Opinion - News Analysis

A system against Dalits

http://www.hindu.com/2007/03/14/stories/2007031402091100.htm

Vidya Subrahmaniam

Bibipur is a metaphor. Locally it is a symbol of unrelieved Dalit suffering in Haryana. Nationally it is about the staggering insensitivity of the state machinery to a community grievously wronged by history.

— Photo: S. Subramanium

Dalit residents of Bibipur Brahmadan.

RAJPUTS TORCH Dalit houses in Salwan, Karnal (March 2007); Jat mobs loot and burn the Balmiki basti in Gohana, Sonepat (August 2005); forward caste men lynch five Dalits in a police chowki in Duleena, Jhajjar (October 2002). In Haryana, violence against Dalits is a constant; it is quite often brutally physical but it is ever present as a state of mind.

For every Gohana, every Jhajjar that violently spills on to the television screens, there is another unpublicised, underplayed Dalit story in Haryana. In the fast-paced, breaking-news times we live in, where tragedy is measured by how visually sensational it is, where suffering must be demonstrably overt, the understated distress of the Dalit residents of Bibipur Brahmadan must seem unworthy of attention. Similarly, there are countless other instances where the injury is to the soul, to the dignity and self-respect of a whole community. The perpetrators of this sub-textual violence are as much the forward castes as the network of administrators whose job it is ostensibly to protect the vulnerable.

On the surface, Bibipur, a tiny village in Haryana's Karnal district, seems the epitome of untroubled rural life. Brahmin homes occupy the front while Dalits huddle together in semi-finished quarters in the rear, making do without water and toilets. Every morning, Bibipur's Dalit women trudge to fields owned by Brahmins to relieve themselves — aware that they do so by the latter's magnanimity. In a word, this is life as it is expected to be. To further diminish Bibipur's curiosity value, its Dalits have no stories of murder or rape to tell. Yes there is seething anger — against an administration that is so matter-of-factly partisan it knows no other way to dispense justice.

Institutional prejudice

Perhaps this is not so shocking. Institutional prejudice has long been a fact of Dalit everyday life. Haryana's officialdom may wear its prejudice like a proud badge, but it is not as if the bureaucracy elsewhere is socially enlightened. Modern India's founding fathers banished untouchability, writing equality and egalitarianism into a Constitution applauded as one of the finest in the world. Fifty-seven years on, India's gargantuan institutional framework would seem to have absorbed nothing of that lofty vision. Bibipur is then a metaphor, a representative story. Locally it is a symbol of unrelieved Dalit suffering in Haryana. Nationally it is about the staggering insensitivity of the state machinery to a community grievously wronged by history.

"You have come for this non-story?" asks Karnal Deputy Commissioner B.S. Malik. At the core of the non-story is a temple, a Dalit temple to Sant Ravidas. Or should we call it a non-temple? Because each time the temple attempts to come up, it is razed — by forward caste mobs acting in tandem with the local administration. This is done seemingly with good reason. The temple is an encroachment, an illegal construction on a site earmarked for the village school playground; the school itself is on the adjoining plot.

Yet the Dalit temple has been authorised by a village panchayat held on August 13, 2006, in the local Indri police station. More to the point, on the same school land stand three other temples — one each to Shiva, Krishna, and Devi — and an ashram for the aged, all built by village Brahmins. Dalits are not allowed into these temples, and those who flout the code must bear casteist insults and taunts. None of this is unusual and that is why for Bibipur's Brahmins the idea of a separate Dalit temple is an affront made worse by the Dalit insistence on building on public land, adjacent to the Brahmin temples.

Over the next three months, Bibipur's Brahmins extract their revenge — with not a little help from the administration. They behead the Ravidas idol, hold a second panchayat, which reverses the permission given to the Dalit temple, remove the last vestiges of that temple, carry out an armed attack on the school compound, and finally, enforce a form of social boycott that means, among other things, Dalit women will be forcibly stopped from using the Brahmin-owned fields. If this senseless prohibition puts the women to acute discomfort in a village without accessible public land, it is apparently punishment well deserved.

For Bibipur's Dalits, the distressing thing is not so much forward caste oppression as administrative collusion in this oppression. The first panchayat that authorised the Dalit temple was held in the local thana under the supervision of the Station House Officer. Without this explicit official sanction, Dalits would not have dared start building on school land. Yet Brahmins vandalise the temple with impunity. Worse, under pressure from Brahmins, the administration arranges a second panchayat, which cancels the permission to the Dalit temple instead allotting space for two temples, one each to Chamars and Balmikis, in a marshy area adjoining the village pond and close to the Dalit quarters. The panchayat also agrees to clear the school playground of all unauthorised occupation.

Dalits accept the proposal, interpreting it to mean that the three unauthorised Brahmin temples on the school ground will also be removed. However, with the ink still wet on the panchayat decision, Brahmins, with the district administration standing guard, clear the school land of all encroachment, barring their own temples. They uproot the Dalit temple from its foundation, and fling the bricks assembled for its construction into a gorge.

Fight between unequals

This assault on Dalit swabhiman (self-respect) is more than the community members can take and in protest they decide to leave their homes and convert to Islam.

The palayan (forced migration) takes them to Karan Park in Karnal, where over the next 10 days, they come under intense pressure — from the administration and from the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and the Arya Samaj, who have rushed in to prevent Dalit conversion to Islam. In this fight between two unequals, might inevitably proves right. The saffron side calls an on-the-spot panchayat, which decides, among other things, that the Brahmin temples, "built by mistake on the school playground" will get official recognition; that no other community will build temples on that land; that Dalits will get alternative plots near their own quarters; that Dalits will withdraw all pending complaints against Brahmins.

Four months on, there is no Dalit temple in Bibipur — neither on the school playground nor on alternative plots supposedly allotted to them. Bibipur's Dalits have not converted to Islam which threat they used only to capture attention. Veer Bhan, who spearheaded the Dalit agitation, is a dejected man. The meticulous records he keeps include several petitions to the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) and three FIRs filed in the Indri police station. He has made endless rounds of the police chowki, the Deputy Commissioner's office and the NCSC — with no results to show for the pain.

For me, the Bibipur experience is a revelation. It started as a small story in a small village in Haryana. Chasing its twists and turns, I went from office to office in Karnal, finally reaching the supposedly sensitised environs of the NCSC. At the Deputy Commissioner's office, Mr. Malik tells me that Bibipur's Dalits have no business constructing a temple on school land. He insists that Brahmins are under threat from Dalits and not vice versa.

I point to the existence of three other temples, built by Brahmins, on the same school land. To which his reply is, who knows, the temples might have come up a 100 years ago. But in the village land records of 1965, the temples are nowhere to be seen. Bibipur's residents, all barring Brahmins, swear that the three temples are of recent vintage, built between 1990-91 and 2003-2004.

They give me a signed statement containing the construction details. Clearly in Karnal, illegal temple building is kosher — as long as it is by Brahmins, not by Dalits.

My quest continues at the NCSC. But that is another disheartening story.

Kerala's first feminist whom history has forgotten

C Radhakrishnan | Alappuzha As March 8, the International Day for Women, has become a ritual for non-Governmental orgainsations to organise seminars on empowerment and freedom of women, even in Kerala, nobody in the State now remembers the woman who sacrificed her life for the cause of women's freedom almost a century ago.

The name of this woman, perhaps the first feminist of Kerala, however does not find any mention in seminars or workshops being organised every year on this particular day when foreign personalities like Simone de Beauvoir and Shere Hite are discussed at length.

The life (and death) of Nangeli, who rewrote the social rules in the erstwhile Travancore kingdom, is a saga of the fight against sexual prejudices, oppression of lower castes and feudal repression.

The Nangeli saga is recounted orally, says 61-year-old Leela of Cherthala, a fourth generation relative of the feminist. Leela keeps alive the Nangeli stories, which were handed over to her by her ancestors.

Nangeli lived a century ago in Cherthala, a part of Travancore, when covering of female breasts among lower castes was taboo, according to the feudal and caste-ridden social customs in force. If any lower caste woman wanted to cover her breasts she was required to pay tax, called Mulakkaram (breast tax). Violation of the rule was met with severe penalties apart from the tax.

There were special officers appointed to ensure that no women walked the streets with their breasts covered and also to collect tax if any woman dared to act against the rule. There had even been incidents where such officials had brutally attacked women who covered their breasts. The result of all this was that women refused to go out of the house becoming in the process socially alienated beings.

It was this established rule that Nangeli, a beautiful and stocky Ezhava woman of thirtyfive, opposed a century ago with her own life. Unlike other lower caste women of the time, Nangeli refused to see her beauty as a curse. "She was symbol of feminine beauty," Leela quotes Nangeli's story. "Those who had seen her said she was an apsara," Leela adds.

Leela presents the story of Nangeli as it has traveled through three generations: Nangeli, with her insatiable urge for freedom and spirit of rebellion could not be confined to the dark corners of her house like other women. So, one fine day when her husband Kandappan was not at home, she came out of her house in full view of all covering her breast with a cloth, a practise reserved as a privilege for upper caste women.

The news that beautiful Nangeli had appeared in the open with her breasts covered spread like wildfire. Hearing about the development, the village officer in charge of collecting Mulakkaram rushed to Nangeli's house and demanded that she pay tax.

The tax-payment procedure itself was a ritual. The woman had to present the money to the officer on a plantain leaf put before a lighted traditional lamp. Nangeli agreed to the village officer's demand. She asked for some minutes and went inside the house.

When she came back, the officer was horror-struck to see the plantain leaf on which she had brought the Mulakkaram. Nageli had offered as tax her own breasts. She had severed them from her body and put them on the plantain leaf. Within moments, Nangeli collapsed unconscious and bled to death.

Leela continues, "Nangeli's body had already been put on the funeral pyre when husband Kandappan returned home. Unable to bear the grief, he threw himself on the pyre immolating himself along with his beloved." The plot of land in which Nangeli's house stood came to be known as Mulachiparambu (plot of breast).

Hearing the news of the gruesome incident and fearing the people's rebellion, Sreemoolam Thirunnal Maharaja, king of Travancore, banned Mulakkaram and declared covering of breasts by low-caste women legal.

Not many know of the sacrifice of this woman that saw the dawn of a new era in women's liberation. no2torture.blogspot.com

Double standards Chandrabhan Prasad http://dailypioneer.com/columnist1.asp?main_variable=Columnist&file_name=prasad%2Fprasad198%2Etxt&writer=prasad

In February 2006, Randall Tobias, administrator of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) briefed the media in Washington DC that "US has decided to cut aid to India" because India has become a donor country.

On February 28, 2007 India's Finance Minister P Chidambaram proved Randall Tobias right in his Budget speech. The 'rising' India has so much of money today that the Federal Government knows not what to do with it - dump it in the Indian Ocean - as the US had allegedly once dumped excessive wheat stock in the Pacific Ocean. Chidambaram it seems followed the US pattern in this Budget - got rid of the "excessive rupee stock". Consider the following:

Subsidy on fertilisers: Rs 22,422 crore,

Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan: Rs 10,671 crore

Mid-Day-Meal Scheme: Rs 07,324 crore

A colossal Rs 40,417 has been drowned on three schemes - all with suspect economic rational.

Most of the fertiliser subsidy will be plundered by affluent land lords. The Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan can easily be described as one the biggest officially mandated frauds. The middle man's paradise, the Mid-Day-Meal Scheme was launched in Tamil Nadu decades back, but the drop-out rates in the State remain at par with the national average.

Since the Indian Government has so much of money, it is free to spend it wherever it wishes to. But, doesn't the Dalits' education deserve a share in that "excessive rupee stock" particularly when the Constitution mandates to take special care of the education of Dalits (SC/STs)

To Dalits in India, education has been the fundamental tool in their emancipation. A significant section of Dalits, stand relatively liberated because of education. In Dalits' relative rise in education, the Federal Government's fully funded PMS (Post Metric Scholarship) scheme has played a key role.

Launched in 1951, PMS money is given to States, which act as postmen, distribute PMS to Dalit students- from Class XII onwards. In 1951, a total of 1,664 Dalit students claimed PMS. Today, the number of PMS beneficiaries has crossed the two million mark.

Given in two installments in a year, almost every member of the first generation Dalits who went on to become a Civil Servant, doctor, engineer or a teacher benefited from PMS. If there has been one Government scheme benefiting millions of Dalits, it is PMS.

So much so that it has become a household name and meant for poor Dalits. Only those Dalit students are eligible for PMS whose parents income does not exceed Rs 8,333 a month, or Rs one lakh annually.

In other words, children of even a lower division clerk with 15 years of service are not entitled for PMS. With so much of "excessive rupee stock", how has Chidambaram treated PMS scheme in this Budget?

The allegedly common man's Finance Minister, Chidambaram has allocated a paltry sum of Rs 611 crore for PMS!

Let's calculate how much money would Dalit students get under the PMS per month? The Class XII Dalit students not staying in hostels would get Rs 140 a month- or Rs 4.66 a day. Those living in hostels would get Rs 7.83 a day. Dalit students in post graduate courses - Medicine, Engineering, Management would get Rs 11 a day. Those living in hostels would get Rs 24.66 a day.

In the very same Budget, Chidambaram is offering one lakh Means-Cum-Merit scholarships of Rs 500 a month or, Rs. 16.66 a day to the students of Classes IX, X, XI and XII irrespective of their caste background.

In other words, under PMS, Dalits students of Class X1 and Class XII would get Rs. 4.66 a day, but under Means-Cum-Merit scheme, students would get Rs. 16.66 a day. What you have is one country - but two rules for two sets of people!

A bit mind boggling. Has the UPA Government become totally heartless? Would it be expecting too much of Sonia Gandhi if she summoned Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chidambaram to 10 Janpath, and seek an explanation for this difference?

Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram

Corporal punishment cannot make a child more intelligent: resource material

Staff Reporter

The Hindu

06/03/07

http://www.hindu.com/2007/03/06/stories/2007030601420200.htm

Studies show that the theory of corporal punishment is an ineffective discipline strategy with children and it is often proved to be dangerous.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Corporal punishment cannot improve a child's understanding of a subject or make him `more' intelligent, says a resource material for teachers published by People's Watch, a human rights organisation based in Tamil Nadu.

The 70-page manual, prepared with the assistance of the European Union, was distributed to nearly 400 teachers from various schools in Thiruvananthapuram, Pathanamthitta, Kottayam and Palakkad at a programme on `Preventing torture in India,' organised by the human rights organisation in association with the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, in the city recently.

The manual says that research studies have shown that the theory of corporal punishment is an ineffective discipline strategy with children of all ages and it is often proved to be dangerous. In fact, punishment can create anger, resentment and low self-esteem in the minds of the children. It teaches them violence and revenge as solutions to problems and perpetuates itself, as children may imitate what the adults are doing. A frequently-hit child will be a problematic person tomorrow, the manual warns.

However, despite these inherent hazards, corporal punishment still continues to be a regular affair in thousands of schools everywhere. The manual also lists some of the `savage old generation' methods of punishment inflicted on children at school. `Kodandam' was one such practice that was in vogue a generation ago. The punishment meant hanging errant boys upside down and thrashing them. In another more brutal version, children were hung upside down over red chillies, which were lit. Thus, they were forced to sustain both beating and the pungent smell of burning chillies.

Some of the modern day punishments include making children stand in the sun for an entire day, make them kneel down and do work, force them to stand on the bench, caning, pinching, twisting ears and placing school bags on their heads.

In addition to physical trauma, corporal punishments such as slapping by the opposite sex, humiliating children in public, labelling them according to their misbehaviour, locking them in dark rooms, making them sit on the floor of the classroom or pay fines, and preventing them from entering the class can also lead to emotional and negative reinforcement in the minds of the students, says the resource material.

The resource material also points out that a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court had held that corporal punishment was not in keeping with a child's dignity. The court had ruled that inflicting physical punishment on a child was not in consonance with his or her right to life guaranteed by Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. "Just because child is small he or she cannot be denied these rights... Even animals are protected against cruelty. Our children surely cannot be worse off than animals," the High Court ruled.