C/r Persecution Complex Or Plain Vanilla Politics

12-22-2004, 05:40 PM

IN SEARCH OF A KINDER GOD

TRAVELOGUE
By NIRUPAMA DUTT

Kaisa hoga Bombai, sochate thhe hum apne Punjab mein...(What would
Bombay be like, we would wonder back home in Punjab). This line from
an early poem by Deepti Naval lingers in my memory. I wonder if she
ever wonders Kaisa hoga Punjab ab... Probably not! For that wonderment is lost in the journey from the provinces to the metropolis; in the journey from home to abroad_ but for the rather sentimental and romantic picture which the non-resident Punjabis nurture in their
hearts.

So let me tell you Kaisa thha hamara Punjab ab ki baar. It is a
journey that I take with a Tele-film maker with trying to put together a travelogue film. We start at Chandigarh_ warming up for the real journey. An evening in photographer Diwan Manna's well appointed home with some artists and journalist becomes a starting point of sorts.

Diwan has perfected the art of picturising death and sorrow and his
beautiful works, both old and new, convince me that he is our best
homegrown prophet of doom. Incidentally, he is holding more shows in
London, Paris, Berlin, and so on rather than home. Our sufferings
indeed have many takers abroad. Here Painter Malkit Singh recalls some memories of the partition and links them to the present times. He also tells us that the mosque abandoned in his village since the Partition has been re-opened. Malkit belongs to Rode-Lande, the twin villages in the Malwa region of Punjab from where the militant leader, late Jarnail Singh Bhindranwala, hailed.

Chal Samrale Chaliye (Let's go to Samrala)

Memory by-lanes are rarely geographical. They meander through the mind transcending the barriers of time and place. So I return to Malkit's narrative of the abandoned mosque being reopened in Rode-Lande. This is not an isolated case. The reopening of the Guru di Masid, renovated with community help in a peace initiative started by conservation architect Gurmit Rai, wife of celebrated photographer Raghu Rai. This
mosque was built by Sikh Guru Hargobind Rai for his Muslim disciples
and had been lying desolate since the Partition of the country.
Gurmeet along with her group renovated this monument of a composite
culture and handed it over to

Muslim believers dedicating the act to the memory of a young girl
killed in the Gujarat massacre.

A number of mosques have been reopened in the villages and towns of
Punjab. The Muslim population in Punjab is also increasing and it has
taken more than half a century for the wounds to heal. But for the
enclave of Malerkotla Punjabi Muslims were either killed or they had
to migrate or take on Hindu and Sikh names, the price for staying on,
as was the case with Hindus and Sikhs in West Punjab now a part of
Pakistan. Malerkotla is quite another story. History has it that the
Nawab of Malerkotla had opposed the state order of bricking alive of
the two sons of the Tenth Sikh Guru Gobind Singh, who founded the
Khalsa and bestowed on the Sikhs a new faith and identity. The Muslims
who belonged to Malerkotla or reached Malerkotla were safe for here no
killings were done in gratitude to the protest by the Nawab. Strange
indeed are the reasons for being killed or being saved!

Among those who managed to reach Malerkotla was the father of Punjabi
short story writer Gulzar Mohammed Goria. The latter was born in
independent India at Padaudhi village near Samrala, a small town
between Chandigarh and Ludhiana. Yet another writer, the famous Saadat
Hasan Manto, famed for his Partition stories, was also born here
although he was bred in Amritsar. Goria is a schoolteacher in Samrala.
Interestingly the mosque in Samrala was opened by the initiative of
Goria and my friend poet Lal Singh Dil. Dil was the star poet of the
Naxalite, the extreme Left movement that started in 1967 in the
Naxalbarhi village of North Bengal had its reverbrations in Punjab
and other states and was brutally crushed by 1970. When I got
acquainted with the literary scene of Punjab in 1977-78, he had
already become a mythical figure. The poet who had inspired a movement in the late Sixties in East Punjab and had a great fan following, had gone underground somewhere in the orchards of Uttar Pradesh. He had converted to Islam and in an odd letter home he had written that the crescent moon had appeared on the palm of his hand. In the same letter he had said: 'Allah is very kind to Maoists because he understands
cultures!'

Dil was born into the low-caste chamar (tanner) community and he dared to be a poet challenging the established order. The first of his clan to finish school and go to college, he could have been a teacher, but Naxalbari intervened. Police torture, imprisonment and rejection forced him to leave Samrala. His conversion to Islam was yet another way of changing his life. And he hoped to find a wife for himself in
his new faith. Marriage was not be for him so Dil returned home to
Samrala after Punjab's long night of terror ended. Alone and addicted
to cheap liquour, he became the caretaker at the mosque with Goria
sending him his two meals a day from his own home. For five years Dil
said the morning and evening azaan. Goria, who is also Left of the
road, recalls: "God is everywhere and our effort in opening the mosque
was directed to give confidence to a minority community who should not
be afraid of going to their own place for prayer. However, when people
started coming to the mosque_ the Wakf Board intervened and took over
and now Dil and I are persona non grata there." Well, the Wakf Board
must be having its own reasons because political ideology apart, Dil
and Goria are just a bit too fond of their drink. Well the great
Ghalib had said: Zahid bhi zaroor aata go chori-chhupe peeta, Maikhana
gar koi masjid ke karib hota. But Dil and Goria do not belong to the
tribe who will do anything in secrecy or be hypocritical.

In the tea-maker's shop

Once Dil was ousted from the mosque, he was at a loose end again. Then
poet Amarjit Chandan, another proclaimed offender of the Naxal days
and later rehabilitated as a translator in England, sent money for
Dil. With this money his hut was made over into a pucca home and a
wooden shack built to serve as a teashop so that he may earn a living
by selling tea. I was to meet Dil only in the mid-Nineties at his
teashop opposite the automobiles market on the Maachiwara Road. Once I
stopped there to interview him for a newspaper over a cup of tea. I
was to return many times; we had struck up a literary friendship.
Never mind, if Prem Prakash who edits the literary journal Lakeer from
Jalandhar chooses to call it a mutually reciprocated crush between two
romantic 'outcasts'. Well there are outcasts and outcasts. As for
romanticism, pundits in the West now believe that it will succeed
post-modernism. Ahead of our time, aren't Dil and I?

Dil no longer runs his teashop. He closed it down some two years ago
when his partner Pala fell ill. The last time that I had gone to see
him, the teashop was locked and I was led to the cremation ground
where Pala's last rites were being performed and Dil sat there
vacant-eyed. This time in Samrala, we start looking for Dil and we
begin at the spot where the teashop once stood. It is no longer there.
Whenever in Samrala, a search has to be made for Dil. Each time I have
found him at a different spot_ the mango grove, the tractor repair
shop, the cremation ground or the liquour shop_ everywhere but home.
This time it is Dil is in the home of the Hakim Sahib, who has just
shifted home from Old Delhi to Samrala. So it is red-hot chicken
curry, chapatis and phirni made by his wife who, Hakim Sahib proudly
says, is a Punjabi from Malerkotla. Hakim Sahib once had a wool
factory in Ludhiana but it was burnt down in an accident. Hakim Sahib
is among the many Muslims who are moving from Central India to Punjab.
It is more comfortable for them to be in a state where a national
minority, the Sikhs are in majority. Hindutva is less menacing here.
And it is heartening to meet Punjabi Muslims. For in our childhood
even a decade and a half after the bloodshed of the Partition, one
never saw Punjabi Muslims. But now the fears seem to be ending.

Next day in Dil's home in the Chamar basti, two images that stand out
are a terrace garden, two flower-beds that he has made on his kacha
kotha and his little grand-niece who keeps crawling up the stairs
asking Taya (Uncle) for a toffee. No matter how harsh life may be but
there is yet room in it for a few green leaves, a child's smile and
some sweetness. I am reminded on one of Dil's famous poems of the old
days: Dance:

When the labourer woman

Roasts her heart on the tawa

The moon laughs from behind the tree

The father amuses the younger one

Making music with bowl and plate

The older one tinkles the bells

Tied to his waste

And he dances

These songs do not die
Nor either the dance in the heart...

Some wooden planks of the tea shack, remnants of the tea vending days,
lie on the terrace, others Dil has given away. Inside his dark room
some four dozen trophies and shields are gathering dust literally. Dil
now survives on a pension of Rs 500 given to him by a Ludhiana
publisher for his autobiography, Daastan, and the money sahit sabhas
give him along with the memento when they honour him_ ranging from Rs
500 to 2100. Dil is now sixty plus but the Punjab Languages Department
pension for old and destitute writers has still not come his way.

Dil Sahib agrees to accompany us to Ludhiana and Amritsar. At lunch by
the Neelon canal, Dil Sahib lights three bidis at a time, generously
handing over one each to the television guy and me as he tells us of
the Sufi traditions of Punjab. The poor young Tele-film maker has a
tough time for he is not as much a nicotine addict for he probably
grew up in the anti-tobacco campaign times. But he knows that one
cannot refuse a bidi when it is Dil who is offering it. See it is Dil
offering us bidis and not me offering him cigarettes. The wicked Prem
Prakash, an old friend of Dil and an ardent admirer of his poetry, had
once written in Lakeer that ever since Nirupama has started taking him
to Neelon and interviewing him over cigarettes and beer, he has shed
his mild demeanour and keeps booming all the time.

The Colour Green

Green is the colour of fertility. And this colour has a long
association with Punjab in the agricultural revolution the state saw
with mechanised farming. Green is also the colour of faith. And it is
very visible in the Doaba area of Punjab. Mazaars or tombs of the Sufi
saints have always been a part of the Eat Punjab landscape. But if you
move through Doaba, the land between Sutlej and Beas, hundreds of new
mazars have come up. The old ones are painted anew with and well
tended. Green chaddars adorn the tombs and buntings decorate the
shrines.

When in Jalandhar, it is inevitable to find oneself in Prem Prakash's
den in Mota Singh Nagar in Jalandhar. We have come fresh from the
Doaba countryside, villages in the Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur district,
where in the past few years hundreds of mazaars have come up. These
mazaars are tended and well kept with green chaddars adorning the
tombs and buntings and flowers decorating them. We discuss the
phenomenon with Prem Prakash who is sprawiling on his cot. "Do you
know the population of the scheduled castes is very high in this area.
They too need a God. The temples have always denied them entry and the
gurdwaras look down upon them. They also need their place of worship,"
he says and jumps out of the cot.

"Caste is a major problem of our society and even we in the Left never
addressed it. We talk only of class but class is also caste. I raised
the hornet's nest when I dedicated an issue of the Lakeer to 'Class
and Creed'. Some said that I had lost it and others said that I was
making mischief. Well, one has to make mischief sometime," Prem Pakash
springs up and brings out the issue from his closet full of books and
journals. Now what he had done is that in this issue he had published
a list of a few hundreds of writers with each one's caste in the
brackets. Besides, articles analysing the dispersal of awards and
rewards on the basis of caste and creed. "Now look at Lalu (that is
how he fondly calls Dil) he remained discriminated against even in the
Naxalite cadres. He is one of our finest poets but what has he got?"

In Doaba we see the curious phenomenon of caste-based gurdwaras this
when the tenets of Sikh religion do not recognise caste but caste
prejudice could just not be erased in practice. There is an
interesting story about a village near Kapurthala. The lower-caste
Sikhs of the village wanted a separate gurdwara for themselves and
they did manage to construct it for they felt uncomfortable in the
gurdwara where the upper castes dominated and scorned at them. But
problems arose there too for the Kabir-panithis (weavers) felt the
Ravi-Dasias (tanners), who were there in a majority, felt they were
being looked down upon and thus they wanted their third gurdwara. At
this the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) put its foot
down saying that they could not thus encourage the coming up of
caste-based gurdwaras. The Kabir-panthis threatened to convert to
another religion and the SGPC allowed them to construct the third
gurdwara. So one village has three separate gurdwaras based on caste_
never mind the tenets of the Sikh religion.

A young dalit writer-journalist, Des Raj Kali, guides us through the
many dalit deras all over the countryside. In a rather large and
affluent Ravi-Dasia dera (people belonging to the caste of Chamars or
tanners worship Gur Ram Das and are now called Ram Dasia) one is
struck by an image. It is a cycle in the huge cemented and covered
two-wheeler parking lot. It obviously belongs to a shoeshine man for
the box and other tools of the trade are proudly tied to the cycle as
he has gone in to pray. Where else can he so confidently keep his
bike!

In Chowk Husainpura fort in Amritsar, we discuss caste and class with
Parminderjit, editor of Akhar, a little magazine featuring poetry and
fiction. He tells us; "The dalit organisation in Punjab cannot be
looked away. Gone are the days when people were apologetic about their
caste. Every day when I come to office, I see at the square a cobbler
with the board_ Nathu Chamar and his rates for polish, cream polish,
sole and half-sole happily displayed. He is a craftsman and labourer
who his selling his hard work. He has no cause to be ashamed."

Also in Amritsar we call on Prof. Harish K. Puri who a political
scientist and his subject is the modern history of Punjab. Having done
excellent work on the Ghadar Party Movement and terrorism, he is now
working on 'Role of Deras on Dalit Psyche'. He too has taken note of
the growing mazaars. "Mazars never went away from Punjab even though
the Muslims were either killed or driven out at the time of the
Partition. The growing number of mazaars can be attributed to
assertion of the dalit identity and also a reaction to Hindutva."

So this is how Punjab is showing signs of change. The growing caste
consciousness and the way it is being addressed in the open is a
pointer that discrimination in the social fabric of East Punjab is not
for all times. The color green of the mazaars and the mosques is yet
another happy sign. Change is inevitable but when it is for the better
it raises hope.

12-27-2004, 07:04 AM

http://www.newkerala.com/news-daily/news/f...llnews&id=49714

One more Dalit suit against Krishna Murthy:

[India News]: Patna, Dec 24 : Chief Election Commissioner T.S. Krishna Murthy is
the focus of another petition in a Bihar court for "humiliating" the community,
just two days after a similar complaint was dismissed.

This time, the petition has been filed by Upendra Paswan, a Dalit from Darbhanga
district, in the court of the chief judicial magistrate. He has alleged that
Krishna Murthy humiliated Dalits when he ordered a police complaint against
Railway Minister Lalu Prasad for giving some women money to eat "sweets". <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/omg.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='omg.gif' />

Besides Krishna Murthy, the case under the Dalit Atrocities Prevention Act, also
names Bihar's chief electoral officer K.C. Saha, BJP parliamentarian Sushil Modi
and the officer in charge of the police station in Bihta where the first
information report (FIR) was filed against Lalu Prasad.

Earlier this week, a complaint was filed against Krishna Murthy by a group of
Dalits, including four Dalit women who are co-accused in the FIR against Lalu.
The Patna court dismissed the case, saying there was no prima facie case against
the chief election commissioner. <!--emo& Tongue

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/tongue.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tongue.gif' />

The FIR against Lalu Prasad had been filed Monday on the directive of the
Election Commission for allegedly bribing voters ahead of the elections. The
Election Commission asked him why his Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) should not be
de-recognised.

Bihar's ruling RJD chief had been seen on TV distributing money to some people,
which the Election Commission said was a violation of the model code of conduct
before elections in the state in February.

12-28-2004, 04:17 AM

Baptised, but boundary remains

Sandhya Jain
http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?m...file_name=edit3
%2Etxt&counter_img=3

28th Dec 2004

The gutter inspectors are out, revelling in the discomfort of devout Hindus, telling us exactly what's wrong with us. To begin with, it's the Brahmins and the caste system, a euphemism for the fact that we're still a predominantly Hindu society. Then it's those few Hindu mathams that still enjoy the wealth and eminence characteristic of the pre-Islamic era, and do not have to beg for survival. Indeed, they can establish schools, universities, libraries, hospitals and clinics and give the soup-for-your-soul merchants a run for their money.

Believers in the one true God (whoever that is, since every Islamic and Christian sect claims monopoly) warn that mandirs peddle superstition and exploit gullible followers. It is only corporate America, annually pushing millions of dollars into the "faith-based" humanitarian industry, which has the right to stalk the poor and vulnerable in the name of social service.

And it has powerful native allies who can tick off the Kanchi Matham for serving devoted Dalit Hindus, and tell the Shankaracharya to confine his activities to the daily "arti". If we are a soft State as evidenced in our attitude towards Pakistan's continued jihadi activities, it is equally true that we are a soft people who have taken the continued humiliation of Swamigal lying down.

Recently a leading US magazine (secular in the uniquely White American way) tried to whitewash Francis Xavier's bloody legacy and convince us that because hundreds of Christians (native and tourists) flock to his once-intact-but-since-disintegrated body, he was a great saint (figure that out, if you can). The Inquisition may have been excessive, but its noble objective was saving the heathens.

The trouble with conversions is that, like a dog that runs after a moving car and wouldn't know what to do if he caught it, the missionaries appear clueless about what to do with the saved (sic) souls. In the West, Christians continued to mistreat their slaves after converting them to Christianity, which is why the liberated slaves are striking back through the Black Muslim movement. India's contemporary Dalit movement is in crisis because it is largely financed and indoctrinated by American and British proselytizers. It is heartening that a few intrepid souls are venturing to challenge these instruments of neo-colonial geo-politics and find their own
voice. Though ignored by the secular media, they nonetheless have a case.

Earlier in September this year, several hundred activists of the Poor Christian Liberation Movement (a Dalit Christian body) held a dharna at Jantar Mantar to protest the "increasing corruption in Church organisations". They urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to ensure transparency in the functioning of Christian NGOs that misuse foreign aid received for the welfare of the poor and downtrodden.

The PCLM alleged that some Christian NGOs were torturing and oppressing workers who objected to the mis-utilisation and embezzlement of funds.

Demanding an enquiry into the affairs of these NGOs, PCLM president RL Francis alleged that "Christian missionary NGOs are indulging in corruption, casteism and favouritism", and that Church organisations do not submit any account of the crores of rupees received as grants-in-aid. Mr Francis said that Christian schools, colleges, hospitals and other bodies earned huge profits in the name of serving the community, but the church leadership refused to provide accounts of the same either to the community or to the
government. Unlike secular Hindus, Mr Francis is not seeking Government takeover of these rich bodies, but wants the UPA regime to press Church organisations to spend at least 50 per cent of their profits and incomes on uplifting poor and downtrodden Christians.

This raises legitimate questions about the activities for which funds are received and their actual utilisation.

Scorning the Church demand to include Dalit Christians in the Scheduled Caste list, Mr Francis countered: "On the one hand, the Church demands reservation for Dalit Christians from the government while on the other, it opposes and refuses to provide them reservation in the Church structure. The Poor Christian Liberation Movement wants that the Prime Minister, instead of giving Dalit Christians the lollipop of including them in the Scheduled
Caste list, should instead set up a Dalit Christian Development Board for undertaking concerted social and economic development of Dalit Christians."

There is some merit in this view. According to the 1991 census, there were 19.65 million Christians in India (10.7 million in South India and 3.6 million in the North-east). Of the 3.2 million Christians in Tamil Nadu, Dalits constitute nearly 65%. Now, as Vigil public forum legitimately asks, if conversion entails empowerment and Dalits and tribals comprise such a
high percentage of the Christian population, what kind of power-sharing equation has been established in the Church hierarchy between priests of the erstwhile upper castes and erstwhile Dalits?

And shouldn't Dalits cease to perceive themselves in terms of caste after becoming Christians? Sadly, the truth is otherwise. Until 1991, out of approximately 134 Catholic Bishops in the country (14 in Tamil Nadu alone), there was no Dalit or tribal until the ordaining of Bishop Ezra Sargunam, a Dalit. Barring the States of Goa and Kerala, Dalits and tribals comprise a major percentage of Christians, yet they are hardly visible at the level of
Bishops, Vicars-General, priests, Directors, Professors in seminaries, and surgeons and heads of departments in Christian hospitals and medical colleges.

Even Archbishop George Zus, a high ranking member of the Vatican Hierarchy, commented adversely on this situation while addressing the Catholic Bishops' Council in Pune, in December 1991. Dalit Christians, he said, "make 65 per cent" of the ten million Christians in the South, but less than four per cent of the parishes are entrusted to Dalit priests. There are no Dalits among the 13 Catholic Bishops' Council of Tamil Nadu or among the Vicars-General and the Rectors of seminaries and Directors of social
assistance centres.

Secular oppressors of gentle souls like the Kanchi Shankaracharya will, of course, ignore the fact that while Hindu society has elevated Dalits to high status in all walks of life, including the Presidentship of the Republic, the faiths that lured them away from the Hindu fold in the name of equality and social justice have left them seething with discontent. Vestiges of the despicable practice of untouchability are routinely thrown in the face of the Hindu community, but little respect is shown to dharamacharyas who
devote their lives to eradicating it. On the contrary, they become
vulnerable to persecution.

Of course, secular fundamentalists do not dare probe how untouchability hich has no sanction in dharma arose in Hindu society. Like the slave trade, it appears to be the creation of a particular socio-political historical situation. In any case, untouchability is not the only form of discrimination suffered by Christian Dalits. To this day, there are hardly any inter-caste marriages among Christians of the upper castes and Dalit
converts, though such marriages are common in Hindu society and no longer attract attention. Yet even today, upper caste Christians will cringe at the thought of accepting the holy water from a Dalit Christian priest, and many churches and cemeteries have even erected walls to keep the dust of the upper caste laity safely distant from the dust of Dalits. Separatism has thus been extended to Mother Nature (earth) and Eternity itself, as Christians are supposed to be admitted to Heaven or Hell at death.

12-28-2004, 05:59 AM

Not sure if this is the right thread..

They need food, with thought

01-05-2005, 03:51 AM

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/artic...978075.cms
Caste antagonism in providing relief?
SHANKAR RAGHURAMAN
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SATURDAY, JANUARY 01, 2005 10:45:55 PM ]

CHENNAI/CUDDALORE: The aftermath of the tsunami in Tamil Nadu has thrown up some touching examples of communal amity, but it has also revealed how deep caste antagonism runs.

Travelling across the affected areas, one regularly hears of examples of
communal amity. One example that keeps cropping up in conversation with NGO
activists working in the area is of the Jamaath, a Muslim organisation, which
has been running four relief camps in the Parangipettai area of Cuddalore
district.

The overwhelming majority of the victims are non-Muslims but that has not
prevented the Jamaath from giving them three meals a day for over three days.
Considering there are an estimated 40,000 people in these camps, thatâs quite an
achievement.

The same NGO activists also tell stories which are depressing, stories of how
Dalits are losing out in the relief effort. Some claim they have come across
cases where others have prevented Dalits from entering relief camps.

I did not personally come across any such case, but I did hear fisherwomen in
several places talking dismissively of the food being provided by relief workers
as âstuff that may be good enough for some of the others, but is beneath our
dignity to eatâ. The veiled reference to the Dalits is hard to miss. {Voila, only indian media dorks will come to such conclusions and get published}

01-05-2005, 03:55 AM

http://www.newkerala.com/news-daily/news...s&id=53923

BSP to distribute axes to strengthen Dalits in Rajasthan:

[India News]: Jaipur, Jan 2 : Taking cue from VHP's trident distribution, the Bahujan Samaj Party in Rajasthan today said it would give away axes to its workers in the state to strengthen "Dalit power" in society.

"Like VHP distributing 'trishul' (tridents) and the Congress offering 'lathi' (cane) to its workers, the BSP would not not lag behind them and empower people of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes," Suresh Meena, a BSP MLA, told a 'Bahujan Chetna Yatra', which converged after travelling 32 districts of the state since December six.

The BSP would also set up a "vigilance committee" to contain incidents of atrocities on Dalits by upper caste people, Meena said.

The committee members would go to the affected villages carrying 'gandasa' (axes) in their hands to strictly check such incidents and deal with the situation, he said.

Alleging that over 70,000 posts of SC/STs were vacant in the state services, another BSP MLA Murarai Lal said Dalits were not at all happy with the BJP rule in Rajasthan.

"BJP's 40 MLAs belonged to SC/STs but have never taken up this backlog in the assembly session," he said adding, the BSP MLAs would obstruct the budget session, coming up in February next, on this issue." PTI

{Do, what you do the best - OBSTRUCT and OPPOSE to the detriment of (allegedly) your own people, you moron!}

01-05-2005, 07:41 AM

Sanskrit fanatics' mischief to deny English to masses

Dr. K. Jamanadas, "shalimar", Main Road, Chandrapur -442 402

According to a news, Chinese officials are visiting India to recruit English teachers and select institutions where Chinese students can come and learn English. By 2008, when China Olympics are organized, everybody in China should know English. Whatever advantage India has now over China in the field of IT would vanish after that. The policy to increase knowledge of English in their countries is not only the policy of China alone but that of all East Asian countries.

But what is the situation in India? A reputed institution, C-Dac, is busy praising Sanskrit as the most suitable language for computers. No "intellectual" felt sorry for such a disgraceful statement. Despite all other languages in the world, to consider one particular language as god-given (to the Brahmins of India) is the worst form of imprudence and arrogance.

Caste superiority

Sanskrit has nothing to do with computer language, which is a binary language, a language of 1s and 0s, a language of on and off, a computer being nothing but a collection of millions of fast-acting switches. Those who claim that Sanskrit is a computer language have got a cruel and malevolent intention of projecting the misdeeds of their forefathers. A scholar in them is dead, only a caste superiority prejudice is seen in their such statements.

They are busy developing software for promoting Indian regional languages on computers. Vijay Bhatkar, the erstwhile OBC chief of this prestigious institution which could develop a super computer, was awarded "Maharashtra Bhusan". Unfortunately he engaged himself in providing Dnyaneshwari to the Varkaris of Alandi. Dnyaneshwari is a Marathi rendering of the Gita of 13th century which strengthened and propagated Chaturvarna after the fall of Budhism. It was the time when Brahminism raised its head and its leaders, to divide the masses keeping themselves united, started promoting regional languages all over the country around 1,000 AD.

Selling mothers

When I tried to impress to the "computer specialists" the importance of English for India, a "highly educated" computer specialist pointed out that Amrutanjan publishes its sale brochures in 19 Indian languages. Of course, it will do that. It is a business house. To earn profit is their aim. The business people even sell their mothers if it brings them money.

But C-Dac is not a profit-oriented institution or it should not be. And if it tried to be such it deserves to be shut down. If it is a "national" institution, it must promote the real national language of the country ÃÃEnglish and nothing else. <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='mad.gif' />

Though only 2% people know English, they are the opinion-makers and the whole of India thinks in English may it be agriculture, industry, law, medicine, sports, commerce, accounting, cinema, literature, poetry or any other field of life.

More, the then Maharashtra Education Minister was criticized by Sanskrit-loving scholars for introducing English subject from primary classes. He had retorted that this criticism was out of "conceit and ego" with a desire to retain their monopoly and pointed out that the wards of 13 past chairpersons of Marathi Sahitya Sammelan were being educated in English convents.

Microsoft warned

All the specialists in information technology must concentrate on English and even ask Miscrosoft, who are reportedly contemplating developing regional languages to refrain from doing this. Let all the sufferers for centuries remember that the Sanskrit-knowing people made it their monopoly for centuries and kept the majority in ignorance, poverty and slavery. They are now doing the same with English. <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' />

The Bahujans must note the motive of these people is to keep the masses in ignorance. Don't forget that Brahminism controlled masses through language. For details, see my "Decline and Fall of Budhism" (Blumoon Books, New Delhi, 2004).

Hindi now propagated by Hindi cinema is in reality Urdu, now being refashioned as Hindustani. But many orthodox Hindus are not willing to accept even that as the national language because of the hate for words from languages spoken by their former cultural conquerors. Sociologist Bal Krishna Nair laments about the opinion of elites that the adoption of Hindustani as the official language in place of Hindi would not be in keeping with the Brahminical revival that is making itself prominently felt in India during the post-independence period. The lovers of Sanskrit are the same people who are today asking others to adopt vernaculars but send their own children to English schools.

What did the propagators of Sanskrit give to the people of his country apart from disintegration and slavery of centuries? What kind of society they have produced? A society full of discriminations where more than half the people are unfit even for a touch, another one-third driven to forests and another group whose occupation is crime, a society where prostitution is practiced in the name of god and religion, a society where suicide is sacrosanct, a society where uttering obscene abuses is a part of religion, a society where daughters are murdered immediately after birth, a society where widows are burnt on the funeral pyre of their husbands, a society where a vast section of people are deprived from holding any property, holding any arms, getting any education, a society where taking a marriage procession on a public road brings atrocities, murder, rape and arson, a society where nearly the whole country use the public roads as a toilet. And one expects these very sufferers of this extreme exploitation to regard this language as holy and sacrosanct.

Regional languages divided the country into linguistic nations. Let us remember Dr. Ambedkar saying that the dividing line between linguistic provinces and linguistic nations is very thin.

DV Aug.1, 2004 p.27: "English ÃÃa must for every Dalit".
DV June 16, 2004 p. 22: "It is English language that made India a "nation".
DV May 16, 2004 p.25: "Church threatened: May go jobless in education & health sectors".
DV Edit Dec.16, 2003: "Language imperialism of upper caste rulers which slaves of India can't see through".
DV Edit Jan.16, 2003: "Rulers use English to enforce slavery on masses: India's language imperialism" & " Those who ignore English will miss the bus".
p. 5: "English becomes world language"
DV Nov.16, 1997 p.17: "Retain English at any cost: Dr. Ambedkar".
DV Edit July 1, 1986: "India breaking into nation states?" ÃÃThis mania of the mother tongue"

01-05-2005, 09:09 AM

QUOTEDr. K. Jamanadas, "shalimar", Main Road, Chandrapur -442 402
Must be JNU product and his grey matter lost somewhere.

01-06-2005, 04:38 PM

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald...05/i10.asp

MAYA CHALISA MAY FOLLOW
The deification of Mayawati
FROM PUJAA AWASTTHI
DH NEWS SERVICE LUCKNOW:

Some two-dozen artisans are furiously working at a huge monolith at Lal Bahadur
Shastri Marg in Lucknow. Visitors are not permitted on the premises and the men
standing guard entertain no questions.

Towering above the faceless neighbouring structures, this stone construction,
reminiscent of the Egyptian pyramids, is soon to be inaugurated Bahujan Prerna
Sthal that stands next to the BSP office.

And no, itâs not a pyramid, but a modern day Dalit temple that will house
statues of Bhim Rao Ambedkar, former BSP chief Kanshi Ram and hold your breath, BSP President and former Uttar Pradesh chief minister Mayawati.

Mayawati is learnt to have ordered the completion of the temple by April 14, the
birth anniversary of Ambedkar. And with the inauguration of the temple, she will
become probably the first ever politician to unveil her own statue. The
construction of her seven-foot brass statue believed to be the handiwork of a
renowned Delhi sculptor has also inspired attempts to create a Maya Chalisa
thereby completing the deification of the leader who recently made public her
intention to return to helm of UP politics and become CM as per the wishes of
the Stateâs people. <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='laugh.gif' />

A senior BSP leader looks upon the temple as an âimportant symbol of Dalit
assertionâ. This assertion will ensure that Mayawati towers above lesser leaders
and be symbolic of her hold over the community.

It is also, as voices from the Opposition have been suggesting, Mayawatiâs bid
to ensure demi-god status during her lifetime leaving nothing to chance and
weaker successors who might not be able to put her on a pedestal.

Mayawati is learnt to be taking personal interest in the construction and
monitoring the construction over phone from Delhi or elsewhere. Within party
circles, she has attributed the installation of her statue to Kanshi Ramâs wish.
BSPâs national spokesperson Sudhir Goel is cagey about the costs involved.
Question him on the criticism surrounding the edifice and he is quick to point
out the âmanuvadi mentalityâ that is always critical of anything positive that
the Dalit samaj does.

01-11-2005, 08:45 AM

x-posting
--------
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/158/story_15877_1.html

Low-Caste Tsunami Victims Denied Aid
In India, low-caste people denied food, water, toilet facilities in relief camps, say humanitarian aid workers.

Deutsche Presse-Agentur
January 7, 2005
New Delhi (DPA) - The killer tsunamis of December 26 washed away everything that people in southeastern coastal India held precious, but failed to obliterate
deeply-divisive social caste lines.

This rigid, inherited social hierarchy determines which victims are entitled to relief supplies and an opportunity to rebuild their lives.

The dalits or "broken people" of southern Tamil Nadu state are doubly damned. They were battered by the tidal waves, and those who survived are being denied food, water, toilet facilities and space to recover in overcrowded relief camps, aid workers said Friday.

India has an estimated 220 million dalits who are at the bottom of an insidious caste ladder. Once called "untouchables" and still desperately poor, they are not allowed to own land and are compelled to work in degrading jobs as bonded labour, sweepers and manual scavengers who clean toilets and remove dead animals.

They are subject to physical, verbal and sexual abuse, usually by the upper castes with police complicity, according to observers. Punishment is swift and brutal for dalits who dare to bridge the caste divide.

Stories of discrimination have poured out of several relief camps in Tamil Nadu, India's worst-affected state, which reported 7,932 of the country's 9,691 reported deaths.

More than 6,000 people died in Tamil Nadu's Nagapattinam district, where dalits were reportedly thrown out of relief camps and forced to eat stale food.

"The dalits are being discriminated against by the fishermen. In many relief camps the government is not given them aid, saying the dalits have not been affected by the tsunamis," said Ravi Chandran of Village Development Society (VDS), a non-government organisation.

Chandran worked in Nagapattinam, where more than 91,000 people live in 96 relief camps, and Cuddalore district, where more than 24,000 people are crowded into 38 camps. He said dalits formed 10 per cent of the affected population.

"We sent a petition two days back to the police and state government to speed up aid for the dalits because they were not receiving anything. There has been no response," Chandran told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa in a telephone interview from Nagapattinam.

"What is worse is that both the police and the affected fishermen are not allowing our people to deliver food and water to the dalits. About four days back police severely beat up and then arrested a dalit for taking rice from an aid agency. They even demolished what was left of his house," Chandran claimed.

A reporter from the Indian Express newspaper who toured Nagapattinam district wrote Friday about dalit survivors from 63 fishing villages who were discriminated against by the Meenavar fishing community because of an old caste hatred that stubbornly persisted in the face of immense tragedy.

"We certainly do not discriminate. But if the fishermen themselves are doing it because of their local status, what can the government do?" the report quoted government official Shantasheela Nayar as saying.

When dalits asked for rice and new clothes at one camp, the fishermen forced them to spend the night on the road. In another camp fishermen would not allow dalits to use Unicef water tanks, saying they would get "polluted". "Our workers have been in Nagapattinam from the beginning, providing water every day and haven't reported any kind of discrimination in the camps," a Unicef spokesperson from Tamil Nadu's capital city Madras told dpa.

"We were inside a camp but kept in the far corner. Whenever officials and trucks came to give food, we were left out because nobody allowed us to get near the trucks. Some men form a ring around us and prevent us from moving ahead in the
queue," Dalit survivor Saravanan was quoted as saying in the Indian Express.

The fishermen alleged the dalits were looting homes in the damaged villages. Aid workers said there was nothing left to steal.

"We have been distributing blankets, utensils and food to the dalits, as many have been forced to stay on roads. We are also in the process of setting up separate facilities for them. The government is not doing anything, saying dalits are not among the affected people," Charles (one name) from voluntary organisation AID India told dpa. <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /> <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/omg.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='omg.gif' />

Aid workers were reluctant to create too much of a furore over the issue, as they don't want to spark off caste violence in volatile areas already destroyed by nature. [Gee, how nice of them <img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='laugh.gif' />]

India legally abolished untouchability more than half a century ago. The reality is very different, and ugly, for the dalits survivors of Tamil Nadu.

01-14-2005, 06:31 PM

Agree with most of the stuff and support them - except private sector reservation. Hope they do not turn into another "run of the mill" group.
-----------------

"The Dalit has been relying too much on the government"

He looks like any other man on the street but Ashok Bharti, convenor of the National Conference of Dalit organisations (NACDOR) stands out from the crowd. A Dalit, his impassive face hides a long story of struggle.

Bharti's father was a tailor, his grandfather a grass-cutter in Delhi's Walled City. The family was forced to flee from their village near Aligarh because his grandfather defied local upper castes during the halcyon days of the freedom movement. They found shelter in a Muslim bustee called Rajaram near the Jama Masjid. "We were untouchables and there was no way we could live in a Hindu
locality," he explains. When that got demolished they shifted to East Delhi, an inhospitable marsh. His father learnt tailoring sitting outside a tailor's shop since he wasn't allowed inside. He passed on this skill to hundreds of unemployed Dalits. " My father earned name and fame but not money," says Bharti.

Bharti studied in government schools: earning and learning. When he was in Class 10 he joined the Progressive Students' Union, which put him in touch with celebrity leftists. He studied political science for a year at Hindu College, New Delhi, hoping to make it as a journalist. Disappointed with the politics of the Left and unable to get a break as a journalist, Bharti joined Delhi College of Engineering so that he could earn a respectable livelihood.

In 1986 he founded Mukti, a youth organisation that got the system of admission changed in Delhi University and published a report on the discrimination faced by Dalit youth in colleges. Soon after the agitation against the Mandal Commission report broke loose. "The Mandal Commission was not about Dalits yet we bore the brunt of the agitation," he says. Bharti was chased and stabbed.

As an engineer he could have got a job without recourse to reservation. Instead he chose to join PRIA, an NGO. But the agitation against the Mandal Commission haunted Bharti especially the media's partisan role. So in 1990 he founded the Centre for Alternative Dalit Media, to get the Dalit viewpoint across. The centre was in many ways a precursor to NACDOR.

In 1996 he chose to leave for Australia when he got a scholarship to study at Adelaide. He did his MBA in manufacturing management. Bharti is interested in robotics and artificial intelligence and continues to work for the union government.

"I got admission into Hindu College and Delhi College of Engineering thanks to reservation. Without it there was no way I could have got this far. Even with reservation it's been tough, really tough," he says. " But I can say I'm really proud to be a Dalit," he told Civil Society in an interview.

Why did you set up NACDOR?

When I was studying in Adelaide, I read all of Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar's works. I got time to reflect. When I returned I spoke to many Dalit organisations. At that time the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) was rising but people were getting disillusioned with Dalit politics. We realised someone would have
to change the paradigm of Dalit politics. Dalit organisations were extremely fragmented. So we decided to bring them together and that's how NACDOR, a network of 200 Dalit organisations was formed. These are people's groups, not NGOs.

How did you bring so many different groups together?

We sent out this message to all Dalit groups: society is a multi-dimensional, complex system. This was important. In the Dalit mind, society is neatly divided into Dalits and non-Dalits. We explained that society has many aspects-economical, social, anthropological, historical. There are the police, the governance system, political parties, the judiciaryâ¦ its not just behenji and Paswanji.

We are very proud of the Dalit movement even before the Ambedkar phase. In those days Dalits were not just challenging the system but changing it and providing alternatives. Dr Ambedkar founded schools and colleges. He didn't just wait for the government to do things. Jyotiba Phule and Savitabai Phule were the first to start a school for Indians. Savitabai was the first educated trained
teacher of this country. This is what we remind Dalits.

We also say that the Dalits are the wealth creators of the country though the benefits of their hard work are being cornered by others. We have an alternative model to organise the economy of the Dalits and eliminate the dominance of middle- classes and intermediaries who prey upon poor people through new methods of managing their economy.

We have resolved to make each and every Dalit child literate in the next 20 years, which the government has not done in so many years. And we have a method which we will be implementing in the next two or three years in 5200 villages. We call this the Self-Help Movement of the Dalits.

You don't need the government?

The Dalit has been relying too much on the government. The non- NACDOR model has been to demand everything from the government. We say there are lots of things we can do ourselves. Only then can we check the government and put pressure on our leadership and the national leadership.
But you support reservations?

One hundred per cent. Even in the private sector. We are running a global debate on reservations in the private sector with One World South Asia. We include the multinationals as well. We are asking for reservations across the board in all businesses whether they are small or big. {This, in a globalized economy will be a non starter - Equality and Equity are entirely two different concepts}

Do you seek wider support from society?

Yes. You know the Dalits spent one lakh crore rupees in this market in one year. They are not poor. They have been portrayed as poor people. Individual families are poor but as a group they are the biggest economy of this country. And we calculate their income at below the poverty line. We have to unite this income.

Do you see yourself in politics?

I am a political person but I don't have a political party. We feel Indian politics needs an alternative. It needs a new leadership. The existing one is defunct, non serious and parochial. They represent the clique of the rich and mighty. They don't represent the masses.

So is NACDOR the birth of another political party?

No. NACDOR is primarily an organisation of the Dalits, not a political party.
What are the three demands you would make to the government?
One hundred percent literacy, all land to be distributed to Dalits and the poor and reservation in the private economy: whether it is the economy of the lala or Rahul Bajaj, the share of the poor has to be there.

Equality has to be an ideal otherwise how will we becomepractical or pragmatic about it? We do not compromise on our ideals but on pragmatic programmes.

http://civilsocietymagazine.com/ashok.htm

01-17-2005, 07:43 PM

http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald...005/s1.asp

Living as outcastes among Dalits

The traditional Dakkaliga families earn livelihood by begging at Dalit-inhabited colonies and they live in tents outside Dalit colonies.

BY K N GIRISH
DH NEWS SERVICE, DAVANGERE:

While the terms like âcommunalismâ and âfascismâ are doing rounds in all the present-day discourses, everyone seem to have grown oblivious to the much tabooed term âuntouchabilityâ, the age-old social scourge which has continued to wield its evil influence in villages, if not in cities.

For some thirty families of Dakkaliga community settled in Chikkmegalageri village in Harapanahalli taluk, the word âuntouchableâ is still very much relevant as it offers the best definition for their destitute lives.

Dakkaligas are living as untouchables not only among the people in general, but also among the Dalits! Even to this day, they are prohibited from entering many of the Dalit-inhabited colonies nor do orthodox Dalits enter their houses. The members of this most oppressed community among the Scheduled Castes (SCs) who were treated as inferior among the Dalits have been tolerating all disgrace and social bias with stoic endurance, all these years.

Dakkaligas are a nomadic community living in some pockets of Davangere, Chitradurga, Bijapur, Bellary, Tumkur districts and also in some parts of Andhra Pradesh. According to the available statistics, the population of Dakkaligas was around 400 in 1972. Now, it is estimated to have crossed 2,000 mark.

The traditional Dakkaliga families earn their livelihood by begging alms and food at Dalit-inhabited colonies. Telugu is their mother tongue and they also know Kannada quite well.

Most time of the year, they keep travelling to familiar villages and live in make-shift tents outside Dalit colonies.

To convey the message of their arrival, they make a loud scream saying âNaavu bandevappa dakkaligaru, namage ustuvari maadiâ (We, the Dakkaligas have come, please make arrangements for us). Hearing their yell, the inhabitants of the colony collect bread, foodgrains and offer them to the Dakkaligas as âKaanikeâ (offering). The nomadic families move to other villages after staying there for three days. Interestingly, Dakkaligas beg things only from the Dalits. The system is more prevalent in parts of Bijapur district, said Bheemanna, seventy-year-old member of the community.

A splinter group of Dakkaliga families which was living in Chikkamegalageri village for over three decades, started cultivating some revenue land.

After enduring shame for all these years, these families now want to shun nomadic life to lead a normal life. But circumstances do not allow their dream to fulfil and they are finding it impossible to free themselves from the stigma of being Dakkaligas. Also, other dominant communities which are averse to their permanent settlement are trying to evict Dakkaligas from the village.

âLife seemed to be too cruel for us when we were travelling to places for begging. Now, we are eager to lead normal life. But our fellow human beings are not allowing it,â rued septuagenarian Durgajji. She does not know the place of her birth as she was born to nomadic parents.

Young members of the community like Lokappa (30), Shanthraj (25) are worried about their acceptability in the society and their future. âWe do not face any problems in cities. But people in villages keep away from us the moment they come to know that we are Dakkaligasâ, they said.

01-26-2005, 12:16 AM

Pre-requisites of freedom, Part-IV - Caste in injustice

01-28-2005, 04:39 AM

The reinvention of caste

QUOTEMICROVIEWÂ

R Jagannathan / Mumbai January 25, 2005

Â
In a few weeks from now, Bihar will proveâyet againâthe importance of caste in politics and power. It is not my purpose here to speculate on which castes will vote for whom.Â
Â
But I must point out what should have been obvious to anyone who cared to see: we have all abandoned the ideal of a caste-free society. On the contrary, caste has become central to the lives of the intermediate and lower classes, especially Dalits, and less so for the rest.Â
Â
The reason for this is the need for identityâpersonal and social. It is stereotypical to see caste as purely a mechanism of oppression.Â
Â
Less well acknowledged is the overwhelming need of various communities for unique identities. Today, it is the previously oppressed castes that need caste most, and not the upper classes.Â
Â
Consider the evidence: Dalits need caste to establish their underdog status. Despite their rhetoric against the upper castes, they do not accept the ideal of a casteless society.Â Â

What they really want is power and an aggressive assertion of their own identities. Many Dalits see Gandhiâthe one person in pre-independence India who really empathised with them âas their enemy for trying to obliterate the lines separating castes.Â
Â
Ambedkar is important to them precisely because he was inimical to Gandhi. Mayawati is important because she can abuse the upper castes, never mind her own megalomania and inability to raise the economic status of Dalits.Â
Â
As for the OBCs, their larger numbers and growing economic strength are already obviousâand today they are the most aggressive oppressors of Dalits.Â 
Â
Thatâs why neither Mulayam Singh nor Lalu Prasad is capable of working with Mayawati or Ram Vilas Paswan. OBCs and Dalits are into mutually-exclusive identity politics.Â
Â
Witness also the growing dominance of OBCs in the Hindutva movementâwhether it is Pravin Togadia or Narendra Modi or Uma Bharati or Vinay Katiyar. Caste and religion are coalescing in Hindutva as part of the greater need for community identity.Â
Â
The evidence from south India is even sharper. The Dravidian movementâs so-called anti-Brahminism is fast becoming a farce. Most Brahmins have been migrating out of Tamil Nadu to other parts of the country or even abroad, but anti-Brahminism lives on.Â Â

This, despite growing evidence that the biggest oppressors of Dalits in Tamil Nadu are not the so-called upper castes, but the middle and lower-middle castes.Â
Â
After the recent tsunami, the Meenavar community of fishermen is reported to have commandeered most of the relief, pushing Dalits out of the reckoning. If the Dalits had been stronger, they would probably have done the same to the Meenavars.Â
Â
So what am I getting at? Basically this: The old assumption that casteism is primarily a plot by the upper castes to subjugate the lower orders is wearing thin. 
Â
This is not to deny that this form of oppression also exists, but the more important truth is that caste has metamorphosed into a form of identity assertion which has nothing to do with its historic evolution.Â
Â
In other words, casteism has developed a life of its ownâand, at least in the foreseeable future, it is going to be a greater force than it ever was.Â 
Â
In one of my earlier columns, I had quoted Peter Drucker as observing that the more global we become, the more tribal we also become. I suspect this is what is happening to caste in India.Â
Â
As the Indian economy grows in strength, and more and more people migrate to urban areas in search of jobs, they lose their earlier sense of community and identity.Â
Â
This makes it important for them to recreate a new sense of connectedness with others, and caste provides the easiest option for everybodyâwhether you are upper caste, OBC or Dalit.Â
Â
It is interesting to note that Ambedkar asked Dalits to go to the towns to escape casteist oppression in the villages. Gandhi would have liked people to work in self-sufficient village republics. History has proved both of them wrong.Â
Â
More and more people have indeed moved to urban areas for jobs, proving that Gandhiâs assumptions about village life were wide off the mark.Â
Â
But Ambedkarâs Dalits, far from moving to the cities to lose their caste status, are doing the opposite: they are using caste to establish their identities. They revel in their underdog status to put the upper castes on the defensive and give themselves a political advantage.Â 
Â
Caste today is being reinvented for political and social purposes that have little to do with its past history of oppression. Even as globalisation and urbanisation are reducing the importance of caste, social factors and identity politics are working in the opposite direction.Â {Precisely why we have this thread}Â

It would be interesting to see how the rest of the story unfolds in the years ahead.

rjagann@business-standard.com

02-01-2005, 05:05 AM

Prospects of Dalit-Muslim alliance - By Syed Shahabuddin

QUOTEDalits have the sorrow of centuries etched into their faces. On the whole, despite 50 years of reservation in legislatures, public employment and education, often drummed up as reparation and compensation for centuries of treatment as a sub-human species, they still constitute the most backward section of the Indian people, socially, educationally and economically. They are nearly 25% in population but constitute 50-60% of the BPL (Below the Poverty Line) population; they have less than 10% share in public employment, perhaps less in private employment; they have a higher proportion in starvation deaths, in epidemic toll, illiteracy, in school drop-out. Generally they live in their own rural and urban ghettos, engage in their traditional professions, they are mostly marginal farmers and landless labour and are often denied tenancy rights and even minimum wages by the owners, by use of force.

However, by virtue of numbers, in a democratic system the SC and ST command political importance and there is a continuous tussle among political parties for their support.

Muslims are nearly as backward as the SC/ST's but they are also the target of Hindu chauvinist and fundamentalist forces. In their eyes, the Muslims are not only responsible for the division of the country and the creation of Pakistan but the real obstacle in the Hinduisation of India i.e. transformation of the secular state into a Hindu state. The strategy of Hindu Nationalism is Hindu consolidation i.e. formation of a political alliance of the Hindu high castes and the Shudras under the time-tested leadership of the Brahmins. Though the Achhuts and the Adivasis were for centuries treated as outside the pale of the Dharma, they are sought to be brought in because of the numerical power they possess. Political association, religious absorption or even educational and economic benefits do not mean social equality. So while 'pollution' which cannot be a factor in a modern urban setting, marriage of the Savarnas with the Panchmas and the Adivasis is still rare. However, Hindu Nationalists have succeeded, through welfare and educational attention, through ideological brainwashing and finally through economic support, in engaging their services as their foot soldiers.
More often than not, in anti-Muslim riots, the Dalits are incited, armed and organized to attack Muslims.

Ambedkar has been pirated by Hindu Nationalists and included in its pantheon of Hindu heroes.

While his writings and statements attacking Hinduism are ignored, his comments against Muslims are used to brainwash the Dalits. In many tribal areas, the penetration of Hindu upper castes and exploitation of Dalit labourers by them is ignored, while the tribal ire is directed against much fewer Muslim settlers, cultivators and shopkeepers. Polygamous marriages by Muslims with tribal women is represented as sexual exploitation and used to incite the tribal population.

There is no doubt that in urban areas, the few Dalits who live in Muslims areas enjoy peace and security.Â Yet there is no socialization between the two groups. In fact the Muslim society in general, which includes a large proportion of descendants of Panchma converts, particularly the well-placed Baradaris, look upon the SC's with contempt. This became evident during 1980 General Election when many Muslims who were against Indira Gandhi had reservation about her Janata Party rival Jagjivan Ram, only because he happened to be 'chamar' by caste! Objectively speaking, there has always been a good case for Dalit-Muslim Alliance in terms of common suffering, common deprivation and common aspirations to secure equality and justice, except for brief spells on isolated occasions, no real alliance has ever crystallized. Sometimes, the Muslim leadership, often consisting of the so-called Ashraf, does not know which section of the Dalits to address, which common or separate grievances should go into the common agenda, and how to mobilize the two communities for the common cause of political empowerment, economic and social justice.

Sometimes the Dalit leadership does not know which section of the Muslim religious leadership to approach or trust. Under the surface, there are misgivings and no common leadership has emerged. With land reform and green revolution the Shudras have achieved an economic breakthrough. They constitute about 50% of the population. Some sections have made visible progress in education and found a veritable presence in professions. They are conscious of the discrimination and indignity they have suffered but their role model is the Kshtriya; they want to be accepted as equal members of the Chaturvarna; they are on the path of Sanskritisation. They are denied the sacred thread but they vie with the Savarnas in performance of rites and rituals, through Brahmin priests. After all, they do not challenge the religious supremacy of the Brahmins. In the long run, they want accommodation within the Brahminical system. Economically, also they find themselves competing with the Muslim intelligentsia for government jobs and in profession and their prosperity largely depends on the exploitation of the Dalit labour.

The up and coming brand Shudras have formed their parties, the Samajwadi Party/Rashtriya Janata Dal, representing the Yadavs, the Apna Dal and the JD(U) representing the Kurmis, the Rashtriya Lok Dal, representing the Jats and similar Shudra outfits, north of the Vindhya. Even south of the Vindhyas, there are parties which essentially represent the interests of some Shudra groups but they have a long history of revolt against Brahminism. Electorally, all these parties are anxious, like the Congress or the BJP, to secure the support of the Muslims and to snatch the so-called Muslim vote bank. The BJP has done its best to divide the Muslims and keep them from extending united support either to Congress or to its rivals and even tried to play the Muslim Card, but with little success.

Dalit and Muslims constitute the poorest and the most deprived sections of the Indian people. Their understanding is the first step towards establishment of a regime of social justice in India. The other religious minorities do not come in their category. The Sikhs and the Christians are largely happy with what they have, the Jains and the Parsis have the bedrock of affluence to lie on. Together the Dalits and the Muslims constitute 40% of the total population. Electorally together they could sweep a majority of seats in the Assemblies and in the Lok Sabha in the whole country.

But first the miasma of misunderstanding and distrust needs to be dissipated. The Muslims must shed any contempt for the Dalits; the Muslims, as the relatively stronger section, should share their meagre resources with the Dalits, e.g. provide educational facilities for Dalit students in their institutions; Muslim cultivators and landowners should treat Dalit landless labour and share-croppers equitably and at least in accordance with the law; Muslim shop keepers should not double as moneylenders and economically exploit the Dalits; Muslims should abjure any organized effort to convert the Dalits to Islam; under any circumstances, even in retaliation, Muslims should not raise their hands against the Dalits living in their areas or attack Dalit clusters; Muslims should treat them with equality and respect in their tea stalls and catteries; Muslims should invite Dalit neighbours living in their tolas and mahallas on social occasions and break bread with them and accept their hospitality.

Above all, Muslim politicians should not look upon Dalits as their political fodder and vice versa. They should both support each other's legitimate interests and work out a system of mutual and reciprocal support, right from the Panchayat level to the Assembly and Lok Sabha. For example, the Muslim voters in reserved constituencies should support the Dalit candidates who command the affection of the Dalit masses, not those who are really banking on the support of the non-Dalit Hindus and of the high castes, as the candidates of big political parties generally do. Muslim and Dalit leadership should always extend support to the struggle of each other for security, equality and dignity, in accordance with the Constitution.

On the other hand, the Dalit leadership should not look upon Muslims merely as an ally in their struggle against the Brahminical order, but as a partner in the great, national task of reconstruction of the Indian Society on the basis of Democracy, Secularism and Social Justice. The Dalit leadership should take an unequivocal and consistent approach towards the forces of Hindu Revivalism and Chauvinism and of Hindu Nationalism - never shake hands with Hindutva parties, like the BJP or AIADMK or Shiv Sena. The Dalit leadership should counteract the pernicious influence of the Sangh Parivar among the tribals and ensure that the Dalits are not used as foot soldiers in a war against Muslims or Christians. The Dalit leadership, particularly among the Adivasis, should educate the masses to ensure that religion is correctly registered in the Census and they are not labelled as Hindus. They should stand squarely for suitable amendment to the Constitution (Scheduled Caste) Order, which detracts from the freedom of religion of the SC's, by repealing the criteria of profession of Hinduism.

The formulation of a National Strategy for Dalit-Muslim Unity demands both sincere effort at the grassroot level and political collaboration at the national and state levels. Political understanding and cooperation will emerge only through intellectual interaction at Workshops, Seminars, Symposiums, and Conferences. Dalit-Muslim Alliance will be born out of a nation-wide campaign by a joint leadership which will emerge, if the Muslim and Dalit MP's and MLA's of all parties and leaders of Muslim and Dalit social and cultural organizations come closer to each other and form a consensus not only on matters and developments of concern to them but on all national issues which in the final analysis affect all citizens and also retard or accelerate our movement, as a nation, towards the goals of Social Justice

03-17-2005, 07:18 PM

Racism in Catholic Church - Dalit liberators!?!?!

QUOTEReport damns second-class treatment of black members
FUTHI NTSHINGILA

13 March 2005

AN EXPLOSIVE internal report has exposed widespread racism in the Catholic Church in South Africa.

The Sunday Times has obtained a copy of the 31-page report called Racism and the Catholic Church, produced by the church's Justice and Peace Department after a two-year investigation into race relations among the church's leadership and its three-million-strong congregation.

The hard-hitting report found that the dominance of bishops who "come from the European cultural perspective" in the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference ensured that "white European perspectives and interests always set the agenda of the church".

The report says that Catholics "come into the church as privileged whites and underprivileged blacks. We have inherited a system of inequality."

http://www.sundaytimes.co.za/articles/arti...x?ID=ST6A110614

03-21-2005, 01:55 AM

QUOTEGovernment to Carry Dalit Christians' Cross?

http://www.christianaggression.org/item_di...7&type=articles

P.N.BENJAMIN
Vijay Times
27 March 2005

To corrupt George Orwellâs famous aphorism: âall Indian Christians are equal,
but some are more equal than othersâ. By embracing Christianity, the Dalits
have not found themselves emancipated from economic and social inequalities.
Conversions have neither offered the Dalits a way of escape from the bondage
of caste nor have they fostered the social transformation of the Dalit
Christians. They still live under the same conditions of discrimination,
exploitation and oppression.

By embracing Christianity the Dalits have not found themselves emancipated
from economic and social inequities. On the other hand they even find
themselves to be victims of double discrimination in their new religion. The
Church has sinned more than others in perpetuating social injustices against
Dalit Christians. Casteism is rampant in the Church. Caste discrimination
takes many forms among Indian Christians In rural areas they cannot own or
rent houses, however well-placed they may be. Separate places are marked out
for them in the parish churches and burial grounds. Inter-caste marriages are
frowned upon and caste tags are still appended to the Christian names of high
caste people. Casteism is rampant among the clergy and the religious. For
example, it is known that less than 4 per cent of the Catholic parishes are
entrusted to Dalit priests in South India itself..

Charity begins at home. But, the home (Church) where it begins, the Dalits
Christians do not belong. According to a study, all the landed properties of
churches in India put together, the church is the second biggest landlord in
the country, next only to the Government. In addition, the Church institutions and Church or Christians-led NGOs receive foreign financial support amounting to over Rs. 2500 crores per year. There is no transparency with regard to these funds as well the massive income accruing from the elite schools,
colleges and hospitals and also shopping complexes built all over the major
cities in the country. The poor Dalit Christian does not even get the crumbs,
leave alone participation in Church matters.

The Indian Church leaders â be it Catholic, Protestant or the âborn-againsâ-
have miserably failed to take care of the 20-million Dalits converted to
Christianity. Besides, indiscriminate conversions have ruined the spirit of
Christianity into savagery. Christianity is a path paved with suffering and
service. Christi said: âIf any one wants to follow me, let him take up the
Cross and follow me.â But, the Indian Church leaders want the Government to
carry the Cross of Dalit Christians.

The church leaders and NGOs have been demanding reservation for Dalit
Christians for several years now. However, the Poor Christian Liberation
Front (PCLM) has called the bluff of these self-styled defenders of Dalit
Christians. A recent statement issued in New Delhi by the PCLM has said that Indian Church leaders have âtamed the 20 million Dalit Christians and reduced
them to eternal slaves of organised Church bodies. On the one hand, the Church demands reservation for Dalit Christians from the government while on the
other, it opposes and refuses to provide them reservation in the Church
structure.â

Thus, the Churchâs call for re-distribution of national resources in favour of
Dalit Christians will be heeded only when its own resources are re-allocated
and used with a clear partiality for Dalits in its own fold. The Churchâs
fearless stand for justice will no longer let it remain silent about the
discrimination within the Church â a matter of shame to its members and an
embarrassment to its friends.

Time has come for Dalit Christians to refuse to be used as cannon fodder or
pawns in the hands of their so-called enlightened leaders who have grown fat
and powerful and enjoy better standards of living and greater prestige than
the poor and ordinary Dalit Christians. The eyes of these Dalit Christian
warriors are turned westward even more than during the Pax Britannica, and
they draw their inspiration not so much from the poverty, inequality and
indignities faced by the Dalit Christians within the Church but from the next
seminar in Geneva or other western capitals. There is a vested interest in
keeping the Dalit Christians as they are in the Church. They shall always be
with us so that their leaders can have a jolly good time sermonizing on the
plight of these unfortunate ones!

Dalit Christians, comprising almost 80% of the Indian Christian population,
should stand united and fight for their rights in the Church until they are
equals in the Christian fraternity first before seeking equal treatment from
the government. It would be futile to expect others to give them support with
a real change of heart. This goal can be achieved by following intelligently
Ambedkarâs exhortation: âeducate, organize and agitate.

Lastly, Dalit Christiansâ plight calls for a deeper analysis of the problem so that Christian leaders do not throw stones at the caste system prevailing in Hinduism or the Hindutva Brigade but look to something more meaningful and constructive.

03-31-2005, 06:26 PM

QUOTEhttp://www.milligazette.com/Archives/2004/16-30Nov04-Print-Edition/163011200463.htm

Rejoinder to Syed Shahabuddin
Reservation for Muslim Backwards

"Reservation for Muslim Backwards is Constitutional and Socially necessary in
National Context" is the caption of the "frank rejoinder" by my learned
colleague, Syed Shahabuddin [MG, 1-15 October 2004] from which I came to know
that my article really hurt him, otherwise he would not have charged me for
launching "such a pernicious and divisive campaign against the Muslim
community".

I have never rejected the idea of Muslim unity, but certainly I am not for any
unity at the cost of present benefits provided to the backward Muslims through
OBC reservation. He rightly observed, "He seems to think that reservation in
public employment for the Muslim community as a whole will be harmful to the
interests of the backward sub-communities because they will lose what they are
getting under the Mandal regime and they will be marginalised by the so-called
'Ashraf'. So they would be losers in balance." He further states that "This is
practical wisdom, no doubt, because a bird in hand is always better than two in
the bush. If this was at the back of his mind his diffidence in joining the
common cause of the community would be well understood." He claims to have
understood my mind but I fail to understand his mindset when he reads "something more to it than what appears at the surface".

My article in question consists of three parts. Syed Shahabuddin has reacted
only to part one while part two deals with the Dalit Muslims, i.e., about those
Muslims whose Hindu counterparts are included in Scheduled castes but Muslims
and Christians are debarred not by the regular Articles of the Constitution of
India but by the "Presidential (Scheduled Caste) order of 1950." The third part
is the opinion of NCRWC headed by Justice Venkatachaliah. My learned friend
altogether ignored the other two parts.

Regarding his "Religious Minorities as Backward Classes" sub-section, I have to
say only this much: he discusses the well-authenticated records of the
Constituent Assembly debates and the first draft of the Constitution. Prof.
Iqbal A Ansari also quoted the verbatim report of the debate in his article on
Andhra Muslim Reservation in the Milli Gazette [MG, 16-31 August 2004 & MG 1-15
September 2004]. In this regard I would like to repeat what I have said earlier
that the debates of the Constituent Assembly, Parliament, or state legislatures
are, after all, just debates, but what matters Constitutionally is the outcome
of the debate, the Constitution or the Acts of Parliament and state
legislatures. My learned friend very well understands this practical
proposition.: Aasman doobe huway taaron ka maatam kab talak.

Later on, Syed Shahabuddin claims that "The Supreme Court in the Indra Sawhny
Judgement clearly states that a religious community may also be categorized as a
Backward Class." He further states that Venkatachaliah Commission which has
stated that the grant of reservation to Muslims, if they constitute a backward
class, does not require any amendment to the Constitution. There are no two
opinions on this count. Nine Judges Constitution Bench Judgment is also of the
same opinion. The real point of difference is whether they constitute a
"backward class."

Muslims like Sikhs, Christians and Hindus are broadly divided into Backward and
non-Backward classes. The elite and Ashraf section of Muslim Ulama claim that
there is no categorisation between Ashraf and non-Ashrafs i.e. Ajlaf and Arzal,
among Muslims. They should know that the word Ashraf, Ajlaf and Arzal are not
derived from Sanskrit or Hindi. These are Arabic words and are in usage from
earliest periods. lt indicates that the division between Ashraf, Ajlaf and Arzal
was, and is in practice in Arab Society*. Shaikh Muhammad ibn Abdul Wahhab in
his book Deen Ke Teen Aham Usool confirms this. Indian Muslim Ulama, Maulana
Ashraf Ali Thanwi, Mufti Muhammad Shafi' and Maulana Ahmad Raza Khan Barelwi not only confirm this division but they used pernicious and derogative words for all
Ajlaf and Arzal (see Nehayatul Erab fi Ghayatin-nasab, extracts of which
published in Zindagi-e Nau, August, 2000). Now, Syed Shahabuddin himself should
decide who has divided the Muslim community: Muslim ulama or an ordinary person like me.

By Syed Shahabuddin's admission, Backward Muslims of U.P. constitute at least
75% of 16%, i.e., 12% of the state population. While recognising that 75% of
Muslims as backwards, he wants to know from me as to what percentage of them are getting benefits in U.P. services. It is nobody's claim that Backward Muslim's
are getting 50% of the seats, i.e., 6% in U.P. civil or police services. He
knows the position better than anyone else because he was founder-editor of
Muslim India, a monthly journal of "research, documentation and reference." I
would like to know from him the position of the Muslim representation on the
whole in both houses of Parliament and state legislatures and out of the total
representation of Muslims in these bodies what is the percentage of
representation of Backward Muslims whose percentage of population, according to
him is, 75% of the total Muslim population. He should tell the world frankly
that more than 75% of the seats in these decision-making bodies!
are captured by the Ashraf Muslims and only the remaining, less than 25%, seats
are filled by the category of Muslims who are Ajlaf and Arzal. He should also
state the position of the representation of Ansaris out of this less than 25%
representation of Backward Muslims. No Ansari could be elected in the 11th, 12th
and 13th Lok Sabha. Only one Ansari could enter the present Lok Sabha out of 36
Muslims. Representation of Ansaris in state legislatuers was also less than 5%
of the total Muslim population. Non-Ansari Muslim Backwards representation was
always comparatively better than Ansaris in these bodies. But I have never
raised the issue of Ansari representation. I always raise the issue of Backward
Muslim under-representation, but Syed Shahabuddin and persons of his mindset
always paint this picture that Ansaris are grabbing all the facilities of OBCs
while other backward Muslims are deprived. While giving a certificate to Ansaris
that "they were pampered for their nationalist record while the so-called Ashraf largely associated themselves with the Muslim League politics and later with the Pakistan Movement were left high and dry". No doubt the historical facts came from his pen but to express his heart-felt yet biased feeling about the Ansaris and with the ulterior motive of dividing the Muslim OBCs. He accused me of "drumming up support for the Muslim OBCs because he wants the relatively forward Ansaris to lord it over the other Muslim OBCs". In the end his real motive comes out: drumming separate quota for other Muslim OBCs excluding the Ansaris. Although earlier he posed a question, "If Mr. Ansari wants a separate quota for Muslim OBCs, say of 6% in U.P., I would support him." Every OBC Muslim will oppose tooth and nail the motive of Syed Shahabuddin to divide the OBC Muslims. After all he belongs to the rulling class which believes and practices the policy of divide-and-rule.

In fact, Backward Muslims are not opposed to reservation to the Ashraf Muslims
but they are certainly opposed to "bundling of the unequals" together. If the
Constitution approves provision of reservation under separate category other
than OBC for forward Muslims, their backward brothers will support it. He
himself opposes the "bundling of unequals" theory and he will agree that
Shaikhs, Syeds, Mughals and Pathans are socially, educationally and also
economically superior to the Ajlaf and Arzal Muslims.

Coming to the Muslim reservation in Kerala, Karnataka, Manipur and Tamil Nadu,
there is no reservation for all Muslims in Karnataka and Kerala. In Tamil Nadu
only Tamil-speaking Muslims are included in the backward list excluding the
Urdu-speaking. In Munipur, all Muslims are not included in backward list. In
Kerala the word used is "All Muslims excluding" and those excluded in Karnataka
are "Kachi Memon, Navayat, Bohra, Bhunaya, Borha, Saiyad, Sheikh, Pathan,
Mughal, Mahad Yoma, Mohdadi, Kokani or Gomti Muslim." In Kerala, those excluded are "Bohra, Kachchi Memon, Nayayats, Turkan and Dakhni Muslims" (source National Commission of Backward Classes).

Syed Shahabuddin will not be able to achieve his goal of creating division and
misunderstandings among the backward Muslims. No doubt Ansari Muslims are the
target of all his attack in his "frank rejoinder" but his main object is to
create division among the OBC Muslims who are included in the list of OBC
category.

I do not know what made him understand that Ansaris are the main beneficiaries
of the OBC Muslim quota. The fact is just the reverse. I am placing positive
facts for his perusals: Let us first examine the position of representation of
Ansaris in the lower house of Indian Parliament. The authentic data is as under:
from 1st to 14th Lok Sabhas 396 Muslims of both the Ashraf and non-Ashraf
categories were elected, out of which only 14 were Ansaris. 1st and 2nd Lok
Sabha had no Ansari representation and in each of the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th Lok
Sabhas only one Ansari could be elected while 7th Lok Sabha had five, the
highest ever Ansari representation, and the 8th had only three Ansaris. In the
9th Lok Sabha, Ansari representation came down to zero while the 10th Lok Sabha
had only one Ansari. In the 12th and 13th Lok Sabha, Ansari representation again
came down to zero. The present Lok Sabha (14th) has only one Ansari
representation. According to Syed Shahabuddin's own assessmen!
t 75% of the Muslim population belongs to the OBC category and the remaining 25%
are Ashraf, i.e., Shaikh, Syed, Mughal and Pathan. Out of this 75% OBC Muslim
population, around half of them, or say more than 35% of the Muslims, consist of
Ansaris who according to him are the main beneficiaries of the OBC quota. But on
the other hand the facts of the Lok Sabha OBC Muslim representation and among
them Ansari representation are just the opposite. No doubt, Muslim
representation in Lok Sabha is below the percentage of the Muslim population.
Out of around seven thousand five hundred members from 1st to I4th Lok Sabhas,
only about 400 Muslims could get elected. If for calculation sake, Muslim
population is counted as 12%, then only 6.25% of Muslims got elected in the Lok
Sabha. Out of this, only 14 Ansaris and around 46 OBC Muslims could get
representation in the 1st to 14th Lok Sabhas. Roughly the figure comes to 60 OBC
Muslims out of 400 Muslims elected to Lok Sabha. That is to!
say that out of 75% OBC Muslim population only 15% could get representation in
Lok Sabha and 60% representation was cornered by the 25% Ashraf or non-OBC
section of Muslims.

I leave it to the readers to decide which section of the Muslims are grossly
under-represented and which section of the Muslims is over-represented. Almost
same is the position of representation of Muslims in general, in state
legislatuers, public services, admissions, educational institutions, and in
decision-making bodies of Government and political parties.

I conclude with a quotation from NCRWC headed by justice Venkatachaliah: "At
present the political representation of minorities especially Muslims in
legislature has fallen much below the proportion of their population. The
proportion of BCs among them is next to nil. Backward classes belonging to
religious minorities, who have been identified and included in the list of
backward classes and who in fact constitute the bulk of the population of
religious minorities should be taken up with special care along with their Hindu
counterparts in the developmental efforts for the backward classes".

Ashfaq Husain Ansari, ex-MP
a_h_ansari47@rediffmail.com

* This is not correct. No such social categorisation exists in the Arab society
where some tribes may consider themselves superior on account of their numbers
or old history but this does not stop people from any tribe or section to rise
if they acquire knowledge, wealth and political power as is the case in our own
Indian Muslim society (editor).

04-07-2005, 03:12 PM

QUOTELow caste converts barred from Christmas celebration in Indian church

AP Worldstream; 12/25/2003; K.N.ARUN, Associated Press Writer

AP Worldstream

12-25-2003

Dateline: MADRAS, India
Police were guarding a church Thursday after more than 250 lower caste villagers who converted to Christianity were barred from a Christmas mass, an officer said.

The villagers, known as Dalit Christians after the lower-caste Hindu social class they once belonged to, were prevented from attending midnight mass at St. Ebiben's Church by high-caste converts, said local pastor Father Christopher Rethinasamy.

He said he was helpless to do anything because he feared an outbreak of violence.

Dalits are sometimes called "untouchables" because of the social neglect they suffer at the bottom of India's 2,500-year-old caste system.

Many of India's Christians, who form about 2 percent of the country's 1.02 billion Hindu-majority population, have changed their faith to escape the often-oppressive Hindu caste hierarchy.

The Dalit Christians were made to wait for nearly an hour and half as mass was conducted for the converts from the Vannia community, who were formerly high caste Hindus.

They were allowed entry an hour after the ceremony ended, but only after police intervened and negotiated with church authorities.

"I know it is against the teachings of Jesus," Rethinasamy told The Associated Press. "But I had to go along with the decision of the Vannia Christians. I did not want the situation to deteriorate into violence."

The church in Manjakuppam, a village about 1,800 kilometers (1,100 miles) south of New Delhi, is in an area that has witnessed deep caste-based divisions between the Dalit and Vannia Christians.

Some 50 police officers were posted at the site to prevent any clashes, said a senior police official in the area, Rajeev Kumar.

"The entire district has a history of violent clashes between the two communities," Kumar said by telephone. "We anticipated that there might be some trouble and came prepared to defuse it."

"The entire district has a history of violent clashes between the two communities," Kumar said by telephone. "We anticipated that there might be some trouble and came prepared to defuse it."

Copyright 2003, AP News All Rights Reserved

04-08-2005, 08:25 PM

http://www.ndtv.com/morenews/showmorestory...ivasis&id=71188

Row over BJD leader's remarks on adivasis

Sampad Mahapatra

Friday, April 8, 2005 (Bhubaneswar):

Former High Court judge and Biju Janata Dal leader M Papanna is at the centre of a controversy after some newspapers quoted him as saying the adivasis are not Hindus.

The matter generated a heated debate in the assembly and some MLAs even demanded that Justice Papanna be arrested for making an anti-national statement.

However, the former judge says he had only said that Hindu laws are not accepted in toto by adivasis.

Cultural dilemma

According to the law, adivasis are considered and treated as Hindus unless they have converted to other religions.

The other Orissa MLAs too point out the adivasis are an integral part of the Jagannath culture in the state.

"The adivasis are Hindus beyond any doubt, said BJP, MLA Pratap Sarangi.

Divided house

Interestingly, it was the BJP camp that appeared divided on the issue, as the party's adivasi members were insistent they not be called Hindus.

"The adivasis have their own religion and they are not to be called Hindus," said BJP MLA Draupadi Murmu.

The debate comes at a time when adivasis are searching for the traditional identity that they have had to suppress for centuries.

In Orissa, the issue has resurfaced against the backdrop of the violent tussle between Christians and fundamentalist Hindus over the adivasis.

The adivasis account for over 22 per cent of the population in the state, and whichever political group manages to win over this group will be a power to contend with.

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