Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 10.06.12
Crematorium path off limits for dalits - Deccan Chronicle
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/cities/others/crematorium-path-limits-dalits-189
Hisar: 46 BSP men booked for sedition - The Times Of India
Cast Of Killers - Out Look
An ex-caste warlord's murder singes Bihar's flammable social fabric
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?281234
Life Lessons - Express India
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/life-lessons/960038/
Deccan Chronicle
Crematorium path off limits for dalits
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/cities/others/crematorium-path-limits-dalits-189
June 10, 2012
DC , Namakkal
Tension prevailed at Monjanur village in Namakkal district on Saturday when members of a family blocked a path and prevented dalits from carrying the body of an elderly woman to the crematorium.
Police used mild force and detained 74 people, including 27 women, as the dalits insisted on carrying the body through the path for cremation.
As the situation threatened to spin out of control, police moved the body to the Thiruchengode government hospital mortuary and initiated measures to restore peace.
The agitated dalits, residents of Monjanur village, staged a roadblock, forcing the police to remove them from the scene.
They insisted on taking the body through the pathway. The superintendent of police, M. Sathyapriya, said the family members could not be forced to give access to the pathway as they are the rightful owners of the land.
She expressed confidence that the matter would be resolved amicably. after talking to elders from both sides.
A 250-strong police force has been deployed in the village to prevent any untoward incident.
The Times Of India
Hisar: 46 BSP men booked for sedition
TNN | Jun 10, 2012, 04.26AM IST
HISAR: The Haryana police have booked 46 BSP activists for sedition for protesting the state government's inaction over the mass exodus of dalits from Hisar's Bhagana village due to alleged upper-caste boycott last month.
The activists had blocked a road near Hisar's civil hospital and tried to burn CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda's effigy on Tuesday. The police had then arrested five activists for "misbehaving with cops and obstructing their duty".
Investigating officer Vikas Kumar confirmed that charges under section 124 A (sedition) against the activists were added later. "During investigations, including examination of video footage, we found that the accused had used inflammatory and derogatory words against the government in their speeches. They also raised castiest slogans," he said.
Around 70 dalit families had left their homes on May 20 alleging social boycott.
Out Look
Cast Of Killers
An ex-caste warlord's murder singes Bihar's flammable social fabric
http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?281234
Panini Anand, Anuradha Raman, Dola Mitra
Brahmeshwar Singh, alias Mukhiya, is said to have once publicly justified the killing of Dalit women and children. The self-styled chief of the Ranvir Sena, a private militia of upper caste landlords which unleashed terror in the 1990s killing fields of Bihar, was quoted as saying that Dalit children grew up to be Naxalites and the women give birth to them. Hence the final solution. 'Mukhiyaji', arrested in '02, spent nine years in jail before getting bail in 2011. Strangely, he wasn't even an accused in the 1996 Bathani Tola massacre, in which 12 Dalit women and children died, one of his outfit's worst doings.
In 2012, the Ranvir Sena, a rag-tag, upper-caste militia group that left over 300 landless, desperate people dead in a series of massacres in the Bihar of the '90s, may sound something of an anachronism. But as Mukhiya's murder and the resulting violence proved, things haven't changed so much from then in Bihar's badlands.
The recent spark was the state's decision in April to appeal the Patna HC's acquittal of the 23 accused in the Bathani Tola case. Three of them had been sentenced to death by a sessions court. Brahmeshwar was quick to address a press conference and criticise the government. Not long after that, out on his morning walk, he was gunned down by unknown assailants. At the funeral, his Bhumihar supporters went berserk, even manhandling state dgp Abhayanand—himself a Bhumihar—who had turned up in civilian clothes.
Chief minister Nitish Kumar was away in Kishanganj on the eastern fringes of Bihar on his 'seva yatra'. But it is presumed he knew about the police allowing Mukhiya's supporters to lead the funeral procession from Ara to Bansghat in Patna. The decision was curious because the irate supporters had already vandalised the circuit house and torched several vehicles in Ara. As the procession reached the state capital, Patna shut down. The processionists held the city to ransom for over four hours. In the countryside, the violence continued for the next several days. Facing flak from all sides, Nitish finally ordered a CBI probe, but by then a JD(U) legislator and erstwhile Mukhiya aide, Sunil Pande, had been implicated in the killing.
So why did the state allow the funeral procession to cover the long distance? Even when Babu Jagjivan Ram, Dalit leader and former deputy PM, died, in 1986, his last rites were performed in his native village in Ara. It hadn't done the 65-km procession to the state capital. The CPI(ML) Liberation, another agent provacateur in the tit-for-tat killings of the '90s, was scathing in its criticism. General secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, in a statement, said, "Nitish may like to distance Bihar from Modi's Gujarat, yet the attitude of the top brass here on June 1 and 2 was remarkably similar to that shown post-Godhra. The Bihar government believes some chosen people have the privilege to give vent to their ire in whichever way they want."
Indeed, the killing and the caste polarisation that has followed is perhaps Nitish's first serious political challenge since coming to power. The NDA government in Bihar is widely perceived to be dominated by the upper-caste Bhumihars, who also form the core constituency of the BJP. If the government is seen to be soft on Mukhiya's successors—and if it indeed now fails to appeal against the acquittal of the accused in the Bathani Tola massacre—it could upset the social engineering blue-printed by Nitish Kumar.
Earlier, Mukhiya's legions were working overtime to dispel any talk that the killing was the handiwork of disgruntled 'insiders', that it wasn't the Naxals who had gunned him down and made him a martyr to the cause. But the arrest of criminal-turned-JD(U) MLA Sunil Pande has proved a dampener. Incidentally, Pande was one of the last people to have met and spoken to the slain Ranvir Sena chief.
While rumours abound about the running feud between them, Pande was quick to rebut everything. "Mukhiyaji and I are distant relatives. I went to attend a marriage and we exchanged a few words" is all Pande has been maintaining. He's also categorical that caste wars have no place in Bihar today. "I am firmly with the NDA and share their vision for Bihar. If people are unhappy with the court's verdict, they can always knock at the doors of the Supreme Court," he says.
But there are others, like Pavan Srivastava from Ara, who believe "it was a fight for the assets of the Ranvir Sena, which had amassed a lot of money over the years. Mukhiya's death has nothing to do with caste politics".
That said, for targets of the Ranvir Sena, Mukhiya's death and the acquittal of the massacre accused are firm setbacks—ones that threaten to turn the clock back. Kishan, one of the two witnesses to the Bathani Tola massacre, recalls how he jumped into a pit and watched his family being mowed down before his eyes. He lost two daughters and wife. A Class IV employee at the government health centre in Badhara block, 25 kms from the Ara district HQ, and the sole bread-winner of a family of four (he has re-married since), Srikishan fears for his life again.
Professor Ram Bali Singh of Patna University has more horror stories: "In front of my eyes, I saw my caste people being identified first and then beaten up mercilessly. They attacked men and women alike, not even sparing the children. One young boy was asked if he was a Bhumihar and when he said, 'no' they kept hitting him on his legs with sticks."
How best to manage the Bhumihar backlash? That's the question now playing on everyone's mind in Patna, even more than who was behind Mukhiya's killing. It may be an inside job by disgruntled sections of the Sena, but with elections on everyone's mind, playing up caste issues is always a win-win thing. Even as we write, attempts are on to turn a marginalised, has-been Brahmeshwar Singh into a a larger-than-life martyr. His supporters' grief has even found expression on social networking sites like Facebook, where attempts are being made to create fresh schisms in an already caste-riven state. For Nitish Kumar, it's a litmus test—his handling of the situation will either cement his claim to be a natural leader or tear up his ambitions to be a national player.
Express India
Life Lessons
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/life-lessons/960038/
Stuti Shukla
Posted: Jun 10, 2012 at 0338 hrs IST
Even as the sun sets, the banter of children refuses to die down at the Bhatankar Municipal School, Parel, and the Sardar Nagar Municipal School, Sion. A number of children who study here during the day, come back for their 'real lessons' in the evening.
The children, wards of BMC conservancy workers, are taught life skills apart from regular studies by Ramesh Haralkar (60), a respected name in their community; one of the few persons here who could rise from the job of a sweeper.
If there is any government department where the caste system is the most prevalent even today, it is that of conservancy workers, says Haralkar.
"Around 90 per cent of the 40,000-odd conservancy workers in Mumbai are Dalits. The department has even unofficially made 100 per cent reservation for Dalits. These families have been sweepers for generations because only Dalits have, through history, been known to clean filth with bare hands. I have been trying to break this vicious cycle," he says.
With housing being one of the biggest issues in the city, sweepers have over the years encouraged their children to continue with the profession so that they can continue living in the staff quarters.
"Such is the extent of hopelessness and neglect among these people that they opt for the easiest way out. As per municipal service rules, conservancy jobs can be inherited and that is what they do. They never try to break away from poverty and stigma," says Haralkar. His three sons went on to become a photographer, a journalist and a finance consultant.
Haralkar, who set up the 'Safai Kamgar Sanghatana' in 1971 while he was a sweeper, started the 'Eklavya Abhyasika' in 1998. After working as a sweeper for over 12 years, Haralkar had moved on to the job of a painter within the same department by then. He thought the best way to break the cycle of subjugation was through guidance at the school level.
After repeated requests to the BMC, Haralkar finally got the permission to start evening lessons in the two civic schools. Most children attending the classes live in the slums of Parel and Sion. The tutorials cater to around 1,000 a year children. Late in the evening, when most schools are locked, you can see a tutorial in progress here. It is impossible for these children to study at home, usually surrounded by alcoholic fathers and outside in their community that keeps witnessing drunkards getting into fights.
"My job has been to counsel these children against taking a broom in their hands in future. Every time a child from here goes on to pursue a college education, I feel successful to an extent," he says. Students from nearby colleges such as Khalsa, Kirti and Ruia come and take lectures as a part of their NSS activities. Pratham, an NGO working for education of the underprivileged, has also helped the organisation to a great extent.
Haralkar was awarded a cash prize of Rs 10,000 under the Seva Puraskar, instituted by the Shri Ganesh Mahanidhi in 1999. He used the money to pay monthly stipends to teachers assisting him at the two schools.
When asked what makes him happiest, pat comes the reply. "To see my students excel." Of his recent pupils, Haralkar recollects Snehlata More, who became a doctor at KEM Hospital and Sunil Kamble who acts in the TV serial 'Shivaji Maharaj'.
--
.Arun Khote
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of "Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC")
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Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre- PMARC has been initiated with the support from group of senior journalists, social activists, academics and intellectuals from Dalit and civil society to advocate and facilitate Dalits issues in the mainstream media. To create proper & adequate space with the Dalit perspective in the mainstream media national/ International on Dalit issues is primary objective of the PMARC.
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