[ZESTCaste] News: Couple booked for torturing Dalit girl (with my personal story)
Dear donors and friends, Every day I read many heart drenching stories of this type. But, I do not forward them or comment on them. Some of them touches my personal life. This story is one of such. My mother (who passed away 20 years ago) was the most generous and kindhearted human I have personally experienced in my life. Though she was poor, she never hesitates to help anyone in need. I have so many pleasurable memories of her kidness towards others. They make me feel good when I remember them. Whatever the little good I have in me, I proudly proclaim, it came from my mom Vazramma (Vazram means dimond in Telugu), very suitable name to her character. The story I am telling is a different kind that we read in this news item. The story goes this way: When I was a child, my family owned a couple of she-buffalos for milk. As both my parents (still they used to do lot of work) were elementary school teachers and we were too small, we need someone to help with the buffalos. My father was well-known for his honesty in our villages and so he was a well respected man among all villagers. Knowing my father’s intentions, a boy’s (Sambiaha who is little older than me) father approached my father to offer his sons services. Sambaiah’s father was a Madiga (sub-caste among Andhra Dalits) whereas we are Mala. He was an entertainer by profession whose earnings cannot feed his family of several children. They live in the fields guarding them for a small fee. Sambaiah had a sturdy boy, but short. He joined our family as one of the members and he used to called my parents Amma, and Nanna (per my parent’s instructions) and us (my siblings and me) brothers. I sometimes think now, that was a child labor and my parents wouldn’t have done it. But, it happened. I remember him always tired and my heart cries when I think of him now. I would be more proud of my parents had they educated him instead. One day, while grazing the buffalos, he tied a small calf’s leash to his wrist. There was a truck horn and the calf frightened. Now, imagine what happened. The calf started running in the field. It was summer. The field was full of ups and downs, parched with big openings in the land. By the time, someone noticed, it dragged him for so many furlongs. Someone caught the animal and by that time Sambaiah’s body was full of blood. It was a holiday for me and I remember watching the scene which I can’t imagine without feeling pain in my heart. My parents rushed to his aid and his father was informed. His father wanted to take him his home and treat him there. But, my mother did not allow it and she nursed him sitting by his bedside (day and night) till he became perfectly normal. I could imagine my mother’s devotion to him when he was in bed. In later years, I went to college and he got married and had his own children. But, whenever he knew that I am at home, he would pay us a visit with headload of various fruits (especially Tati munjalu or Palmyra fruits, I was very fond of). After I came to US, I started enquiry about his whereabouts sending my people in search of him. I want to do something for him. To my sadness, my relatives informed me that he passed away several years ago due to some illness and his family was not traceable as they live in the fields. I do not know how much effort they put. How sad my heart felt! I wanted to help atleast his children. I am still in search of his family. If I visit India (I do not know when), that was one of my first priorities. In Sambaiah’s story, I would have much appreciated my parents, had they gave him education, even though they employed him. But, that did not happen and I feel sorry for that. When I read this story of cruelty, I remember the story of sympathy and compassion. I do not know why people behave to cause harm to innocent and hapless children despite robbing their precious lives. They could be little kind to them as they are under their care. I am sure there are millions of children suffer just because of their helpless conditions of their families. Who save them? When this ends? There are many organizations floating around and number of laws to protect them. Despite all this the people who do such heinous crimes get away very lightly, in this case they got the bail immediately. No answers except making heart heavy to breath. Thanks for patiently hearing my story. With regards Ben Kaila http://www.thaindia n.com/newsportal /uncategorized/ couple-booked- for-torturing- dalit-girl_ 100254365. html Couple booked for torturing Dalit girl September 30th, 2009 - 9:46 pm ICT by IANS - Lucknow, Sep 30 (IANS) A woman was arrested Wednesday and a search was on for her husband after they allegedly held a six-year-old Dalit girl hostage for the past six months and tortured her, police said. The matter came to light Sunday when police raided their home on a complaint by the girl’s mother and rescued her.
[ZESTCaste] Announcement: FFEI lost a good friend Mr Maharaj Kaul
Mr Maharaj Kaul passed away Dear donors and friends, With a heavy heart I inform you all that our good friend Mr Maharaj Kaul passed away on September 30th 2009 with gall blader cancer in Fremont, California. He is just 68. Good people are favorite to God, it seems. I knew him just for 2 years and we became so close. He is one of the most generous persons I have ever known. He did a lot for our organization in these two years. I have been trying to talk to him for the past 6 months. Generally, he would respond immediately if he could not take my call for some reason. But, recently, whenever I call, a lady was answering and giving me some excuse – he is in the bathroom, he is sleeping etc, which I never heard before. But I never got a call back from him. Today when I again called him, his sister answered and told me the news. He instructed them not to tell anyone about his illness. He was suffering from it for months now. He once told me something like this, I am a Kashmiri Brahmin. Still, I know the pain Dalits face for centuries in India due to religion and caste. I couldn’t control my grief. I wept. In fact we were thinking of meeting someday either in my place or his place. Do you know what he was doing from his death bed? He was rushing me to complete formalities to get matching contribution from his employer (GE) for FFEI. According to his communication, he made FFEI receive a certain amount every year from GE as matching contribution in addition to his own. I was not clear about it and I would like to talk to him, but he never gave me a chance to talk. That means, he is corresponding with me from his deathbed, without letting me know his illness. I am devastated. I have very few friends in my life, but losing a friend I like (though I never met him) is like losing my family member. May his kind soul rest in peace! Life is short. There is only one way to come to this world, but many ways to go out of this wretched world. His memorial ceremony will be held in a week’s time, I was told. If anyone wants information, please let me know. I will pass the information I have as I have relatives contacts. With a unbearable heavy heart, I pray “ MAY HIS SOUL REST IN PEACE!” Benjamin Paul Kaila -- An educated man without character and humility was more dangerous than a beast. If his education was detrimental to the welfare of poor, he was a curse to society. -Babasaheb Dr B R Ambedkar Please visit www.friendsforeducation.org or www.ambedkarscholarship.org
[ZESTCaste] SC to examine legality of Mayawati's 2600 crore statue project
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/SC-to-examine-legality-of-Mayawatis-2600-crore-statue-project/524787/ SC to examine legality of Mayawati's 2600 crore statue project Agencies Posted: Oct 04, 2009 at 1114 hrs new delhi The Mayawati Government's decision to spend a whopping Rs 2,600 crore public money for constructing memorials of BSP founder Kanshiram and other Dalit leaders in Lucknow city would come up for scrutiny before a special Bench of the Supreme Court tomorrow. The Bench of Justices B N Agrawal and Aftab Alam had on September 18 firmly told the state that it would examine the Constitutional validity of the massive project and had expressed dissatisfaction over the claim of the state that it had put on hold the project until restraint order passed by the Bench was vacated. In a blunt message to the UP government, the court had indicated that it would examine whether the state government can spend huge public money for constructing statues of and memorials for political leaders. We have to examine whether you can spend so much from the public money. Serious questions arise in this petition, the Bench said adding the cabinet and the legislature have to act under the Constitution. The apex court had also expressed dissatisfaction at the affidavit filed by the state which denied that construction activities were in full swing at the project site despite the country's highest court's stay imposed on further construction on an application filed by some persons and an NGO.
[ZESTCaste] Maya clips powers of Man Friday
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/64779/LATEST%20NEWS/Maya+clips+powers+of+Man+Friday.html Maya clips powers of Man Friday Kay Benedict New Delhi, October 4, 2009 Once the Man Friday of Mayawati, Satish Chandra Mishra has now been virtually dumped by the Uttar Pradesh chief minister and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo. He has been divested of all high-profile political responsibilities and instead told to concentrate on her legal battles. The latest instance of humiliation is that he was not accommodated in any of the Parliament standing committees. Mishra was the member of several Parliament panels, including home, petroleum, MP Local Area Development Scheme and external affairs, in the 14th Lok Sabha. This time, he was reportedly keen to head the committee on industries, but Mayawati nominated party MP Akilesh Dasgupta for the post. Dasgupta, the son of former UP chief minister Banarasi Dasgupta, defected to the BSP from the Congress last year. Sources said though Mishra is the BSP's seniormost parliamentary party leader, he was not taken into confidence while deciding the party's nominees for various House panels. Brajesh Pathak, a young aggressive Brahmin MP, has been inducted into the committee on home affairs. Party MP Jai Prakash has been made a member of the committee on commerce while Veer Singh is a member of the committee on SC/ST welfare. Vijay Bahadur Singh and Shriram Pal are members of the committees on law and justice and IT respectively. Mystery shrouds Mishra's sudden decline in the party. Party sources said only behenji would be able to answer why the BSP's national general secretary has been completely sidelined of late. There is even speculation that a peeved Mishra may join the Congress. Sources said Mayawati was not happy with the way Mishra, who is her defence counsel, has been handling her cases - the Rs 50-crore disproportionate assets case, Rs 175-crore Taj Heritage Corridor case and the cases relating to her memorials and statues. That could be the reason why Mishra has fallen out of favour with the BSP chief. His troubles could multiply if he fails to deliver goods on the legal front, sources indicated. The talk in the Lucknow power corridors is that high-profile bureaucrat Navneet Sehgal, who is secretary to the chief minister and chairman of the Uttar Pradesh Power Development Corporation, has replaced Mishra as Mayawati's comrade-in-arms. Mayawati had earlier cited Mishra's illness on account of a slipped disc and his pre-occupation with her legal matters as reasons for his political marginalisation. But signs of tension between them were visible after the BSP's dismal performance in the Lok Sabha elections in May. Former advocate general of UP and Rajya Sabha member, Mishra was the chief architect of the BSP's social engineering of bringing Brahmins and Dalits together. He was instrumental in bringing Brahmins to the BSP fold, which gave the party a stunning victory in the assembly elections. But the formula didn't click in the Lok Sabha polls. Stung by her party's poor show and amid criticism that she was ignoring her core Dalit constituency, Mayawati has since scaled down her love for sarvajan samaj. With Mishra out of the frame, she has herself taken up the responsibility of consolidating the party's upper caste support base. In a recent interaction with the media in Lucknow, she said Mishra would only assist her in garnering upper caste support and will restrict himself to legal matters. His new role was announced by Mayawati after a long meeting of BSP MPs, MLAs, MLCs and ministers at the party headquarters.
[ZESTCaste] 2-Yr-Old Land Rights Struggle by Dalits in Kerala Settled
http://news.outlookindia.com/item.aspx?667234 2-Yr-Old Land Rights Struggle by Dalits in Kerala Settled Thiruvananthapuram | Oct 05, 2009 A two-year-old land rights struggle by dalits and other depressed sections in Kerala ended today with the state government offering land and houses to 1,432 families. The stir at Chengara in Pathanamthitta district was settled during a talk between Chief Minister V S Achuthanandan and other state ministers with leaders of Sadhujana Vimochana Munnani outfit, which spearheaded the movement that saw over 1,000 families pitching camp in the Chengara estate since August 2007. While calling off the agitation, SVM leader Laha Gopalan said they were accepting the settlement formula with a strong dissenting note against the government's discriminatory attitude towards the scheduled tribe people. After the meeting, Achuthanandan said under the package, each landless scheduled tribe family would be given one acre of land and a house built at a cost of Rs 1.25 lakh, while each scheduled caste family would be provided half acre of land and a house built at a cost of Rs one lakh. Other sections would be given 25 cents of land and house at Rs 75,000. The Chengara stir began in August 2007 with over 1,000 families, including women and children, encroaching a private estate and pitching camps demanding one acre of land for each family. According to SVM leaders, the private estate was in possession of land far in excess than what had been originally leased to them by the government long back. Initially, the agitation received support from some human rights outfits and Naxalite groups with mainstream parties and government ignoring it. But as it dragged on, almost all parties started supporting it and demanded that the government step in and settle the issue. Ever since the stir started, Chengara had often witnessed dramatic scenes with protesters threatening to commit suicide by climbing on trees with rope or to set themselves ablaze by dousing with kerosene whenever the police sought to crackdown on them.
[ZESTCaste] Congress's 'dinner-with-dalits' has oppn fuming
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/city/lucknow/Congresss-dinner-with-dalits-has-oppn-fuming/articleshow/5085272.cms Congress's 'dinner-with-dalits' has oppn fuming TNN 4 October 2009, 06:45am IST LUCKNOW: UP Congress party put up an entertaining show on Gandhi Jayanti by wearing its dalit love practically on sleeves. In a bid to emulate Rahul Gandhi and under the instruction by highly inspired UPCC president Rita Bahuguna Joshi, all senior leaders spent the day and night as well, in dalit bastis all over the state as per their assigned jurisdiction. And even as elaborately written press notes followed the event with graphic details of the enthusiastic participation, the exercise has led to much derision among rival political parties. Taking a pot-shot at the super natak'', former cabinet minister and SP leader Ambika Chaudhary said the occasion provided Congress leaders with a photo opportunity but little beyond it''. Those whose poor governance landed the dalits in soup, cannot be absolved of their culpability by staging a day show, he said. Ridiculing the local leaders, Chaudhary said most of them did not even touch the food served in the bastees, some just kept fiddling with a piece of papad in the plate and left it after the much publicised community bhoj got over, while some were looking so uncomfortable as though they were being made to swallow a dose of bitter medicine''. We would have appreciated the spirit to serve but here the only motivating factor is the desire to have ones face peering out of the morning news paper or television screen, he added. Their appearance, he said, must have done nothing apart from scaring the dalits who would now be scared of guarding their meagre belongings from pilferage by the army of khadi-clad invaders''. BJP MP Lalji Tandon slammed Congress for going in for a diversionary tactic'' by staging the nautanki'' when the times were grim and sombre. Everything seems to be going wrong under the Congress rule, he said citing nexalite attacks, inflation or rising tension at the border. Instead of taking any sincere measures to remedy the situation, all Congressmen are interested in is duping masses by meaningless symbolic gestures, he alleged. Will spending a night in a dalit's home rid him of poverty or other problems, he asked. The action is typical of the Congress party which has always fought shy of going in for long term measures to salvage any grim situation, he said.
[ZESTCaste] No babudom here: Maya wants MBAs to manage her memorials
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_no-babudom-here-maya-wants-mbas-to-manage-her-memorials_1295083 No babudom here: Maya wants MBAs to manage her memorials Deepak Gidwani / DNAMonday, October 5, 2009 2:00 IST Lucknow: Four-time chief minister Mayawati perhaps knows too well how the government machinery functions. So, she has decided not to entrust the management of her 'dream projects' to ham-handed sarkari babus. Under her new corporate style of functioning, she now wants MBAs to look after the statues, parks and memorials costing hundreds of crores of rupees. In keeping with Madam's wishes, the Lucknow Development Authority (LDA) interviewed candidates on Sunday for the posts of manager and assistant manager who would oversee administration of the Dr Ambedkar Memorial, the Kanshi Ram Memorial and the Buddha Smriti Vihar Upvan in the Uttar Pradesh (UP) capital. LDA secretary Mani Prasad Mishra told DNA that the posts were advertised some time ago. The immediate requirement is for two managers and four assistant managers to look after the three projects in Lucknow, he said. If the experiment succeeds, the arrangement would be implemented at other sites, too. The managers would get a monthly salary of about Rs25,000, while the assistant managers would get Rs20,000. However, Mayawati's corporate invite failed to draw any decent applicants before the interview panel headed by LDA vice-chairman Mukesh Meshram on Sunday. None of the candidates was up to the mark... we will have to advertise again, Mishra said. Perhaps asking for MBAs with five years experience was too much ... we will have to review the criterion, he said. Interestingly, the memorials and statues, including Mayawati's own, are being guarded by policemen. This has been done because of the fear that Samajwadi Party (SP) workers could try to damage them. Under the new LDA plan, a society would be formed for the administration of the memorials, sources said. It would manage revenue collection from sale of entry tickets and parking, and pay the managers' salaries from this kitty itself. The society would also be accountable for use of government funds for maintenance and repair of the memorials. There are nine such memorials in Lucknow estimated to cost about Rs2,700 crore. The biggest among them is the Ambedkar Park built at a cost of Rs2,000 crore. LDA officials say Mayawati is extremely sensitive about the upkeep of the memorials. Pink stone from Mirzapur in UP, chosen by her, is being used in all these buildings. All statues have been covered with canopies... Madam wants the memorials to last more than 500 years, so that people remember her and other Dalit leaders, said an official. Now, it's up to her well-qualified managers to make sure her dream comes true.
[ZESTCaste] Sen and the art of justice (Kancha Ilaiah)
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/op-ed/sen-and-art-justice-241 Sen and the art of justice October 4th, 2009 By Kancha Ilaiah It is well known that Amartya Sen is the greatest economist that India has ever produced. His credentials were well established even before he got the Nobel Prize. With his latest book — The Idea of Justice — he has also established himself as a world-class moral philosopher who could come up with great abstractions and generalisations that no other Indian thinker could achieve earlier. The Indian academia, so far, has not produced any thinker who could write a political philosophical book that the global universities could use as text that throws light on new modes of thinking. But Sen’s new book has the potential to be used across the world as a major political philosophy work after that of John Rawls’ The Theory of Justice. Sen’s The Idea of Justice is written as a positive critique of already existing general theories of justice, especially Rawls’ The Theory of Justice. The theory of justice emerged as part of the European social contractualism and institutionalism. The first school, starting with Thomas Hobbes, produced thinkers such as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Immanuel Kant. According to Sen, these thinkers produced a theory of justice by adopting “the contractarian approach”. John Rawls too proceeded in that approach. In contrast to this approach, Adam Smith, Condorcet, Wollstonecraft, Jeremy Bentham, Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill adopted a comparative reasoning approach to reduce injustices in the lives of people. Sen too proceeds on the lines of this second school to contest several main arguments of John Rawls. If one looks at justice from the point of the second school, unlike the theoretical formulations of John Rawls’ notion of justice (which sees justice as fairness), the scope of removal of all forms of exploitation increases. The second major way Sen expands the theory of justice is by examining the non-Euro-American theoretical formulations — particularly drawing arguments about justice that evolved in India and other Asian countries. He, thus, has made a whole discourse on justice that could appeal to the global readership. Sen’s achievement shows that it was not just colonialism that was responsible for the lack of growth of philosophy in contemporary India, but also the lack of evolution of writers of great quality of abstraction. That was one reason why political thought in India and in other Asian countries remained poor. The Euro-American centered view, in many theoretical discourses, was confined to their own societal experiences and arguments, of course with very able generalisations. But what Western thinkers missed out were the experiences and arguments that evolved in other ancient, medieval and modern societies. The main problem of the Asian societies, however, was that they have had very ancient, even medieval and modern institutional structures that dealt with justice but did not produce moral and social thinkers who could mould their experiences and arguments into a theory that could appeal to the global readership. Sen, fortunately, acquired a quality of theoretical mind that could generalise the Indian experiences and arguments. In his book The Idea of Justice, he draws on the ideas and arguments of many Indian thinkers — particularly those of Buddha, Ashoka and Akbar, and weaves them into a larger theoretical discourse on social justice. In terms of ideas he tries to use two Sanskrit (now they exist in many regional languages) moral justice concepts, niti and nyaya, as two distinct concepts that delivered justice in different modes. He says, “The former idea of niti relates to organisational propriety as well as behavioural correctness, whereas the latter, nyaya, is concerned with what emerges and how, and in particular the lives that people are actually able to lead”. Along with these two concepts, Sen should have also probed into the Buddhist concept of Dhamma which has much deeper basis for positive justice than nyaya. The Sanskritic concept of nyaya was never free from caste bias while delivering justice to people, whereas the notion of Dhamma repeatedly demands justice — social, economic, spiritual and political — equally being made available to everyone, irrespective of one’s birth in any caste. Buddha raises the moral basis of justice more categorically than what Plato (based on Socrates’ arguments) did in Republic. Somehow Sen missed out on that score, may be because he did not look at recent literature on the Buddhist notion of Dhamma. However, Sen draws a good example from Buddha’s teachings that justice based on love (Dhamma always invokes justice based on love and compassion and not merely based on compulsion) between mother and child is far superior and long lasting, than the justice that gets expressed between two individuals based on a contract. The just and human relationship between the mother and child (till the
[ZESTCaste] Cong swallows odds to love Dalits in Rahul's UP
http://in.news.yahoo.com/32/20091005/1053/tnl-cong-swallows-odds-to-love-dalits-in.html Cong swallows odds to love Dalits in Rahul's UP Hindustan Times Mon, Oct 5 12:10 PM Lucknow, Oct. 4 -- One Congress MP was videotaped gorging on chicken legs with curry dribbling over his hands. Another made sure a generator ran a light and fans while he slept on a hired foam mattress. One cooked for herself in a Dalit's house, but most hired cooks for their meals and ate in disposable plates and bowls instead of the worn, steel plates at Dalit homes. And then there was the MP who did not even follow Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi's suggestion of staying with India's lowest castes -he left before night could fall. MPs and state assembly members of India's largest state are trying and failing to do what their leader is doing: Eating, drinking and sleeping with Dalits in a state where Gandhi has begun a grassroots effort to make Uttar Pradesh Congress territory again - Mission UP 2012. It's been 20 years since a Congress government ruled UP, and after being wiped out since, the young Gandhi led a minor revival in the last Lok Sabha elections where the party won 21 of 80 seats. It was Kanpur MP and Union Minister of State (independent charges), Ministry of Coal, Statistics and Programme Implementation, Shriprakash Jaiswal who hired the foam bed and fans in Kanpur's Garib Chowki Dalit basti (slum). He also carried his own water. What Congressmen are succeeding at is this: Giving speeches. When reporters intercepted Bahraich MP Kamal Kishore soon after his chicken feast (hosted by a former MLA) on what happened to his 'Dalit agenda' he said: Abhi Dalit chaupal lagegi (I am just about to hold a Dalit town-square meeting)'. He did not even stay overnight in Rasoolpur village, part of his constituency. Why is staying in Dalit homes so difficult? You would not be able to eat what we ate, former Indian cricket team captain and Moradabad MP Mohammed Azharuddin reportedly told newspersons in Rae Bareilly on Saturday. He spent the previous evening and night in a village in Moradabad and ate on a makeshift dining table arranged for him. No Dalit shared the table while Azharuddin ate from his disposable plate. Anu Tandon too ate in a disposable plate, but at least she made her own food in the village of Brajlalpur is her constituency of Unnao. Nirmal Khatri from Faizabad put in no such effort: He ate food made by a hired cook in the Firozpur Dalit slum. Union Minister of State for Petroleum Jitin Prasada, Congress Legislative Party leader Pramod Tiwari and state party chief Rita Bahuguna Joshi did better than the others. Prasada ate the khichri bhoj (rice-gruel feast) at a Dalit house in Devleriya village in Lakhimpur Khiri. UP Congress Committee spokesman Subodh Srivastava defended his flock's failed attempts to live among the Dalits. How do we expect a poor Dalit household to feed 15-20 people when most of them do not have arrangements for two square meals for themselves? he asked. That is why arrangements were made for food, but people ate with Dalits only and shared the food. For instance, said Srivastava, the house that Joshi visited was abysmally poor. So she took raw material from her home, but the food was cooked at the Dalit's house only and she ate with them, he said. Srivastava said that never before had Congressmen and women spent a day with Dalits in almost every block of UP on the same day.
[ZESTCaste] Moving on Rahul’s footprints, Cong leaders lose tr ack in Dalit lanes of UP
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/moving-on-rahuls-footprints-cong-leaders-lose-track-in-dalit-lanes-of-up/525010/ Moving on Rahul’s footprints, Cong leaders lose track in Dalit lanes of UP Maulshree-Seth Posted: Oct 05, 2009 at 0138 hrs Lucknow They wanted to follow their leader and tread the footprints he had left behind while walking through the muddy lanes of Dalit bastis. On October 2, however, when Congressmen wanted to do a Rahul Gandhi, the ‘event’ left an impact not remotely close what their charismatic leader had affected. A postmortem reveals the difference in manner and method employed by the ‘leader’ and his followers. * Rahul’s visit to a Dalit home or community invariably takes everyone by surprise. Not just the media, even local Congress leaders are rarely in the know of his whereabouts. This, Rahul says helps villagers talk to him without interference. The visits of other Congress leaders, however, turned out to be a media frenzy with cameras recording every action of these leaders — be it Sriprakash Jaiswal, Azharuddin, Jitin Prasada, Annu Tandon or Pramod Tiwari. * Details like house number and villages that the leaders were to visit were announced in advance. Consequently, partymen arrived in early to make arrangements for their leaders. Mosquito nets were put in place for Pramod Tiwari in Pratapgarh, mattress, fan and generator put up for Sriprakash Jaiswal while thermocol and plastic plates were brought along by Annu Tandon. Also, people were made to wait for Kamal Kishore “Commando” in Bahraich, while he was eating dinner elsewhere. A senior party leaders from Bahraich said: “Villagers were told beforehand that MPji will not be eating with them as his dinner was scheduled elsewhere.” * In contrast to Rahul’s “no-frills” visits, the stay of Congress leaders at Raidas Mandir in Lucknow saw carpets laid, temporary lights installed and banners set up. Incidentally, there were more Congressmen than Dalits sleeping on these carpets. On this, S K Shukla, president of the city Congress Committee, said: “Since there were around 60 Congress workers who wanted to spend the night with Dalits, we had to make such arrangements. Instead of sleeping at their place, we called them over (Dalits) to spend the night with us near Raidas Mandir. We were with them till 5 am.” * Unlike Rahul Gandhi, who prefers interacting with villagers alone or at most with two colleagues, Congress leaders landed with hordes of supporters, which negated all chances of any meaningful interaction with villagers. While Rita Bahuguna Joshi limited her company to just eight or nine, others, including Azharuddin, Annu Tandon, Jitin Prasada, Sriprakash Jaiswal, had large crowds following them. During each of his visits, Rahul Gandhi makes it a point to speak to the women, listening to their problems. “It was a mad rush. With all the cameras pointing towards the leader, do you think the women would have come forward to discuss their problems?” said a Congress worker from Moradabad, where Azharuddin had spent a part of the night. * Rahul prefers to eat whatever is cooked by the Dalit family he visits. On October 2, the large number of supporters accompanying party leaders made it difficult for the Dalit families to prepare meals for all of them. Consequently, Congressmen brought along rations, cooks and utensils for the community feast. INFORMATION OVERLOAD? Get all ZESTCaste mails sent out in a span of 24 hours in a single mail. Subscribe to the daily digest version by sending a blank mail to zestmedia-dig...@yahoogroups.com, OR, if you have a Yahoo! Id, change your settings at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/join/ PARTICIPATE:- On this list you can share caste news, discuss caste issues and network with like-minded anti-caste people from across India and the world. Just write to zestcaste@yahoogroups.com TELL FRIENDS TO SIGN UP:- If you got this mail as a forward, subscribe to ZESTCaste by sending a blank mail to zestcaste-subscr...@yahoogroups.com OR, if you have a Yahoo! ID, by visiting http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join/ Also have a look at our sister list, ZESTMedia: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTMedia/Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/ * Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional * To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/join (Yahoo! ID required) * To change settings via email: mailto:zestcaste-dig...@yahoogroups.com mailto:zestcaste-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: zestcaste-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Re: [ZESTCaste] Rahul inspires Congress sleepovers at Dalit homes
For the last over 62 years the Congress and the other ruling castes at the Centre created huts and now for the sake of votes they doing dramas by going and staying in the untouchable community huts, instead of taking them to their posh bungalows and making them to stay thyere and feed them. Even to this day untouchability is being practice in cities where girls are studying in convents and colleges.The mother of a brahmin girl asks her daughter not to allow her Scheduled Caste girl friend in side their house. Can anybody stop such things? Only solution is to throw these elements out of power and replace them with BSP and follow Dhamma for the real peace, welfare and happiness of all communities. MAY YOU BE EVER HAPPY, WELL AND SECURE MAY YOU LIVE LONG MAY ALL SENTIENT AND NON-SENTIENT BEINGS BE EVER HAPPY MAY YOU BE ALWAYS HAVE CALM, QUIET, ALERT,ATTENTIVE AND EQUANIMITY MIND WITH A CLEAR UNDERSTANDING THAT NOTHING IS PERMANENT Subject: [ZESTCaste] Rahul inspires Congress sleepovers at Dalit homes To: zestcaste zestcaste@yahoogroups.com Date: Friday, 2 October, 2009, 5:36 PM http://www.ndtv. com/news/ india/rahul_ inspires_ congress_ sleepovers_ at_dalit_ homes.php Rahul inspires Congress sleepovers at Dalit homes
