Sunday, October 2, 2011

[ZESTCaste] Mayawati not a true follower of Ambedkar: Mulayam

 

http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfeed/news/mayawati-not-a-true-follower-of-ambedkar-mulayam/843536.html

Mayawati not a true follower of Ambedkar: Mulayam
PTI | 06:10 PM,Oct 02,2011

Lucknow, Oct 2 (PTI) Taking a dig at Mayawati, Samajwadi Party chief
Mulayam Singh Yadav today said although the UP chief minister claims
herself to be an Ambedkar follower, she is allowing government land to
be grabbed for money."Mayawati claims herself as a follower of
Amebdkar but she is getting government land grabbed for money.
Ambedkar wanted to unite and educate the Dalits and backwards, but
Mayawati is even shying to meet them," Yadav alleged.Even her own
party legislators and parliamentarians find it hard to meet the chief
minister, the SP leader said.Yadav, who was addressing party workers
in a function here to mark the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and
Lal Bahadur Shastri, claimed that capitalist forces are against his
party as it fights for the cause of farmers and poor."The capitalist
forces are always against SP as it fights in favour of farmers, poor
and village folks," he said.Only Samajwadi Party could provide good
governance in the state as it understands the problems of common man,
Yadav said.

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[ZESTCaste] Congress revives Dalit politics before BMC poll

http://dailypioneer.com/nation/10548-congress-revives-dalit-politics-before-bmc-poll.html

Congress revives Dalit politics before BMC poll

Sunday, 02 October 2011 01:17
PNS | Mumbai

Ahead of the crucial Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) poll,
the ruling Congress on Saturday revived Dalit politics. It urged PM
Manmohan Singh to allot 12 acres of the land belonging to NTC's Indu
mill land at Dadar in north-central Mumbai for the proposed
international memorial of late BR Ambedkar.

In a development that smacked of political opportunism, a delegation
of Maharashtra Congress, led by State party chief Manikrao Thakre, CM
Prithviraj Chavan and Mumbai party chief Kripashankar Singh, met the
PM during his visit to the city and submitted a memorandum.


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[ZESTCaste] Rise of Subramaniam Swamy in Tamil Nadu politics

 

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/rise-of-subramaniam-swamy-in-tamil-nadu-politics/1/153415.html

M. C. Rajan Chennai, October 2, 2011 | UPDATED 12:49 IST
Rise of Subramaniam Swamy in Tamil Nadu politics
J. Jayalalithaa and Subramaniam Swamy
AIADMK chief J. Jayalalithaa quickly dumped Swamy after using him to
pull down Vajpayee's government

When he took on the authoritarian regime of J. Jayalalithaa during the
fag end of her first tenure, Subramaniam Swamy was seen as a crusader
against corruption. By setting a deadline every now and then to get
her government dismissed and even securing the then governor M. Channa
Reddy's sanction to prosecute her in the TANSI land deal case, he
proved to be the enfant terrible.

But that image did not last long as he made a somersault by teaming up
with her soon after the AIADMK czarina lost power and became her
courier on the national political arena. Even that was shortlived, for
the diva dumped him once she toppled Atal Bihari Vajpayee's first
government.

"Good riddance," was the diva's reasoning then for showing him the
door. It proved to be curtains for him in the state. For, from
thereon, Swamy turned out to be a neta providing nothing more than
comic relief on the sidelines of the acrimonious Dravidian political
discourse.

Though he had ancestral roots in Sholavandan, a sleepy yet fertile
village near Madurai, he couldn't claim to have any political base
anywhere in the state. Yet, when he landed in state politics, the
Hardvard-trained economist attempted to take over the opposition space
by positioning himself as the one who could take on the might of
Jayalalithaa.

Even at that point, there was no dearth of political tamasha from Dr
Swamy. In late 1995, his branding of the late LTTE supremo V.
Prabhakaran, as an "international pariah" created a furore and a case
was registered against him under the PCR Act. With the Jayalalithaa
government out to arrest him, he was forced to undergo an image
makeover, changing to suits and dyeing his hair to evade the police.
To mollify the Dalits, he went to the extent of assuring them to get
the Oxford English Dictionary to remove the term 'pariah'.

Jayalalithaa detested him so much that AIADMK women's wing volunteers,
who gathered in large numbers, welcomed him at the High Court by
raising their skirts. As a petitioner against the AIADMK supremo, he
had come there to argue the case himself. The period also saw Swamy
share the dais with DMK patriarch M. Karunanidhi, who always kept him
at an arm's length.

But Jayalalithaa had only helped him enhance his image as a crusader.
In the 1996 election, he had polled over one lakh votes in Madurai and
came second in the race. When the assembly polls came, Swamy was left
to fend for himself as the DMK teamed up with the Tamil Maanila
Congress and romped home. He lent the Janata Party symbol to Dalit
leader K. Krishnasamy, who won from Ottapidaram, cashing in on the
police atrocities against Dalits in Kodiyankulam. He too deserted
Swamy in search of an independent Dalit identity.

Though he had played a role in bringing down Jayalalithaa, the diva
chose to put the past behind her and walked the extra mile to wish
Swamy on his birthday at his party office. She also gifted him a Ford
Ikon.

What the team had accomplished is there for all to see. With AIADMK
support, he won the Lok Sabha election from Madurai and he assumed the
role of Rajguru for the Poes Garden diva, who had reportedly pressed
for making him Finance Minister to free herself from her legal
tangles. It was not to be and the famed 'Tea Party' graced by Sonia
Gandhi saw the downfall of the Vajpayee government in 1998. Soon
thereafter, Jayalaltihaa dumping Swamy forever.

IN THE election that followed, he came after a Dalit party, Viduthalai
Chiruthaigal Katchi (VCK), which retained the second spot in Madurai.
It also saw the eclipse of Swamy in the political discourse of the
state, though he manages to raise his head every now and then by
raking us issues dear to the Hindutva crowd, like the arrest of Kanchi
Sankaracharya Jayendra Saraswati, the Sethu Samudram Project and the
governemnt takeover of the Chidambaram Nataraja temple administration.

Still, Swamy could not recover from that fall from grace or regain his
credibility. At best he remains a rabble rouser.

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[ZESTCaste] Dalit shot dead by unidentified persons

 

http://zeenews.india.com/news/uttar-pradesh/dalit-shot-dead-by-unidentified-persons_734633.html

Dalit shot dead by unidentified persons
Last Updated: Sunday, October 02, 2011, 16:26

Bhadoi: A 30-year-old Dalit man was shot dead by unidentified persons
in Koirauna area, a senior police officer said here on Sunday.

Phool Chand was shot dead with country-made firearms near his house by
four unidentified youths in Kalinjara village late last night,
Additional Superintendent of Police Ramesh said.

The motive behind the murder was not clear and the case was being
investigated, he said.

PTI

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[ZESTCaste] Under Mayawati, Muslims fare worse than dalits in education

 

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Under-Mayawati-Muslims-fare-worse-than-dalits-in-education/articleshow/10200823.cms

Under Mayawati, Muslims fare worse than dalits in education
Abantika Ghosh, TNN | Oct 2, 2011, 01.11AM IST

NEW DELHI: Mayawati may have demanded reservation for the Muslims in
proportion to their population, but the community has little to cheer
about during her five years' rule in Uttar Pradesh.

An analysis of Muslims' share in employment and education shows how
since 2007 the Muslims have fared worse than dalits in UP on the
education front. Demolishing the tall claims of the minority
concentration districts' programme to smithereens, the study shows
that per capita consumption expenditure of the Muslims was the least
(Rs 781 against Rs 948 for upper caste Hindus, Rs 846 for Hindu OBCs
and Rs 808 for Hindu SCs), where the community's population is above
40%. Economist Abusaleh Shariiff, who conducted the study, has called
for revoking the programme.

"We want money from the HRD ministry for the development of education
opportunities for our children, not from the ministry of minority
affairs. The minority concentration districts programme should be
closed down," Shariff said.

Shariff is the chief economist of the National Council of Applied
Economic Research (NCAER), and was member secretary of the Sachar
Committee that was formed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in 2005 to
look into the social, economic and educational status of Indian
Muslims. He presented his findings at the Institute of Objective
Studies on Saturday.

The study showed that the Muslim participation in the UPA's flagship
Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act is minimal
(8.6%) in Uttar Pradesh, where the community's population is more than
18%. SC/STs' share in the scheme is 53.5%, followed by OBCs (33.9%).

Only 11.3% of workers in the formal sector in urban areas are Muslims,
and 30.6% of them are employed in the private sector against just 5.3%
in the public sector, turning the very principle behind demands for
reservation in the private sector on its head. On the contrary, 17.5%
workers in the sector are SC/STs and 19.7% are OBCs.

On the education front, the study showed that literacy among the
Muslims on the OBC and general categories has gone up by about 7% in
both urban and rural areas of UP over the last five years. Only Hindu
STs are worse off at 4%. General category Hindus have shown the
highest leap of 17% in rural and 22% in urban areas.

The Muslims' plight worsens as level of education goes up. In matric
education, Muslim OBCs showed just a 2% rise, while there was a dip of
about 3% for those who belong to the general category.
Correspondingly, Hindu STs showed a surge of close to 20% and SCs of
about 3% in rural areas and 5% and 8% in urban areas, respectively.

Muslims' share in higher education was the most dismal, with the OBCs
registering a fall of 13% in urban and 12% in rural areas. General
category Muslims showed a fall of 9% in urban areas and 14% in rural
areas.

"Education data shows that the present trend of politics in UP has
worked in favour of OBC Muslims and dalits whereas general category
Muslims have lagged behind in many cases," Shariff added.

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[ZESTCaste] Mayawati wants dalit quota in judiciary and private sector

 

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2011-10-01/india/30232666_1_dalits-quota-mbcs

Mayawati wants dalit quota in judiciary and private sector
Ashish Tripathi, TNN Oct 1, 2011, 06.47PM IST

LUCKNOW: UP chief minister Mayawati shot off yet another letter,
seventh in last 10 days, to prime minister Manmohan Singh on Saturday.
This time she has demanded increase in the percentage of reservation
provided to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) in view of
increase in their population and introduce quota system in the
judiciary, private sector and other places where it has not been
implemented as yet.

Earlier, she had written to the prime minister for providing
reservation to Jats under other backward class (OBC) category, upper
caste poor on financial basis, quota within quota in OBC category to
backward Muslims, inclusion of 25 most backward classes (MBC), dalit
Muslims and dalit Christians in the SC/ST category, pathetic condition
of national highways in UP and shortage of fertilisers. The letters
are being seen as BSP chief's move to play caste card before 2012
assembly elections. Mayawati has sought to appease all sections of
society -- backwards, dalits, upper castes and Muslims. She is also
looking forward for an alliance of dalit-Brahmin-Muslim-MBC for 2012
elections. BSP had come to power with absolute majority in 2007 with
the support of dalits and by successfully wooing a section of Brahims,
Muslims and MBCs.
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In her letter, Mayawati has stated that the population of dalits and
tribals have increased considerably since Independence, hence it is
important to increase the percentage of reservation to dalits and
tribals in government jobs and educational institutions. She
reiterated inclusion of MBCs in SC/ST list and providing them a fixed
quota within quota. She had suggested that after including MBCs, dalit
Christians and dalit Muslims in the SC/ST category, the percentage of
quota should also be increased in accordance with the increase in
number of communities. She had even recommended amendment in the
constitution to increase quota and to include more castes and classes
for reservation benefit. She had demanded that the reservation policy
should be put in the ninth schedule of the constitution so that it
cannot be challenged in any court of law.

Arguing that increase in quota will help marginalised sections to join
national mainstream, Mayawati also patted her back for initiating
number of schemes to benefit downtrodden in UP. The BSP government has
introduced quota for dalits in allotment of government contracts upto
Rs 25 lakh, reservation facility in promotions, filling of backlog
reserved category vacancies, 10% quota in jobs in private sector units
established with the help of state government and quota in jobs for
dalits in the services outsourced to the private sector. Mayawati has
also decided to introduce 23% quota to SC/ST and 27% for OBCs in the
industrial units established under public-private-partnership.
Besides, the government has also implemented several schemes - free
housing for urban poor and dalits, scholarships for dalits, backwards
and Muslims among other things.

Incidentally, Mayawati appointed 1977 batch IPS officer Brij Lal, a
dalit, as the new director general of police (DGP) of UP on Saturday
following superannuation of RK Tiwari, a Brahmin. Tiwari was made DGP
last month after retirement of Karamveer Singh. Tiwari remained DGP
for around a month. Political analysts say that Mayawati has tried to
give a message to both Brahmins and Dalits with appointments of Tiwari
and Lal. Significantly, Lal was already handling several important
police departments. A judicial magistrate in Ghaziabad had recently
directed police to lodge an FIR against Lal and some other senior IPS
officers on the petition of a police constable Brijendra Singh Yadav
who alleged that Rs 25 per month were illegally deducted from the
salaries of 3.5 lakh constables in UP. Lal has challenged the order in
the High Court.

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[ZESTCaste] Raise quota for SC/ST, Maya writes to PM

 

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/channels/nation/north/raise-quota-scst-maya-writes-pm-888

Raise quota for SC/ST, Maya writes to PM

October 2, 2011
By Amita Verma
Correspondent
Lucknow

Continuing with her letter-writing spree, UP chief minister Mayawati
has now written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to increase
the quota for Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes and giving reservation
to them in the

private sector and the judiciary.
She justified her demand or an increase in the quantum of reservation
saying that the population of SC/ST had risen appreciably but the
quota has not been increased.
She pointed out that the SC/ST groups had suffered and remained
deprived in the social set-up and this had resulted in their economic,
social and educational backwardness. The reservation system was
designed to benefit this deprived section of society.
Listing the steps taken by her government for the benefit of SC/ST
classes, the chief minister further said that immediate steps needed
to be taken at the national level to improve their situation.
This, incidentally, is the fourth letter by chief minister Mayawati to
the Prime Minister on the issue of reservation. Last month, she wrote
to the Prime Minister seeking reservation for Muslims, economically
weaker sections among upper castes and then inclusion of jats in the
central OBC list.

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[ZESTCaste] Post-matric Scholarship online

http://ibnlive.in.com/news/postmatric-scholarship-online/189520-60-117.html

Orissa | Posted on Oct 02, 2011 at 12:20pm IST
Post-matric Scholarship online
indianexpress Express News Service , The New Indian Express

BHUBANESWAR: The Orissa Government on Saturday put online

its post-matric scholarship and widened its scope to encourage
students from the disadvantaged sections pursue higher education.

Called 'Prerana', the e-scholarship programme will bring in
transparency, accountability and responsiveness, Chief Minister Naveen
Patnaik said after its

launch.

"Post-matric scholarship has been a major scheme to facilitate higher
and technical education among the weaker sections such as ST, SC, OBC,
SEBC and minority students," he said.

Prerana allows online registration for the scholarship as students can
log on to http://ori.nic.in/odishapms. Naveen said the State
Government has, over the past few years, already taken a number of
special measures to promote education

in the schools meant for SC and ST students. "The Government is trying
to bring the SC and ST people to the mainstream by providing them
quality education,"

he said and added so far 1.5 lakh students have benefited from the
scholarship programme.

Chief Secretary BK Patnaik said the Government would monitor the
implementation of the e-scholarship programme and expand it for the
school students in future. Commissioner-cum-Secretary, SC/ST
Development, Minorities and Backward Classes Welfare Department,
Santosh Sarangi said

that there was no cap on the number of applicants in case of ST and SC
students under the scholarship scheme. For the OBC, SEBC and
minorities, it will be on first-comefirst- serve basis.

The students will have to submit the personal details in the online
application form along with passport size photo, caste and income
certificates. The completed forms will go to institutes for
verification and then to the District Social Welfare Officer whose
approval will lead to sanction of the scholarship.

The scholarship amount will directly be deposited in the bank account
of the student.


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[ZESTCaste] Gandhi today (Kancha Ilaiah)

http://www.deccanchronicle.com/columnists/kancha-ilaiah/gandhi-today

Gandhi today

October 2, 2011


In my childhood, way back in the early Sixties, there was a Gandhi
statue in my village.

His clean shaved head and semi-naked body with a tucked-in dhoti, in a
walking posture, resembled my illiterate shepherd father in every
respect except for the classic stick in the right hand, a book in the
left hand and round spectacle frames.

The village norm was that everyone could touch the Gandhi statue,
except the Madigas (dalits). We used to call him Gandhi 'thaathaa'
(grandpa).

One hundred and forty two years after his birth and 63 years after his
death, has the relationship between Mahatma Gandhi the historical
figure, the India that he represented, and the poor masses who earn
just Rs 32 per day in urban India and Rs 26 in rural India, in other
words, the dalits, changed?

The majority of educated dalits do not accept the epithet 'the father
of the nation' for Gandhi. Instead, they address Bhimrao Ramji
Ambedkar as the "father of the nation". Is that because we live in two
different nations: India and Bharat?

Quite interestingly, Anna Hazare describes himself as a Gandhian and
hung Gandhi's portrait behind his anti-corruption fasting 'public
bed'. At the other extreme was Narendra Modi who too hung Gandhi's
portrait behind his 'sadbhavna seat' of power.

Vande Mataram was the rousing chant at the gatherings of both Mr
Hazare and Mr Modi. Obviously, both of them seem to be promising
'Young India' (incidentally, also the name of Gandhi's journal in
which he formulated his core philosophy) that they would bring about
Gandhi's Ram Rajya.

For many nationalists, the Gandhian Ram Rajya is yet to come (like the
Kingdom of God of Jews). This is a society where there is no
corruption and where the classical Varnadharma, without reservations,
would operate, of course with the right to compete with one another,
just as Gandhi had visualised after 'Hind Swaraj' was realised. Thus,
for the upper castes and the rich, swaraj has come, but the Ram Rajya
of Gandhi is yet to come.

Ambedkar located the roots of untouchability, oppression and
horrendous poverty in that same Ram Rajya and according to many dalit
writers the poor and oppressed are still living in Ram Rajya, which
has been in existence for centuries. They are waiting for Buddha
Rajya, as Ambedkar had visualised it.

For the majority at the bottom there is no raj, leave alone swaraj.
They still live in a Hobbesian 'state of nature' where restrictions
are imposed upon individuals that curtail their natural rights, or, to
use Kautilya's phrase, in Matsyanyaya, where, in periods of chaos the
strong devour the weak, just as in periods of drought big fish eat
small fish.

For the liberal, globalised intellectual of India, Gandhi is the
solution to all problems. However, in village India he is a faint
memory, with dilapidated statues here and there, and a customary
lesson in some school textbooks.

Like Nehru, Gandhi was a Congress man, but he transcended party lines
and became a globally respectable moral force. For world leaders, from
Martin Luther King to Nelson Mandela to Barack Obama, Gandhi is the
moral force of non-violence.

Among the elite group of global moral forces he has outgrown his own
heroes — Leo Tolstoy and Henry David Thoreau among others. In informed
circles around the world, he is the most known and revered Indian
after Buddha. They do not see him as a politician, nor do they see him
as a spiritual guru. To some he is a self-suffering sexual
experimentalist, to others he is a complicated character of David
Attenborough's cinema.

At home, anyone, from Mr Hazare to Mr Modi, can use his portrait to
empower the middle class or to embolden the Hindutva brigade. Nehru
cannot escape his party's boundaries, though the historical Ambedkar
competes with the historical Gandhi of the Hindu ethos when it comes
to being a force of moral philosophy and social justice.

In fact, within India in many realms Ambedkar is outshining Gandhi.
Don't be surprised if Mr Modi's prime ministerial rath carries
portraits of both Gandhi and Ambedkar, or just of Ambedkar. The RSS,
remember, doesn't recognise Gandhi as a nationalist, but it calls
Ambedkar a nationalist.

Ambedkar saw Gandhi as an enemy of the dalits. When Gandhi represented
India in the Second Round Table Conference, Ambedkar said,
"Unfortunately, the Congress chose Mr Gandhi as its representative. A
worse person could not have been chosen to guide India's destiny."

Gandhi did not prove him wrong when he said, "The Congress has from
its very commencement taken up the cause of the so-called
'untouchables'". He saw untouchability in 1931 as "so-called", not
real, and the untouchables as people who deserve to be referred to in
quotes. Ambedkar understood the diabolism of Gandhian linguistic
engagement with dalits.

Gandhi called them Harijans but did not ask for their right to engage
with Hari as priests. He was willing to grant them the right to touch
others and the right to be touched, but he was not willing to go
beyond that. He claimed that he represented entire India, with the
occasional exception of Muslims and Sikhs. He treated Indians as
Hindus and saw himself as the incontestable representative of all
Hindus — including dalits.

Ambedkar, on the other hand, saw Hindus as collective suppressors of
dalits, hence wanted protection for them from 'the tyranny and
oppression of the Hindus', even from the oppression of present-day
OBCs.

In this land of Buddha, Gandhi and Ambedkar, the 21st century has
created a moral and ethical crisis with huge economic and social
disparities, though most of them are inherited from the past. The
Ambanis, the Gujarati baniyas at that, do not have an iota of respect
for Gandhi's austerity — frugal food and ashram housing.

The costliest family house in the world is built by a baniya from
Gandhi's state and caste. The global poorest of the poor, mostly
dalits, live in this land of Gandhi on less than Rs 26 per day.

Gandhi undertook the longest hunger strike against the principle of
separate electorate for dalits, resulting in the Poona Pact. Ambedkar,
on the other hand, characterises all such hunger strikes as
instruments of blackmail to derail democratic negotiations and
institutionalisation of pro-poor laws.

As the Hindu God promises in the Gita, 'Sambhavami yuge yuge' (I will
come back millennium after millennium), Gandhian hunger protests are
coming to the fore again and again in the nation. Gandhi's method of
protest as used by today's protesters is proving difficult for
present-day rulers. But rural India doesn't know how to make sense of
Gandhi. For many illiterate villagers he is the thaathaa of tamashas.

The writer is director, Centre for the Study of Social Exclusion and
Inclusive Policy, Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad


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