Tuesday, May 11, 2010

[ZESTCaste] Bill Gates to adopt Bihar village

 

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/et-cetera/Bill-Gates-to-adopt-Bihar-village/articleshow/5916757.cms

Bill Gates to adopt Bihar village
11 May 2010, 1349 hrs IST,IANS

PATNA: Microsoft chief Bill Gates will adopt a backward village in
Bihar during his daylong visit to the state Wednesday, officials said.

The philanthropist, accompanied by officials of the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation, will visit the state for the first time.

Gates would adopt Gularia village in Khagaria, about 170 km from here,
and help improve the socio-economic condition of the people, the
district's Superintendent of Police Sudhanshu Kumar said.

At present, the village, comprising mainly Mahadalits, considered
poorer than dalits, does not have even basic civic amenities like
running water, electricity, schools and health centres.

Gates is also scheduled to meet Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar in
the state capital to discuss development issues and changes taking
place for the poor.

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[ZESTCaste] Modi Vomits Caste Venom

http://www.countercurrents.org/teltumbde100510.htm

Modi Vomits Caste Venom

By Dr. Anand Teltumbde

10 May, 2010
Countercurrents.org

On 25 April 2010 Narendra Modi is reported to have observed while
releasing his book Samajik Samrasata that Dalits were like mentally
retarded children. It created uproar in the Congress circles. Praveen
Rashtrapal of the Congress sought to raise the issue in the Rajya
Sabha but having been denied permission by the deputy chairman K
Rahman Khan, the Congress members trooped into the well of Rajya Sabha
and caused a ruckus forcing its adjournment. Earlier, Modi had said
that Valmiki community was involved in manual scavenging for a
"spiritual experience". Activist circles were stirred with indignation
and began discussing whether Modi could be booked under the Atrocity
Act. The legal luminaries may decide whether this is feasible or not
given the fact that he would certainly invoke spirit in which he said
it, which may obviate the application of the Act. Modi posturing as
the great spastic patron may plead that he said it for taking special
care of Dalits as we do of the mentally retarded children.

This Modi speak in someway represents the thinking of most upper caste
people. Not many people realize that this display of magnanimity is
basically the worst expression of casteism rooted in the ideology of
Brahmanism and as such deserves all round condemnation.

Stink of Brahmanism

The basic premise of Brahmanism is that people are created unequal by
God in accordance with their merit in the previous birth. They should
reconcile with this divine order and only practice their dharma to
earn merit points in order to get better birth next time. The
paternalistic attitude of the upper castes towards these fallen people
is basically informed by this ideology. It assumes that Dalits are
lesser beings and they are superior; being noble born it is their duty
to have pity on Dalits, help them perform their dharma to ameliorate
their destiny. This attitude is displayed so casually in self
congratulatory manner that they do not have even inkling that it is
most humiliating to Dalits. It is worse than insulting them with their
caste names, which may be considered as cognizable crime as per the
Atrocity Act.

It is precisely for this reason that Ambedkar had denounced Gandhi's
harijan and dismissed the Congress attempts at wooing Dalits through
Harijan Sevak Sangh as the 'Congress plan to kill Untouchables by
kindness.' Not only Gandhi, who was anyway propelled by political
considerations, Ambedkar did not take kindly even the bhakti saints'
self pity or tame criticism of the caste system because they did not
question the basic ideology behind it. His repeated denouncement of
the then Mahar attempts to claim descent and or derive inspiration
from the bhakti poet of fourteenth century, Chokhamela underscores the
same logic. He saw the act of bhakti saints as the act of subservience
to the will of God, and as conformist and anti-revolutionary. Anything
that even faintly smells of this obnoxious ideology becomes thus
insulting to Dalits. Modi's statement stinks!

Spastic Minds, Sick Society

Modi is unduly presumptuous about his intelligence in regarding Dalits
as mentally retarded. Firstly, the creed he swears by fundamentally
treats him, a member of Shudra, as dumb. As such he may not be
particularly in position to pontificate on others' retardedness.
Secondly, if he is truly intelligent, he must know that the
disability, mental retardation or whatever, is not with Dalits but
with the society. It is the Hindu society which is sick not Dalits.
Dalits have definitely been infected by this sickness, insofar as they
too have emulated this sickly system among themselves. They are surely
infected because despite Ambedkar's clarion call for annihilation of
castes, many of them foolishly cling to the idiom of caste. But that's
another matter. Important thing is to see the society as sick because
it is incapable of treating its own people equal. It is also mentally
retarded as it could not learn from its long history of slavery, which
is directly attributed to its myopic notion of caste division of
society. Modi had better learnt to be a statesman and think of how to
cure this society of its dilapidating sickness.

This is a serious point which is totally missed in reservation
discourse. To think of Dalits as disable is pure Brahmanism. Dalits
needed reservation not because they lacked merit or skills, but
because the societal prejudice will never let them get their dues.
With imposed backwardness over two millennia they did look weak to
start with, which created an erroneous impression that reservation was
a kind of helping hand. It has done a great damage. If reservation had
been conceived as the countervailing measure to force society to
behave, it would have been contingent upon the society overcoming its
disability. The onus to do that would be upon society. Today it is on
none, making the reservations appear perpetual and hence a cause of
eternal conflict. Worse, with this 'helping hand' notion it has become
a game to be played by unscrupulous politicians at the cost of polity.

Modi's Slippery Samarasata

What Modi spoke is basically RSS's samarasata solution to castes. It
aims at strengthening the Hindu identity for its communal agenda. It
believes in the greatness of Hindus, their religion, culture and
everything and wants to regain it. Naturally, it does not see anything
wrong with the varna or caste system, the defining components of the
'Hindu'. In justifying it, its protagonists indulge in all kinds of
ideological acrobatics and make things confusing for gullible people.
A typical gem of wisdom on castes in its repertoire is taken from
Golwalkar who gave a slogan - 'sab jaati mahaan, sab jaati samaan'
(All castes are great and all castes are equal), which seems to inform
the samarasta project. Actually, in this lofty declaration, Golwalkar
has not made any departure from the orthodox Brahmanist position which
argues that all the varnas ( and castes) were the parts of same virat
purush and hence equal. What it truly means is that all the castes
should perform their assigned tasks as their dharma. Valmikis should
continue to scavenge and Modis should rule!

Actually Samarasata is the expedient political strategy of the Sangh
Pariwar, inaugurated in Pune in April 1983. Until then, RSS did not
feel particular necessity to woo Dalits in a conscious manner. What
prompted this realization is the increasing competition in electoral
politics in the impending coalition era in which Dalit votes could
make a big difference. The decline of Dalit movement and degeneration
of Dalit politics provided fertile ground to seed such a strategy.
After the fall of Janata Dal government, the old Bharatiya Jan Sangh
dissolved itself and formed a new party – Bharatiya Janata Party in
1980, which needed to try out new strategies. The main project the
samarasata manch, the platform created for the purpose, undertook is
to saffronize Ambedkar and paint the RSS gurus in radical colours. It
worked with some half baked Dalit intellectuals but did not make much
headway with people.

Samarasata means social harmony. Like Dengist China replaced the
Maoist lingo of class struggle with social harmony, the samarasata
means that various castes should coexist without conflict. How could
castes in exploitative relations with each other coexist in harmony
except for internalizing Manu's ideology? It is here we can get the
import of Modi's statement about Valmiki's 'spiritual experience' in
carrying the upper caste shit on their heads. It is a shame, that such
a grave atrocity as removing human excreta by humans, officially
banned way back in 1993 by the Government of India, is eulogized as
'spiritual experience'. No Dalit ever cared for 'spiritual'; his
concern has been solely material. If Modi values this 'spiritual
experience', as he seems doing, anyone of the 14 lakh scavengers in
the country will gladly handover his/her shovel and bucket to him. He
must know as the chief minister of the state that Safai Karmachari
Andolan has given a call for abolition of this atrocity by the end of
2010.

Congress' Fake Concern

It is curious to see Congress agitated over the issue. Actually, Modi
in a way voiced his concern for Dalits in the grand Gujarati tradition
embodied in the word 'harijan' or in the idea of trusteeship that the
rich people could go on enriching themselves but hold their wealth in
trust for the weak in the society. Both incidentally came from Mahatma
Gandhi, the patron saint of the Congress. Gandhi has been perhaps the
pioneer in creating an ascriptive and patronizing label for Dalits in
modern times. While he always claimed to identify with and represent
the Untouchables, he has also used the term like 'uncultured' and
'dumb' for them highlighting his distance and difference from masses.
Look at this advice from Gandhi to the caste Hindu workers for the
Harijan cause: "Workers in the Harijan cause… must come in closest
touch with utterly unsophisticated, innocent, ignorant men and women
who might be likened to children in intelligence."[Harijan,
07.11.1936] Is there any difference in this and Modi's calling Dalits
retarded?

Of course, Modi as a committed functionary of the RSS would openly
uphold the tenets of Manusmriti that takes Dalits as inherently
inferior. The Congress would never do so. It enjoyed BJP being
condemned as communal and casteist by the progressive elements in the
country. But as the vanguard of the ruling classes has it been any
different? Its track record in communalism is at best suspect. Its
dealing with Dalit issues has been surely muddy. Right from the days
of Poona Pact that robbed Dalits of their political autonomy to the
unscrupulous co-optation phase of Dalit politics, its role comes out
antithetical to its own projection as friend of Dalits. The only
difference between it and the BJP perhaps is in the intricacy of its
strategy. While BJP appears muddled with its communal agenda, the
Congress looks smart without any ideological anchors.

Interestingly, some years ago (around 2005), the Gujarat Congress had
made a training programme for Congress workers at the instance of
Sonia Gandhi. A course booklet was prepared for the purpose by one
leader of the Gujarat Congress Seva Dal. This book had extolled
praises on India's ancient culture and social order, based on Manu's
code and articulated the objective for the Congress as to bring back
this social order. This issue was exposed by Valjibhai Patel of the
Council for Social Justice, Ahmedabad through newspapers. Embarrassed
by this exposure, Amarsingh Choudhari, the then Gujarat Pradesh
Congress president had to express his regrets to Dalits for hurting
their feelings and expunge that passage from the book. Can one still
see any difference between the Congress and BJP with regard to their
anti-Dalit Hindu vision?

Caste venom is deep drawn into the body politic of this country. Modis
occasionally vomit it, the Congress successfully conceals it!

Dr. Anand Teltumbde is a writer and civil rights activist with CPDR, Mumbai


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[ZESTCaste] Will counting caste help to reduce inequality? (Opinion)

http://beta.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article426584.ece?homepage=true

Published: May 11, 2010 00:24 IST | Updated: May 11, 2010 00:35 IST
May 11, 2010

Will counting caste help to reduce inequality?
Nandini Sundar

A census enumerator collects details from Neelaiah Maleykudia at the
Kutlur village in the Kudremukh National Park, Mangalore. The
Maleykudias have been denied any development over the years in the
name of conservation Photo: SUDIPTO MONDAL
On the surface, caste enumeration appears to be a UPA concession to
its OBC allies, but more fundamentally, it fits with the larger
political agenda of moving people off the land, holding out the
illusory promise of formal employment.

Yesterday when the census enumerator visited, I asked him how he felt
about the current debate on counting caste in the census: "Not
comfortable at all", he said, "I don't even like asking whether
someone is SC/ST or Other, leave alone what their caste is." But, he
added, "caste is an inescapable reality of Indian society."

The debate on counting caste in the census has not moved on from 2001,
when opinion was equally divided. Supporters of caste enumeration
argue that census categories merely reflect existing classifications,
and that only the census can provide the figures necessary to map
inequality by caste. Opponents argue that the census does not mirror
but actively produces social classifications and ways of thinking.
They point to the history of mobilisation around caste in the census
and the consequent dangers of both distorted data and increased social
tensions. In neither case has much thought been given to how the data
might be used, the different kinds of figures needed for different
purposes, or alternative ways of collecting the required data.

On the surface, caste enumeration appears to be a UPA concession to
its OBC allies, but more fundamentally, it fits with the larger
political agenda of moving people off the land, holding out the
illusory promise of formal employment. For social justice, we are made
to believe there is no alternative to reservation, and for
reservation, no alternative to counting caste. With over 90 per cent
of people in the informal sector, reservation can hardly be the
primary solution to greater equality. There is no doubt that stringent
affirmative action policies are required to make formal institutions
more socially inclusive, but to shackle the census to this agenda
betrays a failure to learn from the past or to think imaginatively
about the future.

University degrees are important for certification, especially for
those historically deprived of education, but they do not necessarily
contribute to the creation and expansion of knowledge. For instance,
there are over 20,000 rice varieties in Chhattisgarh, some 6000 of
them in Bastar alone, yet this knowledge is rarely factored into
discussions around educational expansion. 'Social Justice' becomes
simply whether certain castes get admission into agricultural
universities, not whether those institutions enhance existing
knowledge or contribute to people's well being. And in the meantime,
the holders of such knowledge are being decimated through land
acquisition, displacement and inhumane forms of counterinsurgency. The
counting of SCs and STs in the census has not led to any greater
justice for them — not only do Mirchpur type incidents continue; but
even in terms of planning or the everyday provision of services in
villages, common educational or health facilities are often situated
in upper caste hamlets, even when there are clearly larger populations
of Muslims or Dalits in the village.

The transformation of caste through the census: While earlier rulers
also created lists of castes and occupations, such as those in the
Ain-i Akbari or the Rajatarangini, the urge to map every single caste
is commonly attributed to the colonial need to know their populations
in order to govern. Caste and religion were seen as key categories
with which to explain native behaviour: to explain insanity, to help
in the recruitment of 'martial races' to the army, or to determine
which groups had a propensity to crime.

Yet successive Census Commissioners like Risley in 1901 and Yeatts in
1941 described the caste tables as the most troublesome and expensive
part of the census: Risley complained: "If the person enumerated gives
the name of a well known tribe or caste...all is well. But he… may
give the name of a sect, of a sub-caste, of an exogamous sept or
section... his occupation or the province from which he comes." In
1881 in Madras presidency alone, the inhabitants returned 3208
different castes, which the census then regrouped into 309 castes.

Enumeration also required people to be slotted into categories that
were mutually exclusive even if untrue to their lived experience. A
person could not have two castes or two religions. Where the 1911
census had recognised several sects as Hindu-Muhammadans, in 1921 they
were reclassified as either one or the other, except for the Sindh
Sanjogis who refused and were relegated to 'other.' The Meos today
face similar problems, caught between the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and
the Tabligh e Jamaat.

As people began to realise the value of census categories for
economic, social and political advancement, mobilisation around the
census increased, particularly after Risley's 1901 ranking of castes
in order of "native opinion of social precedence". Numerous petitions
to the census commissioners asked to have the names of castes changed
or be ranked higher in the social hierarchy. For instance, the Khatris
claimed that their name was really a corruption of Kshatriya. The
census also initiated a wider transformation, with hundreds of caste
associations formed between the 1880s and 1930s, addressing their
demands both to the state and towards internal social reform.

Caste was not the only ascriptive identity politicised by the census.
Religion, especially pre-partition, and language were equally
explosive, and saw complaints against alleged enumerator bias. For
instance, in 1941, the Dalit Chuhras in Punjab complained of pressure
to be recorded as Sikhs or Hindus by Sikh and Hindu enumerators and
demanded that their religion be entered as Adh Dharm instead.

Given such battles, and the concern that India's innumerable castes
and religions were used to justify colonial rule, the constituent
assembly framing the Census Act of 1948 decided to exclude caste
returns (except for SCs and STs). However, since caste did not
disappear from public life as was hoped, political attitudes towards
counting it have changed dramatically. Similar debates have taken
place over the counting of race and ethnicity in the U.S. and U.K.
census respectively, with some people pointing to the unscientific
nature of race, and others arguing that "In order to get beyond
racism, we must first take a count of race."

Nature of data: Assuming (optimistically) that the demand for caste
enumeration is driven by an anti-discrimination, pro-equality impulse,
we need to consider how the data thrown up by the census will fit
public needs. Unlike earlier censuses which were caste and religion
based, any proposed caste inclusive census would not have caste as a
key variable, but simply as one return among others. It will depend on
the precise tabulations decided upon whether we get a caste wise
breakup of literacy, sex ratio, female work force participation etc.
One argument being made is that it will help to identify weaker castes
among the OBCs, but that would depend on the level of caste detail
(sub-caste, caste) at which tabulations are carried out.

The major benefit the census will provide is the numbers of each caste
by region, making it possible for researchers to conduct other kinds
of surveys, e.g. to assess through additional sample surveys, the
percentage of civil servants from a particular caste. On the other
hand, because of returns which fluctuate according to identity
politics, it may be difficult to construct accurate time series
records to assess changing mobility trends.

Even for the purpose of measuring 'backwardness', the census is only a
beginning, not an end in itself. While the Mandal Commission
extrapolated from 1891 and 1931 census data, this alone was not the
basis for its classifications. The comprehensive socio-economic survey
conducted by the Second Backward Classes Commission (BCC) in Karnataka
under Justice Venkataswamy yielded generally accepted population
figures for each caste, but its indicators of backwardness were
flawed. As Justice Chinnappa Reddy, who chaired the Third BCC noted,
simply aggregating all the indicators of backwardness (data
potentially available through a census) and ranking castes on that
basis as was done by the 2nd BCC would place Vokkaligas in Karnataka
on par with Darzis. The Third BCC therefore developed its own
indicators of backwardness on the basis of several different kinds of
data which included: personal touring; representations from caste
associations; a sample socio-economic survey covering 600 villages;
information from taluks on caste wise land holding; survey of caste
and socio-economic background of gazetted officers, MPs, MLAs, leading
Advocates, Professors, etc.; information on caste, occupation and
income of parents for students appearing in the SSLC exam; information
on admissions into medical, engineering, dental colleges, etc; and
information from the Karnataka Public service commission and other
recruitment agencies on 3.47 lakh government employees and 1.20 lakh
public sector employees.

In short, while the census can provide base figures, it cannot
substitute for the kind of information needed both for inclusion of
castes in an OBC list or for 'graduation' of castes out of the list,
even assuming the latter were ever to be politically feasible. In his
discussion of sources, Justice Chinnappa Reddy pondered over the
wisdom of excluding caste from the census, noting that such data would
have saved the commission many problems. However, he went on to add:
"On closer thought, I think it is just as well that caste is ignored
in the census operations. A beginning has to be made somewhere to
forget caste."

(The author is Professor of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics.)


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[ZESTCaste] Judge who struck blows for liberty & compassion

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100511/jsp/nation/story_12435617.jsp

Judge who struck blows for liberty & compassion
SAMANWAYA RAUTRAY

New Delhi, May 10: India's first Dalit chief justice, who retires
tomorrow, combined two commitments that, in others, are often at odds:
welfare of the disadvantaged and support for individual liberty.

As he leaves office, Justice K.G. Balakrishnan will have earned the
thanks of millions of schoolchildren who no longer have to attend
classes on an empty stomach, and of dozens of terror suspects who will
not be forcibly injected with drugs to prise the "truth" out of them.

He also leaves behind controversies over transparency, such as his
resistance to the government having final say in judges' appointments
or to his own office being brought under the RTI ambit — issues that
senior lawyers, however, were today ready to blame on "systemic
problems" rather than the man himself.

"Some of his judgments have been significant in terms of the impact on
the lives of people; others have been a novelty in law," said senior
lawyer C.S. Vaidyanathan, who has appeared before Justice Balakrishnan
both in Kerala High Court and the Supreme Court.

"Even his day-to-day approach was tempered with compassion. I would
certainly think that the fact that he had to bear social deprivation
and had to struggle to rise made a difference."

Senior lawyer K.K. Venugopal spoke highly of Justice Balakrishnan's
ban on ruling parties organising bandhs —though it's a matter of
debate how far this has succeeded on the ground — and on forced
lie-detection tests despite a strong push by the government to retain
the option as a tool to fight terrorism.

Striking a more personal note, senior lawyer T.L. Vishwanath Iyer, who
had worked alongside Justice Balakrishnan as a high court judge, said:
"He had the perfect judicial temperament: he did not hassle lawyers
and listened patiently."

Iyer was sympathetic to the outgoing CJI over his support for the
in-house, collegium system of judges' appointment, buffeted by
accusations of a lack of transparency.

The collegium system was created long ago by larger Supreme Court
benches and "the CJI has no option but to go by it", Iyer said.

Vaidyanathan backed Justice Balakrishnan over the RTI row, in which
public sympathy lay mostly on the other side. "That was a collective
decision (by all the Supreme Court judges), so it is the fault of the
institution (rather than an) individual," Vaidyanathan said.

"A judge could always be asked to submit personal information in a
sealed cover to the CJI or the President," Iyer, the former judge,
said.

He said the numerous social welfare judgments Justice Balakrishnan had
passed had benefited the weaker sections. Much was done during his
tenure about legal education and about funds to upgrade
infrastructure.

"The problem of judicial arrears is not due to present-day judicial
administration," Iyer argued, blaming the rise in population and
proliferation of cases. "The proportion of judges to the population is
also low, but even then the disposal rate of cases by Indian courts is
one of the highest."


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[ZESTCaste] Kisan Mahapanchayat’s Verdict: Nitish Will Have To Go

http://bihartimes.com/Newsbihar/2010/May/Newsbihar10May11.html

Kisan Mahapanchayat's Verdict: Nitish Will Have To Go


Patna,(BiharTimes): The landed class has found enough political ground
to wage a war against the friend-turn-foe, the Bihar chief minister,
Nitish Kumar.

On Sunday, defying the scorching heat, they converged in thousands
only to train their big guns on the government which is indulging in
what they allege dividing the society between landed and landless,
forward and the backward.


As if that is not enough now it is busy creating fissure within the
community–– Dalit and Mahadalit, forward and backward Muslims and so
on and so forth.

Now the time has come to call the bluff, declared Independent MP from
Banka, Digvijay Singh. Lalu Yadav ruled by evoking the ghost of the
Hindutva, Nitish is doing exactly the same. He keeps reminding the
people of the Lalu-Rabri rule. But alternatives have always emerged
and it would emerge once again.

What Digvijay said was understandable as he was denied the Janata Dal
United ticket in the last parliamentary election a year back, but what
the former state party chief, Rajeev Ranjan Singh, alias Lallan Singh,
said is something really unbelievable, somewhat difficult to digest.
He publicly accused a senior officer of chief minister secretariat for
making several calls to ensure his (Lallan's) defeat in the last year
Lok Sabha election.

Nitish's most trusted lieutenant till a few months back, Lallan was
lethal in his attack. He left no stone unturned to expose each and
every (mis)deeds of his former friend. If Lalu Yadav can be forced to
bite dust, Nitish can be compelled to do so with much ease, he
proclaimed.

He said that he and his friends would not let Nitish push the state
into civil war and split all the castes, sub-castes and communities.
He also denied that Lalu Yadav had anything to do with the Kisan
Mahapanchayat and said Nitish wants to create Lalu phobia to
consolidate his position. He termed the state BJP president, C P
Thakur, as turncoat, as till the other day he was strongly opposed to
the Bataidari law of the state government, but changed his stand once
he got the post.

Lallan minced no words to denounce Nitish and said that there is no
difference between him and Lalu. The darbaris (courtiers) of both are
the same. He mentioned few names like Shyam Rajak, Ramai Ram,
Shivanand Tewary and others.

All the speakers came down heavily on the move to enact new Bataidari
Act in Bihar. Digvijay Singh went on to say that even the West Bengal
government has now abandoned Bandopadhyay, the man responsible for
Operation Barga. What Nitish had done in Bihar is known to all. When
he came to power there were 66 lakh people living below poverty line
in the state and now according to his own admission it is 1.5 crore.
Nitish had by his action thrown the state 15 years back when caste
polarization was at its height in the post-Mandal days.

Ridiculing the claim of the development Prabhunath Singh, former MP of
Maharajganj said, only one caste and one district of Bihar has
developed.

Reminding Jagdish Sharma, the suspended Janata Dal United MP from
Jehanabad, Prabhunath said that he publicly vowed that he would prefer
taking poison (chuhe marne ki dawa) rather than returning to the
Nitish Kumar camp. What has happened to him now? he asked. Those who
have betrayed the cause of the farmers would not be forgiven by the
masses.

Almost all the speakers criticized rampant loot in the name of
development in the last four and a half years and were unanimous that
Nitish will have to go.

Incidentally two RJD leaders and former Union ministers, Akhilesh
Singh, Nagmani and another former Union minister from UP, Arif
Mohammad Khan, were also on the dais and spoke on the occasion.

Sunday's rally was impressive given the fact that it was held under
the sun when the temperature was soaring high. Besides, it was
essentially a show of strength of two landed upper castes of Bihar.


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[ZESTCaste] Bill Gates in UP villages with Rahul Gandhi

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Bill-Gates-to-visit-Amethi-with-Rahul-Gandhi/H1-Article1-541967.aspx

Bill Gates in UP villages with Rahul Gandhi

Pankaj Jaiswal,
Email Author
Jais (Rae Bareli), May 11, 2010
First Published: 08:03 IST(11/5/2010)
Last Updated: 12:41 IST(11/5/2010)


American business magnate, philanthropist and chairman of Microsoft,
Bill Gates accompanied by All India Congress Committee general
secretary, Rahul Gandhi met rural women in the Rae Bareli and
Sultanpur on Tuesday. Gates' Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is
expected to strike a partnership with Rajiv Gandhi Charitable Trust
that runs welfare activities in both the districts.

Rae Bareli forms the parliamentary constituency of Rahul's mother and
AICC president, Sonia Gandhi and Amethi (in Sultanpur) is Rahul's.

Bill's visit happened little over a month after wife Melinda Gates
visited some villages in the state and in a meeting with the Chief
Minister Mayawati, committed Rs 250 crore more for health programmes.

Bill Gates flew in a chartered plane along with Rahul and landed at
Fursatganj airstrip in Rae Bareli 15 km from Jais. Jais is 32 km from
Rae Bareli district headquaters.

All the meetings that Gates-Rahul had with the rural women were
closely guarded ones with private US and India security rings around.
Media was kept at a distance and so were the state Congress
leadership.

Bill Gates is Co-chair and trustee of the Bill & Melinda Gates
Foundation, which today is one of the biggest charitable organization
working in the world.

Bill, during the visit, headed a delegation of the foundation to the
villages. The foundation gives grants for global health and
development programmes.

Gates for many years was the richest man in the world. He had founded
the computer giant Microsoft.


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[ZESTCaste] Rahul offers hope but not enough reason for Mirchpur Dalits to return

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/rahul-offers-hope-but-not-enough-reason-for-mirchpur-dalits-to-return/615093/


Rahul offers hope but not enough reason for Mirchpur Dalits to return

Aanchal Bansal Posted online: Wed May 05 2010, 08:47 hrs
Hisar : For the past ten days, the front lawn of the district
collector's office in Hisar has been home to over 50 Dalit families of
Mirchpur village. Their homes were torched over a dispute by a group
of men from the Jat community on April 21.
The nondescript village nearly 60 km off Hisar has suddenly become a
hub of activity after the violent attack that claimed two lives — that
of an 18- year -old polio-stricken girl Suman and her 70 -year-old
father Tarachand. While special police forces patrol the area to
prevent another flare -up, it was AICC general Secretary Rahul
Gandhi's quick visit (without CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda) on April 30
that seems to have got the authorities moving in the case.

Gandhi's visit, which was meant to be seen as statement of 'strong
disapproval' of the way things were handled by the state government
both before and after the incident, was followed by the arrest of
Station House Officer Vinod Kajal and the district Tehsildar on May 1.
Both were booked in an FIR lodged on April 22 accusing them of
colluding with the Jat community and allowing the incident to happen.

Both Kajal and the Tehsildar will be kept in judicial custody till May
6 and have been booked under the SC/ST Act and the IPC for murder.
According to Superintendent of Police Subhash Yadav, the police has
arrested 31 of the 43 men from the Jat community named in the FIR
lodged by the Dalit group.

While the state government has announced a compensation of Rs 10 lakh
each to the families affected and a government job to the members of
the family of the two deceased, the Dalits have, as a measure of
protest, refused to go back to their village. Kamla Devi, Tarachand's
wife and Suman's mother has refused to take the compensation amount of
Rs 10 lakh.

"I will not go back to the village. They killed my husband and
daughter there," says Kamla who was taken to the district hospital
earlier during the day after she fainted on Sunday morning. Kamla's
son Deepak (18) adds, "Rahul Gandhi visited the village and said that
he would speak to the chief minister and ensure that such incidents do
not happen again. But we do not want to go back."

Gandhi's visit seems to have given the Dalits the hope of a new home
outside the caste lines drawn in their village. "We want a new plot of
land and they could call it Rajiv Basti if they want," offered Jaswant
Kumar, whose house was completely burnt down in the violence. "This
tension between them and us has always been a part of our lives. But
what is the point of going back now...my entire house along with my
belongings were charred in the fire. There is no reason to go back,"
Jaswant adds.

According to a fact-finding team comprising activists from NGOs
National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights and ANHAD along with
journalists that had visited the village three days after the
incident, Mirchpur has a handful of Dalits: about 100 Balmiki families
and 350 'Jatav' families against the 1700-odd Jat families.

According to Shabnam Hashmi of ANHAD, the team found that the violent
attack was only 'ostensibly' about a dog being pelted with a brick.
"It was a manifestation of long -tension between the two communities.
They specifically attacked the well-off in the village that happened
to be Dalits....three houses had weddings planned and they
particularly damaged things like television sets that often are a
symbol of well being in villages," she said. The team found that one
of the reasons for the clash was a contract for building a fish pond
being awarded to a Dalit contractor.

The families that have been camping at the district office are being
supported by Dalit action groups and NGOs for their daily supply of
food. An ambulance and a doctor from the district hospital visits the
camp twice everyday, treating villagers for dehydration. "It is very
hot and most of the patients are women. Kamla Devi herself has fainted
twice in the last 24 hours," says Dr SP Singh while sorting out the
packets of glucose and tablets meant to be given to the group.
"Security forces have been deployed in the area to make Dalit families
feel secure,' Deputy Commissioner (Hisar) O P Sheron, said.

While the matter has acquired political overtones over the last few
days, increasing after Gandhi's visit, Tarachand's own family is
divided on the issue of compensation. Elder son Amar Lal has taken his
share of the compensation and taken the job of a clerk, while the
other two brothers are on the dharna.

"He is the son of my husband's first wife. This is very unfortunate,"
Kamla Devi says.

While Amar Lal conducted the thirteenth day ceremony, meant to mark
the end of mourning for his father on Friday, Kamla Devi and her two
sons conducted the ceremony at the district office on Sunday morning.
"We will not budge till we are given a new house," Deepak adds. Back
in the village Amar Lal says, "I have to rebuild the house and there
is no point sitting there. We need to get on with our lives," he said.
Amar Lal joined the district office as a clerk on Monday.

Meanwhile, the Village Panchayat, represented by all members of the
community met the agitating Dalits on Monday morning. "We have spoken
to them and have assured them safety. This matter has to end and they
can't stay out of the village for ever," said advocate Manphool Singh,
who headed the Panchayat.

" The Dalits will get back to us on this on Wednesday," he added.


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[ZESTCaste] Casting caste

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Casting-caste/617150

Casting caste

The Indian Express Posted online: Tue May 11 2010, 02:33 hrs
The last time caste was listed as a category in the census exercise
was in 1931. And one need not go all that way back to survey the
complications the government has just set up for itself by
capitulating suddenly and agreeing to include caste identification in
Census 2011. As John Henry Hutton, census commissioner in 1931, wrote
later: "Experience at this census has shown very clearly the
difficulty of getting a correct return of caste and likewise the
difficulty of interpreting it for census purposes." Last week Home
Minister P. Chidambaram told Lok Sabha: "The enumerator is not an
investigator or verifier." There are for instance, he said, OBC (Other
Backward Classes) lists at the Centre and the state, and they may be
different; some states have these lists, some do not, and yet others
have a subset of the most backward in this category. Also, just
getting feedback from the enumerated on their caste identity would
require a background understanding that is likely beyond the census'
21 lakh enumerators.
That problem of verification is similar 80 years on, but the India of
1931 is long past, and the ways of seeking caste identification cannot
be taken from long ago. In the intervening years an independent
country gave itself a progressive Constitution, that resolutely
resists the idea of its citizens being ranked by caste. India today
must come to the idea of caste by another route. Of course, the
reality of caste exists in too many places and too many ways.
Mitigating that reality, however, requires dealing with the systemic
inequality resulting from caste realities but without, in turn,
perpetuating caste. The Constitution rightly identifies the Scheduled
Castes separately; but in allowing for affirmative action for others,
it speaks of "other backward classes". Since the Mandal agitation
opened up the politics of empowerment, that shorthand of caste as a
marker for backwardness has been further nuanced. Groups listed at
OBCs often defy the hierarchy of caste; the courts have laid down
protocols for excluding the creamy layer; it is not just Hindus who
are included; and the list is, in theory, updated periodically.

The point is, in modern India, must the state impose questions of
caste identity on individuals? Is this task not better done through
statistical endeavours, allowing an individual to opt in to avail of
affirmative action on her own volition? These are among the questions
the government must carefully consider, and be seen to be mindful
about.


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[ZESTCaste] India to conduct first record of nation’s caste system since days of the Raj

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article7122236.ece#cid=OTC-RSS&attr=797093

From Times Online May 10, 2010

India to conduct first record of nation's caste system since days of the Raj
Rhys Blakely
India is poised to record the place occupied by each of its 960
million Hindus in the religion's controversial caste system for the
first time since the days of the Raj.

The country's mammoth ten-yearly national census began on April 1,
when it was hailed as the biggest attempt in history to count,
classify — and ultimately issue identity cards to — the citizens of a
single nation.

Now, the census questionnaire is set to be rejigged after the
Government indicated that it will meet demands for the caste of every
Hindu to be documented too.

The caste system divides Hindus into four "varnas", a term that can be
translated as "colour", according to their birth. The priest Brahmins
at the top are followed by the warrior Kshatriyas; the merchant or
farmer Vaishyas and the artisan Sudras in that order.

Untouchables, or Dalits, fall beneath that hierarchy and in many parts
of India continue to perform the most disgusting and dangerous jobs.

The associated Jati system contains thousands of subgroups based on occupation.

The last time that the number of members of each caste was counted was
in 1931, in a census carried out by the British. Then, one of the main
problems was that people exaggerated their caste status in attempts to
garner social prestige.

Now, the opposite problem of "downward mobility" is anticipated as
people pretend to come from low castes in an attempt to qualify for
government benefits. "In earlier periods there was something to be
gained from climbing the caste ladder, now the opposite is true," said
Radhika Chopra of the Delhi School Of Economics.

The reinstatement of the caste question had been demanded by leaders
of the so-called "other backward castes", or OBCs, who hope to win new
economic and social assistance for their communities by proving that
they are struggling to benefit from India's economic renaissance.

OBCs are one step up from untouchables, who are currently counted in
the census and qualify for greater government benefits, such as
reserved jobs and university places.

Pranab Mukherjee, the Finance Minister, said last week that there
would be no "logistical problem" in adding a new question to a census
that is already gathering information from literacy levels to the
number of mobile phones in each household. The exercise will involve
2.5 million officials and 12,000 tonnes of paperwork printed in 18
languages and distributed from the Himalayas in the north to the
Andaman Islands in the south.

However, no other question gives rise to the same level of
apprehension as that of caste. Some observers fear that merely asking
it risks dividing society along caste lines and provoking violence.

The Times of India argued that there had been a good reason why caste
had never been a census issue before in Independent India: "The idea
was to move towards a casteless society".

John Henry Hutton, the Indian Civil Service officer who was Census
Commissioner of India in 1931, grappled with a similar dilemma. "It
has been alleged that the mere act of labelling persons as belonging
to a caste tends to perpetuate the system," he wrote. "It is just as
easy to argue ... that it is impossible to get rid of any institution
by ignoring its existence like a proverbial ostrich."


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[ZESTCaste] Caste-based census in Mumbai only from February 2011

http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report_caste-based-census-in-mumbai-only-from-february-2011_1381651

Caste-based census in Mumbai only from February 2011
Linah Baliga & Shubhangi Khapre / DNA

Tuesday, May 11, 2010 2:05 IST

Mumbai: The Centre's indication that it is open to a caste-based
census enumeration or to have a special column for other backward
classes (OBCs) on the census forms will, in all probability, not be
incorporated in the ongoing census exercise in Mumbai which kicked off
on May 1.


"All schedules were printed and supplied two months ago. If at all the
government decides on a caste-based enumeration, it can be conducted
only in February 2011, when the final count begins for all India,"
said Dr GT Ambe, city census officer.

In states like Goa and Delhi, census operations began on April 1 and
will end on May 15."So if one were to include a caste-based census
enumeration, it will be included between February 9 and 20 when the
all India census count begins. The census we are conducting now is to
get an estimate," Ambe said, adding that the columns for scheduled
caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) were already present on the forms.

This year, for the first time the door-to-door enumeration is being
clubbed with collecting data for unique identification cards (UIDs).
The 38,000 enumerators started going door-to-door from May 1 and will
continue until June 15. Each enumerator will cover 150 houses in 45
days.

Meanwhile, the caste-based census issue has caused some problems for
prime minister Manmohan Singh who gave the nod for a census for OBCs.

He is now confronted with challenges within the United Progressive
Alliance (UPA). Highly placed sources in the All India Congress
Committee (AICC) revealed, "We recognise there is no question of
reversing the process. The matter had come up in parliament where
members across party lines voiced support for the inclusion of a
column for the OBC category in the census exercise. Now that the prime
minister has given his consent, the next step will be to get it
unanimously passed in the union cabinet."


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[ZESTCaste] Quotas must in deemed varsities

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/hyderabad/quotas-must-deemed-varsities-658

Quotas must in deemed varsities

May 11th, 2010
DC Correspondent Share

Hyderabad, May 10: In the wake of the Union ministry of HRD placing 44
deemed universities on the "blacklist," the Universities Grants
Commission (UGC) has come out with a new set of guidelines for the
universities.

The guidelines were issued on the directions of the Union HRD ministry
and include the implementation of a reservation policy in admissions
and recruitments, admission of students based on a merit-oriented
national-level examination, charging fee according to the UGC
regulations and to disclose the complete fee-structure on the college
website and prospectus.

The fresh guidelines stipulate that the institutions cannot use the
terms "university" or "national/Indian" and can only use
"deemed-to-be-university" in parenthesis. The terms "national" and
"Indian" will now be reserved only for institutes run by the Centre.

The guidelines also make it tough for deemed universities to retain
the deemed status: Only those institutes which have been in existence
for 15 years will be eligible for the deemed status. They will also
undergo periodic reviews by recognised external accrediting agencies
such as the NAAC, offer well-established, broad-based graduate, post
graduate and research programmes in several disciplines, engage in
quality research, have a full-time fully-qualified faculty, generate
intellectual property and secure merit-based research funding from
public and private agencies.

The new norms stipulate a five-year term for Vice-Chancellors as well
as the creation of posts and governing bodies such as a Pro-Vice
Chancellor, a registrar, a board of studies, a board of management
that has a central government nominee, an academic council, a planning
and management board and a finance committee.

Institutions that violate the norms will have to face an inquiry by
the UGC, freezing of the admission procedure, withdrawal of the
"deemed" status by the Centre and confiscation of the institute's
movable and immovable resources.


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