Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 20.10.11
Dalits ousted from village in Balangir - The Times Of India
Cong fact-finding team submits report on Dalit woman's death - The Pioneer
In Keeripatti village, the vote is all about caste - The Times Of India
Equal and excellent? - Indian Express
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/equal-and-excellent/862300/
Protesting 'selection' of president, Pachery's Dalits boycott local body polls - The Hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article2552742.ece
Effective communication is key to social change - Murung Times
http://www.morungexpress.com/Perspective/72097.html
Cong, NCP ministers spar over school fee proposal - The Times Of India
The Times Of India
Dalits ousted from village in Balangir
TNN | Oct 19, 2011, 09.02AM IST
BHUBANESWAR: At least 15 dalit families were allegedly thrown out of their homes from a village in Khaprakhol block of Balangir district, around 400 km from here, by upper caste families. Eighteen days after the September 30 incident, the dalits are still taking shelter with their relatives and are unable to return to their houses, a dalit outfit said on Tuesday.
Om Prakash Kumbhar, president of Lakshe Ghara Ganda Samaj Samiti, said the upper caste families attacked the Ganda (a scheduled caste) families in Ambabahal village, ransacked their houses and forced them to leave, suspecting them of indulging in theft, the allegation of which was found to be false by police.
Kumbhar, who led a fact-finding team of the samiti to the village recently, said a pregnant woman delivered stillborn twins while fleeing the village. The woman, Savitri Deep, and her husband Santosh are now taking shelter in a make-shift tent at a weekly haat, around 10 km away from their village.
The village had about 30 dalit families, who were staying in two localities. Sources said the village has witnessed a series of thefts in the past few months. The villagers had discovered two dalit youths moving in the area in a suspicious manner and presumed that they were involved in the thefts. "Police later found the two innocent," Kumbhar said.
Police said a case was registered against the alleged culprits under SC/ST Atrocities Act. Further investigations are on, they said.
The Pioneer
Cong fact-finding team submits report on Dalit woman's death
Thursday, 06 October 2011 00:00
Staff Reporter | Bhopal
Bottom of Form
The fact finding team constituted by the Madhya Pradesh Congress Committee president Kantilal Bhuria to look into the murder of Dalit woman Siyabai held police negligence as the main reason for the heinous act. It was also found that the accused persons in the case are Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers and thus under their influence the police did not take any action.
The three-member delegation sent by the Sagar District Congress Committee president Heera Singh Rajput to find out the facts behind setting afire a Dalit woman in Chirari village of Rehli tehsil in the district submitted its report to the two member fact finding team constituted by Bhuria, the team later submitted the report to Bhuria on Wednesday.
The delegation prepared its report after talking to the family members and villagers of Chirari. The delegation came to know that Lakhan Chadhar, son of the deceased Siyabai has some altercation with the accused Rajan Raikwar, Naththu Raikwar, Madahv Raikwar, Hallu Raikwar, Bahadur Raikwar and Tulsi Raikwar on September 10, 2011.
The report stated that Chadhar had lodged a complaint with the Rehli police but as the complainant was of schedule, caste no action was taken on it. This boosted the morale of the accused and on October 2 they murdered Siyabai by setting her afire.
The report mentioned that on the night of incident, the accused reached the house of Siyabai with intentions of killing her son Lakhan Chadhar, they started abusing and terrorizing him from outside the house to come out. Siyabai was not in the home at that time, Lakhan did not came out due to fear but the accused caught hold of Malti, the 15-year-old granddaughter of Siyabai, they dragged her about 200 metres away from her house and started doing indecent acts with her.
When Siyabai returned home and came to know about the incident, she reached the house of accused and started requesting them to leave her granddaughter, on this they started beating her and set her ablaze after putting kerosene on her. Meanwhile, Malti managed to flee from the scene and informed her maternal uncle Lakhan about the incident.
He immediately reached Rehli police station to lodge complaint but the report was not lodged. The report pointed out that the police acted on the report of Lakhan on September 10, the major incidence could have been averted.
The Times Of India
In Keeripatti village, the vote is all about caste
M T Saju, TNN | Oct 20, 2011, 05.22AM IST
KEERIPATTI: An old man is sleeping on a cement slab in front of the main polling booth at Keeripatti, unaware of the commotion around him. A posse of policemen has just rushed in after a scuffle broke out in front of the polling booth.
A candidate allegedly was canvassing votes in violation of the model code of conduct. And, he objected to the security personnel who tried to shove him away. Senior police officials intervene and calm tempers. But soon the candidate gets at the nearby hospital and the arguments between poll agents continue late into the evening in the three polling booths.
Welcome to the mess called election in Keeripatti. Polling was peaceful here on Wednesday. A reserved constituency, Keeripatti has six dalits in the fray for the post of the panchayat president. The battle is intense with people divided on caste lines. Dalits, who stress on their independence and identity, are ranged against the non-dalits, who are more in number and are least pleased with the reserved status of the constituency. With no reconciliation between the dalits and non-dalits in sight, the tension in the village is palpable. In the past, tempers have run high and non-dalits have been blamed for not letting a 'true' representative of the dalit community run the local body. The non-dalits are accused of wanting to have their dalit nominee hold office.
The polling ended with 1,019 of the total 1,257 voters in the village casting their vote. The high turnout, according to the non-dalits, will ensure victory for their candidate, Mookakalai. A Thevar stronghold, the village has 570 non-dalits and 109 dalit families. Since the constituency is reserved for candidates from scheduled castes and tribes, only dalits can contest. There are six dalits in the fray, including sitting panchayat president Baluchamy. Mookakalai, a dalit, has been handpicked by the non-dalits in the village to serve as a dummy panchayat president, Baluchamy and others claim. They allege that villagers were threatened that they will ostracised if they vote for Mookakalai.
"We will vote only for our candidate (read Mookakalai). We have told them so many times not to contest. We have the majority in this village. So how does a dalit become a panchayat president here? asks Eswar, a non-dalit, who works as a driver. According to Eswar, some NGOs are creating problems in the village. "We don't have any problem with the dalits. They live in a separate colony. We have told them not to come to our side and we don't go to their side. But some NGOs are blowing up the issue," he said. Baluchamy, the sitting panchayat president, says they can't fight the non-dalits without somebody's support. "We have been marginalised and sidelined for long," he says.
As the debate revolves around the assertion of identity, the development issues have receded to the background. According to K Velu, a non-dalit, the "real issues" are potholed roads and shortage of drinking water.
"Our road is half-laid with full of potholes and humps. The work was supposed to be over three months ago, but the president didn't take any initiative. Also, we don't get drinking water regularly," he says.
Indian Express
Equal and excellent?
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/equal-and-excellent/862300/
The Central government has proposed that 4 per cent of its annual purchases be reserved for units run by Dalits or tribals (SC/ST). This reservation — estimated at Rs 25,000 crore — will "boost entrepreneurship among the disadvantaged by giving them assured state clientèle without the fear of competition from entrenched businessmen". While reservations are a legitimate choice for society, we must not pretend there are no effective policy alternatives. In fact, a broader fix of the entrepreneurship ecosystem will do a better job of helping the true "economically disadvantaged".
The headline of this article is drawn from a brilliant book called Excellence written in 1961 by educationist John Gardner. He raised difficult questions like, how equal do we want to be? How equal can we be? What difficulties does a democracy encounter in pursuing excellence? Can we be equal and excellent? He felt answering these questions was important because if a society cannot rouse itself to the pursuit of excellence, the consequences will be felt in everything that it undertakes. He observed that most societies of which we have any historical records were beautifully organised to keep good men and women down. In such societies an individual's status was not determined by gifts or capacities but by membership in a family, caste or class. Such membership determined the individual's rights, privileges, prestige, power and status in society. Status was not earned, and birth determined whom you bowed to, who bowed to you, the weight of your voice in the community, and the kinds of suitors who sought your son or daughter's hand. While religious reform and democracy were important, he believed that it was the entrepreneurship of the Industrial Revolution that started the change.
The Hindu
Protesting 'selection' of president, Pachery's Dalits boycott local body polls
http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/tamil-nadu/article2552742.ece
C. Jaishankar
It was also against "indifferent" attitude of State to murder of Dalit boy
It was business as usual on Wednesday for the Dalits of Pachery village, part of the Mandalamanickam panchayat near Kamudhi, who stayed away from the polling booths and stuck to their daily grind.
As decided at a village meeting a few days ago, the entire Dalit population of Pachery [Pallabachery] boycotted the civic elections protesting the 'selection' of president in an undemocratic manner and the "indifferent" attitude of the State government to the murder of Palanikumar, a Dalit boy of Pachery, a day prior to the Immanuel Sekaran memorial day and Paramakudi police firing.
The alleged denial of road access to the village through the Mandalamanickam, dominated by caste Hindus, was also among the reasons cited by the Dalits for boycotting the election.
Polling officials of the two booths in the panchayat union primary school at Pachery were greeted not by voters but by reporters all through the day. While booth No.46 has 349 votes of Pachery, No.49 has 510 votes of Pachery and Kodangipatty hamlets.
With the president 'elected unopposed', the electors had to vote for electing ward members of the Ramanathapuram district panchayat and the Kamudhi panchayat union.
Though all 12 officials and staff attached to the booths were waiting for the voters from 7 a.m. with a posse of police, no one from Pachery and Kodangipatty came for exercising their franchise. No agent of the candidates were present.
The videographer was busy filming everything except voting.
Presiding Officer K.K. Amarlal (28) told The Hindu that he was disappointed and passed on the information to the zonal officers.
"It is a hard decision but we don't have a better option to register our protest. We need justice and fair inquiry into the Paramakudi police firing," said I. Thangavel (43), father of Palanikumar of Pachery, who had a tattoo of the 'two leaves' symbol of the AIADMK on his hand.
"Though it is a reserved panchayat, the caste Hindus have "handpicked a puppet candidate," who was elected unopposed.
The post was openly auctioned for Rs.15 lakh at a hamlet recently and the money divided among all 8 hamlets of Mandalamanickam panchayat illegally. What is the use in taking part in the election?" asked K. Muthukaruppaiah, another Dalit of Pachery.
P. Anjaneyar of Kodangipatty said that the villagers boycotted the polling as they had to trek 8 km to reach Pachery for casting the vote. The officials did not heed their request to establish a booth at Kadangipatty.
Murung Times
Effective communication is key to social change
http://www.morungexpress.com/Perspective/72097.html
Anjali Singh – CNS
She packs a powerful punch, given her pint size stature, yet the lady from Dora, a quaint hamlet of district Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh, is a tall woman thanks to her achievements and she makes no bones about it. Having stood for the Gram Sabha elections and winning with a over 300 votes which was a total landslide victory for her, Savitri stands as a testimony to what a strong will power coupled with an effective communication skill can do, no matter what the physical constraints or societal traditions maybe.
eing the only dalit living in a village of 200 bhoomihars (landlords) she fought to keep her land from being usurped by the landlords, eradicate castesim from the village, helped children go to school and exposed the corrupt practices by the school headmaster! If that was not enough she set up a stitching school to teach young women how to get self reliant! Ask the petite wonder how she manages all this, and pat comes the reply, "I told myself how long will this oppression go on, as dalits my family and my community has faced a lot of discrimination and injustice for many generations. So I decided that either I put up with it or rebel against it and change the way we lived forever. Naturally my heart chose a life of dignity and my fight for our rights began in 2003."
Interesting as that sounds, her story and many like hers were shared by social activist who were the many participants at a unique Communication Needs Assessment workshop conducted by a New Delhi based organization called Poorest Areas Civil Society (PACS) in Lucknow on 10-12 October 2011 in association with Resource Alliance Group.
While Savitri shared her experience of how she used effective communication tools to mobilize and motivate people in her village to usher in change many others at the workshop spoke on their fight for right to education, MNREGA compensations, working with the excluded communities like Muslims, dalits, SC/ST, tribal, women and children.
Says Sutapa Mukherjee, a women rights activists from Ghaziabad, whose organization Gram Niyojan Kendra has been working with sex workers in Rajasthan and Uttarkhand, "The work that most social activists do make a tremendous impact in the areas they intervene in, but all this goes unnoticed as they don't take the best practices to the public as they communication skills are mostly not developed. A lot of good work which can be replicated needs to be well documented and publicized and workshops like one PACS is organizing will help enhance the communication ability of most NGOs and the staff."
Adds Shirin Abbas, a former journalist and a development consultant, "The power of expression is the most essential tool in communication. Those in the development sector though are fantastic harbingers of change they really need to learn to narrate their work. This they can do by making innovative use of media and its tools which will help develop their simple advocacy tools. Thus they can tell the world how they fought for the people's rights, broke barriers to get children vaccinated and even faced challenges to empower women."
Abbas who was the resource person at the workshop also demonstrated to the participants how to create a newsletter and design and shape news from their areas.
Also present at the workshop as an expert was Augustine Veliath, former Communication Specialist UNICEF Lucknow who helped the social activists present understand the concept of Appreciative Inquiry using the 4-Ds cycle of discovery, dream, design and destiny, the formula he has developed for effective communication.
As Veliath put it, "It is high time we move from the much use concept of SWOT (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) which helps determine weakness in a venture to SOAR (Strength, opportunities, Aspirations and Results) which focuses more on what our strengths are. For any communication technique to be successful we need to first understand the strength, opportunity, aspirations and results. For this dialogue is very important we have to learn what we want to say and how are we going to get people who matter listen to it. So if we want people to learn to listen we have to learn what we want to say and how."
Adds Priyanka Sarkar, Knowledge and Communications Manager, PACS, "The workshop is being organized to understand the communication needs of our partners in seven states of India. The initiative is supported by Department for International Development (DFID) and will help develop communication mediums for the partners we work with. We have selected some new partners from Uttar Pradesh who talk of social inclusion, Muslims, Dalits, SC/ST, women and children and also the marginalized and weaker sections in the state. These people have never been represented and we want them to share their plans and highlight the wonderful they are doing."
As per Sarkar, PACS plans to support the approved proposals and ideas that come out of the workshop for a period of 4 years, "At our plenary sessions in the workshops we have got to see and hear powerful stories of self motivation and emerging role models in respective districts. So we will help them further to communicate, motivate and evaluate the work they are doing in the long run by capacity building."
So having said that don't be surprised if you suddenly get to hear social activities and community based organizations making news on prime time!
The Times Of India
Cong, NCP ministers spar over school fee proposal
Sandeep Ashar, TNN | Oct 20, 2011, 04.08AM IST
MUMBAI: A proposal for reimbursement of education fees of students belonging to socially backward classes was a subject of contention between Congress and NCP ministers at the cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
The social justice department, which is led by Congress minister Shivajirao Moghe, had submitted a proposal for reimbursement of education and exam fees for SC/ST students and those belonging to Vimukta Jati-Nomadic Tribes (VJNT) studying in private unaided schools.
The proposal was to be applied for Std I to Std X. The department has recommended that the government reimburse Rs.100- Rs.200 monthly towards fees for such students. The department said that the proposal was being brought on the basis of a Supreme Court directive. The proposal would have cost the state exchequer Rs 425 crore.
At the meeting, senior NCP ministers opposed the proposal, while Congress ministers stood for it.
NCP's Ajit Pawar, who heads the finance department, questioned the need for the proposal said there was no need to reimburse fees of students who go to private schools. On being pointed out that it was a court directive, Jayant Patil, another NCP minister, also supported Pawar's argument.
Congress ministers, including Varsha Gaikwad, Nitin Raut, supported the proposal. NCP leaderChhagan Bhujbal demanded inclusion of other backward classes, while a section of ministers lobbied for inclusion of economically weaker sections. On account of the divided opinion, the cabinet decided to seek the opinion of the advocate-general in this regard.
Cong ministers turn the heat on Pawar At a pre cabinet meeting of the Congress party, senior ministers complained against highhandedness of deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, who belongs to the NCP. The ministers complained that the finance department, headed by Pawar, was delatying clearances of files pertaining to their departments, which affected the minister's performance. They asked CM to step in.
.Arun Khote
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of "Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC")
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Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre- PMARC has been initiated with the support from group of senior journalists, social activists, academics and intellectuals from Dalit and civil society to advocate and facilitate Dalits issues in the mainstream media. To create proper & adequate space with the Dalit perspective in the mainstream media national/ International on Dalit issues is primary objective of the PMARC.
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