*NATIONAL CAMPAIGN ON DALIT HUMAN RIGHTS is an Advocacy Platform committed for Dalit Human Rights at the Grass root, National and International levels. Dalits In News aims at sensitizing Civil societies, HR Mechanisms and providing updates of HR violations on Dalits for their Intervention.***
*NATIONAL CAMPAIGN ON DALIT HUMAN RIGHTS* *NCDHR* *Dalits In News* *May 18, 2007* *Dalit hunger strike bid near CM house foiled-** **The Pioneer** * http://www.indiapress.org/gen/news.php/The_Pioneer/400x60/0** PM endorses Maya plea at SC/ST meet-* The Hindustan Times* http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=5ab537bd-2910-42e2-8e49-352ff134ec29&MatchID1=4464&TeamID1=10&TeamID2=6&MatchType1=1&SeriesID1=1109&MatchID2=4466&TeamID3=2&TeamID4=4&MatchType2=1&SeriesID2=1110&PrimaryID=4464&Headline=PM+endorses+Maya+plea+at+SC%2fST+meet *SC students in Punjab to get direct fee concession-* The Pioneer * http://www.indiapress.org/gen/news.php/The_Pioneer/400x60/0* ** *Dalit Woman Stages a Political Revolution-** IPSN News** *http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37782 * * * * *The Pioneer* *Dalit hunger strike bid near CM house foiled* http://www.indiapress.org/gen/news.php/The_Pioneer/400x60/0 Omer Farooq | Hyderabad The police on Thursday foiled the attempt of firebrand Dalit leader Manda Krishna Madiga to sit on an indefinite hunger strike near the residence of Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy in the busy Begumpet area on Thursday. He was taken into custody and shifted to the Gandhi hospital in Hyderabad. Manda Krishna, leader of Madiga Reservation Porata Samiti, is leading a prolonged agitation for the categorisation of scheduled castes to ensure the predominant Madiga sub castes gets the maximum share in reservation quota. In view of the threat of Manda Krishna along with hundreds of his supporters sitting on indefinite fast near Chief Minister Rajasekhara Reddy's residence and the threat of rival Mala Mahanadu group to stage a protest had created tension in the area. A large posse of armed policemen was deployed on all the roads leading towards the Chief Minister's residence. As a precautionary move, the police raided the office of MRPS and took Krishna into custody. The police, however, faced resistance from hundreds of his supporters who were opposing his arrest. Manda Krishna, however, asked his supporters to continue the fight in a democratic manner. The Chief Minister had appealed to MRPS to withdraw the agitation as he was making all possible efforts to find a solution to the problem. *The Hindustan Times* *PM endorses Maya plea at SC/ST meet*** http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=5ab537bd-2910-42e2-8e49-352ff134ec29&MatchID1=4464&TeamID1=10&TeamID2=6&MatchType1=1&SeriesID1=1109&MatchID2=4466&TeamID3=2&TeamID4=4&MatchType2=1&SeriesID2=1110&PrimaryID=4464&Headline=PM+endorses+Maya+plea+at+SC%2fST+meet New Delhi, May 18, 2007. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has endorsed BSP supreme Mayawati's call for "affirmative action" to economically weaker sections among forward communities. If there are ideas about problems faced by children from sections other than backward communities, these should be taken on board, Singh said while inaugurating a two-day conference titled "Empowerment of SCs, STs and minorities through elementary education". Speaking earlier, leader of the Opposition LK Advani had also expressed support for the idea. "I am what I am because of education", the Prime Minister said - emphasising on the importance of quality education. "I would not have been what I am today and could not have done what I have been able to do in my life, but for the light of education that my family lit for me", he elaborated. The Prime Minister expressed serious criticism of the public schooling system in the country. "The perception is that the quality gap between public schools and private schools has widened significantly over the past few decades and greater effort is required to bridge this gap. Education must not become the preserve of the privileged classes," he said. The policy of reservation in public educational institutions has helped enrolment for higher studies, he said - while adding that the move had also facilitated entry into jobs for Dalits. The process generates a social mobility that has a wider impact on the development process, he said. New pathways have to be found to realise the goal of educating all children, Singh said - while reiterating the UPA Government's commitment to empower dalits, tribals, minorities and women. Stating that Muslims were lagging behind educationally, the Prime Minister said that the UPA Government would devise focused plans for bringing economically and educationally backward areas (with large representation of minorities) at par with the rest of the country. He said his government was committed to upgrading technical skills of Dalits and minorities in order to enable them to secure access to credit and gain employment. The Conference - jointly organised by the All India Forum of Legislators and the Ministry of Human Resources Development -was attended by a host of senior politicians including former Prime Minister IK Gujral, Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde and Meghalaya Chief Minister DD Lapang. Lok Sabha deputy speaker Charnjit Singh Atwal - chief guest at the conference- said in his speech that a good primary school was the foundation of a strong nation. "A nation that ignores this basic reality can never rise to greatness", he asserted. *The Pioneer* * * *SC students in Punjab to get direct fee concession* * * *http://www.indiapress.org/gen/news.php/The_Pioneer/400x60/0* Pioneer News Service | Chandigarh The Punjab Government on Thursday decided that Scheduled Castes students eligible for Post-Matric Scholarships would not have to pay their fees, as the present system of up-front payment and subsequent reimbursement would be dispensed with. Now the concerned colleges after admitting eligible students would seek reimbursement of fee and scholarship from the Punjab Government, after completing the process of admission. The decision would benefit 62000 students belonging to Scheduled Castes. A decision to this effect was taken in a high level meeting chaired by State Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. Currently Scheduled Caste students whose family income was below Rs One lakh per annum were eligible to get Post-Matric Free education in Medical, Engineering, Nursing or any stream of their choice. Under the earlier system students had to make upfront payment of fee from their own pocket and later seek reimbursement from the Government. The students had complained to Chief Minister that reimbursement invariably gets delayed due to various administrative problems. Concerned at the plight of poor Scheduled Caste students who are opting for higher studies, the CM pointed out that bright should not suffer because of delay due to bureaucratic red-tapism and it should be the onus of concerned education institution to seek reimbursement of fee from the concerned authorities. It was explained in the meeting that eligible students are entitled for reimbursement of compulsory non refundable fee for the complete course and scholarship including maintenance allowance, study tour charges, thesis charges, printing charges and book allowances etc. Last year over 62,000 students availed this benefit and Rs 13.87 crore was disbursed to them. In next financial year, Rs 14.50 crore has been earmarked for this scheme. * * *IPSN News* * * *Dalit Woman Stages a Political Revolution** * http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=37782 * * *Analysis by Praful Bidwai* NEW DELHI, May 18 (IPS) - The Hindi word 'Dalit' has entered the international lexicon in recent years as an evocative reminder of the unique cruelty and injustice of India's caste system. **Dalits (meaning the broken) who comprise roughly 15 percent of the country's billion plus population, are the true Wretched of the Indian Earth: dirt poor, discriminated against, disadvantaged in social and educational terms, and demonised as "impure" by virtue of birth, and hence untouchable. No comparable group barring African slaves during the colonial era has faced the magnitude of oppression and discrimination the Dalits suffer to this day. "And certainly no group has suffered such intense discrimination on grounds of its birth in the lowest order of the social hierarchy for 2,000 years," says Rajiv Bhargava, a political scientist based at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies here. To be Dalit in India means to live on the margins of society (literally, often outside the village boundary); to face unequal and humiliating treatment at the hands of caste Hindus; to be denied access to community and public resources, including water; to suffer from malnutrition and illiteracy at rates twice higher than the national average; and worst of all, to have to internalise the idea that injustice and discrimination are your fate, your karma, ordained by God. "However, there is also the opposite side to this victimhood and horrifying story of suffering", says Gopal Guru, a political scientist at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, himself a Dalit. "And that lies in a bitter, hard struggle by the Dalits for dignity, for their constitutional and legal rights, for equality, and for social and political empowerment." This side of Dalit existence has had increasing exposure to the global and Indian public. Sustained Dalit activism before, during and after the 2001 United Nations-sponsored World Congress against Racism at Durban, South Africa, has put the Dalit issue on the world agenda. However, nothing could be as dramatic an expression of the Dalit struggle for self-emancipation as their political self-organisation, which culminated last week in an unambiguous, emphatic victory for a Dalit-dominated party in the legislature of Uttar Pradesh. With a population of 170 million, Uttar Pradesh is India's largest state and the world's seventh largest political entity. It now has a government led by Mayawati (51), herself a Dalit and a single woman. Mayawati, who grew up in a slum and had to struggle hard to acquire an education, now heads the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (party of the broad masses, excluding the elite castes). Even Mayawati's opponents concede this is history in the making. Unlike other Dalits who rose to the top within elite services (such as former president K.R. Narayanan and the present Chief Justice of India, K.G. Balakrishnan), Mayawati has won a mass mandate, through grassroots campaigning which created and expanded her support-base. The BSP won a clear majority of 206 seats in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh Assembly -- a feat which no other party has accomplished for one-and-a-half decades. This became possible only because many non-Dalits voted for the BSP, besides Dalits who form 21 percent of Uttar Pradesh's population. About one-half of the BSP's aggregate vote, adding up to 30.5 percent of the state's total, came from non-Dalits. Astonishingly (for many Indians too), a significant chunk of Brahmins (priestly caste), who are at the very opposite end of the caste hierarchy from the Dalits, voted for the BSP. "Clearly, many upper-caste people in Uttar Pradesh voted for the BSP not because they have turned against casteism or suddenly begun respecting equal rights for Dalits," says Bhargava. "They endorsed it out of shrewd social and political calculation. But the fact that they chose to back the BSP and Mayawati instead of the more familiar upper-caste leaders and parties, speaks of the sea-change that has occurred in this highly politicised state, where even the illiterate can hold forth on parties and programmes". Mayawati has, for the first time, built a broad multi-caste multi-class social coalition, which inverts the pyramid long known to Indian politics. The pyramid is dominated by the privileged upper castes, but held up from below by underprivileged and plebeian layers, who alone have the numbers. For instance, the Indian National Congress, which has ruled India for four-and-a-half decades of its 60 year-long Independent existence, once successfully built a rainbow coalition comprising the upper castes, Dalits and Muslims, which helped it garner the 30 to 40 percent vote that put it into power in the first-past-the-post system. The coalition distributed patronage to the minority groups and co-opted their leaders, but it was always dominated by the upper castes. Mayawati has done the very opposite in UP. She offered political representation to the upper castes, but incorporated them into her coalition on terms set by the BSP, with its Dalit-focused agenda. In the seven-phase election in UP, spread over five weeks, which concluded on May 11, the BSP fielded as many as 139 upper caste candidates (of a total of 403), including 86 Brahmins. It also gave tickets to 61 Muslims and 110 low or lower-middle castes called the Other Backward Classes (OBCs). Only 93 of its candidates were Dalits. This Grand Experiment produced spectacular results. Their impact has been all the more dramatic because it was unanticipated by the media. Most opinion polls, conducted before and during the elections, severely underestimated the BSP's likely performance. Not one of them forecast a majority for it. The highest rating anyone gave it was in the range of 152 to 168 seats (maximum), at least 38 seats (or 23 percent) short of achievement. At any rate, even Mayawati's critics in the media, of whom there are plenty, now recall the statement by former Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, himself a Brahmin, after Mayawati's emergence as a major leader in the 1990s. He said she represents "a miracle of democracy". But now Maywati has herself pulled off a democratic miracle for the Dalits and for the vast majority of Indians who are underprivileged and disadvantaged. The BSP's victory will not redress the terrible situation of Dalits even in Uttar Pradesh, marked by extremely high indices of deprivation, social backwardness, landlessness, grinding poverty, and lack of access to education. However, it is likely to have a huge political impact on Dalits and other underprivileged groups in the whole country. It will certainly reinforce an important trend under which political empowerment of a deprived group becomes an instrument for the gradual redresssal of social and educational backwardness through affirmative action. In India, 15 percent of all government jobs and admissions in educational institutions have been reserved for Dalits since 1950. Another 7 percent are reserved for indigenous tribals (Adivasis). This has indisputably resulted in better social opportunities. Affirmative action has recently been extended to the OBCs too -- in the face of stiff opposition from the upper-caste elite which continues to corner plum jobs and seats in educational institutions. This process, which started in the South, has gradually but inexorably spread to other states. The "BSP model" will influence Indian politics by highlighting the issues of equity and redistributive justice in this terribly unequal society. "This will be an antidote to the completely irrational euphoria about GDP growth that has gripped the middle class", says Bhargava. "Growth, typically jobless and inequality-enhancing, has little meaning for the mass of the population. The equity agenda is a healthy and much-needed corrective." Guru is somewhat sceptical about the BSP's willingness to promote the causes of empowerment of the underprivileged and redistribution of the fruits of growth. But if it does so, he adds, "it will have contributed to India's long-term social transformation''. (END/2007) ARUN KHOTE National Secretary National Campaign On Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) 8/1, 2nd Floor, South Patel Nagar, New Delhi-110008 Ph: 011- 25842249 /25842250 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Website: www.ncdhr.org
