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Caste Inequality in EFL-U Note: Pls click on the hyperlink to see the graphs The objective of doing this survey cum study is not to blame any individuals or the university as such. Rather we tried to look inside the comfortable secular space that an Indian university offers and locate a few discrepancies in this 'comfort'. What is extremely significant in our findings is the fact that the domain of caste exclusion/discrimination crosses over from the society which lies beyond our walls. Here are a few of our conclusions: Regarding Teaching staff: It is clear from the statistics that as we move from the posts of lecturers to readers and then professors, SC/ST density is falling drastically. There is one Reader from the reserved category. There are no Dalit Professors. The backlog of posts to be filled up under the category of lecturers is also significantly high. One explanation can be that there were no eligible candidates available. Such an explanation is hardly enough to tackle this issue. Why do Dalit candidates never seem to apply for such posts? Does that say anything about modern India? Dalits never seem to be good enough, reservations or no reservations. The slogan against reservations was "I refuse to be treated by a Dalit doctor." Do we refuse Dalit teachers? Are they incompatible with our learning? Or is it one of the many facades of caste in our everyday lives, even as we make claims to awareness and subsequent consciousness. If Dalits are really to be empowered, they have to be present at every stratum of professions in our society. Till such a situation is not reached, we will continue to live under conditions that remain representative of caste based exclusion which parades as apparent caste neutrality for us. Posted by out-caste 0 comments Links to this post Labels: graph, statistics, survey Caste Inequality in EFL-U Regarding Non-teaching staff: The statistics show that as we move down the Groups, we see that Group A has a backlog to recover, Group B too in terms of reserved category posts not being filled up. As we move to the categories of 'menial' jobs like Group C and Group D, not only are criteria for reservations met but that in Group D there is an overwhelming majority of SC/ST workers far exceeding reserved numbers. What do we conclude? Traditional jobs meant for the depressed sections in a pre-modern set up seem to pertain to them still, even when our liberal worlds seemed to have exhausted us. Scavengers in the university are not given permanent status except a few who are all from an SC or ST background. In fact the posts are especially reserved for them. They hardly use the hygiene equipment given to them. The temporary employees lose Rs. 100 for every absent day even when the reason for absence is the death of a close relative (as in a recent case with one of the attendants in the new hostel whose husband had passed away). The categories of malis (gardeners), office attendants, NMR Mazdoors, sweepers, assistant plumber, have high SC/ST density. Funnily enough, the mess empoloyees-cooks, etc. are not from lower caste background. Does that mean that we refuse to eat food cooked by Dalit cooks? That is perhaps too strong a conclusion to draw but this is a fact worth pondering over. An additional aspect to be pointed out is the fact that among the staff quarters allotments, out of 95 quarters a mere 12 belong to SC/ST employees. Given the fact that majority of Dalit employees belong to lower ranks of the administration, they perhaps cannot avail of the quarter facilities. The university, as the authority has informed us, has constituted a committee to look into recruitment of SC/ST employees, which has been stalled over the last 8 years, following a case filed by the SC/ST Employees Welfare Association in the High Court over backlogs of these kinds (the case was filed after the National Committee for SC/ST visited the institution in 1992 and found several discrepancies in the roster that the institute was supposed to maintain).We sincerely hope that this effort bears fruit. Posted by out-caste 0 comments Links to this post Labels: graph, statistics, survey Caste Inequality in EFL-U (II) Regarding the students: The data we collected basically is from the last two academic years and data previous to that was not provided by the academic section of the administration. What are our findings? Reserved seats are at least filled up in the case of students. But that hardly is enough. Somehow there are hardly any Dalit students climbing up into the unreserved charts in the M.A. courses. This is definitely representative of the fact that at the levels previous to post graduate studies there has to be greater attention paid at the stratum of policy making to incorporate more Dalit students into the fold of education. Special attention also needs to be paid to poorer sections of the Dalit population to help them avail of certain privileges they are entitled to legally. The cases are markedly different for MPhil, PhD scholars. But reservations in these courses have started only in 1997. So we need a longer time span to judge whether the trend is a positive or a negative one. Also there has been a specific case where a Dalit student from the worst of economic backgrounds has been denied access to a prime grant in the university on the flimsiest of grounds and the matter remained overlooked for a long time. Details are not to be published as requested by the concerned people. Gender biases also seem to be omnipresent amongst reserved category students. The PhD list of 2007-'08 should be an indicator, also the M.A. lists over the two years we are taking into consideration. PGDTE and PGDTS reserved category populations are yet again valid in terms of reserved category seats being filled but the striking male female ratio is overtly biased in favor of males, in some cases there being no female candidates admitted.
