As a token gesture, officials take Dalits to temple, but not inside – The hindu
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/as-a-token-gesture-officials-take-dalits-to-temple-but-not-inside/article8428796.ece
Dalit youth murder: man surrenders in court – News today
http://newstodaynet.com/chennai/dalit-youth-murder-man-surrenders-court
Kerala artist makes use of her greased body to shed light on colour prejudice in India – The news minut
http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/kerala-artist-makes-use-her-greased-body-shed-light-colour-prejudice-india-41105
Hyderabad University: ‘Locked’ inside campus for days, students cry for help – One india news
http://www.oneindia.com/india/hyderabad-university-locked-inside-campus-for-days-students-cry-help-2059247.html
Muslim participation lowest among women in workforce: Report – Nyoooz
http://www.nyoooz.com/pune/413790/muslim-participation-lowest-among-women-in-workforce58-report
Liquor ban draconian, say Nawada villagers – Nyoooz
http://www.nyoooz.com/patna/414062/liquor-ban-draconian-say-nawada-villagers
Smart strategy or plain desperation? – News 7
http://www.prameyanews7.com/en/apr2016/national/19666/Smart-strategy-or-plain-desperation.htm
Six held for assaulting Dalit – Nyoooz
http://www.nyoooz.com/coimbatore/414368/six-held-for-assaulting-dalit-woman
Poor planning & non-spending of funds reasons for non-implementation of TSP – Web duniya 123
http://news.webindia123.com/news/Articles/India/20160403/2829636.html
Gogoi will face the music in polls: Indigenous tribal sahitya sabhas – The sentinel
http://www.sentinelassam.com/ghy_city/story.php?sec=2&subsec=4&id=262531&dtP=2016-04-03&ppr=1#.VwC8PUvPouw
THE STATE OF A PARCHED LAND – Bangalore mirror
http://www.bangaloremirror.com/columns/sunday-read/The-State-of-a-parched-land/articleshow/51664979.cms
Andamans and its tribals: Meet the first Indians while they are still around – Economic times
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/science/andamans-and-its-tribals-meet-the-first-indians-while-they-are-still-around/articleshow/51663756.cms
The hindu
As a token gesture, officials take Dalits to temple, but not inside
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/as-a-token-gesture-officials-take-dalits-to-temple-but-not-inside/article8428796.ece
In yet another ongoing battle for entry of Dalits into a temple at Sigaranahalli village in Holenarsipur taluk of Hassan district, the district administration seems to have failed to ensure that the rights of the Dalits are upheld.
In what was described by Dalit leaders as “adding insult to injury”, on Saturday, officials took some people from the Dalit colony to Basaveshwara temple and made them offer puja by standing in front of the locked doors of the temple, and later said the matter was resolved.
“The matter has been peacefully settled,” claimed Umesh H. Kusugal, Deputy Commissioner of Hassan, when contacted by The Hindu . He even added that ‘upper caste’ people did not oppose his move of taking Dalits to the temple. However, there was no response to why Dalits were not taken inside the temple.
On Friday, violence erupted in the village when a district official, journalists and policemen were injured by a mob of ‘upper caste’ people who opposed the entry of Dalits into the temple to participate in the Durga Parameshwari Jatra Mahotsava, an annual event that began on Friday. Ironically, Saturday’s event happened in the presence of Holenarsipur MLA H.D. Revanna.
“In the guise of taking Dalits into the temple, the district administration has practised untouchability. Our people were not taken inside the temple, but were made to stand in front of the locked doors. The DC and MLA should be held responsible,” said Vijay Kumar, a resident of the Dalit colony in the village.
Observers and human rights activists point out that Dalits seeking entry into temples has often met with opposition from ‘upper caste’ people, prompting the State machinery to somehow put an end to the issue in a hurry, leaving the core issue of upholding the Dalits’ rights untouched.
Bureaucrats represent the ‘upper caste’ and feudal mindset and end up suggesting the Dalits ‘tolerate’ and continue with past systems, Dalit activists said.
Mavalli Shankar, president of Dalit Sangharsh Samiti (Ambedkar Wada), alleged that bureaucrats and people’s representatives, in many instances, have acted as representatives of the feudal system. “They do not look for a change in the system or bring awareness among those practising untouchability. They are interested only in putting an end to the case as soon as possible,” he said.
In this case, the administration was under pressure from the people’s representatives as offering puja at Basaveshwara temple was necessary to go ahead with the car festival of Durga Parameshwari.
The temple was closed after Dalits entered the temple with the help of the district administration in September 2015. The temple was reopened on March 25 only after conducting ‘purification’ rituals to ‘clean’ the temple as part of the preparations for the ongoing festival.
In most cases, Dalits give up their right to enter a temple, knowing that those in power will support ‘upper castes’
Venkataswamy,
State president,
Samata Sainik Dal
Even if heads of district are Dalits, they won’t antagonise ‘upper castes’; it will vitiate the atmosphere
Mavalli Shankar,
State president, Dalit Sangarsh Samiti (Ambedkar Wada)
We have taken Dalits to the temple. ‘Upper caste’ people did not oppose it today. We have settled the matter peacefully
Umesh H. Kusugal,
Deputy Commissioner,
Hassan district
News today
Dalit youth murder: man surrenders in court
http://newstodaynet.com/chennai/dalit-youth-murder-man-surrenders-court
Dindigul (TN): A man today surrendered before a court in the district in connection with the brutal murder of a Dalit youth in a suspected honour killing last month in Tirupur district.
Kalai Tamilvanan, a native of the district, surrendered before Nilakottai Judicial Magistrate Regina Bervin who sent him to police custody for seven days.
Three persons had attacked 22-year old Shankar and his wife Kausalya with sickles in full public view near a bus stand in Udumalpet on March 13 allegedly at the behest of her father, a caste Hindu who was opposed to their inter-caste marriage.
Shankar died while being rushed to the hospital while Kausalya, who hails from Dindigul district, survived with head injuries.
As the video footage of the chilling attack went viral triggering an outrage, police arrested five persons, including the girl’s mother while her father, Chinnasamy, surrendered in a court.
The news minut
Kerala artist makes use of her greased body to shed light on colour prejudice in India
http://www.thenewsminute.com/article/kerala-artist-makes-use-her-greased-body-shed-light-colour-prejudice-india-41105
“The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.” – George Orwell
Outside the Durbar Hall Grounds in Kochi, artist P S Jaya draws curious looks from passersby. A group of amused drivers at a nearby autorickshaw stand silently gawking at her as she boards a three-wheeler to the Ernakulam railway station.
“I have been getting used to these stares since January 27, when I started stepping out of my house with my whole body painted black,” she smiles.
Tarring someone’s face in India is a public form of humiliation indulged in India. Enraged by 26-year-old Dalit activist and PhD scholar Rohit Vemula’s suicide at the Hyderabad Central University, Jaya -a non-Dalit incidentally- decided to take on a prejudice of another kind, but one which often conflates with casteist prejudice. She seeks to literally experience the same throes of humiliation that our society harbours against dark skin.
“He (Vemula) was my age.The prevalent mindset is that anyone endowed with dark or ‘black’ skin hails from the lower strata of society,” she says.
Though India has sauntered into the new millennium with confidence, she is disturbed that Indians are still stuck in a casteist mould and continue to view dark-skinned people with suspicion. A brief pause later, she asks: “Why can’t the focus be on the individual who exists underneath the skin colour, caste, religion, race or gender?”
Wanting to make use of art to highlight such caste and colour prejudices, Jaya came up with this unique form of protest which seeks to draw people’s attention to the deep-seated biases inherent in their sub-conscious attitude to others.
She plans to launch a calendar showcasing her 100-day protest along with an exhibition focusing on the same. A dance recital too is in the offing.
“In classical dance, the performer dons paint to look fair. I would like to perform onstage donning grease…hopefully I’m able to break away from the cliché that beauty lies in fairness,” she grins.
Jaya had even adorned her darkened body with LED lights on March 8 –celebrated as Women’s Day all over the world- and performed in various public spaces to drive home the point that women need to shine on their own.
Will her protest alter society’s biased attitude?
Perhaps not. But that should not deter people from questioning such wrongs, she believes.
At a dance school in the up-market Panampilly Nagar, where Jaya works as a part-time teacher, her overnight ‘dark skin’ evoked mixed responses from her young students.
Some of her students mistook her for someone else while others told her that she was more beautiful to look at earlier. Associating beauty with fair skin starts right from childhood in India, she asserts.
Though apprehensive about going out on the first day of her live performance, she wanted to use her body as the medium to highlight an age-old prejudice in literal bold black strokes.
“People discuss Dalit issues only when someone gets killed. This should change. All such ‘minority’ issues like those of the transgenders too should be up for continuous debate,” she adds.
Youngest of four children, Jaya derives her sense of individuality from her father -a carpenter- whom she lost eight years ago. A post-graduate in Fine Arts from RLV College in Kochi, she works with Kalakakshi -a collective of artistes and writers. A recipient of the 2013 Lalit Kala Academy award for painting, it was her sister -also an artist- who initiated her into the art world.
One india news
Hyderabad University: ‘Locked’ inside campus for days, students cry for help
http://www.oneindia.com/india/hyderabad-university-locked-inside-campus-for-days-students-cry-help-2059247.html
Hyderabad, April 3: Perhaps for the first time in the history of independent India, students of a university are “locked” inside their campus, being denied contact with the outside world. As the administration of the University of Hyderabad (UoH) continues to impose a blockade on the campus, students have invited members of the civil society to join their struggle on the university premises on April 6.
Since the students have very little access with the outside world, with the main gate of the university being locked and guarded by police personnel, students are interacting with the rest of society with the help of various social media platforms. The press release posted on the Facebook account of the Joint Action Committee (JAC) for Social Justice, (UoH), stated the students are hosting a protest rally–Chalo Hyderabad Central University (HCU)–against the blockade imposed on the campus on April 6. The members of JAC are spearheading the movement for justice for Rohith Vemula, after the 26-year-old Dalit research scholar committed suicide on the campus on January 17.
“This is an appeal to all the students, political organisations and people to come to UoH on April 6 to register your protest against the ongoing injustice meted out to Rohith and students of the university. Since the university administration has imposed a blockade on the campus preventing the students from having any contact with the outside world, Chalo HCU call is also against the imposed blockade on the university,”
stated the press release. The normal functioning of the university came to a halt on March 22, when the vice-chancellor Appa Rao Podile, an accused in the suicide of Rohith, resumed charge on the campus. The students protested against Podile’s return to the campus. As a part of the protest, students were also accused of restoring to vandalism. However, students alleged that police brutally attacked them, who were registering their protest in a non-violent manner. The matter became worse after police arrested a group of 25 students and two faculty members and kept them locked in a police station, denying them bail for several days. At the same time, the university administration imposed a blockade by deploying police inside the campus and denying free movement of the students. “Since the return of Podile, the campus is in a state of emergency. Students have been assaulted, deprived of food, water, legal aid, medical aid, cut-off from the outside world and also put in jail and slapped with false cases. In this state of emergency, students feel extremely threatened and have been demanding the removal of vice-chancellor from the university premises and his immediate arrest,” stated the press release. “Podile has resumed his charge without getting any bail or legal relief. He had applied for bail six times and every time it was cancelled. His presence on the campus can be questioned legally. The police should arrest him as he is booked under SC/ST prevention of atrocities act. He is also one of the main accused in Rohith’s suicide case,” added the press release. The press release says the students are seeking response from the administration on three main accounts-the filing and withdrawal of cases against students and faculty members, the blockade imposed on the campus by closing of the main gate and plans to deploy CISF personnel on the campus. “The recent meeting with the registrar only reaffirms our doubt that the administration is in collusion with Podile, police and BJP. Together they’re going to take anti-student decisions. The students do not recognise Podile as their VC and will continue their protest demanding his removal and arrest,” added the press release.
Nyoooz
Muslim participation lowest among women in workforce: Report
http://www.nyoooz.com/pune/413790/muslim-participation-lowest-among-women-in-workforce58-report
Summary: While Adivasi and Dalit women have a relatively large workforce share, Muslim women have the lowest participation rates. Among all communities studied, Muslim women are the lowest on labour force participation rate. Within this, the share of Muslim women in the workforce is less than 10 per cent, Patel said. Muslim women lag behind in almost all key socio-economic indicators of development. Appoint Commission on Muslim womenWe have strongly recommended the appointment of a Commission on Muslim Women that will map and suggest actions on issues related to them, Patel said.
Dr Razia Patel Dr Razia Patel Pune-based Dr Razia Patel, who was part of a high-level committee that recommended a complete ban on oral, unilateral and triple talaq (divorce), said that a bleak picture persists on the overall status of Muslim women in the country. Among all communities studied, Muslim women are the lowest on labour force participation rate. Dr Patel was part of the 14-member committee chaired by Dr Pam Rajput, which was appointed by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in 2013 to assess the status of women in the country since 1989 and to evolve policy interventions. The committee, which completed its surveys in 2015, paid special attention to women in marginalised communities.
Razia Patel, who is an associate professor at the Indian Institute of Education in Pune, told The Indian Express that the central committee had strongly recommended a complete ban on oral, unilateral and triple talaq. “We have also recommended that justice through courts should be accessible and fast so that women are not required to go to unconstitutional arbitration courts,” she said. “It makes wives extremely vulnerable and insecure regarding their marital status,” said Patel. These women experience high levels of violence at home and outside, she said.
Nyoooz
Liquor ban draconian, say Nawada villagers
http://www.nyoooz.com/patna/414062/liquor-ban-draconian-say-nawada-villagers
Summary: They offer ‘desi’ (country) liquor to the deity on all festivals and birth, death and marriage anniversaries. “We also offer liquor along with a live chicken to invoke Masan Baba’s benediction to overcome serious sickness and for fulfilment of wishes. For musahars, offering liquor to Masan Baba is an age-old tradition. With the lawmakers depriving our deity of liquor, the Masan Baba would be forced to migrate to some other place,” said Manjhi.Incidentally, the Masan Baba does not have a grand structure or a temple erected in his honour.A makeshift brick structure suffices as a place of worship. Nawada: Devotees of ‘Masan or Dak Baba’ and ‘Goraiya Baba’, the two deities revered by the dalit and mahadalit communities, have been left high and dry with the ban on manufacture, sale and consumption of country liquor in the state from April 1.The devotees say the policy makers who formulated this ‘Draconian Law’ will have to pay a heavy price for it.Karia Manjhi, a 55-year-old musahar from Warisaliganj, said the lawmakers should be prepared to face the consequences.
Nawada: Devotees of ‘Masan or Dak Baba’ and ‘Goraiya Baba’, the two deities revered by the dalit and mahadalit communities, have been left high and dry with the ban on manufacture, sale and consumption of country liquor in the state from April 1.The devotees say the policy makers who formulated this ‘Draconian Law’ will have to pay a heavy price for it.Karia Manjhi, a 55-year-old musahar from Warisaliganj, said the lawmakers should be prepared to face the consequences. For musahars, offering liquor to Masan Baba is an age-old tradition. They offer ‘desi’ (country) liquor to the deity on all festivals and birth, death and marriage anniversaries.”We also offer liquor along with a live chicken to invoke Masan Baba’s benediction to overcome serious sickness and for fulfilment of wishes.
With the lawmakers depriving our deity of liquor, the Masan Baba would be forced to migrate to some other place,” said Manjhi.Incidentally, the Masan Baba does not have a grand structure or a temple erected in his honour.A makeshift brick structure suffices as a place of worship. These structures can be found along roads or near the village having some population of dalits.Brothers Baleshwar Paswan and Pramod Paswan from Neya village in Nawada shuddered at the evil that would befall the state in the coming days.Paswans, on the other hand, offer ‘tapawan’ (country liquor) to Goraiya Baba in ‘Chait’ and ‘Shrawan’ months in order to either fulfil a ‘mannat’ or in gratitude for fulfilment of their ‘manauti’.Asked about the ban, the brothers retorted that it was an affront to Goraiya Baba and bodes ill for the state.They expressed optimism that the ‘will of god’ would reign supreme and the ‘conspirators’ (lawmakers) would ultimately withdraw the law.
News 7
Smart strategy or plain desperation?
http://www.prameyanews7.com/en/apr2016/national/19666/Smart-strategy-or-plain-desperation.htm
You don’t have to be a particularly keen observer of Punjab politics to notice that the race for the 2017 Assembly polls is already on, and in that race all political parties are making all-out efforts to woo a particular segment of the electorate: the youth. This is both unprecedented and striking, yet it remains to be explained why this is so. Some explanations appear obvious but seem to be shallow, if not altogether false.
Take, for example, the explanation that revolves around the demographics of age: Those who are below 40 are more than one half of the eligible electorate, and those who are below 30 are more than half of those below 40. It is argued that these numbers are not only significant; they are crucial and decisive in the electoral arithmetic.
This explanation is shallow because the demographics of age haven’t changed significantly since the Assembly polls of 2012. If number is all that matters, how come the young half of the voters did not then get the precedence that it gets now? The second explanation spins around the problems of unemployment and drug abuse. Both of these undoubtedly hit the young more. But, then, again, neither of these problems was any less severe around 2012.
Agrarian crisis goes back to the 90s, and industrial decline started in early 2000. Surveys had already reported widespread drug abuse before the 2012 elections. We must remember, therefore, that the number of the young is not new, nor are their problems. What is new is the political focus on them.
Why?The answer, I would hazard, is a negative one. My explanation is that the significance of the youth has increased only to the extent that the significance of the older half of the electorate has declined in electoral arithmetic. The older electorate has not declined in numbers, but its relative significance has declined because of its fragmentation and the breakdown of reliable traditional vote banks among its ranks.
The most striking example of this phenomenon is the erosion of Sikh vote banks of the Akali Dal. Allegiance to the ‘Panth’ does not appear as unwavering today, nor does the Jat Sikh peasant appear inclined to vote again for the Akalis. Most analysts agree that the Akali votes from these sections will reduce this time, possibly in a drastic manner.
As for the Congress, its traditional vote bank among the Dalits has fragmented. How the Dalit votes will be divided this time is anybody’s guess. It is perhaps because of the simultaneous breakdown of traditional vote banks of Akalis and Congress that the BJP felt encouraged enough for a while to entertain ideas of emerging as an independent force.
I am not denying that a significant factor for the unprecedented focus on the youth is the emergence of Aam Aadmi Party. It proved to be a force to reckon with in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in Punjab. The AAP is a young party. Its appeal among the youth relies on its relatively young leadership and particularly young cadre.
But I wonder if the panic and desperation among other parties would have been so severe if their traditional vote banks were still intact. The young are not a homogenous category, and how its various segments would vote cannot be gauged. But it is little surprise that everyone is trying to clutch at the straws flying around in the wind.
Nyoooz
Six held for assaulting Dalit
http://www.nyoooz.com/coimbatore/414368/six-held-for-assaulting-dalit-woman
Summary: On Friday afternoon, some of the villagers suspected that family members of P. Selvi (40), a noon meal scheme worker, could be throwing stones at the houses. A case of stones falling on the houses of a few villagers at Appanaickenpatti Pudur, near Sulur, for the last 25 days took a violent turn with a group of eight persons assaulting a 40-year-old Dalit woman, suspecting that those from her family could be behind the incident. The police, however, said that they were yet to identify those behind the stone throwing. Concrete roofs of some of the houses were damaged when stones fell on them. Even the police stationed there could not identify the persons behind it.
A case of stones falling on the houses of a few villagers at Appanaickenpatti Pudur, near Sulur, for the last 25 days took a violent turn with a group of eight persons assaulting a 40-year-old Dalit woman, suspecting that those from her family could be behind the incident. Concrete roofs of some of the houses were damaged when stones fell on them. Villagers spend sleepless nights in vain to solve the mystery. Even the police stationed there could not identify the persons behind it. On Friday afternoon, some of the villagers suspected that family members of P.
Selvi (40), a noon meal scheme worker, could be throwing stones at the houses. They attacked her, and damaged her house and valuables there. Based on a complaint lodged by Selvi, the police arrested S. Sathish Kumar (22), R.
Web duniya 123
Poor planning & non-spending of funds reasons for non-implementation of TSP
http://news.webindia123.com/news/Articles/India/20160403/2829636.html
Defective planning, poor utilisation of funds, non-maintenance of separate account and weak monitoring and evaluation mechanism were found to be some of the reasons for the unsuccessful implementation of the Tribal Sub-plan which was initiated in the fifth five year plan (1974-79) for the development of STs in the country.The tribal Sub-plan was initiated to ensure that the share of resources spent for the benefit of STs was at least in proportion to their share in the population of the country. The main aim of the Tribal Sub-plan was to divert the flow of outlay and benefits from the general sectors in the central ministries and departments for the welfare of STs both in physical and financial terms.But defective planning proved to be a roadblock in its successful implementation.
Audit noted that the Tribal ministry did not have any say in formulating and finalizing the annual plan of ministries and departments which was the groundwork required for successful implementation of TSP. There was no planning for the schemes which were formed without specific consideration of tribal beneficiaries as required under the Tribal Sub-plan. No study was conducted to assess the gap in development of STs as envisaged. The nodal departments did not have any control over formulation, implementation and monitoring of TSP.Poor utilisation of funds is another factor as to why the benefits of the schemes did not percolate to the tribes. Underutilisation and diversion of TSP funds were noticed in many instances. Some states had not even released funds to the implementing or nodal agencies. Separate account was not maintained for the expenditure of funds. Even though the funds from the Central level were released in trifurcated head ie General/SC/ST(TSP) to the states to district implementing agencies , the account of expenditure was not maintained component-wise at each level due to which exact expenditure under TSP remained unascertainable.The funds released under TSP were counted as final expenditure pointing to inappropriate practice and systematic inefficiencies.Monitoring and evaluation of the scheme both at the Central and State level needs enhancement. The HRD ministry failed to monitor TSP funds as planned by it under the framework such as SEMIS which have not been established till date. Also, tribal ministry has not been involved in the formulation process of Annual plan of the Central ministry/departments. Tribal ministry has been set up to bring the tribal community of the country at par with the general public but non-imoplemation of schemes at various levels and non-expenditure of funds have proved to be the bottlenecks.UNI SY CJ PR1014
The sentinel
Gogoi will face the music in polls: Indigenous tribal sahitya sabhas
http://www.sentinelassam.com/ghy_city/story.php?sec=2&subsec=4&id=262531&dtP=2016-04-03&ppr=1#.VwC8PUvPouw
GUWAHATI, April 2: The convening committee of the Indigenous Tribal Sahitya Sabhas, Assam (ITSSA) has said that Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi will have to face the music in the coming Assembly elections for his government depriving various indigenous tribal sahitya sabhas of their funds and delaying release of funds under non-Plan head to them.
In a statement issued to the press, ITSSA office-bearers said: “Under Plan head the Department of Higher Education used to provide Rs 30 lakh to the Axam Xahitya Xabha (AXX), Rs 10 lakh to the Bodo Sahtya Sabha (BSS), Rs 5 lakh each to the Mising Sahitya Sabha (MSS), Tiwa Sahitya Sabha (TSS) and the Rabha Sahitya Sabha (RSS). The Department of Higher Education used to release funds meant for the tribal sahitya sabhas through the tribal sub-plan of WPT & BC Department. However, on May 13, 2015 WPT & DC Minister Sumitra Patir took a decision to divert it by providing Rs 10 lakh to Dhemaji College and Rs 15 lakh to Dhakuakhana College. However, the this decision had to be rolled back following pressure from the sahitya sabhas concerned. However, due to failure on the part of the Department of Higher Education and the Finance Department, the funds for indigenous tribal sahitya sabhas have not been released as yet.”
The office-bearers further said that in the non-Plan head, the AXX used to get Rs 12 lakh, BSS Rs 1.05 lakh, Dimasa Sahitya Sabha (DSS) Rs 4 lakh from the Department of Higher Education. “This year, the BSS was supposed to get Rs 5 lakh and the Finance Department has also approved it. However, the government is yet to release the funds. Nor has there been any arrangement made for the payment of funds to the sahitya sabhas of Deoris, Garos and Karbis. This makes it crystal clear that the Congress Government in the State led by Tarun Gogoi has no intention to develop literatures and cultures of the indigenous tribes in the State,” the ITSSA office-bearers said.
Bangalore mirror
THE STATE OF A PARCHED LAND
http://www.bangaloremirror.com/columns/sunday-read/The-State-of-a-parched-land/articleshow/51664979.cms
Ire against the management of the drought in Maharashtra has catalysed the demand for statehood for Marathwada. Are the authorities in thirsty Karnataka listening?
“Look at Latur – Sec 144 has to be imposed so that people can quench their thirst! That’s the city that gave the State two chief ministers, and one of them ruled for eight years.”Latur – Sec 144 has to be imposed so that people can quench their thirst! That’s the city that gave the State two chief ministers, and one of them ruled for eight years.”
You hear this a lot these days in Aurangabad. It’s an argument that could work for a separate Marathwada state – “Look, even powerful leaders could get nothing for their own constituencies, because of the domination of leaders from western Maharashtra.” But it’s mostly made by those against a separate state, as a comment on the spinelessness of the region’s leadership, a factor seen to be responsible for its backwardness.
Marathwada has had at least six prominent leaders: S B Chavan, Shivajirao Nilangekar Patil, Vilasrao Deshmukh and Ashok Chavan as CMs; a deputy CM – Gopinath Munde, and a union home minister in Shivraj Patil. If they could do nothing to get their share of the state’s resources, would the powerful western Maharashtra leaders let a small state dependent on their resources survive?
Can the idea of a separate state be thrown like a pebble in a lake, hoping that ripples would be created?
That’s exactly what’s happened over the fortnight since former state advocate general Shrihari Aney approved of the idea of a separate Marathwada at a function in Jalna. Aney had to resign given the ferocious reactions from all parties, but the ripples created by his statement are still disturbing the seemingly calm waters of Marathwada.
They haven’t become waves though, and may not for a long time.
Aney’s statement is being discussed only in intellectual and political circles. Among the people, the idea of a separate state is not just incomprehensible, it’s condemnable. “Maharashtra must be one, it can’t be broken into parts,” said a worker in Aurangabad. “Remember the story we learnt in school – a twig can be easily broken, but a bundle can’t? United we stand, divided we fall,” said Babbanbhai Kakde, a farmer on the outskirts of Aurangabad.
“Would we be able to go for jobs to Mumbai?” asks Digambar Avti, a farmer, who points to the migration of jobless landless labour. “Or would Raj Thackeray ask for domicile certificates?”
Has the BJP underestimated the feeling ordinary people in Marathwada have for their state? For there’s no question that Aney’s statement had the backing of the BJP. For one, Aney is known to be Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis’ close associate. Then, as soon as Aney had made this statement, in Latur, BJP MP Sunil Gaekwad’s followers led by Shivaji Narhare went all the way to Delhi to convince Narendra Modi about it.
Significantly, Aney also has the support of the BJP’s mentor. A day after his statement, senior RSS ideologue M G Vaidya stated that the RSS had always conceived of Maharashtra as four states, and had divided its units in Maharashtra accordingly.
The RSS has no base in Marathwada; and though the BJP won 15 seats here in the Assembly polls, it’s the Shiv Sena, which won 11, that has popular support. Chandrakant Khaire, fourth-time MP from Aurangabad, dared Aney to enter Marathwada. “Our leader Balasaheb gave us the slogan `Jai Maharashtra’,” he told Mumbai Mirror. “In Parliament too, everyone greets me with those two words. This is Chhatrapati Shivaji’s Maharashtra. I want to ask the RSS: you talk of Akhand Bharat, but want to divide Maharashtra?”
The Congress was practically wiped out in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, but both the seats it managed to retain were from Marathwada. “We will never allow this,” said former CM Ashok Chavan, Nanded MP, whose father S B Chavan is universally respected as having been the only leader to have done something for the region. “Our struggle was never for a separate state; it was always to join Maharashtra.”
The “struggle” that everyone talks about refers to the Hyderabad Mukti Sangram, the movement against the rule of the Nizam, a struggle that’s unique to this part of Maharashtra. Marathwada was part of the Nizam’s domain, and when he resisted joining India after Independence, the majority of his subjects revolted. It wasn’t just his feudal, autocratic rule that people were fed up of. A major reason for anger, says Prof Jaidev Dole, columnist and professor of Media studies, was the ban on Marathi.
The Nizam let loose the armed communal force called the Razakars on those opposing him. Khaire is 63, and he remembers his mother telling him how the Razakars burnt down houses in her village. Such stories are the stuff of legend in Marathwada, the way stories about going to jail during the Quit India movement are the stuff of legend in the rest of India.
Aurangabad didn’t play a big role in the freedom movement; it had its own. And when liberation came in 1948, after the Indian Army defeated the Razakars, the freedom to speak and write in their mother tongue was one of its most cherished fruits for the people of the region.
It was but natural then for the majority Marathi-speaking people in Marathwada to join the Samyukta Maharashtra movement, and become part of the new Maharashtra state in 1960. The Vidarbha region joined Maharashtra with some conditions, given that Nagpur was already the capital of a separate province. But Marathwada put no conditions. Its leaders, the tallest of whom was the Gandhian Govindbhai Shroff, felt they were joining their own people, recalled Suryaprakash Dhoot, general secretary of the Latur unit of the Marathwada Janata Vikas Parishad, founded by Shroff. “We were like a bride who returns to her parents’ home, full of affection and secure she’d be welcomed,” is how Prof Sharad Adwant, general secretary of the Parishad puts it.
Given this very recent history, what was the BJP thinking by floating the idea of a separate Marathwada for which, Aney suggested, the people ought to struggle? It’s likely the BJP had forgotten all about the region’s own freedom struggle, because the RSS had played no part in it.
Different reasons are being assigned to Aney’s remarks. Aney himself, like his father and grandfather, is known to be a supporter of a separate Vidarbha. The moment he resigned, he plunged himself into the cause. His remark is seen as a bid to provide a stronger base for the creation of a separate Vidarbha. “When two regions are seeking to break away, it’s always easier to allow one to do so,” says CPI district secretary Ram Baheti. “It’s easier to get your demand by tagging someone else with you; it’s a classic bargaining tactic.”
A separate Vidarbha was part of the BJP’s election manifesto, and given the way the BJP has taken away to Nagpur key institutions allotted to Aurangabad, most people in Marathwada see a separate Vidarbha with a fully equipped capital – Nagpur – being created just before the next assembly elections.
Vidarbha’s CM would of course be Devendra Fadnavis. What about the BJP’s key ally’s opposition to the idea? “The BJP knows the Shiv Sena is dead set against any division of Maharashtra. Yet, the fact that it let Aney float the idea shows that it wants to cut Shiv Sena to size,” says Subhash Lomte of the Maharashtra Labour Union. Aam Aadmi Party’s Aurangabad candidate, Lomte is now with Yogendra Yadav’s Swaraj Abhiyan. With other parties ambivalent about a separate Vidarbha, the Sena will end up as the only party opposing it, and will be routed from there during the next assembly election, says Lomte. “The BJP has killed many birds with one stone.”
While Ashok Chavan ascribed the statement to a “realization by the BJP that it can’t handle Maharashtra, and its eagerness to dominate one section of it, ie Vidarbha”, Khaire foresaw this as a precursor to the creation of a separate Mumbai. “Danga fasaad karana chahtey hain,” he warned.
There is yet another possible reason for Aney’s statement. Right now, the region’s drought-hit are clamouring for “pani, kaam, pagaar (salaries) aur ration”, four things mentioned as a priority by villagers in Turkabad near Aurangabad. Here, Baheti has been leading morchas of villagers, and has managed to get the authorities to issue MNREGA job forms. In Ambejogai, Manav Lok, an NGO working in the field of watershed development, has also helped villagers organise themselves around MNREGA. And across the region, the press is exposing the lapses of the government in handling the drought.
What better way to divert the attention of the angry masses than by letting forth a red herring of a separate state, asks Baheti. While the masses have certainly not been diverted, the intelligentsia are discussing the idea seriously. Ironically, the drought has given the discussion a sharper edge. Both those in favour of and against the idea use the same arguments – the discrimination faced by the region ever since it joined Maharashtra.
Widespread discrimination
Prof Sharad Adwant lists the areas of discrimination: Denial of its share of water from the state’s dams, specially the Jayakwadi Dam built by S B Chavan specifically for dry Marathwada, by the building of smaller dams further upstream by the leaders of Western Maharashtra; denial of a second railway line – the existing one was built by the Nizam – and not even accepting the simple demand of making Aurangabad part of the Central instead of the South Central Railway; the lackadaisical functioning of the Statutory Development Boards – only the Marathwada Board has no head; the refusal to hand over the huge backlog of funds for the region’s development, the diversion of funds meant for Marathwada to other regions; the stoppage since CM Prithviraj Chavan’s tenure of the practice of having an annual meeting of the cabinet in Aurangabad; the diversion of major institutions from Aurangabad to Nagpur and Chandrapur.
To get their rights, Marathwada’s citizens, including the Parishad, have had to go to court, with their own government opposing them. The well-known economist H M Desarda has just filed a PIL on the state government’s insufficient and unscientific measures to tackle the drought, specially its much-touted Jalyukt Shivar. Water expert Pradeep Purandare’s PIL on proper implementation of Maharashtra’s Water Resources Act resulted in the court ordering an inquiry into all irrigation projects approved between 2007 and 2013.
“The demand for a separate state is the people’s cry of frustration,” says Adwant, who says the Parishad is committed to the vision of its founder Govindbhai Shroff of a developed Marathwada within Maharashtra. For Marathwada’s development, Shroff and Shantaram Pandere, who has worked among agricultural labour for years, waged prolonged agitations.
But in an embarrassment for the Parishad, its president, advocate Pradeep Deshmukh, wants a separate state, free from domination by western Maharashtra. Where are the resources, asks former Statutory Board member Vijay Diwan? Be it agriculture, industry or human development, Marathwada lags way behind even Vidarbha. “Curtail farming, make the new state an IT hub,” replies Deshmukh. But where’s the popular demand for a separate state? Today, it’s restricted to a few rootless individuals. Can they build a mass movement that would include Dalits, 14% of the region’s population, and Muslims, constituting 25 %?
Smaller state, Better state?
While some Dalit intellectuals such as Prof Bhimrao Bhosale of Dr Ambedkar University, a BJP member, cite Dr Ambedkar’s advocacy of small states and a separate ‘central Maharashtra’, the mass of Dalits here continue to be at the receiving end of Maratha violence, just as they were during the 16-year-long Namantar agitation to rename Marathwada University after Dr Ambedkar. Like elsewhere in Maharashtra, Marathas dominate Marathwada.
As for Muslims, they are indifferent. The only MLA from the MIM, Imtiyaz Jaleel, who’s popular with all communities, describes a separate Marathwada as an “unhealthy baby that won’t solve the people’s problems.” Hamid Khan of the Movement for Peace and Justice felt a small state could open the doors to corporate takeover of public resources.
Muslims here are still smarting from the numerous arrests of their youngsters on terror charges. The latest humiliation was a Muslim policeman being forced to say ‘Jai Shivaji’ in Latur. Whether under the Congress or the BJP, Muslims know they won’t get equal treatment. Marathwada’s leaders have changed the region’s traditional cultivation patterns and set up sugar factories and distilleries that consume most of its scarce water. Vilasrao Deshmukh’s family owns five sugar factories just outside parched Latur; the Mundes own three, as well as a distillery that has received notice for polluting the villages around it. Twenty new sugar factories came up in 2012-13, a drought year, and in 2014-15, another drought year, the region saw record production of sugar.
Theoretically, a smaller state could see better representation of its minorities and better management of its resources. But this potential of a smaller state would only be fulfilled by a mass movement with democratically elected leaders.
Economic times
Andamans and its tribals: Meet the first Indians while they are still around
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/science/andamans-and-its-tribals-meet-the-first-indians-while-they-are-still-around/articleshow/51663756.cms
As a bus carrying a group of tourists speeds through a highway cutting through the forest on the outskirts of Port Blair in the Andamans, one of the passengers exults: “There they are.
The passengers in the bus promptly stand up and crane their necks to catch a glimpse of the celebrated tourist attraction they have been briefed about by the tour operator. The tourists comprise mostly middle-class professionals and their families from around the country. The object of their interest happens to be a group of bare-bodied, dark-skinned children with mops of curly hair, crouched on a patch of grass by the highway.
The children are Jarawas, aboriginal tribals. There is much excitement in the bus although the tourists barely catch a glimpse of them — that too for not more than two seconds. Since making contact with the tribals is illegal, the visitors have to be content with seeing them through the windows of the speeding bus. The tourist guide repeatedly announces that no one is to photograph the tribals as it is an offence and would invite a jail sentence. There are several instances of “Jarawa spotting”, accompanied by mass hysteria every time a Jarawa man, woman or child crosses the road.
The bus is making its way through the Jarawa Tribal Reserve, which was set up in the early years of Independence. Ironically, it was meant to give the tribals a right to their own way of life and to protect them from intrusion. That, however, doesn’t seem to have prevented the tribal people from taking to the basic trappings of the modern world — many of the adults are seen in shorts and housecoats. They do not wave or smile at the tourists; they just silently watch the tourist vehicles speeding by. In other parts of the country, it is the tiger, the elephant and other wildlife that are spotted during tours into forests. In the Andamans, it is a group of humans.
Not a Tourist Attraction Survival International, an organisation that advocates the rights of indigenous tribal people, has been campaigning to get the tours through the Jarawa Reserve stopped. “The tourists treat the Jarawa like animals in a safari park,” said the NGO in a campaign newsletter. The consequence of the entry of nontribals into aboriginal territory in the Andamans is not confined to their objectification.
While the tourists, at best, are only taking part in a rather insensitively marketed tour that violates the human rights of the aboriginals, the danger they face from a section of the population that resides around the tribal reserve is even more palpable. Several instances of sexual exploitation of the women have been reported in recent years. Most recently, the New York Times carried a story about the killing of a Jarawa child allegedly by a tribesman because the child was suspected to have been fathered by an outsider.
Activists fighting for the protection of Jarawas say that the nature of the touristic gaze underlines the fundamental problem: in democratic India, the right of the tribals to their dignity is casually trampled upon and that too by their fellow citizens. “Why can’t we consider them as human beings just like us? Why do we treat them as exotic specimens at best and as savages at worst?” asks Denis Giles, editor of the Andaman Chronicle, a daily newspaper.
According to Giles, turning the Jarawas into a tourist attraction indicates a complete lack of awareness about the identity of these people. According to the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), a biotech research unit of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Jarawas and the other tribes of the Andamans are the first people of India who go back 65,000 years. The CCMB’s research says that the first group of Jarawas left Africa and arrived on the island all those years ago. The other Negrito tribes in the Andamans such as the Great Andamanese, Onges and the Sentinelese too have been around for as many years. The Negrito tribes are also believed to have migrated to south India.
The significance of genetic research in unravelling the origins of human migration to modernday India appears to be lost on policymakers in education. Kumarasamy Thangaraj, a senior principal scientist at the CCMB, says that the Jarawas, the Onges and other Andaman tribals are the most ancient people of India. “We mapped the genetic tree of India and found that they are at the root while others are branches. We are all part of that first migration out of Africa. There is no doubt in my mind that they are the people with the oldest history of living in India.” Thangaraj adds that the aborigines of Australia are also related to the Andaman tribals.
Given that the history of these people has never been explained in schools, not many have a clear idea as to who these people are; this, perhaps, explains the senseless gawking by tourists on the islands. The ignorance about the Jarawas has also led to the local non-tribal people of the islands creating myths about them, associating the tribals with black magic and so on.
‘Now The Jarawas Fear Us’ Venkat R is in his 30s and drives an autorickshaw in Port Blair. His grandfather came to the island from Tamil Nadu in the 1950s to start a business. Asked about his assessment of the Jarawas and their culture, Venkat says rather succinctly. “Till around 20 years ago, we used to fear them and would run if we saw them. As children, we were told that their spit is poisonous. But in recent years, they have turned friendly. That was a mistake on their part, as the new settlers started taking advantage of them. Now they fear us.”
The ancient Indian history, now taught in schools and universities in the country and abroad, essentially focuses on the period after people living in this part of the world took to agriculture, which is about 11,500 years ago. The Indus Valley Civilisation, which is about 5,000 years old, remains the earliest major reference point. The archaeological sites associated with the Indus civilisation suggest a period when architecture, urbanisation, handicrafts, metallurgy and, of course, agriculture was in evidence.
While the excavation of the Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro sites in 1920 is celebrated all over the world, few are yet to understand the significance of the Andamans’ connect with the modern world in the last 200 years. This is despite the fact that unlike Indus Valley, where archaeologists have to depend upon the remains from the past, in the Andamans there still exist people who carry the knowledge that governed life in the forest for some 65,000 years.
Y Sudershan Rao, chairman of the Indian Council for Historical Research (ICHR) did not respond to an email seeking his view on why the findings of genetic research project and the discovery of the Andaman tribals as the most ancient people of the country has not been taken up by the institution. An official concerned at the NCERT too did not respond to requests for a meeting.
Early Freedom Fighters The tribals do not follow any of the languages spoken in other parts of India. Their belief system centres on nature and ancestor worship, while the only vocations they know are hunting, fishing, gathering honey and other activities associated with the forest. But they do have a culture and a way of life that revolve around knowledge of their ecology. They are considered repositories of knowledge about the flora and fauna of the islands, especially medicinal plants. They also have myths, history and legends passed down generations. “There was no tradition of writing among the tribals. Scientific history relies on what is recorded. We have, therefore, ignored 65,000 years of human history,” says Samir Acharya, a tribal rights activist based out of Port Blair.
Apart from being the most ancient people of India, the tribals of the Andamans are also perhaps among the early freedom fighters of the country. They lived in a world unto themselves, deep inside the forests of the Andamans, and are practically invisible in the recorded history of India until the British landed on the islands at the end of the 18th century.
As the empire began to convert the island into a penal settlement, they came into conflict with the tribes, especially the Great Andamanese. The Battle of Aberdeen, as it came to be called, was fought between the tribals and the British in 1859. The tribals were no match for the gun power of the British and were massacred. The British went on to establish the Cellular Jail on the island that housed freedom fighters and criminals from the mainland.
A Press Information Bureau feature on the battle, issued in 2002, says that the loss of lives was “so huge that a considerable share of the Andamanese race was wiped out in one day at the Battle of Aberdeen”.
If the British started the story of annihilation of the earliest people of India, free India does not appear to have followed best practices in the context of the island tribals. To begin with, says Giles, independent India took to looking at the tribals through the same lens as the British.
He says, “For instance, the real name of the people who are now called Jarawa is Ang. The British had information about this tribe from the Great Andamanese, some of whom worked for them. The Great Andamanese used to call these people ‘Jarawa’, meaning ‘outsider’ so the British also called them by the same name. We just followed suit.”
The story of the planning of the Jarawa Reserve too is rather bewildering. After declaring huge tracts of land in the islands as reserved for the tribals in the ’50s, refugees from Bangladesh were allotted land around the Jarawa Reserve in the late ’70s. About two decades la