Insight Study Circle Meeting  held on 22 August 2010 (Sunday) at  Indian Social Institute, Lodhi Road, New Delhi

Speakers

1. David Vumlallian Zou (from Manipur) teaches at History Department, Delhi University and did his doctorate from Queen’s University, Belfast with full scholarship from Academic Planning Grant (Northern Ireland).

2. Abhay Xaxa (from Chhattisgarh) is currently working with Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, New Delhi and did his Masters in Social Anthropology from University of Sussex, UK  (2008) as one of the recipient of International Ford Fellowship Programme.

3. Bhawani Buswala (from Rajasthan) is currently in the country for his field research. He is pursuing his PhD in Anthropology from Brown University, Rhodes Island, USA on full university scholarship.

4. Rama Devi Hansraj (from Andhra Pradesh) completed her Post Graduation in Human Rights from University of London (2004) as one of the International Ford Fellow. She is currently based in Kolkata and is working with Catholic Relief Service.

Given below are the excerpts from the speeches from our panel of speakers followed by a brief interaction session with our audiences.

Rama Devi Hansraj

I did my MA from University of Hyderabad, Department of Mass Communication. I am the first generation educated person in my family. After completing my studies in Hyderabad, I worked with some small Human Rights groups in Andhra Pradesh.

Through that network I came to know about International Ford Foundation Fellowship programme that was meant exclusively for students from marginalised background.  I applied and was selected after going through its rigorous selection process. With that fellowship, I did my Masters in University of London in Human Rights.

As I was part of Dalit students’ movement in Hyderabad University, I was very conscious of caste discrimination that we all go through both subtle and direct. Perhaps that made me to opt for my study in the area of Human Rights.

Also I felt that articulation on the issues is a major problem. I have heard many Dalit women who were able to articulate and share their personal experiences in their vernacular language so well but doing so in English was a big challenge. They are being represented by people who are only good at articulating in English and so people coming from the grass root realities could never talk for themselves at a bigger platform like UN. These reasons led me to opt for a course in human rights.

What I liked about Ford Foundation was their entire interview process. The whole process was very comforting and gave us enough breathing space and to remain confident as applicants. They appointed one panel member to each applicant to interact at personal level. The one who was interviewing me, later, in the interview actually spoke on behalf of me which was very encouraging. This gave me lot of confidence and helped me face whatever question they asked.

Second important thing which one needs to be careful about is choosing the right university. One should always consult people who are experienced or have idea about the universities. We also need to concentrate on English for IELTS and GRE. One needs to have a complete preparation.

After getting admission in particular foreign university, we need to create our own support group as the climate, people, language, everything there is very different. Having a mentor whether from India or abroad is very important. You need someone to fall back on.

One thing I really want our students to take note is that there are enough numbers of fellowships/scholarships available for study in foreign universities, not only for sciences but for social science subjects as well. The only issue is that we are not aware about them; we don’t have access to that information. I firmly believe that getting these fellowships is not very difficult and with some preparation we can very well avail them. So knowing about the scholarship is very important. Once you know about it, everything would be falling in line.

We need to emphasis more in choosing the university and then fellowship, faculty etc. First choose the university, and then search for the faculty and the place where you want to study. Mostly scholarships will not support your entire studies. It would just support a part of it. Make more contacts so that you can get proper link.

David Vumlallian Zou

I come from a humble background and have done my graduation from NEHU, Shillong. While studying there I was really confused about choosing my career. All my friends around me were only interested in preparing for Civils exams and therefore I also made up my mind for that only.

For my post graduation, I applied for JNU and TISS but joined JNU as I found it much cheaper. I was an English major but here I took admission in Department of History thinking that it would help me in my civil services examination.

After entering in JNU, I realised that the syllabus here was not meant for civil services at all and was more oriented towards research. I felt very disappointed but then gradually I got interested in academics as I start getting relatively good score and some encouragement from the faculties. Once I convinced myself about making academics as my career, I took admission for my Mphil in JNU itself. However, this was not easy option as my parents and family members were hoping for me to take up a job and support the family.

During this phase some seniors advice me to go for Civil Services but my professors and some non-Indian friends encouraged me to take up academics. My MPhil dissertation was on North-East which slowly got popular. To my surprise some professors even asked for a copy.

One of them happened to be from UK who wanted to work in India especially in Northeast. He advised me to apply for PhD in UK. I was very surprised as I never thought that ways and was never sure whether I will ever get any scholarships to go abroad. However this professor from UK helped me in applying and with all other required scholarship and admission processes.

Most of the foreign scholarships are either 50% or 75% grants and do not cover your complete expenditure.  Without 100 % scholarship, it was impossible for me to go. I was fortunate as my professor friend, being aware of my background, helped me to get a full scholarship.

They have a system, in UK, of assessment called research assessment exercise, done in every 5 years. So if a department does well in terms of publications or quality of research it is honoured with cash reward. That time the geography department scored 5 stars in human geography. They were in a position to accommodate 3-4 students with full scholarship. I luckily got this golden opportunity.

In the meanwhile I got my article published in Sociology India.  Universities in UK look into language requirement. They specifically want English publication. Since my earlier publication had a good command over the language, therefore, it made it easier for me in the long run. Getting into Queens University, Belfast for my PhD was indeed a stepping stone for me. I had to struggle a bit with the language and the culture but gradually I settled and could focus on my research.

After returning back to India, looking for a job was again a lengthy process. I applied to many renowned universities and colleges but these haven’t even called me for an interview yet. Then I got in University of Delhi, where I teach now.

I feel for all our students who want to study in foreign universities to take note that publishing your articles in journals plays a very important role. Nothing is better than getting published in peer reviewed journals. This gives a quality edge to your work and increases your chances tremendously.

In western universities too publishing in a good journal carries good amount of marks/weightage. They do have a ranking system by which your work would be marked; this would later help in getting into the department which one wants.

Bhawani Buswala

Both speakers before me studied in UK and I would here be speaking more about higher education opportunities in USA. This country being an economic superpower has a bearing on the scale of academic research and educational opportunities. The shear number of higher education institutions here makes it a more probable place for one to have quality higher education.

In Europe you might get scholarships for 3 years or something but in USA there are more chances to get five year funding.  One has to keep in mind the duration of the programs, as in USA one needs minimum of 5-6 years to complete her PhD.  However you can get some of your credits transferred (from MA/Mphil in India).

There are more chances of funding there and it can come in different forms; for instance some universities might waive only your tuition fees and others might fund you for almost everything and for entire period.

For many of us GRE has come to symbolize admissions in USA. But please remember that GRE is just one of the criteria. It is a standardized test which is required for all graduate programs in the US. It is a general aptitude test. Though there are some strong critiques of this test, the fact of the matter is that GRE exists and you have to go through it.

However, the major problem for many of us will be financial. You need some good amount of money to even initiate the process. The cost of taking GRE is around $160 (Rs 8000) aprox. Due to competition one cannot just apply to one or two universities. Applying to each university will cost you on average $ 100 (Rs 5000) per university. I applied to 10 universities and I could do so because I was getting Rajiv Gandhi Fellowship.

Your GRE score will be sent to three universities for free. After that you have to pay around $ 15 per university.

So it is important to keep all this in mind. Most of us get excluded here only because we don’t have that kind of financial backing with us. What is the way out? Can we create some mechanism to support our bright students who don’t have such money? I will leave this for all of us to think about.

GRE test has three sections. One is verbal, which in normal parlance we call English– vocabulary, reading comprehension etc. The second is quantitative test, which we generally call Math test. This is the section that becomes horrifying for many of us, but I feel there is no reason to worry about it that much as the program which you are applying in social sciences might not attach that much importance to your marks scored in this section. This section deals mostly with basic high school Math.

Many social science departments might look more at your language and analytical skills than you score in math. So even if you don’t do that well in this section but are able to score minimum, there are still strong chances that you can make it to good schools and programs. Many would rather prefer students with good analytical writing skills over someone who scores high only in math. However this would be more true for social sciences than for admission in natural sciences and other applied sciences etc.

I think one need about three to six months to prepare for GRE and about one year for the whole procedure of applying to different universities. Applying to foreign universities is a task and you have to go through the motions.

There is lot of material available and reference books to help you to prepare for GRE.The use and weightage given to GRE score varies with different universities. Say, if you think that your GRE score is not that great then write to professor (with whom you are in touch with ) or to the university where you are interested and ask whether you can apply there with your score and what are your chances. It is important because applying to each university cost overall about Rs 10,000 so this is very important.

The universities looks for students whose research interests (thematic, regional, etc.) match with that that of the faculty members in the department. So before applying one should keep this also in mind.

It is very important for you to get in touch with the faculty there before applying. Generally they are very helpful and can be a great resource person for the process. One should not shy or hesitate to interact with them and should use all opportunities to talk to them about your project and also to meet them if they come to your university here in India.

The best way is to read their works and see how their research is useful for you. It is very important to get in touch with them. Write to them that you have read this and this work of her, that there is a strong match of interests and that you want to work with her and will she be willing to help you in your project and guide in the admission process.

People there know about the caste system, they know how it works, they are also aware that the particular kind of scholarships and research coming out of India does get shaped  by the caste and class position of the researcher.  They know very well that top social science in India is influenced by the social locations of its practitioners. The faculty in the US recognize these facts and they really want and support students from marginalized sections from India to come and study there.

Try to spend some time on internet doing background research on particular universities and to identify them according to you interests. There are lots of rankings available. Don’t just rely on one or two universities. Take 2-3 top universities, 2-3 middle rung universities and 2-3 “not so great” ones depending on your monetary situation. But again I will say always get in touch with faculty working there in your area of interest. Most of them will respond to your emails and will guide you and can be of great help.

Then comes an important part of applying and that is writing SOP. Try to convey your thoughts systematically while writing your Statement of Purpose (SOP). That is where language skills come in picture. Try to get feedback on your SOP from your friends and faculty here. It is very important that you state clearly and interestingly your research ideas and plans. This is very crucial and needs most focus and attention. You need to write your SOP and get it reviewed by your professor here and your friend circle and get their feedbacks and then improve upon.

You also need recommendation letters from here. As you are a foreign student, they don’t know much about you and your work and how you are as a researcher. The recommendation letters are very important source for them to know about you and your research aptitude. It is important to have good recommendation letters from the faculty with whom you have worked here and who knows that you are a great research candidate.

Abhay Xaxa

I really thank all my previous speakers for making my task much simpler. I would straight away go into seeing these issue as opportunities – First thing as Rama and David pointed out - is that due to the lack of information our students don’t even know about such scholarships. I totally agree that the information about such scholarships is not known to the masses and it is only known in some exclusive domain.

Thanks to internet and its rapid information dissemination system, which has made us more aware of the scholarships, its selection process and its criteria.

The universities, in places like UK, are part of knowledge economy where student from all parts of the world come to gain the knowledge but in turn contribute in the local economy. Universities like Oxford, Cambridge, London School of Economics are the places that support whole townships around them.

In UK, where I went for my Masters, most of the M.A courses would cost 3000 pounds for European students, where else for others it is 9000 pounds. They are minting the money by providing hostel and accommodation to these overseas students. Organisations like DFID, Ford Foundation are there to represent UK. They, sort of, dictate the terms in areas of research that universities undertake.

All the scholarships, be it from China, UK or France carries their own perspectives. Just take the example of this Common Wealth Scholarships which has the agenda to dictate issues in certain block of countries. For example, a certain chunk of money would be kept to deal with migration issue. They have their own faculties with strong expertise to follow on such issues.

One can strategies to get more scholarship only after knowing the inside picture of the political economy. We should even know who are the political groups backing these universities? For example, Edinburgh is considered to be more leftist oriented. Here they will surely take someone who could impress them by using their ideology.

Just be prudent and go through the proper channel. Never forget that if someone or some organization is funding you for your studies they will surely have an agenda. You are getting the opportunity, get it and learn from it.

Try to be aware of the new trends on the ongoing research work done by the others. While formulating your PhD proposals one should not keep a standardized format. You should be careful enough to change it by keeping in mind the interest areas of the university and the concern faculties.  Write more customize proposals for different universities, for different supervisors. Once your work is known they will surely take you.

Coming into my experience part I also got the same scholarship which Rama availed – International Ford Fellowships. I was not from an academic background. All my education is from such colleges or universities whose name you must not have even heard like Guru Gashi Das University, Rani Durgavati University. I also did a correspondence course from Raja Bhoj University (Bhopal).

However I was into student activism whole heartedly and that is what made me more articulate in facing interviews, public speaking and made me confident to take a plunge in academics. I got through Ford fellowship in my first attempt. I have many friends who were more talented than me but were not able to get through just because of their fear of facing interviews. I think there is a strong need for us to organise multiple workshops for our students on how to face interview panels.

In Ford Fellowships, they do have social justice as one of their objectives and is one of their selection criteria. This was a ten year program in which they are trying to focus on students from marginalised backgrounds who otherwise might never get a chance to go for higher studies in foreign universities. But some time later, they have brought some changes in their criteria and now are focusing on few states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh etc. This has some benefits and also some criticism have come forth.

However, the most important issue which I feel we need to address immediately is to collect all the required information about various scholarships and disseminate among our students. For example some say that Common wealth Scholarship was meant for students from marginalised background but these are the ones who are not even aware about this scholarship and it is only the children of civil servants in the country who have availed this scholarship. I feel the real challenge for our organizations like Insight lies here.

Question & Answers Session/ Speakers Interaction with the Audience

How do we choose foreign university for higher studies? Which are the reliable sources of university rankings?

Bhawani: There are various university rankings available based on different criteria. If we are making our choices based on the ranking then it is important for us to know how the rankings have been formulated. If you Google about university rankings, you can also find the criteria on which the university/institution has been ranked.

So if you are planning to go for pre PhD or graduate PhD programme, you might just want to focus on the universities which are ranked higher on the faculty publications, on the faculty student ratio and all other things and not on the universities in which the focus is more on the undergraduate (BA) studies.

Rama: The most important thing is what exactly your needs are. What you want should be clear. Mostly it is the guide or faculty that matters. If one gets the professor one wants to work with then the university doesn’t matter. Ranking and other things come later.

Abhay: I would suggest one should not always go by rankings. These are mostly sponsored. Foreign universities are part of knowledge economies. These are industries looking for students who can bring in money. Ultimately your interest in that course, your relationship with particular faculty should guide you for your choices. For example LSE will be ranked higher on the Economics department but there are lot other departments in LSE which are less known but might have some very good faculty.

Rankings are not at all a reliable source as such as you can find huge variations. You have to also see the experiences of other people who have done studies there but then their experiences would also vary.

Rama: Definitely people who have gone to that university will be good resource for us as sometimes we might really end up in a wrong place if we don’t talk to people.

What difference does higher education from a foreign university make in your career? How foreign universities are different from Indian universities?

Rama: I did my MA in Human Rights from University of London. The quality was not very different from what I expect in an Indian university. Human Rights is relatively a new branch so there is not much difference but the exposure you get while studying in good foreign universities and overview on different issues across the world are much higher. This gives you much space in bargaining or negotiating with different agencies in job market after you complete your studies.

For example, I joined in my present organisation at the base level as one of the programme officer but within a period of three years I have reached to the senior level management. I feel the credit must go to my exposure and development of wider perspectives on different issues due to my stay in one of the better foreign universities.

David: I think there is much difference. I can say this as I have also spent ample time in JNU as well before going abroad. I feel the research culture is pretty strong in foreign universities. The faculties and research students there are much more focused to their work and engage with much seriousness than their Indian counterparts.  There it is like, ‘you publish or you lose your job’ and therefore there is too much pressure on the faculties to perform. But here in India, when I published my first article, people said, ‘You should have published it little later. Why do you publish like you are scribbling?’ So that is where the difference lie.

Rama: Vis a`vis jobs, I don’t think that just a foreign degree will lend you a quality job. I know many of my friends who have foreign degrees but are either jobless or having much lesser jobs. I would like to reiterate that only one clear cut advantage, studying abroad, is the immense exposure and the resources available for research as compared to Indian universities and I think that is where the quality of foreign education in good universities is enhanced

What are the important things to keep in mind while writing Statement of Purpose (SOP) for different universities as one of the speakers mentioned that it is important to see the ideological leanings of particular university or professor we want to study with? Also it was said that we might need to apply in many universities to secure admission, not just one or two. So in such scenario what all we must keep in mind while applying?

Abhay: If you are interested in a particular topic, say Dalit empowerment, then you surely have to read more and more and collect more and more information on the above topic. You must have a clear idea about who are the experts in your field and their politics and agendas. If one particular university is known for its leftist orientations that does not mean that the whole university is like that or every one there will be a comrade but people in power there or those who dictate the agenda of that university might have a left perspective. I mentioned this in my speech in this sense.

Say if I am interested in migration studies and this has different perspectives. There can be a left perspective, a socialist perspective and even a rightist perspective. You must know from where all these thoughts are coming, which type of universities are dominating, which type of books are coming.  Therefore if you are applying abroad in this particular topic, you must have an inventory on the type of faculty you are interested in and type of university you are interested in. That makes things much easier.

Bhawani: Also we need to extend this beyond just getting admission. Even if you write to 20 people and out of that 15 say No but still you have established a link with these scholars. So no matter from where finally do your PhD from, you have the links of these professors. Tell them that you are working on this paper then some of them might even ask you to present it in their universities. You don’t necessarily have to go there for PhD. Making that academic link is very important. So if we can see it in broad sense that could be helpful as well.

In India, we can easily recognize students from marginalized groups but what about foreign universities? Do western universities recognize caste? How will these ensure that we belong to disadvantage group in India or how to present ourselves so that they become aware of what kind of a background we are coming from?

Rama: I think scholars and faculties read a lot in western countries unlike their Indians counterparts. People in Europe, I feel, know about our issues very well and their awareness level is much higher. In our country most of the scholars remain in denial mode vis a vis caste but there they do acknowledge that such thing exists.

Regarding making people aware of your background, I think SOP is the best way to do that. SOP is very important because it will decide whether you’ll get the admission and this is also a document which will give you an unconditional admission where you can really get rid of your proficiency test and things like that. It is very important to portray ourselves correctly and very strongly.

Bhawani: I think in SOP you’ll find question like what kind of issues do you want to work on.  There you can write that I would like to work on social issues of Dalit. They will also ask why you want to work on it and about your personal experiences.

Then you can say that I come from that community and have experiences and therefore I am located in a space where I can analyze from a different perspective.

Also many universities ask to write personal history in 1000 words. There you can write about your schooling, what kind of problems you faced etc, all of it can be included in that.

In my SOP, I wrote that I am from a Dalit community and my personal experiences have guided my research questions and that is the basic reason why I want to work on the issue of caste discrimination. In USA, people are aware of caste issue and they also have experience in tackling a comparable problem of racism.

If a person has done MA in one subject and wants to do a PHD in different one, is it possible?

Bhawani: I can speak about my subject. In Anthropology people come from different background, from environmental science, from literature, from anything. In USA, you have to do 2-3 years of course work. In that way they prepare you even if you have not come from that discipline. I have shifted from Sociology to Anthropology which can be seen as different disciplines there. If you want to be sure the shift in disciplines you must contact the faculty and directly ask her and also check out the department website FAQs.

Is any kind of discrimination there in west as it happens with us in India? I have done my PhD from Punjab University and I have experienced how the faculties here made me feel vulnerable especially during my paper presentations. I was compelled to feel discriminated due to their behavior.

Abhay: In UK, they have campuses with students coming from 120 different countries and it still carries its long experience with reverse discrimination, affirmative action and all those things. They also have tough anti-racial legislations. If you allege that you have been racially discriminated, they take this matter very seriously in the campus. But most of the times these discrimination happen undercurrent.

Let me give you one example. There was one Bengali ‘upper’ caste girl who could not clear one of her term papers. She wrote a letter to the VC alleging racial discrimination. Immediately her supervisor was suspended and a big committee was formed to look into the matter. Later she was promoted and also given financial compensation. Can this ever happen in India where faculties openly abuse Dalit and Adivasi students and play with their careers? This example shows that the western universities do take such things very seriously.

However let me add something here, for Dalit and Adivasi students problem arises not from the university but from the fellow Indians, sons and daughters of millionaires and elites who are studying there.

David: Discrimination at the street and at the faculty levels is completely different. I think on the street, if one walks in the evening anyone can get abused. I have been abused two or three times but within the university system I never faced any kind of discrimination. In fact, I felt very liberated when I went abroad for my studies. There they use to call me just Asian or South Asian, mostly south Asian. But in my own country we are being called as SC/ST or North Eastern.

For Dalit and Adivasi students who took education from poorly run government schools and are not comfortable with English, the whole process of filling up forms, applying to foreign universities, writing SOPs becomes too complicated. So how do we start from scratch?

Bhawani: Handling these things definitely becomes difficult for us but in such cases, groups like Insight can be of great help to our students.  Insight can help our students who are trying to apply for PhD abroad through its mentorship program where one or two person among us can become a mentor and take responsibility for these students by reading their SOPs, suggesting and guiding them.  I am not saying that this is going to be easy but I am saying that things can be done.

Dr. Arvind Kumar (Delhi University) - I think what we can do is we can have a model SOP and upload it on our portal so that our students can have a sense of how to go about that and can customize according to their interests. We need to do something at the community level as well. I appreciate Insight’s concern and their effort to start such initiatives and many of us have come together through its genuine effort.

]]> http://blog.insightyv.com/?feed=rss2&p=1499 http://blog.insightyv.com/?p=1478 http://blog.insightyv.com/?p=1478#comments Thu, 19 Aug 2010 21:17:31 +0000 admin http://blog.insightyv.com/?p=1478

Invites you for a public meeting

On

“Opportunities for Dalit and Adivasi Students for Higher Education in World’s Premier Educational Institutions”

And to interact with our panel of Dalit and Adivasi Scholars

Date - 22 August 2010 (Sunday)
Time - 3 PM to 5.30 PM
Venue - Room No 303, Indian Social Institute, Lodhi Road, New Delhi

Speakers

David Vumlallian Zou (from Manipur) teaches at History Department, Delhi University and did his doctorate from Queen’s University, Belfast with full scholarship from Academic Planning Grant (Northern Ireland).

Abhay Xaxa (from Chhattisgarh) is currently working with Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, New Delhi and did his Masters in Social Anthropology from University of Sussex, UK  (2008) as one of the recipient of International Ford Fellowship Programme.

Rama Devi (from Andhra Pradesh) completed her Post Graduation in Human Rights from University of London (2004) as one of the International Ford Fellow. She is currently based in Kolkata and is working with Catholic Relief Service.

Bhawani Buswala (from Rajasthan) is currently in the country for his field research. He is pursuing his PhD in Anthropology from Brown University, Rhodes Island, USA on full university scholarship.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Insight Foundation is a group of students and young professionals committed towards working with Dalit and Adivasi students to make our education system more inclusive and to create various support systems for our students so that they are able to optimize their potential, use them for their intellectual growth and career advancement, and to fight against caste-based prejudices and discrimination prevalent in Indian educational spaces.

• Apart from conducting monthly Insight Study Circle meetings in Delhi, our group is also running a National Telephone Helpline for Dalit and Adivasi Students in Higher Education to support our students to make informed choices  in pursuing higher education and in career opportunities.

Helpline Number - 0 99 99 48 42 49    Days – Mon to Fri    Time – 10 am to 5 pm

• Together with Helpline, we have our Dalit and Adivasi Students Portal (www.scststudents.org) that acts as an e-resource center for our students provides relevant online information about admissions, scholarships and career opportunities.  Apart from providing information we are regularly uploading interviews of brilliant young Dalit and Adivasis scholars and professionals.

• We are also running a unique Mentorship Programme where our students can interact with the group of successful Dalit and Adivasi students and professionals on various issues like coping up with the campus environment, academic guidance, orientation and career counseling.

Address - Insight Foundation, 125, First Floor, Shahpur Jat, New Delhi -49   Tel  - 011  466 958 37  Email - mail@insightfoundation.in

]]> http://blog.insightyv.com/?feed=rss2&p=1478 http://blog.insightyv.com/?p=1456 http://blog.insightyv.com/?p=1456#comments Wed, 18 Aug 2010 12:39:32 +0000 admin http://blog.insightyv.com/?p=1456 A report by Mayanglambam Merina Leimarenbi and Gurinder Singh Azad

Every year, August 9, is being celebrated, across the countries, as the International day of the World’s Indigenous People.  This day is celebrated to bring forward the struggles that are being waged by various indigenous groups for their socio-political and economic rights.  It was on this day, August 9, 1982, that the first meeting of the United Nation’s working group on indigenous population took place and brought forward the plight of indigenous people on the global platform.  In India too, the day is celebrated by different Adivasi groups across the country and Insight foundation got the opportunity to participate in two events that were organised at Ranchi, Jharkhand. Below is a brief report on these two events.

The UN General Assembly while deciding to observe 1995-2004 as the ‘International Decade of World’s Indigenous People’,  decided to observe August 9, every year as a International day to offer the world community an opportunity to reiterate the principles of respect for human rights enshrined in UN Charter and to find solutions to alleviate the plight of indigenous people.

Adivasis in India

The ‘Adivasis’ or Scheduled Tribes (STs) as per the government nomenclature, are the indigenous people of India.  With the population of 95 million, they constitute 8% of country’s total population. Adivasis in India have a long history of discrimination and appropriation. They form the poorest, most illiterate, most trafficked, most internally displaced due to big projects such as dams and mines, and most neglected social group in India.

Adivasis are spread all across India, but the biggest concentration lies in the in the Central and Eastern part of the country (Middle India). Ironically this region is richest in mineral resources, yet it is the poorest part of the country. The States of Jharkhand, Orissa, and Chhattisgarh and some parts of West Bengal, and Bihar are considered to be the indigenous belt of India. Even the state of Assam also has a large Adivasi population owing to large scale migration forced by the British for developing tea estates.

Celebrations in India

St Xaviers School, Doranda, Ranchi, Jharkhand (8th August)

Adivasi Development Network (ADN) celebrated the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Day by organising a cultural programme at St Xaviers School, Ranchi, Jharkhand. The programme, held on August 8, was attended by Adivasi youth from different backgrounds together with the local Adivasi student community.

Adivasi Development Network (ADN) is a group of young Adivasi professionals and students who are committed towards empowering Adivasi community and are working with local communities and non-profit organizations at grassroots to increase Adivasis’ access to education, health care and employment generation.

This event, organised by ADN, and attended by hundreds of young Adivasis provided them an opportunity to celebrate their culture and heritage and was aimed to bring them closer to their own roots. The event had traditional musical instruments, tribal folk dances and singing competitions apart from competitions for poetry recitation, tribal arts and essay writing.

Mr. Wilfred Lakra, Advisor to the Governor of Jharkhand was the chief guest for the evening.  At the end of the programme, ADN also distributed scholarships to many Adivasi students as part of its initiative to support Adivasi students, honoured Adivasi youth selected in civil services for their academic excellence and also lauded various Adivasis lead civil society initiatives for their remarkable contributions towards empowering various Adivasi communities.

“This is our first such effort regarding celebrating World Indigenous Day, we hope to do a bigger event from next time onwards” said Ms Harshit Roshan Lakra, secretary, ADN who also teaches at BITS, Mesra.

To learn more about Adivasi Development Network visit their website at www.adivasinetwork.org or email them at info@adivasinetwork.org

Gossenar Theological Hall, Ranchi, Jharkhand (9th August)

The Jharkhand Indigenous People’s Forum (JIPF), another platform of young Adivasi professionals and activists, organised an event, celebrating the International Day for World’s Indigenous people on 9th August at Gossenar Theological Hall, Ranchi.

Apart from the participants deliberating on important socio-economic and political issues concerning the Adivasi community across the country, the event also showcased various cultural programmes like street theater, dance and songs being performed by young Adivasi students and accomplished Adivasi artists.

The JIPF came into being in 1998. This membership based forum’s main objective is to create awareness among the Adivasis about their society, identity, culture, traditions and rights and unite them through organising events like celebration of World’s Indigenous people Day.  Since the formation of the forum, the International Indigenous Day is being celebrated under its banner every year, where many Adivasi organizations come together, take part in the event and contribute for the cause of the Indigenous People.

On this 9th August, JIPF invited more than 300 Adivasi participants from various backgrounds like students, professionals, journalism, activists, accademicians and community workers to deliberate on the theme  ‘Development, Resistance and Suppression’.  The programme was conducted on stage by JIPF team of Prem Sujit Kujur, Prabha Lakra, Savita Badaik and Kurdula Kujur.

The programme started with the brief history of the World Indigenous Day and updates on recent steps taken by various countries to ensure the rights of indigenous people. The speakers spoke about various such efforts of countries like Australia that has formally apologised to its Adivasi population for snatching the lands and violently uprooting them since centuries.

We were also informed about country like Brazil that has released 25 million hectare jungle for their Adivasi population. In this context, India has not done anything concrete for its Adivasi population and whatever little it has done is in terms of merely passing Acts and regulations for the benefit of Adivasi population like The Scheduled Tribes (Recognition of Forest Rights) Bill but given the insensitive and dominant attitude of non-Adivasi administrators and state agencies these acts are never properly implemented and are unable to provide any relief to the community.

Apart from the non-implementation of laws for the benefit of Adivasi community, the speakers also spoke about how the people of mineral rich Jharkhand are being exploited and violently uprooted from their land, home and jungles, all in the name of development, by the government agencies as well as private companies with active connivance of local administration.

The neo-liberal Indian state has forsaken even the mask of welfare state that it used to wear while negotiating with marginalised communities earlier and now with signing of hundreds of MOUs with private companies, the Indian state has given a licence to these companies to rob the Adivasis in the name of industrialisation.

Many of the speakers also spoke about the repercussions of Operation Green Hunt on the local Adivasi community that is being run under the pretext of countering Maoist activities in the tribal hinterland. They narrated the brutalities of armed forces against the local Adivasi community that take place in the name of fighting Maoists. Hundreds of innocent Adivasi youth, both men and women have been killed and thousands of them have lost their houses and properties and were forced to relocate to different areas leaving everything behind.

In all the deliberation that happened in the event, the biggest emphasis was being laid on what should be the role of educated Adivasi youth in the time when the entire community is facing extreme hardships and is being targeted by vested interest groups together with completely apathetic state.

The prominent speakers in this event included Sunil Minz, Jerome Jerald Kujur, Savita Badaik, Rakesh Roshan Kido, Arti Kujur, Gladson Dungdung, Xavier Kujur, Belkhas Kujur, Nirmal Minz, Bandhan Tigga and Sirat Kachayap.

To learn more about Jharkhand Indigenous People’s Forum visit their website at http://www.jipfindia.org/

by A. K. Biswas

A Painting at a Dalit protest Against Khairlanji Massacre (source:www.ambedkar.org)

The judgment delivered by a Division Bench in quadruple  murders of members of  Bhotmange family, village Khairlanji, district Bhandara in Maharashtra left everyone with sensitive mind shocked and dismayed. Surekha Bhotmange and her 18-year old daughter and two sons, including one who was disabled — were brutally  murdered by  an upper caste mob  on September 29, 2006.

The Bench concluded that the accused, who were sentenced to death by District and Sessions Court, Bhandara were not driven by hatred against the Bhotemange family members, who were scheduled castes. The High Court held that the accused took revenge!

This sounds like a joke widely prevalent in pre-independent India. The bureaucracy often termed starvation death as death due to malnutrition.

If someone takes someone’s life (deliberately and not accidentally) then he forfeits the right to his life - J.S. Mill

Part I

Justice and fairness of treatment for the victims belonging to socially disadvantaged is practically non-existent in India. In denying justice, very sound and cogent reasons and arguments couched in ceremonial legalese are advanced on behalf of the aggressors to satisfy analytical quest.

However,  the caste system, needless to note, prompts discrimination, which undoubtedly is the root cause for  denial of  justice to the dalits and adivasis.

The Kairlanji is the case in point.

The dominant upper castes did not allow  Bhotmange family to build a pucca house, though  financially well off . Was this out of hatred or  revenge?

Surekha, wife and 18-year old Priyanka, daughter of Bhaiyyalal Bhotemange gave evidence in a case of atrocities against a fellow dalit, Siddharth Gajbhiye of neighbouring village resulting to arrest of few OBC accused. Soon out on bail, they eliminated the entire family in brought daylight.

Fleeing home, Bhaiyyalal alone escaped death.  Six of the accused had, noted the court, had “removed clothes of Priyanka before disposing of her severely injured dead body and thereby wanted to get satisfaction to their sexual eyes at such circumstances.”

Almost every inch of her body bore the marks of bruises and  nonetheless  the court held that the accused had no intention to “dishonour or outrage her modesty.” The  Division Bench nonetheless reversed the death sentences for the accused.

A fortnightly, known for moderation,  notes the gory proceeding of mob violence against the Bhotmange, who are Mahars, as follows:

“[.......] the Bhotmanges had been stripped, paraded naked, taunted with sexual obscenities and casteist language. They were taken to the centre of the village, where apparently the OBC women urged their men to rape the Bhotmange women. Unsuccessful attempts were made to make Sudhir, the oldest Bhotmange boy, copulate with his mother and sister. They were beaten with rods, chains and other implements until their bones were broken and they ultimately died, as the post-mortem report put it, of “intracranial haemorrhage due to head injury.” Throughout, said the witnesses at the time, the mob screamed out hatred of the Mahars.” (1)

The women of the beasts by caste  Kunbi demonstrated new low of depravity. Caste hatred alone can bring out such dark side of human behaviour.

Part II

Oversize hatred against the Dalits provides the  commonest pan-Indian thread for unity and solidarity among the   Hindus.  The former’s efforts to move up in life through hardwork and perseverance is viewed with strong distaste, if not abhorrence and therefore thwarted.

An instance is cited from the highland of culture -West Bengal. A Lodha tribal girl, Chuni Kotal graduated through thick and thin. Several years of efforts thereafter  did not secure her a job, though the state  government all along  tomtomed shinning achievements in social development aimed at uplift of the SCs and STs.

She ultimately enrolled for MA degree in Anthropology in Vidyasagar University, Midnapur. One of her teachers, Falguni Chakraborty used to taunt and humiliate the Lodha girl  inside and outside the classroom,   seminars and group discussions, calling her as one of  criminal tribe!

She lodged complaints against him to the Vice-Chancellor of the University. Her grievances went unheeded over two years for reasons  not known. Driven to desperation by the tormentor, the forlorn girl committed suicide on 16 August 1992, after three agonizing years in the University.

No case under POA was instituted against the accused.

The country is, however, loudly told every now and then that feeling of caste or tribe does not exist there,  a notion peculiar to that land and breed of rulers in politics and administration.

An Enquiry Commission  with retired judge of Calcutta High Court, Justice S. S. Gangopadhyay declared,

“On a consideration of all the materials on record we are constrained to hold, therefore, that the allegations brought against Falguni Chakraboraty by Chuni Kotal were not sustainable and further that Falguni Chakraborty never practised nor he had  any reason to discriminate against Chuni simply because she was a Lodha.”

“It may be that on occasions  Falguni Chakraboraty took Chuni to task for her let or non-attendance or for some such reasons. This was mere trivialities which occur as a matter of  course between the teacher and the taught without any personal involvement from either side.”

“These trivialities were blown big beyond all proportions to transform them into the items of petition of complaint.”

“On the findings arrived  by us, we conclude that the behaviour meted out by Falguni Chakraborty to was not as to cause intense mental pain to Chuni so as to break her heart and lead her ultimately to commit suicide.”  (2)

The Commission exonerated Falguni Chakraborty of all  charges.

White as lily and pure as morning dew, the accused walked free with head high and reputation unsullied.

Part-III

Dr. B. R. Ambedkar had bemoaned  that Hindus have no appreciation for merit. There is, however, appreciation of merit of caste men only.  It seems  the Hindus  do not see the crimes of their caste men too.  In other words, they are blinded by prejudice to see the atrocities by upper caste men on dalits.

And administration of justice too is a far cry, if Khairlanji suggests anything. One is compelled to recall the verdict handed down by Justice Raouf Abdel-Rahman  of Kurdish origin,  who tried, convicted  and finally sentenced  Saddam Hosssein to death.

The judge was “born in the Kurdish town of Halabja, where 5,000 residents were killed in 1988 after Saddam’s forces launched a chemical gas attack on the town in the deadliest chemical weapons attack since the First World War,” reported The Sunday Times, London, March 16 , 2007.

No Sunni (Saddam was a Sunni) could deliver justice to the Kurds.

The POA stands virtually thrown to trashcan  by a nexus dominating India’s socio-political-administrative and judicial scenes. The alienation of dalit,  if not already complete,  may not take much time to reach that dead-end. In common with the adivasis, they are allowed to survive but not to prosper.

Their growth and affluence, if any,   is eyesore to their non-dalit neighbours.

A dalit in tattered cloths, an emaciated frame with illness of every description, marked by ravages of poverty would immensely gratify ego of the dominant classes. Dalit and tribal representatives in Parliament and state Assemblies are voiceless.

They are  afraid to ventilate their views for their communities  even in their peril, lest their views hurt the dominant ego.

Dalits elected to legislative bodies, States or Union, are  spineless animal, thanks only to the system of joint electorates, a historical gift (or curse ?) of the Poona Pact in 1932.

At this rate certainly the ghost of Ramsay Macdonald may not be far off to emerge from his graveyard  and revisit the accursed land for the liberation of the enslaved souls.  And  such  demands might  be heard sooner than later for grant of separate electorates to tear off elastic docility of adivasi  and dalit MP and MLAs.

Part IV

The Khairlanji verdict says that no caste hatred provoked Khairlanji massacres nor did the victim  dwell on it in FIR nor deposed before the trial court. Hatred is not  a condition precedent for constituting an offence under POA.

Section 3 of the Act provides punishment for offences of atrocities as follows:

Whoever, not being a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe, -

(i) forces a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe to drink or eat any inedible or obnoxious substance;

(ii) acts with intent to cause injury, insult or annoyance to any member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe by dumping excreta, waste matter, carcasses or any other obnoxious substance in his premises or neighborhood;

(iii) forcibly removes clothes from the person of a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe or parades him naked or with painted face or body or commits any similar act which is derogatory to human dignity;

(iv) wrongfully occupies or cultivates any land owned by, or allotted to, or notified by any competent authority to be allotted to, a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe or gets the land allotted to him transferred;

(v) wrongfully dispossesses a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe from his land or premises or interferes with the enjoyment of his rights over any land, premises or water;

(vi) compels or entices a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe to do ‘beggar’ or other similar forms of forced or bonded labor other than any compulsory service for public purposes imposed by Government;

(vii) forces or intimidates a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe not to vote or to vote to a particular candidate or to vote in a manner other than that provided by law;

(viii) institutes false, malicious or vexatious suit or criminal or other legal proceedings against a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe;

(ix) gives any false or frivolous information to any public servant and thereby causes such public servant to use his lawful power to the injury or annoyance of a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe;

(x) intentionally insults or intimidates with intent to humiliate a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe in any place within public view;

(xi) assaults or uses force to any woman belonging to a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe with intent to dishonor or outrage her modesty;

(xii) being in a position to dominate the will of a woman belonging to a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe and uses that position to exploit her sexually to which she would not have otherwise agreed;

(xiii) corrupts or fouls the water of any spring, reservoir or any other source ordinarily used by members of the Scheduled Caste or the Scheduled Tribes so as to render it less fit for the purpose for which it is ordinarily used;

(xiv) denies a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe any customary right of passage to a place of public resort or obstructs such member so as to prevent him from using or having access to a place of public resort to which other members of public or any section thereof have a right to use or access to;

(xv) forces or causes a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe to leave his house, village or other place of residence, shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than six months but which may extend to five years and with fine.”

If one is mentally retarded or congenital idiot, he might fail appreciate  these  provisions.

DNA, a reputed Mumbai daily reported on July 15, 2010 “The high court maintained the lower court’s ruling that there was no evidence to prove the existence of caste hatred. On the contrary, the court relied on the witnesses and evidence on record to say that this was a case of revenge killing.”

Such approach goes against the very grains of section 3 of the POA. The Sessions  Court judgment in September 2007 took a plea  that the complainant “had not mentioned anything about the casteist abuses by offenders against his family in his initial complaint and had failed to voice it during his testimony”.

Again the very attitude, exposing complicity at various levels,  is repugnant to the  provision of law. It is sad a experience  in general that police does not entertain FIR if victims of atrocities are dalit and tribal and if at all, they would not invoke the provisions of POA.

The essential condition precedent for action under POA is that the perpetrators of atrocities are members not belonging to scheduled caste or tribes, whereas the victims are either SCs or STs.

Weren’t the Sessions Court free to elicit information on caste angle by seeking information and to give thorough  dressing down to the SPP and others for failure thereof?

Courts are known to entertain  news report suo motto for initiating judicial proceedings. (3)

Part V - Ujjwal Nikam, a Trojan horse appointed Special Public Prosecutor, who derailed justice

The Maharashtra Home Minister R. R. Patil, on a visit to Nagpur, had suo moto  engaged Ujjwal Nikam as the Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) for the Khairlanji massacre case that propelled dalits, their sympathizers and human rights activities to launch a global campaign from Tokyo to Washington; Sydney to The Hague for justice.

The campaigners, who staged demonstrations to this end before Indian embassies abroad, never demanded engagement of Nikam as SPP.

A characteristic feature in the case ab initio is that caste angle involving the accused and their victims was deliberately sidetracked or overlooked in FIR, investigation,  prosecution and judicial appreciation as also in verdict. Six of the  convicts  were sentenced to  death and two to life imprisonment by District & Sessions court.  (4)

The Bombay High Court commuted the death sentences of the six convicts to life imprisonments.

Tracing the progress of the case, DNA observed that the initial lapse was in the police investigation. It further stressed that “While the Dalit groups continue to decry the attack as caste violence, the fact is that the prosecution could not bring it on record before the court.” (5)

Several dalit groups at home too championed the cause of justice for the Bhotmange family.  In a letter dated November 12, 2007 to the then Chief Minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, Khairlanji Action committee had called attention to the callousness of the  Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) Nikam  in presentation of evidence. It stated:

“The basis of this crime i.e. casteism, is not highlighted in the evidence adduced by the prosecution. It seems the case is being treated by  Nikam, SPP, as a mere murder trial. The basis of all that happened in Khairlanji is casteism and this must be emphasized in all its nakedness. That will only describe the crime in the correct perspective.”

“Contrary to the above, we have observed that  Ujjwal Nikam, SPP, has mitigated the edge of casteism. This becomes clearer if you go through the depositions of [survivor] Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange and more particularly [witness] Siddharth Gajabhiye.”

“Nikam has not asked vital questions to both the witnesses regarding the land dispute, house destruction, the abuses and vulgar gestures made by [acquitted accused] Purushottam Titarmare and [convicted accused] Jagdish Mandlekar to [deceased victim] Priyanka. The prosecution should have brought this on record.” (6)

The Maharashtra Government did not pay heed to it. No government in India  treat letters, if any, addressed by underprivileged communities with sympathy. The SPP Nikam, without any shadow of doubts,  is guilty of dereliction of duty and breach of trust. He has favoured the accused and deliberately acted against the interest of the victims, exposing a nexus, blessed by political hierarchy.

Bhalchandra Mungekar, former Vice-Chancellor, Bombay University as also former Member, Planning Commission observed very aptly,

“The reversing of the death penalty and not considering the case under the atrocities act is absolutely unjust. The ruling will encourage the perpetrators of the crime and this would render the act meaningless.”

On the other hand, an American-born Indian writer, scholar and activist, Gail Omvedt held that the verdict was proof that special Indian courts should tackle cases of atrocities separately.

“Most of the courts in India are not sensitive to instances of atrocities on Dalits, women and other minorities. There is a need for reservation of courts to tackle these issues. Here was a case where a Dalit family was massacred by members of the upper caste, and yet the verdict was not just.” (7)

These observations articulate the feelings and aspirations of the dalits pithily.

The other side of the episode underscores the gravest social malady.  Anand Teltumbde, a scholar observed,

“The superintendent of police, Bhandara, the Dy. Superintendent of Police, the PSI of Andhalgaon police station, a constable under him, the doctor who performed post-mortem, the district civil surgeon who permitted the doctor to go ahead with post-mortem without a lady doctor, the public prosecutor who advised against application of the PoA to the earlier cases which were essentially caste based, the nodal officer at the apex level who is entrusted with the responsibility of reviewing the state of crimes against S.C.s and S.T.s in accordance with the Atrocities Act, were all Dalits and belonging to the same sub-castes as that of Bhotmanges.” [8]

Question is, did these army of officials too connive in the miscarriage of justice? No, it merely underscores deep-rooted helplessness the comatose dalits nurse for the free India’s system in place. Overpowering fear psychosis of a genocidal purge does mitigate this apprehension.

This explicitly exposes the fragile presence the underdogs have in Indian administrative structure. Their survival, they are aware,  is in peril if they are suspected of even subterranean sympathy for dalit victims! [9]

Tail piece

A British barrister, named Fuller with roaring legal practice in Agra had slapped one Katwaroo, a Dusadh from Bihar’s Saran district in 1876. He fell down on the ground and died almost instantaneously.

The victim was the barrister’s syce, (coachman). He had enlarged spleen in a morbid condition. Following an enquiry by an ICS officer, Leeds,  who was  Joint Magistrate, Agra, Fuller was prosecuted  u/s 323 IPC (simple injuries), convicted  and fined Rs. 30 to be given to the deceased wife. The matter rested there.

Lord Lytton, the Governor-General of India one morning read a reference to it in a Calcutta newspaper alleging that the biased colonial rulers were insensitive  to  the Indians, who were physically abused and tortured by the Englishmen with impunity in general. Katwaroo was cited as proof.

The supreme authority immediately summoned the case records from the Governor of North-Western Provinces (now Uttar Pradesh) along with comments of the Chief Justice, Allahabad High Court.

Highly displeased with the miscarriage of justice and inadequate punishment awarded to the barrister coupled with apathetic attitude of the local government and High Court,  the Viceroy indicted them all as follows:

“The Governor-General in Council cannot but regret that the High Court should have considered that its duties and responsibilities have been  adequately fulfilled by expression of an opinion.”

He also regretted that the local Government have made no enquiry until directed by the Government of India to do so into the circumstances of a case so injurious to the honour of the British rule and so damaging to the reputation of British justice in this country.

Having lambasted  the High and the government of the NWP, Lord Lytton’s minutes ran further: “The Governor-General in Council cannot but doubt that the death of Katwaroo was the direct result of the violence used towards him by Mr. Fuller.” In the same breath, he strongly deprecated the British masters who were habituated to treat their Indian servants with cruelty as coward and brutal.

He warned them that their “habit of resorting to blows on every trifling provocation should be visited by adequate legal penalties and those who indulge it should reflect that they may be put in jeopardy for a more serious crime.”  His order indicated that the accused barrister was charged for murder and punished accordingly. (10)

Besides, he placed the Joint Magistrate Leeds, who tried Fuller for simple injuries, under strict surveillance by Government with orders not give independent charge as District Magistrate until his performance and conduct were considered satisfactory. Such intervention from the Governor-General of India, favouring an untouchable in colonial India remains unrivaled down to this date.

The contrary is exemplified by Khairlanji massacre trial and myriad others, not reported. Before his death, Rabindra Nath Tagore felt India would liberate herself  from foreign yolk sooner or latter. He, however,  cynically warned, “let us hope  there would  not be occasions to bemoan we were better under British rule!”

It may not be a surprise if independent India’s systems in place drive the vulnerable and disadvantaged  to remember Tagore as prophetic. They were at least secured of life and properties which are at jeopardy  everywhere in India. Dalit and adivasi liberation is yet a long way.

References

(1) Frontline, Chennai, volume 27 - issue 16 :: July 31-August 13, 2010.

(2) Suman Chattopadhyay, Ananda Bazar Patrika, Calcutta, June 6, 1995

(3) A division bench comprising Chief Justice K S Radhakrishnan and Justice C K Buch Gujarat HC begans ‘suo moto proceeding’ against Hookah Bars.   Raising fears over flourishing business of hookah bars in Ahmedabad, the Bench Friday, May 16, 2009  started suo moto trials and issued notices to the state government, AMC (Ahmedabad Municipal Commissioner) and city police commissioner respondents in this regard. The Khairlanji massacres fell to the blind eyes, deaf ears and heartless souls who feigned ignorance as victims did not mention caste angle in FIR or evidence before trail court!

(4) Accused  Sakru Binjewar, Ramu Dhande, Shatrughan Dhande, Vishwanath Dhande, Jagdish Mandlekar and Prabhakar Mandlekar awarded death sentences and  two others—Gopal Binjewar and Shishupal Dhande life imprisonment.

(5) DNA, July 15, 2010, “Nikam diluted caste-hatred angle in Khairlanji case.”

(6) The Hindu, 29 July 2010.

(7) DNA, ibid.

(8) Frontline, ibid.

(9) A case in point is Dr. Ujjwal Biswas, superintendent, Health Services, government of West Bengal, in Lal Bagh subdivision, Murshidabad. Sometime back he received a deputation headed by Partha Chakraborty and Sudipta Banerjee. He offered the deputationists tea while discussions over their grievances  were under progress. The gesture was  turned down scornfully, “We don’t accept tea from a scheduled caste.” (They must have said “Chandal” in place of scheduled caste, as Dr. Biswas is a Namasudra. The local Bengali media perhaps did not report it out of grace.). The Matua Sangh, a socio-religious order of the Namasudras founded by their spiritual guru Hari Chand Thakur in 19th century, responded by taking out a massive protest rally in Berhampur against the caste abuse. It is understood  poor Dr. Biswas is being hounded out from bad station to worse with residual work which has no takers. In all probability, he might continue to suffer in silence till the end of his career for the community that rallied behind for him against  abuse hurled by two Brahmans! Had the community  not rallied behind and had he pocketed the abuse quietly, he  might be let off unmolested per se.  They system does not forgive the underdog!!!

(10) A. K. Biswas, Common man & Justice in British India, Mainstream, Annual 1994, November 26, 1994, New Delhi, pp. 92-94.

(The author is a former Vice-Chancellor, B. R. Ambedkar University, Muzaffarpur,  Bihar.  His email is born.bengali@gmail.com).

]]> http://blog.insightyv.com/?feed=rss2&p=1429 http://blog.insightyv.com/?p=1418 http://blog.insightyv.com/?p=1418#comments Wed, 04 Aug 2010 16:02:11 +0000 Ranjith http://blog.insightyv.com/?p=1418 Guest post by Ravi Chandran

The recent incident of Dalits smearing human excreta for saving their homes in a place called Savanur in Haveri district, Karnataka, one of the southern Indian states, has created diverse responses from civil society.

The most common response from the incident is that it is the ‘worst’ kind of protest anyone can do. Some people even may say ‘SHIT’ about the news!

After this news was carried by mainstream newspapers, the state government and the municipal authority have been questioned for allowing such practices (scavenging) in their state (Karnataka). Still the government has not been questioned on why they were thrown out of their homes, instead the anxieties of civil society seems to focus more on ‘why they were allowed to pour human excreta on their body’!

Here I quote Justice Nayak, the Chairman of The State Human Rights Commission (SHRC). “The state government is undeniably guilty of continuing the system of manual scavenging despite reminders by the National Human Rights Commission and State Human Rights Commission,” he said.

I would like to argue that the act of pouring shit on their own body in protest against State’s forceful eviction from their homes, is a political act, not only against the civil society, but also a potent critique of the contemporary Dalit Movement in the country.

However, as usual attempts have been made by the mainstream media and civil society alike to divert from the metaphorical intervention of scavengers trying to politicize the shit. The protesters poured excreta on them not to claim they are still scavengers, instead excreta is the only option to cover the body/family of scavenging community, if they were evacuated. The act was politicizing the Shit.

It is pathetic that not only the dominant mainstream, but also the ‘Dalit’ intellectuals and activists seem to ignore and sideline the political significance of this intervention from the scavenging communities. Dalit Movement has been reduced to “NGO Movement” of late, and people who are running the NGO’s dealing with Scavenging community should understand that stopping the profession of scavenging will not bring dignity to the community.

Rather, I would argue that dignity can only be achieved by politicizing the profession (at the same time not to encourage the present generation to accept it as profession). I would say that ‘the profession’ has never been theorized.

Whenever scavenging and scavengers are discussed, the trend is to pose the question vis-à-vis the pornographic and voyeuristic visualization of the act of scavenging, resulting in eliciting only sympathy/pity. This is one of the main reasons for the lack of social respect for scavenging communities among the masses, including Dalits.

There are many books written on scavenging and even documentaries produced depicting the sorrowful facet of the profession and lives of scavenging community. However the framework remains that of the sympathetic Gandhian uplift kind.

There is a need for these civil society actors (also include Dalit activists) who are trying to support the cause of scavenging communities to re-think and re-formulate their agential actions. Rather than adopting a philanthropic approach to the cause, they should start politicizing the community.

What does it comes to mind when we speak of scavenging profession? Only a bucket and a pool of yellow shit! Did it occur to us any time that their way of life itself is a political struggle? Never! This is because of the way we see the profession. By the act of smearing their body with shit, the scavenging communities have questioned and challenged these ‘ways of seeing’.

(The Author is a PhD scholar at The English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad and his topic is “Language, Caste and Scavenging: The Discourse of Discrimination”. He can also be seen blogging at http://tamilnadudalits.blogspot.com and can be contacted at ravi.ciefl@gmail.com )

“It is usual to hear all those who feel moved by the deplorable condition of the Untouchables unburden themselves by uttering the cry “We must do something for the Untouchables”. One seldom hears any of the persons interested in the problem saying ‘Let us do something to change the Touchable Hindu.’ ” - Dr. Ambedkar

I first noticed it when Kuffir shared a report that appeared on India Today website. Titled “Dalit cooks divide UP schoolkids“, the report by Piyush Srivastava explained how the introduction of Dalit cooks in schools led to a “bad situation” in Uttar Pradesh:

“Mid-day meals prepared by Dalit cooks has created such a bad situation in UP that upper caste students are leaving government schools in droves - so far the number is 1,000..”

When upper caste and OBC people refused to eat food that the dalits cooked, the report concluded that it is the induction of the Dalit cooks in schools that caused “increased casteism”.

I wrote about it in The Hoot [link here] and asked: “..who is coming in the way of an “ideal” society? Some poor dalit cooks? Or some people who consider themselves to be “upper-caste” and superior to others and refuse to eat the food cooked by others, more than 60 years past our independence? Or media like India Today and journalists like Piyush Srivastava?”

Interestingly, the report [link here] immediately got a make-over. The opening line was changed to

“At least 1,000 students belonging to upper castes and the other backward classes (OBCs) in Uttar Pradesh have shifted from government to private schools to avoid mid-day meals prepared by Dalit cooks.”

And they added a new line, “For a nation which is fast emerging as a global player, it is unfortunate that casteism and untouchability are still prevalent.”

It still blamed Mayawati Government’s indiction of Dalit cooks as the cause of the “bad situation”. In short, the report still remained very much casteist, but in a veiled, professional, much more dangerous manner.

Then there was a comment on The Hoot article that explained the turn of events better: “The entire story is bogus and written while sitting in a cozy room in Lucknow. Dalit cook is an issue but no school kid of upper caste has left school. My dear friend cannot understand one simple thing that upper caste students do not leave school instead they are in a position to make others leave. This story was in many Hindi newspapers since last 15 days and the journalist has played the role of a good tailor. He created a dress by using cutpieces from various newspapers.”

Now, DNA Mumbai has carried another story, by Deepak Gidwani. It said,

“Instead of earning accolades, the Mayawati government’s move to employ Dalit women to cook mid-day meals in primary schools has turned out to be a major embarrassment.

The state government has had to withdraw the controversial order after stiff resistance from upper castes and even backward castes.. “

[Dalit cooks stir controversy in Uttar Pradesh as prejudices remain firm, DNA, 28 July 2010. ]

This report gives a better picture, despite its attempt to present the whole thing as a controversy caused by the BSP government’s decision:

“Apart from casting a shadow on UP chief minister Mayawati’s plans to ensure social equality for Dalits, the unseemly trail of events has also exposed the wide caste fissures in civil society.”

The report talks of an order issued by UP’s basic education department that said Dalits would be given priority in employment as cooks for preparing mid-day meals in schools. What it does not say is that there are Supreme Court orders that insist that “In appointment of cooks and helpers, preference shall be given to Dalits, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes” [see link], and it is just that the other states have not bothered to follow them.

The DNA report quotes noted historian and writer Yogesh Praveen, who says that “The political awareness and identity the Dalits have gained due to the efforts of leaders like Kanshi Ram and Mayawati are obviously not translating into ground realities”. Isn’t it obious that what is missing is not political awareness on the Dalits’ side but the political awareness and willingness to accept Dalits on the ‘other’ side?

It is unfortunate that the state government has had to withdraw the order. It only underlines the fact that we have a long way to go in changing the touchables’ mindsets.

Insight Study Circle

Invites you for a Public Dialogue to discuss on

“Ways and strategies for proper implementation of SC/ST/OBC Reservation in Higher Education”

with a team of students and faculty members from Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Date: 24/07/10 (Saturday)
Time: 2.30 – 5.30 PM
Venue: Room No: 303, Indian Social Institute (ISI), Lodi Road, New Delhi

Context -

Both Delhi University and JNU are the premier institutions of our country and recently have been in news for their obstinate and hostile attitude towards the implementation of SC/ST/OBC reservations both at the level of students’ admissions as well as on the recruitment for the teaching posts.

On 5th August Delhi University is going to convert about 6,000 undergraduate seats reserved for OBCs into general category seats as the university is unable to find suitable candidates among the class that constitutes about half of the Indian population !!!

Not only OBC reservations, various colleges in Delhi University has had a long history of non-implementation of reservations for SC/ST students and denying them the opportunity of studying there on small pretexts and there have been regular complaints of caste based harassment of Dalit and Adivasi students by colleges’ administration during the process of admission.

Then in JNU, the proponent of brahminical hegemony have been dishing out arguments ranging from ‘SC/ST/OBC being genetically inferior’ to ‘Reservation in teaching posts will actually harm the disadvantage sections (read SC/ST/OBC) as it will result in exodus of well to do (read meritorious ‘upper’ castes) to foreign universities.

Which of these two statements sounds most ludicrous and racist?  Amazed? These are the statements of well renowned scholars and academicians not your regular ‘upper’ caste.

In this context, it is very necessary for all of us to sit together, discuss and strategise over ways in which we can counter the casteist tendencies of those who have the control over the educational institutions in our country and denying us our constitutional rights.

Above all the time has come for us to question the ‘merit’ of the system itself, under which about 80% of the Indian population is ‘non-meritorious’ enough to be denied admissions in simple BA and MA courses.

My lawyer father used to tell me about the power of  certain surnames and the ‘reservation’ they enjoyed in their public lives in contrast with people who were granted ‘reservations’ through the Indian constitution.  I used to get amazed with the stories he narrated of court rooms where the surnames of judges and the advocates often used to determine the outcome of the cases rather than their merits.

And these used to happen automatically, no conspiracy, no underhand dealings but pure, unadulturated ‘brotherhood’ of certain surnames. However, more than this ‘brotherhood’ what became more important gradually was the ‘othering’ of people who do not have these surnames and have to suffer prejudices, discrimination at all levels.

I myself witnessed the same ‘brotherhood’ and the ‘othering’ while giving viva in school practicals, interviews in entrance exams and also seen a Dalit candidate being dismissed by the interview board for JNU Mphil entrance exams after being asked just one question and then commented upon, “Tumhara toh selection ho hi jayega” (You will anyhow get selected).

The student did get selected under SC quota but it is a different matter that he got less than the average marks in his interview while scoring at par with others in written examination.

I am posting two articles to understand how merit is linked with surnames in this country. The first peice is an article written by a very eminent Dalit writer and ex -bureaucrat  Mr. A.K. Biswas that has been published in Mainstream (1993) and later on www.ambedkar.org.

Another one is a small interview, taken by our magazine INSIGHT and published in its first issue (2004), of Dalit student Himanshu Gautam who cleared UP civil services exams with an over all 9th rank and broke the record of maximum marks scored in UP PSC interviews by scoring staggering 80% marks as the UP government decided against revealing the background of any candidate except the educational one to the interview board.

Case of an IAS Topper

By A.K. Biswas

[The Author is retired IAS officer, an eminent writer, ex Vice-Chancellor of Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Muzaffarpur, Bihar. The article was first published in Mainstream, VOL XXXII NO5, December 18, 1993.]

Fate of the first Scheduled Caste IAS (1950)

The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) under the Constitution of free India started functioning from January 26, 1950. The UPSC conducted its first examination to recruit personnel for the IAS and Central Services the same year. The First Report of the UPSC does not mention the number of SC/ST candidates. But it discloses that Achyutananda Das was the country’s first SC to make it to the IAS in 1950 itself. He was, in fact, the topper of his batch in the written examination.

Achyutananda Das, from West Bengal, secured 613 out of 1050 marks in written examination whereas N. Krishnan from Madras secured 602. But in the interview, Krishnan secured 260 out of 300 as against 110 by Achyutananda Das. Thus Achyutananda was left miles behind by Krishnan due to the latter’s performance in the viva-voce test.

But the case of Aniruddha Dasgupta, also from West Bengal, is both interesting and revealing. The marks obtained by these three may be examined to appreciate the case of the topper in the table below -

	Name of Candidate	Total (1050 marks)	Interview (300 marks)	Grand (1350)
1	N. Krishnan	602	260	862
2	Aniruddha Dasgupta	494	265	760
3	Achyutananda Das	613	110	719

The margin of difference of marks between Achyutananda Das and N. Krishnan in written papers being eleven only so in the interview if the latter outstripped the former, there is not much surprise perhaps. But the written and viva-voce marks of Aniruddha Dasgupta in comparison with those of Achyutananda Das raise a number of issues.

Dasgupta secured the highest marks in viva-voce among all successful candidates recommended for appointment to the IAS, IPS, IFS, etc. But it was also he who got the lowest aggregate as well as the lowest average of all those qualified for appointment to the IAS and Allied Services. Further, he scored the lowest marks of all the qualified candidates in General Knowledge.

Dasgupta scored 26.66 per cent in General Knowledge, 47.04 per cent in written aggregate but an astounding 88.33 per cent in Personality Test as against 52.66 per cent, 58.38 per cent and 36.66 per cent respectively scored by Achyutananda Das. The margin of difference of marks between Das and Dasgupta in written examination was as vast as 119. Reduced into percentage, Das was an unbridgeable 11.33 per cent ahead of Dasgupta.

Any candidate strong in General Knowledge is usually expected to face the Selection Board very confidently and to perform competently. Aniruddha Dasgupta’s poorest (26.66 per cent) score amongst all successful candidates in General Knowledge notwithstanding; he must have thrown up the biggest surprise by scoring the highest marks in the interview.

His viva-voce score of 265 which was followed by Krishnan with 260, not only helped him make up the vast gap between him and Achyutananda Das but he left the latter far behind.

In the ultimate count, Krishnan topped; Aniruddha Dasgupta occupied the 22nd position in the merit list and Achyutananda Das was assigned the 48th position.

Das was the last man in the list of qualified candidates recommended for appointment in the IAS. He was allotted to the cadre of Uttar Pradesh.

There is no published record to examine the questions which were posed by the Selection Board to Das, Dasgupta and Krishnan and the answers offered by them. If those were available, posterity would have benefited by acquiring the tools and techniques adopted by Dasgupta as to how to impress the Selection Board of the UPSC despite miserable written scores.

Fate of the first Scheduled Tribe IAS (1954)

Nampui Jam Chonga, from Assam, was the country’s first tribal in the IAS through the examination held in 1954. His case bears striking similarities in certain aspects with that of Achyutananda Das. Nampui Jam Chonga scored third highest marks in General Knowledge but got 160 only in Personality Test. His scores can be compared with that of Rathindra Nath Sengupta, an IAS allotted to the West Bengal cadre.

Nampui Jam Chonga scored 747 in written papers as against Rathindra Nath Sengupta who got 692 marks-the difference between them being 53 marks. Sengupta’s score (50) in General English was the lowest of all the qualified candidates; in General Knowledge he was the second lowest, his pride being humbled by Snehlata Puri (Punjab) who scored 37.

Nevertheless, Sengupta scored the second highest 240 (80 per cent) in Personality Test, the highest 260 (86.66 per cent) being secured by two candidates-S.K.Chaturvedi, Madhya Pradesh cadre and D.Bandopadhyay, West Bengal cadre. S.K.Chaturvedi was the topper of his batch.

Nampui Jam Chonga ultimately was placed at 64th, the last in the merit position for appointment to the IAS whereas Rathindra Nath Sengupta was assigned the 52nd.

Notwithstanding their impressive performance in written papers, both Achyutananda Das and Nampui Jam Chonga could not impress the personality Test Board. Both Dasgupta and Sengupta, on the other hand, proved the reverse that their personality impressed the Selection Board more than their pen could impress their examiners.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

An interview with Himanshu Gautam

( UPPSC 9th Rank, 2004)

Ph.D, Sem I, Hindi Centre/ SLL & CS (JNU, New Delhi)

Congratulations! your success which must have been personally rewarding has also helped break the myth that Dalits are not meritorious and the face that you secured highest marks in the interview re-affirms this.

I have not done anything great but I do recognize that this is not only personal success and it also helps to dispel the myths that Dalits are not meritorious. But I am not the first to tread this path to success. There have been many Dalits before me who have secured better marks than me, but it is a rare occasion that we hear about them. Its only because I am in JNU and there is an attempt by groups like INSIGHT to record these successes, that I am giving this interview. (Smiles)

When did you being thinking of writing the civil services exams?

At a very young age my father suggested this career to me and he has remained a crucial support and inspiration since. But it was in JNU that I found an atmosphere that helped me to focus and work consistently. My friends helped me a lot, ESPECIALLY Prashant Sir and Sarwar Bhai. I am proud of my friends and thank them.

There is a feeling among Dalits students that they are at disadvantage during interviews. Many have spoken of awkward question being asked, and some have even accused interviewers of being out-rightly castiest. Did you sense that your caste was under consideration at the UPPSC interviews?

Yes. I am aware of this. I was nervous before the interview. But I was fortunate that this year UPPSC had introduced the practice of not providing the interviewers with information regarding the candidate identity. Hence possibility of being harmed is less. Especially for candidates belonging to the Dalit community. I think this had a part to play in my securing record marks in the interview.

[Published in INSIGHT Vol 1, No 1, September 2004]

by Ranjith Thankappan

Bold and Beautiful ‘Indians’ : Barkha, Maniratnam and Amitabh Bachchan

Of late, Amitabh Bachchan in his inimical style has blogged out to become the self-appointed member of the caste called ‘Indian’. In  similar fashion, the popular academics of the ilk Vivek Dhareswar, Nandini Sundar et al. have polemically put forward their case against including caste in census 2011.

An array of academic gentry follow suit as usual.  And in popular culture, apart from Big B, there comes another Big B of the ‘B’-dominated national media- Barkha Dutt- singing the same old tune, the ‘caste of the Indian’ fuming in their blood, masked as ‘secular’ suiting the liberal democratic social attire of post-colonial societies.

I would rather disagree with all these positions with due respect and put forward a context of lived experience to argue in favour of caste census, and of course in the same polemical vein.

Prakash Jha’s Rajneeti is a failed blockbuster movie, so is Mani Ratnam’s Raavan. This is not in the sense of box office responses, but its naiveté was as pompous as it could hardly capture the socio-political reality of the cultural terrain it was struggling to portray.

But a counter question would be, ‘can any Jha or Mani ever capture it’? Kindly excuse me for being so blatantly casteist.

Huh, after all, what we could read between the lines or see through the visuals of all these hindu secular humanist way of cultural representation of our social realities tend to be etched out of this hidden reality- caste!

No wonder in a country fetished out of the offerings of colonial modernity, what nationalism and its borrowed model of developmental modernity and secular credentials could offer was nothing but a hypocritical dual life.

So we have to bear with Rajneetis and Raavans, so as with the hypocritical dual role of the new caste habitus of ‘the Indian’, at least for the time being.

The context that I am referring to has got many folds. Let me unfold one: that of a house hunt in a metro-city. After moving to a new city – Hyderabad - I was accompanying my friend in search of a house on rent.

Getting inspired from the chattering class of the ilk of Mr. Bachchan, we were usurping in the glory of the newly imagined garb of the Indian. Can any one live that smart any longer in a country like India?

So we were also expecting the same chattering class tear apart the notion of the Indian in shear seething frustration. And the moments passed. The usual queries on surname or full name, region, vegetarianism, religion, caste.. None!

For a while we thought whether the country has changed after Big B or not? And then came the deciding moment of the century.

A retired scientist from National Institute of Nutrition and seemingly belong to the same chattering class of Big B to whom my friend talked over phone.

First question, after hearing that he is from Kerala; “So you must be a Nair?”
My friend said; “No.”

Second Question: “So, an Ezhava?”
My Friend; “No.”

After a pause; “Are you a vegetarian?”
My Friend; “No”

Again pause. And then came the crucial deciding comment; “I have no problem but we prefer to give our house to vegetarians, you know!”

A case indeed worth mentioning in the country of ‘the Indian’. We do not get offended with such remarks, do we? It is routine for us.

Another such routine incident had unfolded years back when I was working in a media firm in Kerala. One of my colleagues was always curious to know my full name. When I told what my name was, he repeatedly asked what my initial means.

In kerala, these are some of the covert methods employed to find out someone’s caste. Similar thing happened when I shifted to Delhi and joined a Central University. One lady in the centre got curious again about my ‘initial’. When I told her that it is my father’s name and not my caste, one should have seen her face fade as if unable to discover something precious or so.

I can go on narrating such instances, but our chattering class of ‘Indians’ will never be satisfied. They feel, enumerating caste will divide us and it is methodologically difficult to get the exact caste composition and their fear of numbers disguised as the call for unity and all other tall claims go on and so forth.

And remember, it is the same meritorious clan of the Indians who demanded data that too census data about the population of OBCs in the country a few years back!

Whether your caste enumerator asks or not, WE THE INDIANS have been asking the question of caste to each and every individual we meet in our daily life.

We have been doing the enumeration of caste in various lived contexts in order to make a match, join a peer group, shortlist a candidate, employ a professional, vote for a party, assess a student, while filing an ‘objective’ journalistic report and writing a theoretical treatise and so on.

The enumeration work has been on since ages. Now let us make it official and let Indian Government do it for us. And let us not forget to count ‘the Indian’ and of course, the Brahman as well. Let us help them to get out of their fear of numbers.

Let me conclude with a piece referred by Partha Chatterjee (1999) while delineating the connections of communities and nation in his work Nation and its fragments.

The piece is a context taken from Bankim’s Kamalakanta. The context is where Kamalakanta has been called in as a witness in court in a case of petty theft.

The lawyer then asked him, “What jāti are you?”

K: Am I a jāti?

LAWYER: What jāti do you belong to?

K: To the Hindu jāti.

LAWYER: Oh, come now! What varna?

K: A very very dark varna.

LAWYER: What the hell is going on here! Why did I have to call a witness like this?  I say, do you have jāti?

K: Who can take it from me?

The magistrate saw that the lawyer was getting nowhere. He said, “You know there are many kinds of jāti among Hindus, such as Brahman, Kayastha, Kaibarta. Which one of these jāti do you belong to?”

K: My lord! All this is the lawyer’s fault! He can see I have the sacred thread around my neck. I have said my name is Chakravarti. How am I to know that he will not be able to deduce that I am a Brahman?

The magistrate wrote, “Caste: Brahman.”

What ‘the Indian’, in their inimical covert style like Kamalakanta try to tell us is this, “Do you want us to tell. Can’t you see what caste we belong to?”

Let us not hesitate.

Go on and count THEM too.

Dear Friends,

We are very pleased to announce the launching of our Dalit and Adivasi Students’ Portal (www.scststudents.org). After the successful launch of National Telephone Helpline (helpline number – 0 9999 48 42 49) for our students on 27th May, 2010, this portal is one more effort from Insight Foundation, towards creating a support system for Dalit and Adivasi students in Higher Education and also supporting them to make informed choices while pursuing higher education and in career opportunities.

About the Portal -

Dalit and Adivasi Students’ Portal (DASP) is an e-resource centre for Dalit and Adivasi students in Higher education. DASP includes online discussion, mentoring for Dalit and Adivasi students, and provides relevant information about admissions, scholarships and career opportunities. It is also a space for advocating intervention at policy levels, towards creating equal opportunities in higher education, by making our educational system more inclusive.

Various Sections in the Portal -

1. Information - As a group, we are committed to provide relevant and updated information regarding various courses, admissions, scholarships, coaching and career opportunities available for our students through our portal. The students can also write to us or our telephone helpline for any particular information.

2.  Mentorship Programme - We are running a unique mentorship programme for our students to get in touch with young professionals, academicians, faculty members and all those who graduated from premier institutions and pursuing their respective careers successfully.

Our students are advised to go through the portal and choose the mentor from the desired field. We have already uploaded few profiles of our mentors on the portal and by the end of this month we are going to upload profiles of 100 mentors from different fields. All our mentors are committed to support our students to the best of their capacities.

Our target is, within the period of one year, to have almost 500 mentors from different fields to assist our students.

3. Interviews - The portal will carry regular interviews of our young achievers and mentors, their achievements and their struggles to motivate our young students. We are going to upload one interview each, every week, in our sections – Success Stories and Meet our Mentor.

4. Issues at Stake- This section will consist of brief commentaries on important issues, especially, pertaining to policies on higher education and its impact on our communities. We invite young Dalit and Adivasi students, professionals and activists to send their writings to us on important issues that we can upload in this section.

5.  Experts Says – Through this section, we will try to provide detailed information to our students on one particular topic like on newly available courses, tips for improving their writing and other skills needed to excel in their studies etc.

6. Campus News - This section will include articles, news, commentaries, brief reports on the activities of various Dalit and Adivasi students groups working in different campuses. This section will also highlight cases of caste-discrimination and prejudices that are prevalent in Indian campuses.

7.   Discussion Forum – A platform for our students, mentors and other users to discuss, share, debate on various issues.

Above is the brief overview of the portal which is online now. To begin with, we have tried our level best to make our portal simple and informative. However, we are going to add lots of new features and applications on our portal gradually as per the requirements of our students.

Simultaneously we are also working on creating a database on admissions, scholarships, career opportunities and other important information that will be uploaded on our portal for the benefit of our students.

Our requests -

1.    Please do visit our portal www.scststudents.org and let us know your feedbacks on mail@insightfoundation.in to improve our efforts.
2.    Become a mentor – Please let us know if you are interested in becoming a mentor of our students and mail us.
3.    Please forward this information regarding our Telephone Helpline and Dalit and Adivasi Students Portal to all our students, if possible or/and suggest us ways to reach to our students.
4.    Education sector being one of the broadest, we need your support to build our database on information regarding higher education and career opportunities.

Media Coverage – We have been very fortunate to get some media coverage on our recent initiatives. Given below are the links. Kindly have a look.

1.   Help for reserved categories (Hindustan Times)
2.   New helpline to assist Dalit, tribal students( The Hindu)

Insight Foundation, a group of students and young professionals, is pleased to invite you for a small get-together on the occasion of the launches of its telephone helpline for Dalit and Adivasi students in higher education, a Dalit and Adivasi student portal and Mentorship programme.

Insight Foundation will also like to use this opportunity to screen a documentary produced by some of its members on caste discrimination prevalent in one of the premier institutions of the country.

We cordially invite you to participate on this occasion –

Date – 27th May 2010

Time - 11.30 am

Venue - Insight Foundation, 125, First Floor, Shahpur Jat, Near Sirifort Auditorium, New Delhi – 49,  Phone – 011 46695837

1.   Telephone Helpline (0-9999 48 42 49)

Insight Foundation is going to run a telephone helpline for Dalit and Adivasi students with the main focus of supporting the students to make informed choices while pursuing higher education and in career opportunities. This is an attempt to reach to our students at national level, from small towns and villages, first generation literates and those who are not able to access internet.

One of the key focuses of helpline will also be to cater to first year college/university students and to support them by linking with faculty members and senior Dalit and Adivasi students.

Our helpline will also try to counsel our students on the cases of caste discrimination and prejudices faced by them in campuses.

Initially our helpline will be open from Monday to Friday (from 10 am- 1pm). Our students can even send their queries through SMS on our Helpline mobile number.

2.   Dalit and Adivasi Students Portal (www.scststudents.org) is an attempt by Insight Foundation to create an e-resource centre for Dalit and Adivasi students in Higher education. DASP includes online discussion group, online mentoring for Dalit and Adivasi students, providing relevant information about admissions, scholarships, career opportunities and also a space for advocating intervention at policy levels for equal opportunities in higher education.

3.   Mentorship Programme

Through this programme we are trying to facilitate a process of bringing together Dalit and Adivasi faculty members, professionals and senior students from major universities and colleges to support our students and provide mentorship on issues such as coping with the campus environment, academic guidance, orientation and career counseling.

We are starting this programme by creating profiles of about 100 faculty members, students and professionals on our Dalit and Adivasi student portal (www.scststudents.org). Our students can choose their mentors according to their specializations and Insight Foundation will play the role of facilitating the communication between both.

4.   The death of Merit (a documentary)

‘The death of Merit’ is a documentary based on the testimonies of the family members of Bal Mukund Bharti, a final year medical student from AIIMS (New Delhi) who committed suicide on 3rd March 2010. All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) is considered to be one of the most premier institutions of the country. The documentary is an effort to understand about the travails faced by Dalit students in spaces of higher education which are supposed to be egalitarian but continue to display caste-prejudices.

On the same day we are also launching our organization’s website www.insightfoundation.in to provide information on the vision, objectives and activities of our organization.

Please also visit our media portal http://roundtableindia.co.in, an initiative of our group members towards creating an alternative media space.

The Round Table portal, a virtual idea, discussed and debated by strangers, friends, family and others  in virtual  spaces over the past one year has finally materialized here .

The Internet as a medium presents technological equal opportunities to the minute fraction of Dalitbahujan accessing it with a unique opportunity for communication. Can the democratic publishing possibilities of the Internet, the first space that is free of caste controls be utilized as an advocacy medium by the Dalitbahujan? How can it be effectively used to bring change into the lives of millions to whom the Internet would be the least of their immediate necessities? And can it be a window for the Dalitbahujans themselves providing a glimpse of the diversity of their distinctive histories, cultures and experiences?

Can we finally have our own media platform?

The Round Table is the culmination of many such discussions across  several blogs authored by Dalitbahujan writers and their readers. The  Insight young voices blog brought together individuals who took up  the challenge and worked to create The Round Table.

At present, it has the following sections:

News and opinions -a tab that aggregates news reports on Dalitbahujan issues in the mainstream media. A Dalitbahujan citizen’s reporting platform is envisioned for this space to bring in news and opinions of us, by us.

My blogs -aggregates Dalitbahujan blogs and provides space for our readers to start their own blogs here.

Photos/videos -is a space for pictorial and visual documentation of Dalitbahujans lives and experiences.

Debate -a section for active discussions on contemporary issues and development of a knowledge-bank on various aspects of interests of the users and readers.

Community Connect -a social networking platform for our community members, to create their own specific interest groups and foster interactions between groups.

History -a section to document the lives and history of our leaders and our past struggles.

The Shared Mirror -is dedicated to prose and poetry in all the languages the Dalitbahujan writes in. It also has a focus on translation of prose and poetry into English.

This portal is completely user driven. Users are invited to register and submit articles, create their own photo and video galleries, announce events and share their perspective on the Dalitbahujan world.

By Anu

This email Interview with Anupama Rao is largely about her new book, The Caste Question: Dalits and The Politics of Modern India. Anupama Rao is an Associate Professor of South Asian History at Barnard College, New York.

Anu: Anupama, looking at the body of your work it would be easy to refer to you as a caste historian. Can you please give a background to why you chose to pursue this area of research?

AR: Certainly. Let me answer this question by connecting my personal background to a brief intellectual autobiography.

I grew up in Bangalore in a typically middle class, Brahmin family, which considered itself “modern” and “secular.” This is to say, issues of caste were displaced onto matters of gendered respectability, education, and cultural accomplishment, e.g., Carnatic music, or bharatanatyam. I came to the United States at the age of ten, however, and spent my teenage years living in Chicago’s south-side Chicago, which had a profound effect on me, both personally and intellectually.

I was introduced to African-American life and literature, and to pan-Africanism, and remember going to visit what is now the Harold Washington Library in downtown Chicago to read the literary and political works of the Harlem Renaissance.

I saw that powerful words were born from painful experiences, and that though the experience of social exclusion was painful, it also gave rise to powerful and potent forms of resistant thought and action. This influenced my decision some years later to study Maharashtra, a place of distant (if ancestral) belonging, but also a region of the sub-continent associated with upper-caste progressivism, and radical anti-caste protest.

By then, I had been exposed to postcolonial theory and colonial critique at the University of Chicago and later, at the University of Michigan, where a profound rethinking of the historical anthropology of South Asia was underway. My participation in a feminist reading group together with exposure to the aggressively masculine cultures of debate and discussion at Chicago, had alerted me to the necessity of gender analysis.

Finally, it was the heyday of Subaltern Studies, and I was very interested in rethinking subalternity through categories of caste and gender, and in comparing and contrasting two distinctive forms of stigmatized existence, each the locus of suffering and survival, yet distinctive in the manner in which they had been politicized across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

If feminists in India had focused on issues of violence and intimacy, and only recently begun to address questions of community identity and of political subjectivity, the opposite appeared to be the case with Dalit activists in Maharashtra. The politicization of community was distinctive, and allowed Dalits to redefine intimate aspects of stigmatized existence as practices of historic discrimination that required redress.

Dalit suffering was politically consequential but it was also emotionally powerful: a new literary idiom had emerged to give voice to the Dalit self, even if that self was masculine and often implicated in gender subordination, as Dalit feminists were beginning to argue.

I should clarify here that the problem for me in understanding Dalit life and politics did not arise from any lack of scholarly attention to caste as a social category and form of life. Rather, it was the scholarly attention to caste as a form of Indian ‘difference,’ that produced problems for exploring the significance of anti-caste thought. That is, the excessive particularization, indeed the provincialization of caste has allowed European theory and South Asian anthropology/history to ignore the presence of caste radicalism as a powerful form of subaltern political thought.

I think my work has challenged existing scholarship on caste by focusing on anti-caste thought as the critique of colonial and nationalist frames, and by suggesting that radical anti-casteism displayed a democratic imagination that must be located within a global history of political thought. I have here in mind the very significant connection that someone like Jotirao Phule makes, of caste and Atlantic World slavery in Gulamgiri (1873).

Or, the ways in which a modern focus on history-writing produced a deep investment in rewriting caste as the history of the defeat and degradation of the shudra-atishudra communities, whether by Phule and Periyar, or by Ambedkar. From here, I explored the manner in which Ambedkar, especially, sought to convert the negated identity of the Dalit into positive political value by making creative use of the organs and institutions of political liberalism, a process I call the vernacularization of political universals.

I should note here that unlike bhakthi critiques of the caste order, the forms of anticaste thought I consider were enabled by modern institutions and ideas, themselves the byproduct of colonization. As well, scholarship on race and gender, have provided important comparative models for my work. More important yet are the significant (private) collections of Dalit and Satyashodak writing, Maharashtra’s vibrant intellectual culture, and the deep generosity of scholars and friends in India. Without them, I could have neither embarked on this project, nor completed the book.

Anu: In your new book, The Caste Question: Dalits and The Politics of Modern India you make a statement “Dalit history is the history of India’s political modernity” can you please elaborate on this?

AR: The dominant method for writing Dalit history has been based on the model of movement-centric and community-based studies of regionally distinct Dalit communities—Chamars, Satnamis, and so forth. Instead, I have explored how B. R. Ambedkar’s theorization of the Dalit as a minority subject positions him as a political thinker, with a stature equivalent to figures such as Nehru and Gandhi.

Ambedkar’s understanding of the relationship between caste and democracy; his role in nationalizing the Dalit question; and in predicating the idea of political equality on the redress of Dalit hurt and suffering produced something like an Indian theory of ‘the political.’ His was a lifelong effort to convert the structural negativity of the Dalit into political value. This effort to address caste as social totality renders Ambedkar’s thinking theoretical.

My claim, that “Dalit history is the history of India’s political modernity” is thus a provocation, which asks what history, culture, and politics would look like if we made the stigmatized subject—and her struggle for rights and social recognition—the center of academic inquiry.

Anu: This book tracks the arrival of the Dalit as a political subject. Does the Dalit political subject encompass the Dalit as a social and cultural subject too? Since their presence in the social and cultural milieu is still marked by exclusion, would you consider India’s political modernity to be in its neonatal state?

AR: My book is methodologically divided between the historical and the ethnographic, between social and intellectual history in Part 1, and legal case studies and analysis of violence in the second half of The Caste Question.

The diverse materials I draw upon in each part of the book also reflects an effort to point to intellectual spaces where a Dalit problematic has emerged; where issues that link Dalits to society, culture, and politics can be said to coagulate and attain a sort of dense or thick materiality. Most significantly, however, my book opens up a productive space between an account of Dalit emancipation, and its paradoxical afterlife (and elusive consequences) in the present.

I am thus interested in the disjuncture between politics and culture, and between forms of social life and practices that continue to be marked by injury, prejudice, and humiliation, on the one hand, and the (limited) political and legal avenues that exist for their redress on the other. I have pointed to this gap between politics and culture as enabling new practices of politics, for instance, the manner in which the Dalit Panthers laid claim to remaking language, or challenged Dalits’ exclusion from public institutions such as the university, during the namantar struggle in the 1970s.

Today, this is evident in various forms of symbolic politics, such as the representation of figures of radical anti-caste thinking at public sites, the erection of statues, and other forms of political commemoration that are essential to Dalit public and popular culture. I call the constant effort to bring public visibility to ignored social practices or life forms a ‘politicization of politics,’ that is, of making public (and political) those aspects of Dalit culture and life that are beneath the radar.

And since you ask the question, there is another issue I would like to mention. This is the history of internal Dalit social reform, which was also effective in castigating performative practices and forms of life which were seen to be backward, or stigmatizing. What this unfortunately produced was the exclusion of a rich and resonant Dalit popular culture that preceded the forms of political activism and thinking that is the focus of my book.  The question of how to resurrect some of these practices, without falling prey to the norms of bourgeois respectability that derided them, is another puzzle for the critical historian.

Anu: You see a similarity in the thought processes of Fanon and Ambedkar as far as description of the violence felt and expressed between the colonized and colonizer. Can you elaborate on this, and do you think a combined reading of Ambedkar and Fanon would be useful to perceive the internal landscape of the Dalits?

AR: I find it extremely interesting that both Ambedkar and Fanon were attentive to the psychic life of power, whether the process of racialization for Fanon, or what Ambedkar called the “social nausea” that repulses castes from each other. Something else which brings both thinkers within a similar domain of action and understanding is their engagement with Marxist thought.

This is a little more explicit in Fanon than it is in Ambedkar, who was deeply critical of the social base of Indian Marxism which allowed Indian Marxists to ignore the specificity of caste. What brings Ambedkar and Fanon together in productive conversation is their focus on the relationship between structuring violence (of caste, or the racial order), and the formation of personhood. Each makes the provocative argument that the (political) subject is constituted through violence, and that the social order is not consensual, but agonistic.

Anu: For Indians, the most powerful imagery of public sexual humiliation of the female body, is not of a Dalit woman but a Kshatriya queen –Draupadi. However, studies on the sexual politics of Dalit women: in Sirasgaon, detailed in your book, and at Chilakurti in Kannabhiran’s book, have stressed that it is to insult the Dalit men of their incapability of protecting their women, that such atrocities periodically occur.

If we rework the frames of reference and analyze Draupadi’s sexual humiliation, it also points towards the humiliation being aimed at the suddenly disempowered Pandava men, via her body. What is the role of caste, patriarchy, and dominance of men over men, in ritual-archaic sexual politics, in this frame?

AR: My book underscores the important analyses of the intersection between sexual regulation and the social reproduction of caste that was articulated by people like Phule, Periyar, and Ambedkar. The thought of radical anti-casteism linked the sexual regulation of women, with women’s importance in constituting boundaries between caste communities.

For this reason, the thinkers I mention above focused on Hindu marriage as the hinge between intimate and public political life, and as the site where ideologies of caste purity and of gender respectability came together as a form of caste power. At the same time, however, ideologies of bourgeois respectability and of patriarchal ‘protection’ influenced men across caste by the turn of the century, enabling highly masculinized forms of political action and activism. How to understand the contradictory manner in which caste patriarchy operates?

This is where my analysis of contemporary events of sexual violence—whether Sirasgaon, or Khairlanji—comes in. One has access to multiple perspectives on these events—through legal records, media reportage, and testimonies. These help to show the complex sexual politics at play in these instances of caste violence. As you suggest, we can certainly see that the relationship between men is being worked out through the manner in which upper-caste men claim sexual access to Dalit and lower-caste women as a matter of caste privilege.

However, I think there are other complex issues of power and desire that are being worked out here, which we should consider in equal measure, if we wish to challenge the portrayal of Dalit women as victims. One has to do with the interactions between Dalit and lower-caste men and upper-caste women—understood by the upper-castes as a transgression of the socio-sexual order—which has often provided the occasion for sexual violence against Dalit women.

The other has to do with the manner in which intimate relations are possibly being altered by new forms of social interaction in educational institutions and other public places, especially in urban India today. I say “possibly,” because we must recall that Ambedkar argued that intercaste marriage was ultimate solvent of caste, and that he saw the possibility of social equality through the reordering of intimate relations. Thus, while caste antagonism and sexual violence constitute a challenge to Dalit masculinity (and thus, a potent site of Dalit activism today), we must also see how the social text might carry feminist possibilities. This has been the focus of Dalit feminist critique, both of caste patriarchy, as well as of the blindness of Indian feminism to the issue of caste, after all.

Anu: Please comment on the Internet being a possible space for the Dalit to imagine a pan-Dalit identity and its prospects for the project of the Dalit and therefore India’s emancipation.

AR: I am a relative newcomer to the possibilities of new media, but it is certainly the case that the globalization of information as well as new forms of internet activism are the main arena of action for youth today. The internet petition has now become ubiquitous, and I am not sure what role it performs, other than to signal a sort of attenuated mass politics. However the possibility of connections across national borders and ultimately, of building coalitions that can detour around localized corruption can only be a boon for Dalit activism. I think we saw this in the case of Khairlanji.

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The first Chapter of The Caste Question –Caste Radicalism and the making of a new political subject is available here.

By Cynthia Stephen

The quota within a quota demand in the Women’s Reservation Bill should be encouraged because women from the minority, dalit, and tribal sections want to articulate their own issues and organise under their own leadership since the mainstream feminists have for long given step-motherly treatment to their issues.

The debate on women’s reservation in parliament continues to rage as we await the passage of the Bill in the Lok Sabha.  There appears to be tacit opposition from the men in both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In what is perhaps a throwback to the not-so-distant feudal past where zamindars lorded it over their fiefdoms, most seasoned politicians who are elected (and re-elected) to parliament, treat their constituencies as their personal ‘bastions’.

Mulayam Singh Yadav, chief of the Samajwadi Party, one of the staunchest opponents of this bill in its present form, claims that many men in the Congress and BJP, though they do not speak out, in fact feel aggrieved that the reservation for women has the potential to change this and drastically realign their political careers – not surprising, given the history of the Congress and BJP, both traditionally parties led by the upper castes and classes.

But the silence of those most affected in the debate – the women who are almost 50% of the population – is almost deafening. Other than the visible women parliamentarians who were seen exulting over the bill’s passage in the Rajya Sabha, few other women have gone on record on the matter.

As the argument rages over reservations to the legislatures and parliament, grassroots women politicians fill local government bodies and work quietly and effectively at changing the face of governance in town and village.  Given 33% reservations in the local bodies, women now hold about 40% of elected posts in the local bodies, contesting and winning even from general seats on the basis of their work for their communities.

In several states like Karnataka and Kerala, women appear to do a much better job at local governance than men, according to a study carried out in 2000 by Chathukulam and John.  It is their presence (or lack of it) at the level of the legislatures and parliament that causes concern.

Demands that women be given similar reservation to these bodies resulted in a draft Women’s Reservation Bill which has been unsuccessfully placed for ratification several times since 1996, when it was first tabled. Huge controversies around the bill resulted in it being in limbo for almost 15 years.

There are two main constraints to the issue of women’s reservation: on the one hand, there is broad agreement on the need for reservations among women’s groups after it became clear in the 1990s that political parties did not give women any priority in seat allocation or leadership.

On the other hand there is the view that ‘woman’ is not a homogeneous category, and hence there is a need to recognise gaps in the representation of various categories in a highly stratified and fragmented polity and society such as ours.

While the present draft already provides for the constitutionally mandated reservations for scheduled caste and scheduled tribe women within the women’s quota, one of the major hurdles has been the demand that there be a quota within the quota for sections of the female population which are inadequately represented, namely women from the Muslim minority and the other backward classes (OBC) groups, which are a sizeable part of the overall population: this appears to be a commonsense demand.

In principle, even if there is consensus (there isn’t, the mainstream parties do not agree) on the need for a “quota within quota”, as was first suggested by Janata Dal (U) party chief Sharad Yadav, in practice, there is a formidable systemic lacuna to prevent its immediate implementation – a lack of data.

“If this is insisted upon, then the process will be set back by 20 years,” said Union Law Minister Veerappa Moily at a press conference in Bangalore on March 25, 2010. “It will need a constitutional amendment, and we do not have the data on which to base the reservations because no data has been collected on the OBCs since the 1930s.

As the census is ready to start we will have to wait till the 2020 census for the data; analysis will take more time, so all this will likely cause 20 years delay to pass this amendment.”

Muslims form 16% of the population, and have 26 male MPs in parliament (most of them from the elite ‘ashrafi’ sections) which works out to about 5% of the total.  Clearly Muslims as a whole are not proportionately represented.

According to the Association of Muslim Professionals, Mumbai, Muslim women are even more poorly represented in parliament, at 3 out of the total of 29 Muslim MPs, amounting to just about 10% of the total elected Muslim representatives in the country.

Further, they point out, constituencies reserved for dalits often have large Muslim populations, and Muslims lose the chance of election from these constituencies as the dalit tag is denied to Muslims.  This is because Muslims and Christians of dalit origin — two large religious minorities of India which together comprise 20% or more of the total population — are denied the benefit of reservations following the egregious Presidential Ordinance of 1950 under which dalits who belong to the Islamic and Christian faiths are denied reservation benefits though dalit Sikhs and Buddhists do get the benefit.

This ordinance is presently under challenge in the Supreme Court, but the government is delaying its resolution even though the Sachar Committee report and the Ranganath Mishra Commission have both insisted that the minority communities face discrimination in policy and practice.

The position of women from the reserved categories, however, is better than the rest, (though it still lags overall), says K S Sudeep in an article on the Roundtable blog: “Currently, the SC/ST reserved seats have a much higher women composition when compared to the ’general’ seats in Lok Sabha. Of the total of 59 woman MPs, 17 are from SC/ST reserved seats. Of the 121 SC/ST reserved seats, we have 17 women MPs (14.05%) whereas in general seats, this is 42 out of 422 (9.95%).

But what do the marginalised groups – the dalits and OBCs – feel about the women’s reservation bill? After all, it is their rights that are being discussed. What is their take on the subject?”

“When one sees Sushma Swaraj and Brinda Karat embracing and congratulating each other on the passing of the women’s reservation bill, one feels suspicious. What makes these two women – from either end of the political spectrum – rejoice together?” asks A S Rajan, a senior dalit political activist. “Both of them belong to the upper class and caste, and have had a long political innings at the national level.  Why do they agree so heartily on this particular issue?”

“When the first Lok Sabha was constituted, there were 369 brahmin members out of 540. But the numbers of brahmins went down steadily over time and in the prevailing Lok Sabha (their number dwindled) to 69. The reduction of higher caste representatives in parliament and increase in the number of representatives of subaltern categories may be attributed to enhanced political awareness, participation in the democratic processes and successful political mobilisation,” said Neilratan Shende, a young research scholar from IIT B, Powai, in an article he circulated on Sakya, a dalit e-group.

“It is ironical that the BJP, which was (and is) antagonistic to (the) Mandal Report implementation makes passing the Women’s Reservation Bill one of its priorities,” he continues. “Passing the bill in the existing format will have adverse implications for the women belonging to SC/ST and OBC communities.

The representation to the women will be at the cost of not only quelling political aspiration of the SC/ST and OBCs but also at the cost of representation of the women belonging to oppressed section of the society. The bill also conveniently ignores (the) three-fold discrimination that women belonging to SC/ST and OBC background face not only on the ground of patriarchy and gender but also on the ground of their caste.”

In clubbing the OBC women with the SC/STs, Shende is voicing an increasingly popular perception among the dalit and OBC groups that there has to be a strategic unity between these two large subaltern groups if any lasting change has to occur in their status, and if the bastions of caste and class privilege have to be breached.

As representation of the upper castes has steadily deteriorated and the lower castes mobilised and consolidated their role in electoral politics, it gives rise to the suspicion that it is the threat to their political dominance from the lower castes that drives the brahmanical upper caste-led Congress, BJP and left parties to push for passing the Women’s Reservation Bill in its present draft.

This will enable seats to be occupied by women mostly from the existing ruling class, as there will be no mechanism to ensure that the subaltern groups, namely the poorer and lower caste OBCs and Muslims will get their due.

The suspicion is further strengthened by the fact that the excuse of systemic constraints are conveniently used to explain why the bill has to be passed at this point rather than wait for the required data to be collected, as the law minister stated. There are data-collection centres countrywide that can be pressed into service. States have their own statistical units. There are several national research institutes and university departments that can take up the work.

In any case, states have their own lists of backward castes, SCs and STs, based on local situations.  The 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments provide for states to formulate their own rules with regard to representation of the backward communities at the local levels. In Karnataka, the rules provide for reservation within the women’s reservation for BC women.

Interestingly, in Karnataka Muslim and dalit converts to Christianity also get access to some reservations as they have been covered under the BC(A) category, perhaps an example that the centre and other states can emulate.

Thus if there is a real commitment to political empowerment of the growing numbers of the marginalised, it is certainly possible for states to make their own preliminary surveys in a shorter time. For instance, Karnataka’s Backward Classes Commission has been on the brink of undertaking just such a survey for the last several years. The ongoing political turmoil — and fears of having to redraw political equations — has been the only hindrance to its start.

Thus the timing of the bill raises suspicion of its intent, coming as it does on the heels of the recent developments as large sections of the marginalised and oppressed – OBCs, dalits and minorities – are coming together to challenge the hegemony of the brahmanical upper caste-class interests, which are a numerical minority in the country.

It is justifiably feared that these interests are indeed trying to protect their control by bringing in women from their own ranks to fill the reserved spaces, thus achieving four ends at once: ensuring the hold of the upper castes and classes on power;  earning praise and brownie points for ‘gender justice’ in the international community; correspondingly weakening the hold of subaltern men and further, keeping subaltern women subjugated and excluding them from power and influence.

To explain more clearly, mainstream women’s groups have for long decried the demand for ‘quota within quota’ as a patriarchal strategy meant to divide the unity of women.  But it is these same groups which also tend to appropriate the voice, spaces and take on the representation of women in India, but fail to take effective and speedy action when women from the minority, dalit, and tribal sections continue to face blatant violations of their human and citizenship rights.

Therefore the women from the subaltern groups now say that while they are in solidarity with the feminist groups on the issue of patriarchy, they want to articulate their own issues and organise under their own leadership, because the mainstream feminists have for long given step-motherly treatment to their issues.

Feminists spend most of their energy and resources organising vigorously on issues like legal reform for domestic violence, property rights, workplace rights, sexual rights, reproductive technologies etc,  which are typically urban middleclass,  and which are not the priority issues of subaltern women.

For their part, the legal and policy establishment also respond positively to their struggles, and thus we are witness to many ‘progressive’ legislations and policies which give the impression that our traditional norms and taboos are now being breached. For instance, equal rights to property for Hindu women, the domestic violence bill, the sexual harassment at the workplace legislation etc, are all also applicable to urban upper caste women in the propertied and organised sections of society.

But the system is not as responsive to issues such as caste discrimination and violence, low wages, systemically-engineered poverty, denial of livelihood and opportunity for progress and exclusion from political representation, which continue to dog the lives of  women from the poor and subaltern classes.

Further, most mainstream women’s groups are conspicuous by their silence or at best make slow and very lukewarm and muted responses in the case of caste atrocities like rape perpetrated on dalit women such as the Khairlanji issue, of the denial of the rights of tribal women to land and forest rights, displacement, starvation deaths of children and the aged in tribal regions.

Thus, the mainstream women’s groups, while challenging patriarchal norms at one level, are actually reinforcing the hold of Brahmanical caste-class interests at a much deeper level in this process.

There are few champions among elite activists for issues such as the poor quality of primary education, health and a non-existent public distribution system, transport, and drinking water shortages. Underemployment and unemployment continue to dog the lives of poor, rural subaltern women as they have for generations.

Subaltern women will no longer accept being co-opted as in the past. They are now aware that leaders from the backward classes such as Uma Bharathi and Bangaru Lakshman are given short shrift in the BJP; that the left, for all its rhetoric on patriarchy and class does not have even one genuine subaltern woman as spokesperson; that the only dalits who are in positions of power in the Congress are actually from wealthy and politically powerful families.

The National Federation of Dalit Women in their list of political demands in their Charter of Demands released on June 26, 2009, asked for “33% to 50% allocation of seats at all levels of decision-making bodies, from gram panchayat/nagar panchayat to the Lok Sabha, cabinet, with priority to women, SCs, STs, OBCs, urban poor and minorities and 33 % to 50% seats in political parties to women.”

Dalit-bahujan activists with Insight Young Voices, an e-magazine focusing on issues of the ‘reserved candidates’  in higher education, says: “We are working on our own demands to be included in the Women’s Reservation Bill and are opposed to the present draft of the Bill, and we hope to frame our own response shortly.”

Thus subaltern women, though their voices or opinions may not be heard in the mainstream media, are now aware of who their real allies are, and who works against their interests. They too are applying thought and using available spaces to get their voices heard, and join their voices to those of our OBC sisters and say, “We want our due, give us our quota within quota!

On the birth anniversaries of Baba Saheb Ambedkar (14th April) and  Jotiba Phule (11th April)

अब तू खड़ा हो और अपनी ताक़त को पहचान ले !
हर कीमत पे तू ये बाज़ी जीतने की ठान ले !!

कई तेरे बहन भाई अँधेरा ढो रहे अभी !
उनकी मुश्किलों अपनी ही मुश्किल तू जान ले !!

तेरे वो सब ‘युग पुरुष’ कह गए कुछ तेरे वास्ते !
संघर्ष उनके, उनकी कही बातों से तू काम ले !!

चल उठ बनायें कारवां अब हम अपनी हिम्मत का !
अब साथ साथ चलने की, जुबान दे जुबान ले !!