NATIONAL CAMPAIGN ON DALIT HUMAN RIGHTS

NCDHR

Dalits In News

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

INTERVIEW

The chairman of the National Commission for

Scheduled Castes on his controversial proposal.

MANU JOSEPH interviews Jabbar Patel

INTERVIEW

'Dalits Will Hate Me For It'

The chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes on his controversial proposal.

 Appointed by the NDA government, Suraj Bhan took over as the chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes on February 24, 2004. An interview.

Many experts feel Article 17 should stay as it is, as also reservations...
Merely stating that untouchability stands abolished hasn't changed anything. The caste system along with reservation based on it should go. But that will happen only if the caste system goes first. See results, then abolish reservation.

Have you talked to the political leadership?
I've initiated a debate with the religious heads; they agree that the caste system should go and untouchability is bad. I've recorded the statements made by the Sringeri, Puri and Dwarka seers. I'll be seeing the Kanchi seer soon.

Will they accept non-Brahmins in their fold? Is there a chance of Dalits getting acceptance in the pithas you speak of?
It's up to them. At least they agree that untouchability is bad.

What about the likely protest to your proposal to scrap reservations for scheduled castes?
I think the Dalits will hate me for this. But we need to debate this.

Outlookindia.com

EXCLUSIVE

'Abolish Caste'

Article 7 — and quotas —have not worked, says Suraj Bhan. The solution: kill the law.

ANURADHA RAMAN

Is this another Sangh parivar attempt to play their unstated upper-caste card? In a controversial move, the chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, Suraj Bhan, has decided to recommend to the President that Article 17 of the Constitution dealing with untouchability be amended, and reservations abolished. He has proposed this be done in five years after studying the amendment's impact. For Bhan, untouchability is still widely prevalent despite Article 17, and reservations have been made a mockery of.

Hear him out and it would seem that untouchability, one of the ills of Hindu society, can be done away by merely changing a few words in the Constitution.

Declares Bhan: "All it needs is an addition of one word. Instead of the Article stating 'Untouchability is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden', it should read: 'Caste system and untouchability stand abolished'." His proposal

will be part of a special report on the status of the scheduled castes, details of atrocities committed against Dalits, bogus registration of scheduled castes and recommendations to remove the anomalies, to be presented to President Abdul Kalam three months from now.

The commission's proposals being recommendatory in nature, Bhan says the government has to respond within a month of the report being made public. "The government has to give reasons for accepting or rejecting our proposals," he says. In fact, the government has to submit an action taken report within a month to the commission, set up under Article 338 to oversee the implementation of various safeguards provided to scheduled castes under the Constitution.

For the last couple of months, Bhan, an NDA government appointee, has been talking to religious heads to seek their endorsement on his grand move to amend Article 17.

Says Bhan, "The religious heads of virtually all Hindu organisations (read the RSS and VHP) are with me. I have the endorsement of VHP's Praveen Togadia and Ashok Singhal." Bhan argues that untouchability is part of the caste system and will remain as long as the system does. "Once the system goes, the practice too will end," he says.

As for scrapping reservation for scheduled castes, Bhan argues that instances of bogus claims (higher caste members claiming to be Dalits) have been on the rise and reserved seats are not being filled on the plea that there aren't enough suitable candidates. "How can one become a scheduled caste if not by birth?" he asks.

While Bhan says he is willing to debate his stand, his views have upset the pro-reservation intellectuals and activists. Asks D. Shyam Babu, fellow at the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation: "What purpose is served by amending Article 17? After all, laws have been passed to strengthen Article 17 and if untouchability prevails, one needs to question the non-implementation of the laws passed in support of Article 17." Bhan counters that the Prevention of Atrocities Act and the Civil Rights Protection Act haven't even made a dent in the system. "The conviction rate is hardly 2 per cent in such cases, that is if they're taken note of at all," he says.

About reservations, Bhan says bogus candidates are claiming scheduled caste status to avail of special privileges and the incidents seem to be only increasing with each passing year. "In the Badayun district of UP alone, 300 false cases came to our notice. Moreover, when we sent a questionnaire to states seeking information on the steps being taken to improve the lot of SC students, their answers invariably were 'almost nothing'," says Bhan. Rather than ensure that laws are complied with and reservation not misused, the chairman would rather just abolish the caste system via an amendment.

Among the other changes he has proposed are the deletion of objectionable references to Dalits in the scriptures, Manusmriti and Ramcharit Manas. "Expunge derogatory references in them," recommends Bhan.

He also proposes dropping surnames in any application for jobs. "The surname is the first indicator of an individual's caste. We should do away with surnames. Instead, educational qualifications like BA or MA can be prefixed."

Reactions to Bhan's proposals have swung from open scepticism to downright rejection. "Why doesn't he have the courage to denounce the scriptures instead of proposing to amend the Constitution? Will his party allow him to do that," counters D. Raja of the CPI. He cautions that Bhan's proposal should be debated politically and that the UPA is committed to reservation in the CMP.

"Our party is committed to a casteless society but the ground reality is different. That's why Parliament has felt the need to extend reservation after every 10 years, though it was meant only for the first 10 years after the Constitution was accepted," says Raja. He accuses Bhan and the BJP for

proposing a formula without taking into account the prevalent situation. "Untouchability is prohibited but practised in different ways. What Bhan should be looking at is how to strengthen Article 17 rather than proposing to amend it," says Raja.

Union rural development minister Raghuvansh Prasad says it's not the right time to remove reservations. "The Constitution makers did put a 10-year time limit, but the ground realities forced them to extend it. The scheduled castes have not been coopted yet into society and reservations should stay till that happens," says Prasad.

Raja is not alone in questioning Bhan's motives.

Social activist Kancha Iliah says such an amendment will be scuttled even as it is proposed. Having presented his case to the US House Committee on Human Rights, Iliah said, "we have asked for affirmative action from the US specially in companies run by them and other MNCs, and informed the committee that the Indian government supports reservation in the

private sector". Iliah senses a brahminical conspiracy behind the move to scrap reservations when he says that the RSS has always been opposed to reservation. "Did Suraj Bhan ask for the caste system to be banished from the religious pithas when he went about seeking their support?" asks Iliah.

But Bhan is prepared for an onslaught of criticism. Meanwhile, Dalit activist Chandra Bhan Prasad says the commission should get realistic and not widen the already existing rift in the system. "When we're debating over whether to allow reservation in the private sector, the commission should be exploring those avenues," he says. But the chairman of the SC Commission believes he is on the right track. Two birds with one stone. Abolish caste. With it, reservation.

Outlookindia.com

What If Ambedkar Had Converted Earlier?

It would've accentuated India's very real internal social turmoil and to some extent robbed the freedom struggle of its powerful coherence...

MANU JOSEPH interviews Jabbar Patel

The Jabbar Patel Interview: Sometimes history wears the clothes of destiny . Man arrives at a moment in time apparently impelled by fate. Babasaheb Ambedkar came to such a pass on October 14, 1956. Two decades after he announced that he wouldn’t die a Hindu, he, along with over 5,00,000 passionate low-caste supporters, embraced Buddhism. It started an unstoppable rising among India’s long oppressed who joyously cast aside their Hindu identity. But two months later, Ambedkar died....

What if Ambedkar hadn’t died so soon after the historic conversion?
It’s obvious the Dalit movement would’ve been strengthened infinitely.

Ambedkar used conversion as a last resort, when he saw that even Nehru was averse to pursuing the Hindu Code BIll.

But Ambedkar himself knew that his body was failing, that he did not have too much time left. More important than what would have happened if he had lived longer is another more disturbing question....

...What if Ambedkar had converted 21 years earlier?
Yes

Had he converted in 1935, it would’ve accentuated India’s very real internal social turmoil and to some extent robbed the freedom struggle of its powerful coherence. But, at the same time, the Dalit movement may have had some natural problems. He had to prepare his people to eve ntually shed their religion. Losing the religion one is born into is not an ordinary affair. People had to be herded in that direction slowly while waiting patiently for glimmers of hope, exhausting all other options. Even before Ambedkar presided over the conversions, or considered losing his Hindu identity, low -caste Indians had sporadically converted on their own to Islam and Christianity. But there was no mass strength in that movement. More importantly, in 1935 those who chose to follow Ambedkar would have been from his Mahar caste in his home state, Maharashtra, and not the other castes and subcastes from the rest of the country.

What if Ambedkar had chosen some other religion?
This was something that worried several leaders. The Sikhs were wooing him, the Christian missionaries were wooing him. And had Ambedkar chosen Islam, as some Muslim clerics were urging him, it would have tipped the balance against the Hindus—with serious implic ations on all future developments in those eventful days. But I believe that even in 1935 if Ambedkar had chosen to convert, it would have been to Buddhism. He had been fascinated with Buddhism since his childhood because it offered happiness within a man’s own lifetime and not in the distant future of afterlife. As he once said: "All creators of religions claimed themselves to be saviours but Buddha was satisfied with being simply a guide. "

What if he hadn’t converted at all?
In my opinion, Dr Ambedkar used conversion as a last resort, when everything else failed to open the eyes of Indian society. He was an optimist. But when even a progressive man like Nehru—due to internal pressures from his party—became averse to pursuing the Hindu Code Bill (which gave greater rights to women) in 1952 keeping the coming elections in mind, it was a big jolt to Ambedkar’s optimism. The reasoning then was that Partition had hurt the Hindus deeply and Nehru did not want to inflict another blow through the Hindu Code Bill. But that reasoning was not good enough for Ambedkar. He unders tood that there was no point in waiting for society to change. The idea of shedding Hinduism grew stronger in his mind and when it transformed into a gigantic resolve, he took the extreme step and converted in 1956. If he had done it earlier, say in 1935, it is possible that the conviction of his followe rs may not have been as strong as it was in 1956.

Jabbar Patel, director of a widely acclaimed biopic on Ambedkar, was talking to Manu Joseph.

INTERVIEW

'There Is Still No Dalit Newsreader On Any TV Channel'

The first to study the post-capitalist expansion of the newspaper industry in India, he says we will soon see the English language press taking stories and leads from language newspapers. S. ANAND interviews Robin Jeffrey

Robin Jeffrey was the first to study the post-capitalist expansion of the newspaper industry in India. His book India's Newspaper Revolution: Capitalism, Politics and the Indian-Language Press, 1977-97 has been translated into Malayalam as Indiayute Patraviplavam. Currently professor at the School of Social Sciences, La Trobe University, Australia, Jeffrey argues that in an India where 65 out of 100 Indians today can read, the proliferation of newspapers has led to an expansion and deepening of democracy and believes that the time is right for the Indian version of Citizen Kane.

"A policeman once told me that with the spread of Telugu dailies, villagers now know the police aren't supposed to beat them up and if beaten, they can go to the newspapers."

In an e-mail interview, he says we will soon see the English language press taking stories and leads from language newspapers.

You have talked in celebratory terms about the 'newspaper revolution' in India in the 1990s. Today, the Indian print sector is seeing another surge. What do you make of it?

 

If you think of newspapers as the cutting edge of capitalism, it perhaps shouldn't be surprising that newspapers expand as marketers push more goods into wider markets. We're nearly 15 years into 'liberalisation'. We've also had notable growth in literacy in places like Rajasthan, which once would have been thought of as poor, illiterate and a poor place to start a small-town edition. That's not so today. It's understandable that newspaper expansion continues.

For an innately conservative society, can the term 'revolution' be really used? Has the media really helped usher in new ideas? Hasn't there been a competitive dumbing down?

 

No question that many of the big-city English dailies have headed towards British tabloid style.

But what happened in the 1980s, in my view, was the creation of a 'public sphere' in parts of the country where there's been nothing like it before. I was fascinated by the Telugu policeman I met in 1993 who told me that the spread of Telugu dailies had made the work of the police difficult. Now, he said, villagers knew that the police weren't supposed "The English press will take stories and leads from the Indian language newspapers. It's part of the process of local news becoming increasingly important for capturing readers."

to beat them up—and they would "go to the newspapers" if the police did. When you repeat that perception tens of thousands of times around India, then you are, I think, talking about a revolution.

Managements are driven by a desire to maximise profits though they talk of the press being the fourth estate. Besides, we've seen the entrenchment of monopolies despite democracy. How then can the media be a harbinger of change?
Owners have always aimed to make money and wield influence. But they often do other things in spite of themselves. A newspaper owner in Bangalore has no problem if the reporters and editors run a campaign against oppressive landlords in northern Karnataka—providing that campaign captures readers and doesn't put off advertisers.

Hasn't information explosion, the 24-hour news channels, made news redundant? Sehwag's century or Karisma Kapoor's marital problems figure as 'breaking news' on TV. Can one not shut oneself from the world of news for a month and yet feel no less wise?
It depends what your interests are. If a telephone pole is falling in my village, and a reporter and photographer come and say they're doing a story about it, I am going to buy the paper the next day. The local superintending engineer may find he needs to read the paper too. It's hard to imagine a time when local news, in print, on TV or radio, is not going to have an audience.

TV and print media are joining hands—the launch of DNA by Zee TV and 'Dainik Bhaskar'. What do we make of this?
It's a proprietor's dream: One newsroom! In India there's still a lot of competitive families and organisations, but in other places, where media is controlled by two or three big companies, the linking of TV and print is a grotesque prospect.

Towns could have one newspaper, which owns one of the town's TV stations.It reduces the chances of different stories getting out into widespread circulation.

Does language press and the English media continue to address a 'split public'? While the English language media took an anti-Hindutva stand during the Gujarat riots, the local Gujarati media sought to reflect the Hindu opinion.
There are more than two 'publics' in India. But various 'publics' overlap and interact constantly. Increasingly, I suspect, the English language press will take stories and leads from Indian language newspapers. We'll see more of the agenda set by Indian language media outlets, rather than the other way round. That's part of the process of local news becoming increasingly important for capturing readers.

 

In Tamil Nadu, for the Sun TV network, political and business interests seem to go hand in hand. The group enjoys virtual monopoly in television and is now taking on print with the purchase of 'Dinakaran'. In Telugu, 'Eenadu' and ETV control most of the market. Why do monopolies persist and don't we see healthy competition?
What business person would turn down the chance of operating a monopoly? The trend in English-speaking countries has been towards monopoly in the media. In Australia, two big newspaper chains control 90 per cent of daily circulation in big cities. For the time being, India is relatively fortunate with the kind of newspaper competition you see on the hawkers' stalls in the bus stands in, say, Thiruvananthapuram or Delhi on any morning.

Whenever the topic is FDI in print, there's talk of safeguards and issues of national concern. But wouldn't the presence of foreign players and global capital challenge the complacency of monopolistic mercantile capitalism?
That is probably right. If foreigners start papers, there's an extra voice created. Australia faces this question at the moment. Government has to decide whether to eliminate restrictions on cross-media ownership. And if it does, it will also probably lift restrictions of foreign ownership to try to get some more players into the media business. In India, too, foreign arrivals might provoke vigorous Indian response. Ramoji Rao said one of the reasons for founding Eenadu was to give Telugu speakers in the 1970s a Telugu-owned voice. It was a matter of self-respect for someone who could afford to express his self-respect by starting a newspaper.

You have discussed the connection between democracy and media expansion. But the media does not seem to be representative of demographic realities. In 1999, you had devoted a chapter to the near-total absence of Dalits in Indian newsrooms. Has anything changed?
Almost nothing, so far as I am aware. I'm told, reliably I think, that there is not a single Dalit newsreader or weather person on any television channel. When will we get, say, a national Dalit weekly, doing what the Chicago Defender did for African-Americans from the 1920s to the 1950s? The absence of such a voice is a mark of the political and economic weakness of the Dalit middle class.

In the US and Europe, there are demands on the media to be socially responsible. Why does the Editors Guild in India not seem to have similar concerns? Moreover the Press Council of India seems virtually defunct. Is this not dangerous?
If the national government intends to let the Press Council quietly fade away, that would be a very bad thing. What's needed is a revamped "media council" that would monitor ethics and conduct in the electronic as well as print media. But such a council would be politically difficult to create. Most governments find media matters very hard to deal with because they fear that powerful proprietors will turn their organisations against the government.

 Only BJP is well-wisher of Dalits, Muslims: Advani

EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE

Posted online: Monday, October 24, 2005 at 0108 hours IST

JALANDHAR, OCTOBER 23: Only BJP is the well-wisher of Dalits and Muslims, according to L K Advani. Addressing the party’s first-ever Dalit rally in Punjab at Boota Mandi the BJP chief today said, ‘‘For other political parties, Dalits and Muslims are vote-banks... they try to woo them with tall promises. But only we want them to progress.’’

He said Mahatma Gandhi, Vir Savarkar and Dr B R Ambedkar were also concerned about uplifting Dalits and believed that social progress can be gauged from the condition of backward sections. ‘‘The BJP wants support of Muslims and Dalits, but in the name of security, safety and development,’’ he said.

On Bihar elections, he said rivals were painting the party anti-Muslim but ‘‘people of Bihar understand our policies well’’. He said Laloo Prasad Yadav was moving around with an Osama bin Laden look-alike. “It is a crying shame,” he said, adding ‘‘Sania Mirza and Irfan Pathan can be role models of Muslim voters, not Laden. ’’

He said BJP’s win in Muslim-dominated wards of Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation showed the community had begun to understand its good intentions. He also reminded that it was BJP which chose APJ Abdul Kalam for the country’s highest post.

Dalits or RSS men?

Over 10,000 people assembled at the meeting. But Punjab Congress ministers M S Kay Pee, Gurkanwal Kaur and Improvement Trust chairman Tejinder Bittu, called it a flop, saying RSS men had gathered as Dalits. — ENS

The Hindu-Belgaum   

Welfare schemes to be implemented for Dalits

Staff Correspondent

BELGAUM: The Belgaum City Corporation has decided to introduce single window clearance to implement development works pending in various stages under the 18 per cent budget scheme for Dalits.

A decision to this effect was taken at a meeting of the advisory committee for the welfare of Dalits held under the chairmanship of Mayor Vijay P. More here on Tuesday. Mr. More said the committee discussed development works and financial assistance to be extended to Dalits. The committee has also recommended financial assistance to families who houses collapsed or were damaged in the rain recently.

The Mayor and members of the committee visited some areas, including Gade Marg, Shahpur and Ramnagar (Gangwadi) affected by rain.

The Hindu-Gulgarga (Karnataka)

Dalit Sena protest in Gulbarga

Staff Correspondent

Union and State governments urged to take stringent action against persons utilising reservation by producing fake certificates

DEMONSTRATION: Members of Dalit Sena staging a dharna in front of the Deputy Commissioner's office in Gulbarga on Tuesday.

Gulbarga: Members of Dalit Sena staged a protest in Gulbarga on Tuesday demanding action against persons utilising reservation and other benefits extended by the Government by using fake caste certificates.

They took out a procession to the office of the Deputy Commissioner and raised slogans against the Government.

The protestors then submitted a memorandum addressed to the President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Governor T.N. Chaturvedi.

They said the Civil Rights Enforcement Cell had found that over 1,700 persons had produced false certificates to get admission to professional courses, for government jobs, allotment of petrol pumps, fees and tax exemptions, and other benefits. But the State Government has not taken any action against these people, said president of district unit Goutam Kamble. Such offences should be treated seriously and considered attempts to commit fraud on the law of the land, he said. He urged the Union and State governments to take stringent action against such offenders.

Members also demanded inquiries into irregularities in the computer scholarship programme, distribution of land to Dalits and landless, and issue of land ownership documents to Dalits of Nimbarga village.

ARUN KHOTE
SECRETARY-MEDIA
NATIONAL SECRETARIAT.
NATIONAL CAMPAIGN ON DALIT HUMAN RIGHTS
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