised towards the end of 2010.

“Maruti Suzuki now has 970 permanent workers in a total workforce of around 3,000 — a majority being contractual, casual or trainees and apprentices, who are worse off than the permanent workers.

“‘We knew that Muku was a pliant union with workers in Gurgaon who are much older and have families and, since their strike was broken in the year 2000, they do not have the stomach for a fight,’ says Naresh.

“His friend, the French-bearded Jitender Barot, who at 28 years is among the oldest permanent workers, raises his palms: ‘These hands have worked so hard that had I put them to use in my family farm in Hisar, my folks would have been very happy. We have delivered 2 lakh cars when the management wanted it, working overtime and breathlessly and we have been taken for granted.’

“Asked why he does not go back home to work on his farm, Barot shoots back: ‘I wanted to be something else.’ [...]

“The rent for the one-room tenements in Gurganva where many of the workers live is between Rs 3,000 and Rs 3,500. A permanent worker technically earns about Rs 18,000 per month. Of this less than half is the fixed component of the salary and the rest are added incentives.

“Maruti Suzuki’s punitive measures often mean that workers have to make do with cuts. In the case of Naresh and some 30 others who are suspended, this means that their salary slips show a negative pay of Rs 3,800, meaning that the amount would be deducted from their next salary. [...]

“For now, the workers are not even demanding a hike in salaries. But what they are asking for — the right to form a union of their choice — is a political demand that may actually spell more trouble.

And see further:

Workers' struggle in Maruti Suzuki by Prasenjit Bose and Sourindra Ghosh (The Hindu, September 28, 2011):

“The stand adopted by the MSIL management in the ongoing dispute was endorsed by the Chairman and CEO of Suzuki Motor Corporation, Osamu Suzuki, during his recent visit to India. He said: ‘Indiscipline is not tolerated . . . not in Japan, not in India.’ Mr. Suzuki seems to have completely missed the larger picture.

“Over the past three years, MSIL has emerged as the most productive and profitable subsidiary of the Suzuki Motor Corporation. Its Annual Reports show that while Suzuki's car production and sales in Japan registered absolute declines in 2008 and 2009 following the recession, MSIL's production and sales in India have registered steady growth during this period. Could this be achieved by an ‘indisciplined' workforce?”

And:

Debate over trade unions rages in India (BBC, October 19, 2011):

“This is the Maruti workers' third strike this year for the same demand. And Maruti is not the only case. Strikes demanding the right to form workers' unions have hit the automobile sector in northern India at frequent intervals.

“Spare parts production company Rico faced a strike in 2009 which affected production in Ford and General Motors plants in Canada and the US.

“Suzuki plants in different parts of India are seeing protests by workers Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India saw a strike in 2005 which was ended by violent police action.

“While the Hero Honda agitation was successful and the company now has a robust workers' union, Rico workers had to bow down to their management.

“Despite a chequered history, workers here seem to have faith in the organised trade union.”

And:

Material for the Debate on Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Struggle in Maneswar, India (GurgaonWorkersNews, October 28, 2011)

Maruti Suzuki Workers Strike: A Report from Gurgaon (GurgaonWorkersNews via Sanhati, July 16, 2011)

And also see anti-caste: A PERSPECTIVE FOR INDIAN LABOR

COMMENT ON A REFERENCE TO CASTE in William Dalrymple’s “Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India”

“One of Dalrymple's strengths is his refusal to render judgment, but when it comes to the question of caste, he throws in the towel. In a section about a sacred dance form called theyyam, he tells us that the performers who take on the aspect of the gods are ‘the shunned and insulted Dalits.’ When the performers remove their costumes, he tells us, they're no longer treated like gods but, once again, like untouchables:‘In the presence of persons of the upper castes,’ he writes, ‘Dalits are still expected to bow their heads and stand at a respectful distance.’”

–Miranda Kennedy (NPR)

IMPORTANT NEW ARTICLES IN THE THEORETICAL JOURNAL OF THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST LEAGUE (4TH INTERNATIONALIST)

Edmund Samarakkody and the Legacy of the Ceylonese LSSP:
The Fight for Trotskyism in South Asia
(Spartacist English edition No. 62):

“Our relations with the Revolutionary Workers Party (RWP) of Edmund Samarakkody in the 1970s constitute a significant chapter in that difficult, long and uneven struggle. By the time of his death in January 1992, Samarakkody’s revolutionary days were well behind him. But at one time, this founding member of the Ceylonese Lanka Sama Samaja Party (LSSP) represented a rare breed: a militant won to Trotskyism in the late 1930s who had not been utterly compromised and corrupted by homegrown popular-frontism or by the revisionist current of Michel Pablo, which had destroyed the Fourth International in 1951-53. In outlining the prospects for revolutionary regroupment, the 1974 declaration of the international Spartacist tendency, now the International Communist League, took particular note of Samarakkody’s RWP as having ‘emerged with integrity from the welter of betrayals perpetrated by the old LSSP’ and abetted by the Pabloite United Secretariat (USec) of Ernest Mandel and the craven ‘International Committee’ (IC) of Gerry Healy (ibid.).”

1960 Letter by James Robertson to SWP Political Committee:
No to Public Silence on LSSP Betrayal (August 8, 1960):

“Dear Comrades, I am addressing you on the matter of our party’s public silence concerning the recent and continuing betrayal of the Ceylonese working class and of the world Trotskyist movement by the Lanka Sama Samaja Party. I refer, of course, to that party’s entry into a ‘Popular Front’ electoral pact with the Stalinist party and with the left bourgeois nationalist party represented by the widow Bandaranaike.”

M.N. Roy: Nationalist Menshevik
Spartacist English edition No. 62:

“Ervin’s treatment of this pseudo-Marxist adventurer, who figured prominently in the Bukharinite Right Opposition from its inception in 1928, is a piece of philistine idolatry fully in line with bourgeois academic studies of Indian Communism, in which Roy is far from neglected. What distinguishes Roy, and makes him attractive to such types, is that he embodied the revisionist endeavour of trying to blend Communism and nationalism. In pursuit of this effort, Roy became a vulgar democrat who pushed the bourgeois ideology of nationalism, albeit with some Communist colouration, making him an opponent of the fight for a Leninist vanguard party based on proletarian internationalism.”

AGRARIAN CRISIS: MASS MIGRATION OUT OF THE COUNTRYSIDE AS PEASANT AGRICULTURE COLLAPSES

Distress Migrations: Indians’ Flight From Agriculture by P. Sainath (Counterpunch)

The Census data, however, do not convey the harshness and pain of the millions trapped in “footloose” migrations. That is, the desperate search for work driving poorer people in many directions without a clear final destination. Like Oriya migrants who work some weeks in Raipur. Then a couple of months at brick kilns in Andhra Pradesh. Then at construction sites in diverse towns in Maharashtra. Their hunger, and contractors, drive them to any place where there is work, however brief. There are rural migrations to both metros and non-metro urban areas. To towns and smaller cities. There are also rural to rural migrations. There are urban-urban migrations. And even, in smaller measure, urban to rural migrations.[...]

Between 1991 and 2001, over seven million people for whom cultivation was the main livelihood, quit farming. That is a mind-boggling figure. It suggests that, on average, close to 2,000 people a day abandon farming in the country. Where do they go? Nothing in employment data suggests they get absorbed in decent work in bustling cities.

NEPAL: UNTOUCHABILITY MAKES ORDINARY LIFE A MINEFIELD

Dalit family thrashed for touching non-dalit's feet (The Himalayan Times)

“Members of a dalit family at Kalyanpur VDC-7 have been mercilessly roughed up after a daughter of the family happened to touch the feet of an upper caste woman. [...]

“Roji complained that Narayan Khadka, Yasoda Khadka, Bikas Khadka, Deepak Khadka and Bishnu Maya Khadka Rimal barged into her home and thrashed the family members. [...]

“The unruly group attacked Roji's family after Sujana Pariyar inadvertently touched the feet of Bishnu Maya while boarding on a bus. Sujana is a tenth grader at Ajingare higher secondary school, Kalyanpur.”

ICL ARTICLE ON ATTEMPTED HONOR KILLING OF RUMANA MONZUR

Barbaric Mutilation of Bangladeshi Woman
(Workers Vanguard (reprinted from Spartacist Canada)

“On June 5, in the city of Dhaka, Bangladesh, 33-year-old Rumana Monzur was permanently blinded and disfigured by her husband.[...]

“[S]ome feminists insisted that the attack had nothing to do with religion and was purely a ‘domestic violence’ issue, claiming that to say otherwise would be racist. It is true that violence against women occurs in all societies, crossing class, religious and national bounds, but what happened to Rumana had all the markings of an attempted ‘honour killing.’ There have been countless such murders in the Near East, in South and Central Asia as well as in many imperialist countries. These brutal crimes grow out of the clash between a woman’s desire for independence from ‘traditional’ culture and the legacy of pre-capitalist social and economic norms that persist in large swathes of the world.[...]

“We sharply oppose this racist ruling-class drive against Muslims and other minorities. At the same time we strongly solidarize with women who seek to throw off the strictures of religious traditionalism. Bangladesh, like the rest of the Indian subcontinent, bears the imprint of pre-capitalist social and economic norms. This neocolonial country is dominated by the dictates of the imperialist order while also subject to the tyranny of religious obscurantism; capitalist exploitation manipulates and deepens the ancient traditions and taboos.

“The concept of ‘family honour’—control of a woman’s sexuality by her family—is not the exclusive purview of Islam but occurs in a number of religions, including Christianity. It is the reflection of the treatment of women as the property of their husbands or fathers. This was powerfully captured by Friedrich Engels in his classic work The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (1884): “In order to make certain of the wife’s fidelity and therefore of the paternity of the children, she is delivered over unconditionally into the power of the husband; if he kills her, he is only exercising his rights.” [...]

“Christianity and Judaism, in their many variants, also preach stifling moral codes to uphold the patriarchal family, the main social institution oppressing women. But these religions, though they had roots in pre-capitalist society, adapted to conform with rising industrial capitalism and the bourgeois democratic nation-states where they existed. The radical democratic principles of the Enlightenment were the ideological reflection of historical material advances over a backward, feudal society. As a religion Islam has not had to adapt, largely because it is rooted in those parts of the world where the imperialists have reinforced social backwardness as a prop to their domination.

“The emancipation of women as part of the liberation of all the downtrodden of Bangladesh and the entire subcontinent requires a struggle for permanent revolution—the working class seizing power at the head of the peasantry and oppressed masses through socialist revolution, reorganizing society on the basis of collectivized property and fighting to extend the revolution internationally, especially to the imperialist centres.”

OPEN OR COVERT, UNTOUCHABILITY IS A FACT OF LIFE IN HISTORIC TEMPLE DISTRICT

2-tumbler system in a new avatar in Pollachi (Express News Service)

“The scenic environs of Pollachi-Coimbatore’s most well-known tourist destination may welcome outsiders with open arms, but when it comes to treating their own Dalit villagers, tea stall owners here follow the socially abhorrent practice of the two-tumbler system.[...]

“In many stalls, tea is served in disposable plastic cups to Dalit villagers, whereas for customers belonging to the so-called upper castes, it is served in a glass. Worse, tea shops in villages such as Guruvekoundenpalayam, Kappilipalayam and Mettuvavi, have come up with an innovative two-tumbler system to deceive authorities in case of a surprise inspection.

“‘At the tea stalls in these villages, separate tumblers for Dalits are identified by dots marked in green or yellow at the bottom. In some cases, there is a cut mark on the top edge of the tumbler for Dalits,’ alleged K Marimuthu, president, Makkal Viduthalai Munnani, a local outfit which fights for the rights of Dalits.

“Tea shop owners, however, are hesitant to admit that Dalit customers were discriminated against and claim that they do not have separate tumblers for the caste Hindus. But a visit to most tea stalls proved otherwise.

<blockquote>
“While elders belonging to the oppressed sections have accepted the practice, presumably out of fear for caste Hindus, Dalit youth have begun to assert themselves against the practice.”

ANNA HAZARE: SINISTER “ANTI-CORRUPTION” CAMPAIGNER PUSHES PRO-IMPERIALIST NEO-LIBERAL AGENDA WHILE SALUTING COMMUNALIST BIGOTRY AND AGE-OLD CASTE OPPRESSION

I’d rather not be Anna by Arundhati Roy (The Hindu)

“Who is he really, this new saint, this Voice of the People? Oddly enough we've heard him say nothing about things of urgent concern. Nothing about the farmer's suicides in his neighbourhood, or about Operation Green Hunt further away. Nothing about Singur, Nandigram, Lalgarh, nothing about Posco, about farmer's agitations or the blight of SEZs. He doesn't seem to have a view about the Government's plans to deploy the Indian Army in the forests of Central India.

“He does however support Raj Thackeray's Marathi Manoos xenophobia and has praised the ‘development model’ of Gujarat's Chief Minister who oversaw the 2002 pogrom against Muslims. (Anna withdrew that statement after a public outcry, but presumably not his admiration.)

“Despite the din, sober journalists have gone about doing what journalists do. We now have the back-story about Anna’s old relationship with the RSS. We have heard from Mukul Sharma who has studied Anna’s village community in Ralegan Siddhi, where there have been no Gram Panchayat or Co-operative society elections in the last 25 years. We know about Anna's attitude to ‘harijans’ [Gandhian term for untouchables]: ‘It was Mahatma Gandhi’s vision that every village should have one chamar, one sunar, one kumhar and so on. They should all do their work according to their role and occupation, and in this way, a village will be self-dependent. This is what we are practicing in Ralegan Siddhi.’ Is it surprising that members of Team Anna have also been associated with Youth for Equality, the anti-reservation (pro-‘merit’) movement [that opposes affirmative action on the basis of caste]? The campaign is being handled by people who run a clutch of generously funded NGOs whose donors include Coca-Cola and Lehman Brothers. Kabir, run by Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, key figures in Team Anna, has received $400,000 from the Ford Foundation in the last three years. Among contributors to the India Against Corruption campaign there are Indian companies and foundations that own aluminum plants, build ports and SEZs, and run Real Estate businesses and are closely connected to politicians who run financial empires that run into thousands of crores of rupees. Some of them are currently being investigated for corruption and other crimes. Why are they all so enthusiastic? [...]

“At a time when the State is withdrawing from its traditional duties and Corporations and NGOs are taking over government functions (water supply, electricity, transport, telecommunication, mining, health, education); at a time when the terrifying power and reach of the corporate owned media is trying to control the public imagination, one would think that these institutions — the corporations, the media, and NGOs — would be included in the jurisdiction of a Lokpal bill. Instead, the proposed bill leaves them out completely.

“Now, by shouting louder than everyone else, by pushing a campaign that is hammering away at the theme of evil politicians and government corruption, they have very cleverly let themselves off the hook. Worse, by demonising only the Government they have built themselves a pulpit from which to call for the further withdrawal of the State from the public sphere and for a second round of reforms — more privatisation, more access to public infrastructure and India's natural resources. It may not be long before Corporate Corruption is made legal and renamed a Lobbying Fee.”

See also:

Converging agendas: Team Anna and the Indian Right by Rohini Hensman (Infochange, September 2011):

“Questions were raised about the dangerously authoritarian character of the bill they were backing, with its creation of an unaccountable, unelected body that would have the power to tap phones, intercept emails, and remove every government functionary from the Prime Minister and Chief Justice to the lowest peon. Access to judicial review for those targeted by this all-powerful body would be meaningless, given its power to remove judges it did not like. By defining corruption as the disease rather than seeing it as merely a symptom of a deeper disease–power without accountability, power to commit crimes with impunity–the JLB was a formula to introduce a new source of corruption rather than eliminating it. It was also, potentially, an assault on India’s democratic institutions, one heightened by the demand that either the law should be passed by parliament by August 30, or the government should quit. [...]

“The enthusiastic participation of the RSS and other members of the Sangh Parivar also disturbed many.”

And see:

What is the real goal of the Anna movement? by Rohini Hensman (InfoChange India, November 2011)

DEADLY ECONOMIC ISOLATION OF DEPENDENT UNTOUCHABLE LABOR IN VILLAGE SHOWS MATERIAL ROOTS OF CASTE OPPRESSION

Socially boycotted dalits file case (Express News Service)

“Upper-caste people have allegedly socially boycotted these [thirty-two] families [in Nayakanur village] under the pretext that they refused to sweep cow dung at the house of an upper-caste family. Though the controversy has been there it came to light now since one of the dalit families lodged a complaint at Navalgund police station alleging their social boycott.

“According to police sources Basappa Madar, 64, was working as servant with Andanigouda Patil. Basappa and his wife recently refused to continue working for Patil family. Then, Patil allegedly asked the other families in the village not to give Basappa and his wife any employment. When dalit families questioned this, Patil asked his fellow villagers not to give work to any of the dalit families and even to boycott them socially.”

See also:

Dalits ostracised in Navalgund (Deccan Chronicle, August 18, 2011):

“The landlord instructed shop owners in the village, not to provide any foodgrains and tea to the dalits. They were prevented from fetching water from the tank, and threatened with hefty fine and other punishment for disobeying him. This prompted all dalits to desert the village, and evoked strong criticism from religious heads and the public.

“‘We don’t have any agricultural land, and earn our livelihood by working under the landlords, as bonded labourers. All dalit men are working as farm labourers, in the lands of landlords, and women are employed as maids in their houses. Our children are also employed in the houses of landlords. They get food grains instead of wages in return. We have been living under fear, and the harassment has been going on for many years,’ said forty-two year old Dalit Basappa Madar.”

AT INDIA’S ELITE UNIVERSITIES, SYSTEMATIC HARASSMENT OF UNTOUCHABLE STUDENTS

Protect-shun (Times of India)

“Anti-dalit sentiment erupted in 1991, when the V P Singh government decided to implement 27% reservation for OBCs. In the capital’s “left-leaning” university, JNU, caste clashes took place between students; in the dining-halls of IIT-Delhi, dalits were forced to sit on separate tables, and the walls of urinals in Delhi University were covered with puerile graffiti. And the authorities just watched. ‘The atmosphere in our institutions is very brahminical as the upper castes dominate the faculty. In such an environment, the lower caste students automatically become outcastes,’ says Dilip Mandal, who teaches at Delhi's Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC). [...]

“Many, however, have fought back. Dr Ajay Singh, who joined AIIMS in 2002 with the same marks as the cut-off for "general" students, was the only dalit in his hostel wing. He was barred from entering the carrom-board room and one day someone scrawled ‘Nobody likes you here. F**k off’ on his door. But Dr Singh fought back and that led to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh appointing a three-member committee, headed by University Grants Commission chairman Sukhdeo Thorat, to look into caste harassment in the country's top medical institutes. The report was shocking: dalit students were bullied into vacating their hostel rooms, leading to a ghetto being formed on two floors of a hostel; they were specifically targeted during ragging; they were not allowed to play cricket and basketball; they were not allowed to eat in the ‘upper-caste mess’; and the teachers ignored them in class, sometimes deliberately failing them in exams. Shamed by the damning report, AIIMS took some remedial steps. ‘Now the hostels are allotted through a lottery system and general harassment has come down a bit, but all the recommendations of the panel are yet to be implemented,‘ says Dr Singh, who now works with a government hospital in Delhi.”

See also anti-caste: VICIOUS CASTE BIGOTRY IN HIGHER EDUCATION (May 8, 2011)