From: Peoples Media Advocacy Resource Centre-PMARC <pmarc2008@gmail.com>
Date: Wed, May 12, 2010 at 8:04 PM
Subject: [PMARC] Dalits Media Watch - News Updates 12.05.10
To: Dalits Media Watch <PMARC@dgroups.org>
Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 12.05.10
Three get death, 20 sentenced to life in Bathani Tola massacre - IANS
http://india-forums.com/news/article.asp?id=247933
Dalits will be protected against atrocities: Wasnik - Thaidian News
A blinkered vision - The Hindustan Times
http://www.hindustantimes.com/A-blinkered-vision/H1-Article1-542336.aspx
IANS
Three get death, 20 sentenced to life in Bathani Tola massacre
http://india-forums.com/news/article.asp?id=247933
By Indo Asian News Service | 12 May 2010 | 2:18pm
Patna, May 12 (IANS) A Bihar court Wednesday sentenced to death three men and awarded life imprisonment to 20 others in the Bathani Tola massacre case in which 21 Dalits and poor Muslims were killed by members of the upper caste Ranvir Sena in 1996.
Patna, May 12 (IANS) A Bihar court Wednesday sentenced to death three men and awarded life imprisonment to 20 others in the Bathani Tola massacre case in which 21 Dalits and poor Muslims were killed by members of the upper caste Ranvir Sena in 1996.
The sentence was pronounced by Additional District and Sessions Judge of Ara Civil Court Ajay Kumar Srivastava amid high security. The three sentenced to death are Ajay Singh, Manoj Singh and Narendra Singh.
The judge convicted 23 accused and acquitted 30 men due to lack of evidence May 5, a court official said.
The Bathani Tola village, situated under Sahar block of Bhojpur district, was targeted by armed members of Ranvir Sena, who butchered 21 people, mainly women and children, to death July 11, 1996.
A police officer associated with the probe said charges were framed against 62 members of Ranvir Sena under different sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Arms Act.
The court officials said that the prosecution produced 13 witnesses, including three doctors and an investigating officers.
A Dalit survivor Kishun Chaudhary had lodged a case against 33 people following which the police filed charge-sheet against 63 accused, including Ranvir Sena chief Barmeshwar Singh who was declared as absconder.
Barmeshwar Singh was later arrested and is currently lodged in a jail.
Thaidian News
Dalits will be protected against atrocities: Wasnik
May 12th, 2010 - 7:44 pm ICT by IANS -
Chandigarh, May 12 (IANS) Rights of Dalits will be protected and strict laws will be implemented to prevent atrocities against them like the arson attack on Dalit homes in Haryana, Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Mukul Wasnik said here Wednesday.
"I have travelled to various states of the country to see whether there is any discrimination with these sections of society. We will strictly implement the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 at all places," Wasnik told reporters.
Asked about last month's arson attack on Dalit families in Haryana's Mirchpur village, he said: "It is our responsibility to ensure an environment of safety and we are working in this direction."
A 70-year-old man and his 18-year-old physically challenged daughter were killed and at least 18 houses were damaged in an arson attack April 21 on Dalit families in Mirchpur village in Hisar district.
Wasnik was in Chandigarh to participate in a function organised by the Seva Dal, a grassroots organizational outfit of the Congress party,
On the issue of Khap panchayats (community councils) demanding an amendment in the Hindu Marriage Act and a complete ban on marriages within the same gotra (common lineage), Wasnik said a final decision would be taken by the union government.
"Everyone has the right to express his desire but in this case, a final decision will be of the central government. Nobody is above law in our country and we cannot go against it," Wasnik said.
The demand of khap panchayats comes after a Haryana court in March gave capital punishment to five people for the "honour killing" of a couple who married despite belonging to the same gotra.
The Hindustan Times
A blinkered vision
http://www.hindustantimes.com/A-blinkered-vision/H1-Article1-542336.aspx
May 11, 2010
The headlines scream almost every day: 'Girl allegedly murdered because of inter-caste romance', 'Couple killed by relatives because of caste honour'. The matrimonials are unabashed: 'Match sought for fair khatri girl' or 'Brahmin boy seeks Brahmin partner.' A Delhi mother whispers that her daughter's choice of husband is not "our kind of person," but stops short of admitting that the prospective groom is not from the same caste. Characters in Bollywood films bear surnames that are drawn from the very narrow social pool of Sharma, Mehta and Roy. Indians may be holidaying in Phuket, shopping at Mango and devouring Sex and the City. But one social reality just refuses to go away. And that reality is caste.
Should caste matter to a modern Indian? Of course it shouldn't. Yet, whether we like it or not, caste is still a defining category. Excluding a narrow westernised elite band, Indians marry according to caste, socialise within similar castes, education is determined by caste and caste, by and large, corresponds to class when it comes to backwardness. Twenty years ago when then Prime Minister V.P. Singh implemented the Mandal recommendations reserving 27 per cent government jobs for Other Backward Classes (OBCs), many caste Hindus heard the word OBC for the first time. Today there are similar feelings of dread that the government has decided to include caste in the 2011 census. But it's time that the elite and middle class came to terms with caste, debated it openly and exorcised caste demons.
When Parliament pushed for a caste census there was near panic about an impending caste war. It was argued that counting OBCs would only add further muscle power to the caste chieftains to once again lobby for that terrible 'Q' word: quotas. But will counting OBCs make caste loyalties deeper or will it, on the other hand, provide, for the first time, hard reliable information on how many OBC castes are there and what their numerical strength is? Confronted by real numbers, it may be more difficult for the quota warriors to argue for reservations. The Constitution makers aimed to progressively abolish caste discrimination, not abolish caste as an identity. Unless we all understand and study caste, we will never be able to fight it or develop a genuinely anti-caste mindset.
Political scientists Yogendra Yadav and Satish Deshpande say that a colonial caste-based census where all castes, including the Hindu 'upper castes' , are counted and ranked is neither feasible nor desirable. What we need is to count OBCs in the same manner as we count SCs and STs. We need to count Socially and Educationally Backward Classes (SEBCs) in order to get an accurate picture of their actual number. We are, thus, not counting all castes, but only backward communities. When reservations for OBCs have been provided for at the Union and state levels, surely a census is essential to find out what the hard numbers are and whether the quotas are accurate.
So how does caste operate nowadays? There is the robust argument that caste is irrelevant in contemporary India. What matters is quality health and education for all irrespective of caste. Increasingly, elections are showing that caste is no longer the sole criterion for voting preferences: voters are voting for bijli, sadak, pani, padhai and hardworking candidates and not for Gujjars, Reddys and Ezhavas. But while caste may be irrelevant for a minority, it is highly relevant — indeed saliently — for others.
When it comes to social and economic progress, certain castes have done better than others and the advantages of the English language and a modern education are distributed along caste lines. Generalisations are risky, and rural Brahmins can be impoverished and backward too. Yet, access to English and to quality education has traditionally been the monopoly of upper castes. Class and caste are still by and large coterminous, and there is every likelihood that an upper class person in India is also 'upper
caste' and a 'lower class' person is also 'lower caste'. Secure amid our Krishnamurthys, Sens and Vermas, we never stop to think about how we got so secure in the first place.
The English-speaking elite is overwhelmingly 'upper caste' that is comprising the forward levels of the Hindu varna system. The Bengali 'bhadralok' class, or the genteel class, which was supposed to be the only non-caste class in India, is also a caste-based category, as the bhadralok are restricted to the upper caste even though they may not be exclusively Brahmin. A Bengali Dalit bhadralok is still unheard of. In 1996, when B.N. Uniyal undertook a survey of national newspapers, he found that among 686 journalists accredited to the government, 454 were upper caste, the remaining 232 did not carry their caste names and in a random sample of 47, not a single one was a Dalit. In a survey of matrimonial advertising carried out in 2000, ad agency McCann Erickson noted that caste remains as important in the new century as it was four decades ago. In 2002, Virginius Xaxa found that only six of Delhi University's 311 professors are Dalits.
Thus, a caste census should not be seen as simply a political instrument designed to secure quotas. The fight against caste is best fought when we know the enemy. Caste is an immutable, invisible and overwhelming reality in our daily lives. If we continue to act as if caste does not exist, or deny its existence, we would be failing to do battle with one of the most urgent social inequalities of our time.
Sagarika Ghose is Senior Editor, CNN-IBN
--
.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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