Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 14.02.11
Dalits turn a casteist word into expression of pride - The Times Of India
Dalits demand KSRTC city bus service - The Times Of India
Non-payment of remuneration
Midday meal cooks form body - The Tribune
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110214/punjab.htm#7
CM raps cops, seeks better performance - The Times Of India
Review of Kancha Ilaiah's "Why I am not a Hindu" - The Chakra
http://www.chakranews.com/review-of-kancha-ilaiahs-why-i-am-not-a-hindu/1100
The Times Of India
Dalits turn a casteist word into expression of pride
I P Singh, TNN, Feb 14, 2011, 05.04am IST
JALANDHAR (PUNJAB): The manifestation of Dalit assertion, especially in the Adharmi community, has taken an interesting turn with a word - considered casteist, derogatory and belittling so far, being used with pride and dignity. On the eve of Guru Ravidass Jayanti, a number of songs and audio-video eulogizing the word chamaar to inspire the community, particularly, its youth, are ready for release.
'Over three-dozen albums were released around this theme last year. And, this year, around half-a-dozen are already out in the market doing brisk business in the last few weeks,' said HS Preet, editor of Punjabi music magazine 'Sangeet Darpan.' A decade ago, it would have been unthinkable for the community to associate connotations of pride with the word, but call it an inverse assertion of the community in reaction to the casteist ego of upper castes that members of the community are wearing the caste on their sleeves now.
How greatly confidence and pride have been imbued into the expression, can be seen in singer Vijay Momi's album, titled 'Take Over the World' which has six songs using this word - Chamaar Agge Kaun Khad-da, Munde haan Chamarran de Asin, Duniya Te Vakhra he tohar Hai Chamaraan Da, Chamaar Kalla, Maidan vich khar gae munde Gabhroo Chamaaran de and Asin haan chamaraan de munde.
Singer Anmol Virk's album last year used similar expressions in her number ' Buri Nazar Na Lage Kade Vi Putt Chamaraan Nu. Singer Pamma Sunnar has given the title of his recent album 'The fighter Chamaar', which salutes the community youths especially their spirit of 'pride' and fighting spirit.
'When people from upper caste would taunt us using this word, our people would feel insulted and go in for conversions. But, after spending over two decades in the Dalit movement, I thought that we should associate a sense of pride with this word, by using it as a matter of respect within the community itself,' said SS Azad, who started the trend in his song Ankhi Putt Chamaran de, three years back, in Ludhiana. 'There was a huge response to the song,' he told TOI.
The Times Of India
Dalits demand KSRTC city bus service
TNN, Feb 13, 2011, 10.36pm IST
MANGALORE: The Dakshina Kannada district unit of Karnataka Dalit Sangharsh Samiti (DSS) has demanded that the regional transport authority accord immediate sanction to application byMangalore division of KSRTC to start city services in Mangalore. The KSRTC has sought 37 permits to operate city services to Surathkal, Kunjathbail and Bondel. However, the district administration and the RTA is not to keen on clearing this request for permits.
P Keshava, state committee member of DSS said that KSRTC has a proven trackrecord on passenger safety and the RTA has been denying them permission. The DC, who is the chairman of the authority should consider the applications made by KSRTC to operate city services alongside the services provided by private bus operators, failing which the Samiti would be forced to launch an agitation.
Observing that dalits are not getting their due in terms of actual benefits of government scheme meant for the community reaching the intended beneficiaries, Keshava said the state government should earmark funds for dalits in proportion to their population in the state. The government should increase the scholarship amount to SC/ST students to Rs 1,200 per month on par with facilities given to their counterparts in neighbouring states, he noted.
Special law if needed must be promulgated to fill up backlog vacancies, he said adding all MLAs should be asked to spend 10 per cent of government grants allocated to them for welfare of SCs and STs. Various grants meant for development of SCs/STs and OBCs should be cleared under a single window concept, he said, adding that even the elected representatives of the districts should meet SCs/STs each month and address their grievances.
The Tribune
Non-payment of remuneration
Midday meal cooks form body
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110214/punjab.htm#7
GS Paul/TNS
Amritsar, February 13
To protest against the laxity of the government, several midday meal cooks assembled at the Company Bagh, and formed a district-level body under the banner of the Midday Meal Workers Union, Punjab, today. There are scores of government and aided schools in Punjab where the midday meal cooks have not been paid remunerations for the past several months. They alleged that the school managements did not pay them as the food was not being prepared in some schools because the ration (raw food stock) was short, apparently, for want of grant-in-aid.
There are around 2,500 midday meal cooks in the district, who prepare food for 1 lakh students of 865 primary and 55,000 students of 414 upper primary (upto Class VIII) schools. Each cook is paid only Rs 1,000 per month, with no entitlement for Provident Fund or subsidised medical aid. Babli, who prepares midday meals at Government Primary School, Mahna Singh road, was injured while performing her duties and the school management terminated her services.
"Against Rs 1,000, I was being paid just Rs 700 per month. My arm was injured while I was on duty. The management, instead of arranging medical aid for me, discontinued my services," claimed Babli.
Gayatri Devi, state president of the union, said with no regular supply of LPG cylinders, the cooks prepare the mass meals using stoves.
District midday meal manager Santokh Singh Sewak admitted that less ration was received this time in some rural schools, but denied any miss in the midday meal schedule.
"Some schools under the zila parishad can not send their students' attendance on time. Consequently, the food stock falls short. Against the required 295 MT of food stock, only 132 MT was received. We have instructed the school heads to make arrangements at their own through other schools which have excess stock," he said.
About the remuneration, we transfer the payments through banks and school heads are supposed to pay the cooks through cheques only. If this norm is not being followed, I will look into the matter," he said.
The Times Of India
CM raps cops, seeks better performance
Mrigank Tiwari, TNN, Feb 14, 2011, 11.15am IST
ALLAHABAD: The chief minister Mayawati expressed displeasure over the style of functioning of the district police and said effort should be made to solve the disputes on the spot. She categorically stated that atrocities against dalits and women would not be tolerated in the state.
The chief minister was on an inspection of the city on Sunday. While inspecting the records at Meja tehsil, Mayawati issued a stern warning to circle officer, Meja, RB Chaurasia and told him to solve the case related to forcible occupation of a Dalit land, registered in police records on January 1 this year, at the earliest.
The chief minister, who arrived in the city on Sunday morning, went straight to Ambedkar village, Sarai Khurd under Uruva block of Meja tehsil to inspect the development works.
Expressing ire over the absence of a drain near the CC road in the village, she enquired from the DM why water was allowed to accumulated there and how it would be drained out. She ordered for the construction of a drain alongside the CC road within a month and directed the officials to repair the link road of the village.
Later she went to primary school in the village and enquired from children about the quality of teaching, attendance of teachers and mid-day meal.
The CM also summoned the official records at a primary school in the village including tehsil diwas complaint register and crime register. Finding that details of disposal of cases had not been mentioned in the crime register, Mayawati told the DIG and CO to do the needful and mention details of their inspection too in the police records.
In the city, the chief minister went to the Tej Bahadur Sapru district hospital to take stock of medical facilities and enquired from patients and attendants about the facilities being offered.
She spoke to a dalit resident of Chapri Kachar under Kaurihar, Vijay Kumar, admitted in the new ward. Visibly moved by his poor background, Mayawati asked the DM to ensure Vijay's free treatment at the hospital and announced a financial assistance of Rs one lakh for him.
In the emergency ward, one Leelavati narrated her problems to the chief minister. The latter directed DM Alok Kumar and DIG Ramkumar to dispose off her complaint by evening and intimate her.
The CM went to inspect the houses constructed under Kanshi Ram Shahari Avas Yojana at Mehdauri colony where the residents told her about the drinking water problem. Maywati also visited the Shilakhana slum and Sadar tehsil. At Sadar tehsil, she inspected the record room and the records related to allotment and possession of patta land. It was found that possession of patta land was provided to more than 90 per cent of beneficiaries from SC/ST category.
The CM also inspected the Colonelganj police station and examined records related to crime against SC/ST and women registered during the Thana Diwas.
The Chakra
Review of Kancha Ilaiah's "Why I am not a Hindu"
http://www.chakranews.com/review-of-kancha-ilaiahs-why-i-am-not-a-hindu/1100
By Ranbir Singh
Anti-Hindu and Anti-Semitic Activist Kancha Ilaiah
Kancha Ilaiah is professor and head of the department of political science at Osmania University , Hyderabad . He is perhaps best known for writing Why I am not a Hindu in 2007. Anyone approaching this work with the prior knowledge of Bertrand Russell (Why I am not a Christian) and Ibn Warraq (Why I am not a Muslim) would certainly have their expectations dashed. In a truly appalling collection of half-truths, lack of methodical research and racial myths, Ilaiah's book has the dubious distinction of making Hitler's Mein Kampf look like a literary masterpiece in comparison. Ilaiah shares much else with Hitler, notably his obsession with race and inventing racial categories where they do not even exist. To say in his defence that Ilaiah is inspired by the oppression of Dalits in India would be equivalent to justifying National Socialism and the Third Reich on the basis that the Versailles Treaty was after all rather unfair to Germany .
In page after page this appalling writer spews venom against anything Hindu. If one needs to find a prime example of a dysfunctional illiterate elite who replaced white colonial masters in a Third World kleptocracy, Kancha Ilaiah would certainly be hard to beat. For him Hinduism is basically spiritual fascism. Yet Ilaiah is hardly averse in being ideologically associated with the "f" word himself. His attack on the "Baniya economy" bares unhealthy semblance to the Nazi obsession with Jewish banking houses such as Rothschild holding the German volk to ransom. In discussing Hindu deities Ilaiah echoes the music of Richard Wagner in his addiction to the idea of an Aryan race, even if it as the comic book strip bad guys in his rewriting of Indian history to fit into a racist mould. All Hindu gods have suppression of Dalits as their purpose. Brahma is a light-brown Aryan, Vishnu is blue because apparently this was the colour of the mixed race Kshatriyas, while Shiva is dark because he resembles a "tribal" in order to delude the indigenous pre-Aryan inhabitants of India . The Ramayana is some primeval race war in which the Aryans suppressed the Dravidian south. In a twist to classic anti-Semitic motifs Brahmins control all India 's political parties, including the Communists. Replace "Brahmin" with "Jew" and Ilaiah could be rendering a speech written by Sir Oswald Mosley in the 1930s. Most incredibly, yet like so many of his remarks which lack any solid basis, cremation was a Brahminist plot to hide the mass genocide of India's indigenous Shudras.
The contrast between Hinduism on the one hand and Christianity, Islam and Buddhism on the other is explained by the former having "an inborn spiritual fascist" character while the other three possess "basic character of spiritual democracy". By this stage we should be alleviated of any doubts that Ilaiah has not rewritten world history in manner befitting Himmler's SS research institute known as Das Ahnenerbe which traversed the corners of the earth to find the origins of the Aryan race. In the end the Nazi 'scholars' came back with recordings of Finnish folk music and plaster casts of Tibetan faces which serious academia even then laughed off. Ilaiah fails to provide even this much. Not only does he lack any adequate fieldwork but he omits even using footnotes and bibliography. If Himmler's research was laughable Ilaiah's work is not even worthy of being in the joke book section of a dingy run down back street store pungent with the odour of marijuana smoke and empty bottles of vodka – which is what Ilaiah would no doubt have to ply his victims in order for them to read his soul destroying racist monologue.
In summary Why I am Not a Hindu is a wasted opportunity at dissecting the world's oldest surviving culture. In a free society we should not take offence at our beliefs being criticised. That is the hallmark of a healthy vibrant democracy. Censorship and banning is the character of totalitarianism. Yet academic standards must not be allowed to drop in allowing hate ideologies to stifle the very liberal ideas which allow for democracy in the first place. By then monopolising the public space hatemongers such as Ilaiah effectively muzzle any alternative voices which is what anyone or any ideology with an "inborn fascist character" does naturally. By any academic yardstick the research conducted by the Ahnenerbe was sloppy, lacked intellectual rigour and was ultimately laughable. Yet it prepared the foundations for the Holocaust which was of course anything but a laughing matter. Ilaiah's book is central to those organisations which claim to be campaigning against caste discrimination. He is the darling of such groups, elevated to the status that Goebbels once enjoyed. But it is only a matter of time before his poisonous racist ideas follow the precedent set by the Ahnenerbe in reaching their ultimate genocidal conclusion. And even then, just as David Irving and Robert Faurrisson deny the Holocaust, there will be "Ilaiahites" who avert their gaze and claim it never happened.
--
.Arun Khote
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of "Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC")
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