anti-caste

REPORT DETAILS SYSTEMATIC BIGOTRY AGAINST UNTOUCHABLE, MUSLIM, AND TRIBAL SCHOOLCHILDREN

India: Marginalized Children Denied Education (Human Rights Watch press release)

“The 77-page report, ‘‘They Say We’re Dirty’: Denying an Education to India’s Marginalized,’ documents discrimination by school authorities in four Indian states against Dalit, tribal, and Muslim children. The discrimination creates an unwelcome atmosphere that can lead to truancy and eventually may lead the child to stop going to school.

[...]

“‘The teacher tells us to sit on the other side,’ said ‘Pankaj,’ an eight-year-old tribal boy from Uttar Pradesh. ‘If we sit with others, she scolds us and asks us to sit separately. The teacher doesn’t sit with us because she says we “are dirty.”’

“Marginalized groups continue to face discrimination in India despite constitutional guarantees and laws prohibiting discrimination, Human Rights Watch said. School authorities reinforce age-old discriminatory attitudes based on caste, ethnicity, religion, or gender. Children from Dalit, tribal, and Muslim communities are often made to sit at the back of the class or in separate rooms, insulted by the use of derogatory names, denied leadership roles, and served food last.They are even told to clean toilets, while children from traditionally privileged groups are not. [...]

Selected Quotes

“‘Whenever the teachers are angry, they call us Mullahs. The Hindu boys also call us Mullahs because our fathers have beards. We feel insulted when they refer to us like this.’ – Javed, a 10-year-old Muslim boy, Delhi

“‘The teacher always made us sit in a corner of the room, and would throw keys at us [when she was angry]. We only got food if anything was left after other children were served…. [G]radually [we] stopped going to school.’ – Shyam, a 14-year-old Dalit boy, Uttar Pradesh

“‘We were asked to massage a teacher’s legs. If we refused, he used to beat us. There was a toilet for teachers, which is the one we had to clean.’ – Naresh, a 12-year-old Dalit boy, Bihar”

MUZAFFARNAGAR RIOTS (UTTAR PRADESH): IN ANTI-MUSLIM COMMUNALIST VIOLENCE FOMENTED BY HINDU RIGHT, SCORES ARE KILLED AND TENS OF THOUSANDS ARE DISPLACED

Yet another doctored riot by Harsh Mander (Hindustan Times)

“A people who have never fought each other in history are today bitterly estranged, fearful and angry. ‘Not even during the Partition riots of 1947 did a drop of blood flow in our villages’, they repeatedly told us. And today, some 50 lie dead, and 50,000 have fled their homes in terror.

“Cramped into makeshift camps in madrasas and mosques, many resolve never to return to the land of their ancestors. The Muzaffarnagar countryside in western Uttar Pradesh is reeling under the gravest communal clash the country has witnessed since the 2002 Gujarat carnage.

“People of diverse faiths who live together do not spontaneously turn against each other. There are three requisites for mass communal violence to occur.

“The first is the deliberate manufacture of hatred. The second is the manufacture of a ‘riot’. The third is a complicit State: no riot can continue beyond a few hours unless the state actively wishes that it does so. [...]

“In Muzaffarnagar, in the patriarchal Jat community, the issue chosen to foment hatred was women’s ‘honour’. The claim was that ‘love jihad’ was being waged, by which Muslim boys were equipped with smart clothes, deodorants and sweet talk to entice Jat girls into ‘love’ traps.

“An unfortunate incident on August 27 in Kawal, in which three young men, one Muslim and two Jat were killed in violent clashes, was deployed as evidence of ‘love jihad’. The claim was that the Muslim youth was killed by the brothers of a Jat girl who he was stalking, and these brothers in turn were killed by a violent Muslim mob.

“BJP MLA Sangeet Som uploaded a video of two boys being killed by a mob in Sialkot, Pakistan, claiming that the footage was of the Jat boys being killed by a Muslim mob. This video was circulated widely through mobile phones, and fuelled mass rage against local Muslims. Later evidence suggests that the death of the three young men resulted instead from a hot-headed clash between the boys after a motorcycle accident.

“The second requirement for communal violence to occur is the manufacture of the riot itself. Building on the groundswell of local Hindu fury against their Muslim neighbours because of their alleged deliberate assaults on the ‘honour’ of Hindu girls, a mahapanchayat on September 7 was convened with the explosive theme ‘Save Your Daughters’.

“Fiery speeches were made against Muslims, and after the frenzied crowd dispersed, they attacked Muslim settlements. In the majority of villages, Muslims were labourers in the sugarcane fields of Jat landowners. Their small houses were set aflame and looted, some were killed, and terrified people fled to the safety of numbers in Muslim majority villages.

“The third prerequisite for a manufactured riot is a complicit State administration, which fails in prevention, control, rescue and relief. The administration took no steps to quell the rumours, arrest those stoking hatred, or prohibit the mahapanchayat. Once violence broke out, the police forces mostly stood watching as the crowds attacked Muslim settlements, without using force or firing to disperse the furious mobs.

“They did not rescue the escaping people; instead survivors depended on Muslim wealthy landowners to protect them as they fled. The administration did not establish relief camps; instead these were organised by the victimised community in Muslim majority villages. We found little presence of the State in these camps: it did not organise sanitation, healthcare, child care or police outposts to record people’s complaints.”

See also:

Lessons from Muzaffarnagar (editorial) (Economic and Political Weekly, September 28, 2013):

“The communal violence in Muzaffarnagar and neighbouring areas is a warning of the days to come. Uttar Pradesh (UP) is crucial to the electoral fortunes of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) if its prime ministerial aspirant, Narendra Modi, has to have a plausible chance of coming to power. There has been a rise in incidents of communal violence since the Samajwadi Party (SP) government was elected to office last year, but the “riot” earlier this month – when close to 50 people were killed, a few hundred injured and tens of thousands fled from their homes – stands distinct in its scale and is clear evidence of what Paul Brass has termed the ‘institutionalised riot system’. The ‘Gujarat model’ of using the terror of communal violence to forge communal unity among ‘Hindus’ to build an invincible vote bank appears to be the strategy that has been employed [...].

“That the ‘Hindus’ in this riot are largely Jats has been acknowledged. However, Muslims too have caste and class markers. Some reports talk about Muslims being farm labourers, carpenters and blacksmiths to the landowning Jats. That clearly indicates a subservient relation with the dominant caste. In fact, one report quotes a Hindu Jat villager, ‘There will be no peace until the balance of power is sorted out. One community in each village will remain dominant.’ This then raises the question of why the dominant agricultural caste would want to drive out farm labour at the very time when agricultural operations are at their peak and the harvest is only weeks away. Another newspaper reports that Muslims who have run away from their villages to relief camps claim that they have left behind acres of cultivated land with standing crops, but fearing for their lives they would not want to return. The report estimates that in total there would be thousands of acres of such land and most landholders fear that these will now be encroached by members of the dominant caste. Does this indicate that landless lower-caste Muslims are now becoming landed? Or does it mean that a section of the dominant Hindu agricultural caste is willing to forgo the services of its (Muslim) farm labourers, even when labour supply is a problem, only to be able to appropriate prime agricultural land of the landed Muslims?

“The shifting of communal violence to rural areas perhaps cannot be understood without understanding the major changes in agriculture over the last few decades [...]. But it is equally clear that after the Nellie and Bhagalpur killings of the 1980s, this is perhaps the first large-scale rural communal violence and a warning about the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s new strategy of breaking out of its urban enclaves.

“This particular incident also built on the other trajectory of reactionary politics in the region – of trying to control the sexuality of women – which has expressed itself regularly in ‘honour’ killings and khap panchayat embargoes on lifestyle. That the present killings, which appear to have a land-labour angle, were planned at a mahapanchayat of Hindu Jat khaps calling for the protection of the ‘honour’ of their women illustrates the continuities between caste, class, patriarchy and property.”

And see:

Muzaffarnagar 2013: Violence by Political Design | Report of an independent fact finding group by the Centre for Policy Analysis (September 17, 2013)

Evil Stalks the Land: Fact Finding Report on Muzaffarnagar Riots (September 24, 2013)

A Human Tragedy Unfolds: View from Muzaffarnagar Relief Camps–A Preliminary Citizens’ Report (September 20, 2013)

30 days and counting... The aftermath of violence in Muzaffarnagar & Shamli Districts, Uttar Pradesh, report by Joint Citizens’ Initiative (October 11, 2013)

The riot route (Frontline, September 18, 2013)

The chilling familiarity of Muzaffarnagar by Farah Naqvi (The Hindu, September 18, 2014)

Communal violence raises fears of turmoil ahead of India election by Amy Kazmin (Financial Times, September 22, 2013)

Muzaffarnagar 2013: Meanings of Violence by Hilal Ahmed (Economic and Political Weekly, October 5, 2013)

NEW REPORT ON PEASANT SUICIDES AND THE AGRARIAN CRISIS IN INDIA

“Every 30 Minutes”: Crushed by Debt and Neoliberal Reforms, Indian Farmers Commit Suicide at Staggering Rate (Democracy Now!)

Guest: Smita Narula, faculty director of the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice at New York University Law School, co-author of the report, Every Thirty Minutes: Farmer Suicides, Human Rights and the Agrarian Crisis in India

“[U]ltimately, the proximate cause for a number of these suicides is farmer indebtedness. What lies behind that indebtedness is two decades of market liberalization in India, which have resulted in two simultaneous processes. First, the government has withdrawn significantly from the agricultural sector. It has reduced subsidies. It has decreased access to rural credit. Irrigation is insufficient and doesn’t reach most farmers who need it. And at the same time, it has encouraged a switch over to cash crop cultivation, of which cotton is one example.

“Simultaneously, the market has been opened up to global competitors, which makes Indian farmers extremely vulnerable. And at the same time, foreign multinationals now dominate industries, such as the cotton industry, including dominating the key inputs that are needed for cotton. In the case of cotton, in particular, the genetically modified Bt cottonseed has been promoted so effectively in India that it now dominates the entire sector, and between its cost, quality and availability, has an enormous impact on farmer costs and profits and yields to the point that it’s landing them in enormous debt. And many of them, ironically, are actually consuming the very pesticide that they went into debt to purchase, to kill themselves when they can’t escape that cycle of debt.”

See also previous posts on the agrarian crisis

VICIOUS CASTE BIGOTRY IN HIGHER EDUCATION

In Dalit student suicides, the death of merit (The Hindu)

“He killed himself in his college library, unable to bear the insults and taunts. The suicide note recovered from his coat pocket charged his Head of the Department (HOD) with deliberately failing him and threatening to fail him over and over. Seven months later, a three-member group of senior professors re-evaluated his answer sheet and found that he had in fact passed the test.

“Medical student Jaspreet Singh, a Dalit by birth, wanted nothing more than to become a doctor. Tragically, he fulfilled his ambition posthumously. A year later, his young sister, a student of Bachelor of Computer Application, also committed suicide, heartbroken at the injustice done to her brother.

“Shocking details about the January 2008 suicide of the Chandigarh-based student have emerged following recent investigations by Insight Foundation, a Dalit-Adivasi student group that has compiled a list of 18 suicides by Dalit students studying in reputed institutions of higher education across India in the past four years. [...]

“The evidence is clinching in this case. Jaspreet's suicide note; a certificate affirming Jaspreet's handwriting from the Directorate of Forensic Science, Ministry of Home Affairs, Shimla; testimonies from Jaspreet's friends; and finally, the re-evaluation of the answer sheet by a three member body of doctors from PGI, Chandigarh.

“All three doctors, Rajesh Kumar, Amarjeet Singh and Arun Kumar Aggrawal, specialised in Community Medicine – the subject in which Jaspreet was failed. Yet till date, no action has been taken against the guilty HOD or the college.”

See also:

“The Death of Merit”: A Documentary

UNTOUCHABLES AND TRIBALS: LAST HIRED, FIRST FIRED

SC/STs missing in private sector jobs: India Inc’s first caste census (Indian Express)

“The first-ever caste census of India Inc’s human resources has revealed that the proportion of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe employees in the private sector in some of the most industrialised states of the country hardly reflects their strength in the general population of those states.

“The only exception is Tamil Nadu, which ranks number one in industrialisation and employment (by number of factories and persons, according to the Annual Survey of Industries 2008-09). SCs/STs account for almost 18 per cent of the industrial workforce and 20 per cent of the state’s population.

“In sharp contrast are some of the other most industrialised states such as Maharashtra, Gujarat, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and West Bengal, which show a sharp mismatch between SCs/STs as a percentage of the total workforce in the private sector and as a percentage of the states’ total population.”

AGRARIAN CRISIS: A QUARTER MILLION PEASANT SUICIDES SINCE 1995

Indian Farm Suicides Continue to Rise: Of Luxury Cars and Lowly Tractors by P. Sainath (Counterpunch)

“At least 17,368 Indian farmers killed themselves in 2009, the worst figure for farm suicides in six years, according to data of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). This is an increase of 1,172 over the 2008 count of 16,196. It brings the total farm suicides since 1997 to 2,16,500. The share of the Big 5 States, or 'suicide belt' — Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh — in 2009 remained very high at 10,765, or around 62 per cent of the total, though falling nearly five percentage points from 2008. Maharashtra remained the worst State for farm suicides for the tenth successive year, reporting 2,872. Though that is a fall of 930, it is still 590 more than in Karnataka, second worst, which logged 2,282 farm suicides.

“Economist K. Nagaraj, author of the biggest study on Indian farm suicides, says, ‘That these numbers are rising even as the farmer population shrinks, confirms the agrarian crisis is still burning.’ [...]

“Things will get worse if existing policies on agriculture don't change. Even States that have managed some decline across 13 years will be battered. Kerala, for instance, saw an annual average of 1,371 farm suicides between 1997 and 2003. From 2004-09, its annual average was 1016 — a drop of 355. Yet Kerala will suffer greatly in the near future. Its economy is the most globalised of any State. Most crops are cash crops. Any volatility in the global prices of coffee, pepper, tea, vanilla, cardamom or rubber will affect the State. Those prices are also hugely controlled at the global level by a few corporations.”

DESPERATE PROTEST BY CASTE OF “MANUAL SCAVENGERS”

The Stink of Savanur by Anand Teltumbde (Countercurrents)

“On 20 July 2010, some manual scavengers of Savanur, a small town in Haveri district of north Karnataka performed a novel act in protest against their helplessness. They smeared themselves with human excreta in public before the municipal council office. [...]

“The issue was simple, so at least the people in Municipal Council of Savanur thought and ignored it. But it spelt virtual death to Dalits. They were suddenly asked by the Municipal Council to evict the land they lived on for generations just to construct a commercial complex there. The orders in terms of law were illegal but who would contest the authorities. The Dalits kept on pleading but their plea fell on deaf years.On the contrary, to pressure them the Municipal authorities cut off their water connection. Poor Dalits who belonged to the Bhangi sub-caste, would be forbidden to take water from any other source because of their untouchability. Buying it was out of question as they barely subsided on a pittance thrown to them for cleaning dry latrines. What may appear simple to others was thus a death knell for them, which drove them to the desperate act of daubing themselves with human excreta.The sensational act attracted media and thereby swarms of politicians. The ministers came, held meetings, issued orders and at least temporarily saved the Bhangis from devastation. As it happens, the action taken may prove to be mere wash up as suspected by the PUCL (Karnataka) fact finding (preliminary) report on the incident.”

See also:

Savanur and Manual Scavengers: Another loud cry for social justice (PUCL report, August 3, 2010 )

And see:

anti-caste posts on manual scavenging

CASTE-BASED HONOR KILLINGS OCCUR ALL ACROSS INDIA

Now, honour killing rocks TN: Father attacks daughter (Times of India)

“The latest in a series of such attacks on women in the state, the Megala case dispels the popular notion that 'honour killings' are confined to Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh in the north; southern states such as Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh too witness similar incidents periodically. Many of them are sparked off when educated single women walk out of their homes and choose their own partners, sometimes from another community or caste. [...]

“A study by the National Commission for Women (NCW), still underway, shows that of the 326 cases of conflict surveyed so far nationwide, 72% were because the couple crossed caste barriers and only 3% were because the couple were from the same gotra. ‘Women are making their own choices and in a patriarchal set-up this causes problems,’ says Ravi Kant, Supreme Court advocate and president of Shakti Vahini, the organisation that is conducting the study for NCW.

“Activists in Tamil Nadu endorse this view. ‘Honour killings are not unheard of in Tamil Nadu. The basis is usually caste, more often than not a Dalit boy marrying an upper caste girl,’ says U Vasuki, general secretary, All-India Democratic Women's Association.”

CASTE LAW HIGHER THAN CIVIL LAW IN TAMIL NADU

Medieval justice: Kangaroo courts call the shots in TN (Times of India)

“‘Kangaroo courts are the most powerful bodies that deliver judgment on any dispute or problem. They are still prevalent in many hamlets in the southern districts. Of the 167 villages we surveyed in south Tamil Nadu, we found the “kattapanchayat” active in all of them. They take law into their hands and deliver judgment,’ said Kathir, who heads [a Madurai-based NGO called] Evidence. The organisation conducted the study in Theni, Virudhunagar, Dindigul and Sivaganga districts.

“The Evidence study revealed that among 167 villages surveyed, 73 had common courts for all castes, while 14 had separate ‘courts’ for dalits and non-dalits. Fifty-nine of these villages had separate courts for every caste in the village. These are headed by the community heads called ‘nattamai’ or ‘panchayathar.’

“One hundred sixty-one of the kangaroo courts delivered caste-based verdicts. The punishment included begging for pardon in the village square or being ostracized. In some villages, the accused were asked to hold burning camphor in his palm, or go around the village temple a prescribed number of times or sometimes, beaten or tied to the tree as punishment. The fines ranged from Rs 10 to Rs 10,000 based on the nature of the crime and place.”

OVER 80 FORMS OF UNTOUCHABILITY FOUND IN PRACTICE IN TAMIL NADU

This abridged list, derived from the more comprehensive one compiled by the Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front from a survey of 1,845 villages in the state, appeared in the article Untouchability Declassified (Open).

»Not allowed to speak on the cell phone in the presence of caste Hindus.

»Not allowed to keep male dogs. (Why? They might breed with female dogs from upper caste neighbourhoods.)

»Separate work timings under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme.

»Refusal to rent houses to Dalits in certain neighbourhoods in urban areas. (Reported in Madurai, Tamil Nadu’s second largest city.)

»No door delivery by postmen; postal department prevented from hiring Dalit postmen.

»No access to the common crematorium, burial grounds.

»Prevented from having their clothes washed or ironed, or assigned separate cupboards at the laundry for clothes of Dalits.

»Refusal by barbers to cut their hair, or separate chairs for Dalits.

»Separate ration shops, or queues, or timings for Dalits.

»Offered tea in coconut shells which they can drink only by squatting on the ground.

»Prevented from renting private marriage halls, public address systems.

»Forced to cut out portion of the name that suggests respect (Madaswamy will be called Mada, Muniyaswamy Muniya).

»Attacked if they call any caste Hindu as annan (brother).

»Erecting walls (as was seen in Uthappuram) to deny Dalits access to common places.

»Elderly members of the Dalit community addressed by children of the dominant caste as poda, vada (denoting lack of respect).

»No access to temples, public streets, public taps (separate timings to collect water), public tanks, temples.

»Sapparam (temple car) not driven through areas where Dalits reside.

»Not allowed to participate in pookkuzhi (a ritual of walking on fire) during festivals.

»Two, in some cases four, tumbler system in tea-shops, one set for Dalits and categories within them, another for caste Hindus.

»Separate neighbourhoods for Dalits in villages.

»Preventing the opening of milk dairy near Dalit neighbourhoods.

»Dalit (Arunthathiyar) students compelled to clean bathrooms in schools.

»Opposition to hiring Dalit cooks in mid-day meal school kitchens.

»Engaging Dalits, Arunthathiyars especially, in conservancy work.

»Dalit workers to bring their own food-plates while others need not.

»Boycotting meetings held by Dalit Panchayat presidents.

»Preventing the opening of panchayat office buildings in Dalit areas.

NOT ALLOWED TO...

»Wear shoes or chappals

»Wear polyester dhotis

»Ride bicycles or travel in bullock carts

»Sit under bus shelters at village bus stops

»Wear a cloth headgear or carry a towel over the shoulder (as is the local practice)

»Sport a thin moustache

»Sit on benches in hotels and tea stalls

»Burst crackers during festivals

»Rear cattle

»Sing or speak at village functions or participate in auctions

»Dine with caste Hindus

OBLIGATED TO...

»Offer goats gratis to descendants of past andais (landlords in the feudal age) during festivals

»Carry dead bodies

»Work in crematoriums and at burial grounds

»Sound the parai ( drums)

»Carry message of death to people of the dominant caste (to be paid only bus fare, food only if offered)

ATROCITIES ON DALITS:

»Forced to eat faeces.

»Urinating into the mouth.

»Murdered if elected as Panchayat President against the wishes of the dominant caste.

»Sexual assault on Dalit women.

»Burning alive if a Dalit fights for rights.

»Setting fire to Dalit huts.

»Tied to a tree and beaten up.

»Killing all dogs in a Dalit area if a dog of the Dalit area bites a dog that belongs to an upper caste community.

»Obstructing the common passage (if won through struggle) with mortar, grindstone and washing utensils there.

»Killing by poisoning one who inter-marries.

»Ostracising those Dalits who raise their voice for human rights.

»Attacking Dalits if they insist on using community halls.

»Making Dalits prostrate before members of the dominant caste and imposing fines on them.

»Refusal by the state administration to enforce access to burial grounds.

»Harassment and brutal attacks on Dalits by the police for fighting for their rights.

»Dalits driven away by the police for trying to enter temples

See also anti-caste: RITUALIZED HUMILIATION OF UNTOUCHABLES DOCUMENTED (May 21, 2010)

And see anti-caste: SURVEY OF 1,655 VILLAGES IN GUJARAT FINDS NOT A SINGLE ONE WHERE UNTOUCHABILITY IS NOT PRACTICED (December 07, 2009)

RITUALIZED HUMILIATION OF UNTOUCHABLES DOCUMENTED

New forms of untouchability (Express News Service)

“‘Other’ chairs in barber shops, bar on wearing polyester dhoties, opposition to rear pedigree pets and postmen not knocking on their doors are some of the new forms of untouchability that SCs in rural Tamil Nadu face, even today.

“A survey conducted by the CPM-backed Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front over the past seven to eight years has revealed that Dalits living in various parts of the State are subjected to different forms of inhuman discrimination.

“‘We have identified 80 forms of untouchability, apart from 23 forms of atrocities prevailing in Tamil Nadu,’ P Sampath, State Convener of the Front, told newspersons in Chennai on Thursday.

“‘Dalits in Aandarkottaram and Thaniamangalam villages falling under Melur Panchayat Union in Madurai district have to go to the post office to collect letters or money orders as postmen won’t step into Dalit colonies.

“‘Similarly, Schedule Caste people in Velayudhapuram village in Thoothukudi district don’t have the right to rear pedigree dogs.’ Some other unusual practices that figure in the report include disallowing Dalits to ride bicycles and bullock carts, keeping separate almirahs for stacking Dalit clothes at laundries, ban on bursting crackers during temple festivals, refusing permission to watch shows on public panchayat television sets and forcing Arunthathiyar students to clean toilets in schools.

“Refusal to call Dalits with ‘respectable’ terms in their names is another common practise – in names like Madasamy and Munniyasamy, the ‘samy’ is omitted and they are called Madan or Munni.

“Some of the cruelties identified are feeding Dalits with human faeces, sexual abuse and foisting of false cases. When the survey was presented to district collectors, they categorically denied existence of any such discrimination.

“Sampath said, ‘Perhaps, police are hand in glove with dominant communities.’”

REPORT ON DEADLY ARSON ATTACK AGAINST ENTIRE UNTOUCHABLE COMMUNITY OF MIRCHPUR VILLAGE, HARYANA

Mirchpur: Attackers targeted dalit wealth (Times of India)

“A fact-finding team on a visit last Saturday to Haryana’s Mirchpur village, where two dalits were burned to death and 18 houses gutted, reports that the arson wasn’t arbitrary.

“The attackers, allegedly from the Jat community, identified houses of the more well-off among the Balmiki community and set them on fire. A beauty parlour, kirana stores and a barber-shop were totally gutted, an obvious attempt to cower dalit prosperity, however limited.

“‘Any semblance of status symbol was attacked," said journalist Bhasha Singh, houses with motorbikes, televisions, fridges. And shops that dalits ran. ‘The mood in the village was that dalits “need to be taught a lesson.”’ The first thing the mob did, a woman ‘was to break the Sintex water tanks provided by the government, so we had no way of dousing the fire.’ [...]

“Located in Hissar district, Mirchpur has a handful of dalits: about 100 Balmiki families, 350 ‘Jatav’ families and 50 Doms to the 1700-odd Jat families. The team found that growing economic prosperity among a section of the minority dalits seemed to be the root cause this time around. [...]

“Most dalit households have packed off women and younger family members to other villages. Those who remain told chairperson of National Commission for Scheduled Castes, Buta Singh, also present in the village, they wanted to resettle elsewhere ‘far from the Jats.’ They called it ‘a pre-planned attack,’ the fight and barking-dog story only a pretext, what with a mob of 300 to 400 surrounding the locality on the morning of April 21, while the community’s men had been talked into attending a 'compromise meeting' to cool tensions.”

See also:

Fact-finding Team Condemns Arson, Burning of Dalits Houses and the Gruesome Killing at Mirchpur, in Haryana (National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), April 24, 2010):

“The key findings of the fact-finding team are:

“1. It was a pre-planned attack with the connivance of the police. The row over the dog, highlighted by the media and police, was only a pretext.

“2. There was trouble brewing over Dalits managing a local temple festival. The prosperity and independence of a section of the Dalits was begrudged by the Jats.

“3. The village Mirchpur has a history of violence against Dalits as evidenced by the 2007 incident where five Dalits belonging to Dom community were paraded naked and abused. Also, the Mirchpur carnage is a sequel to Salwan (2007, Karnal district); Gohana (2005) and the Jhajjar lynching (2003).

“4. There was, and continues to be, complete collusion between the Jat-dominated district police and the Jats of the village so much that Dalits have completely lost faith in the administration. Most Balmiki families have left the village and those left behind are demanding resettlement in a safer place.”

And see all anti-caste posts on the Mirchpur atrocity.

REPORT DOCUMENTS OPPRESSION OF MUSLIMS, TRIBALS, LOW CASTES, AND UNTOUCHABLES

Tribals, Dalits still at the bottom in most indicators (The Hindu)

“Indigenous groups and Dalits continue to be at the bottom in most indicators of well-being, the Muslims and the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) occupy the middle rung, while forward caste Hindus and other minority religions are at the top. The ‘Human Development in India: Challenges for a Society in Transition’ survey has found this.

[...]

“[M]ore than three out of 10 forward caste and minority religion men have salaried jobs, compared with about two out of 10 Muslim, OBC and Dalit men, and even fewer Adivasi men.

“Dalits and Adivasis are further disadvantaged as they either do not own land, or mainly low-productivity land. Not surprisingly, these income differences translate into differences in other indicators of human development.

[...]

“Dalits have long laboured at the margins of a society that depends on that labour, but that has often excluded them. Although some Adivasis in the northeast fared better, other Adivasis living in extremely remote locations have been left out of the recent economic progress or forced to migrate, only to work as low paid labourers. In some cases, such as for the OBCs and the Muslims, historical disadvantages have been exacerbated by structural shifts. A decline in artisan incomes has affected the Muslims disproportionately, while agricultural stagnation has affected the OBCs.”

IN INDIA RAPE IS USED TO ENFORCE SOCIAL HIERARCHY

Rape takes bigger toll on dalit women: study (Times of India)

"The comparative study between Dalits and non-Dalits showed that Dalits felt anguish to a greater degree of intensity. They often see rape as "something ordained" by virtue of a double disadvantage: being Dalit and woman. "Whenever a Dalit woman is raped, it gets connected to all other sufferings and discriminations. Dalits being in a disadvantaged position and there's no resilience, no bouncing back," says [researcher Rajat] Mitra.

"'The women shared that during the attack, the men seemed to have more pleasure in humiliating their origins and background,' adds Mitra. The report details their almost-ritualistic ostracism after the rape where older Dalit women also attempt to explain rape as 'tradition'.

"In a qualitative assessment, the report says girls are almost prepared to expect assault. It says, 'Allusions to rape by upper castes begin to appear in subtle conversations and often inflate their anxiety and depressive symptoms that begin to mark (rape) as inevitable in the mind of young Dalit girls.'"

SURVEY OF 1,655 VILLAGES IN GUJARAT FINDS NOT A SINGLE ONE WHERE UNTOUCHABILITY IS NOT PRACTICED

No temple entry for dalits in Gujarat (Times of India)

“In a first-of-its-kind study on a large scale, representing 98,000 Dalits across 1,655 villages in Gujarat, it comes out that 97% respondents feel they have ‘no entry’ at certain places in their own villages, including a temple or where a religious ceremony is taking place. [...]

“‘This is the first study on such a large sample size and we covered 99 forms of untouchability that are still practised in villages. There are 12,500 villages in Gujarat where Dalits live. We have covered 1,655 of these villages and around 11 per cent of the total Dalit population,’ says Manjula Pradeep, director of Navsarjan Trust.

“During the study, the researchers did not find a single village where no form of untouchability is practised, giving an unnerving idea about the extent of the problem in a state which is home to Mahatma Gandhi.”

See also:

Vibrant Gujarat? 98% Dalits have to drink tea in separate cups (Times of India, December 8, 2009):

“Bhikhabhai Solanki, 50, a native of Lodariyal village, has never shaken hands with non-Dalits in his life. Bhikhabhai, an agricultural labourer, is Valmiki by caste—the lowest of the socially downtrodden. ‘We are untouchables and nobody touches us here,’ he says.

“The farmer he works for keeps a tea-cup outside his house. Whenever Bhikhabhai arrived for work in the morning or leaves after finishing in the evening, tea is poured into the cup. Strangely, this form of untouchability goes in the name of religion. These cups are called ‘Ram patra’. [...]

“In Lodariyal, Dalit women can't touch vegetables at the shop just to sample them. Only once they pay up, and the money is kept on the side and not handed over, the vegetables are flung into the hollow of their saree. The tea stall owner gives tea to Dalits only in disposable plastic cups. Others get it in ceramic cups.”

And see:

Dalit kids shamed at mid-day meals (Times of India, December 9, 2009):

“As per the 'Census on Untouchability', a study representing 98,000 Dalits across 1,655 villages in Gujarat, 53.78% Dalit children studying in primary schools are discriminated against in mid-day meals.

“‘We are made to sit separately during the lunch hour,’ says Vijay Sitapara, 9, who belongs to the Valmiki caste, the lowest of the socially downtrodden. Vijay, who studies in class IV at the government primary school in Modhvana, says schoolmates from other castes avoid having food with them.

“While other backward class children would still have food, though seated separately from the Dalits, higher caste pupils stay away altogether from mid-day meals at this school because the food is cooked by a Dalit. ‘I come from a Dalit family. Naturally, higher caste members will not eat what I cook,’ says Gauri Vankar.

“Even as the syllabus teaches equality, students learn lessons in untouchability in practice. All Dalit students are forbidden from participating in cultural events. Valmikis have to also clean up school toilets. Dharmendra Sitapara cleaned up the toilets since he was in class IV. Now, he is in high school which has a sweeper.”

Read the full report:

Understanding Untouchability: A Comprehensive Study of Practices and Conditions in 1589 Villages (Navsarjan Trust and The Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice & Human Rights)

HOW CAN THE CASTE SYSTEM FORCE PEOPLE TO DO WORK THEY DON'T WANT TO DO? THIS IS HOW

An untouchable caste in Madhya Pradesh that mainly does agricultural labor has also traditionally been made to clear away the rotting carcasses of animals. This summer in the city of Gadarwara in Madhya Pradesh and surrounding villages they decided to stop doing this work, which is not only disagreeable but is considered to be unclean and degrading.

The response of the dominant castes is described in Social Boycott of Dalits in Madhya Pradesh—Uncivil Society, Apathetic Administration, a fact-finding report by Nagrik Adhikar Manch and Yuva Samvad who visited four villages in the area:

"Since the issue of removing carcasses of dead animals has been raised they have declared a virtual blockade of the community. Taking advantage of the confused laying of public road No. 128, the dominant castes have created such a situation that the Ahirwars [untouchables] are not able to come out of their houses. The community has been ‘imprisoned’ in its own native village. [...]

"1. There is ban on them on making any purchases from the only provision shop in the village.

"2. They are not allowed to get water from a public tap.

"3. Ban on travel by public transport

"4. Stopping vegetable and food vendors, newspaper boys including dhobis (washermen), nais (barbers) from entering Dalit localities

"5. Stopping access to flour mills for grinding corn

"6. Ban on entering the Village Panchayat Bhavan"

With even greater consequence for the well-being of this economically dependent community of landless sharecroppers, they have been denied any share of the harvest from the crops they raised on land leased from the uppercaste landlords, reducing them to near-starvation.

In another village nearby, members of the dominant caste dumped dead animals in the center of the segregated untouchable living area and threatened to "cut down the hands of anybody who dared to touch" them. So the carcasses putrified there, making everyone sick and causing breathing problems among the elderly.

In the same village the community was banned from the fields and paths surrounding their homes, which is all owned by uppercaste people. They are not even allowed to set foot on the land they use to relieve themselves.

LEAKED GOVT REPORT—17 YEARS IN THE MAKING—DESCRIBES HOW HINDU RIGHT PLOTTED TO PROVOKE 1992 COMMUNALIST BLOODBATH

Table the Liberhan report (The Hindu (editorial))

"The destruction of the Babri Masjid, far from being 'spontaneous,' as bigwigs of the Bharatiya Janata Party have claimed, was systematically planned, 'tailor-made'—as revealed by the mode of assault, the small number of kar sevaks (with faces hidden) assigned to the job of demolition, the easy availability of the instruments of destruction, and other preparations onsite. A whole range of sangh parivar organisations under the hegemony of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh as well as the Shiv Sena were involved. All this is well known and it is only the detail, the nuances, and the specifics of the evidence presented on the actual perpetrators and the enablers of the vile and barbaric act that will be of fresh interest. Several second-rung BJP leaders have reportedly been indicted by the Liberhan Commission. But what about the role of the top-rung BJP leaders, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, Lal Krishna Advani, and Murli Manohar Joshi? This part of the Commission's report probably has the most political punch. The judge has reportedly held them culpable in the matter of creating communal discord, for being party to the fateful decisions, and for lacking the capacity to stand up to the RSS, which used them as pliable 'tools.'"

See also:

Searing indictment of RSS, BJP, but action to be taken: nothing by Siddharth Varadarajan (The Hindu, November 25, 2009):

"There is a phrase in Hindustani—khoda pahad, nikli chuhiya—to describe the underwhelming outcome of an exercise over which one has laboured long and hard.

"Justice M.S. Liberhan worked diligently for 17 years through more than 40 extensions of his initial three-month brief to produce a 1029-page report full of facts and details about the events and circumstances leading up to the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992. His conclusion is unsurprising but unequivocal and bold: the demolition was part of a well-thought out plan—a 'joint common enterprise'—hatched by the top leadership of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the Shiv Sena and the Bharatiya Janata Party, the last organisation correctly described as a 'front organisation' of the RSS.

"Unfortunately, the recommendations which emerge out of his daring excavations are so mousy that they bear no resemblance whatsoever to the forthright conclusions which precede them. After having indicted 68 individuals for bringing the country to the brink of communal disaster, Justice Liberhan doesn’t call for the filing of charges against those that have escaped being arraigned so far in the demolition case, nor does he speak of expedited criminal proceedings."

And see:

“Non-event” to orchestrated movement by Vidya Subrahmaniam (The Hindu (editorial), November 26, 2009)

And see also: India: Hindu Fascists Whip Up Religious Slaughter (Workers Hammer, January-February 1993)

And see anti-caste: THE RISE OF ANTI-MUSLIM COMMUNALISM

CASTEISM AMONG SOUTH ASIANS LIVING IN BRITAIN

Asian caste discrimination rife in UK, says report (The Guardian (UK))

"The study, co-ordinated by the Anti Caste Discrimination Alliance (ACDA), suggests that the caste system is still widespread and affects tens of thousands of people in the workplace, the classroom and even the doctor's surgery.

"Fifty-eight percent of the 300 people surveyed said they had been discriminated against because of their caste, while 79% said they did not think the police would understand if they tried to report a caste-related 'hate crime.' [...]

"One woman said she had been demoted from her job at a radio station after her manager discovered her caste background, while one bus company decided to reorganise shifts so that a 'higher caste' inspector would not have to work alongside a 'lower caste' bus driver. [...]

"A number of respondents also reported being asked – directly or indirectly – about their caste background by their family doctor, nurse or a community nurse. One elderly woman felt her care worker had discriminated against her on caste grounds, while a physiotherapist was also alleged to have refused to treat someone of low caste."

See also:

Caste and Caste Discrimination in the UK: A Scoping Study by ACDA (PDF)

anti-caste: As important as the information in this report is, the ACDA's aim is to promote “hate-crime” legislation that would enhance the repressive powers of the racist, capitalist state. Victims and opponents of caste oppression should have no illusions that such laws would protect them.

INDIAN GOVT COMMITTEE: "LARGE LANDOWNERS INVARIABLY BELONG TO THE UPPER CASTES" WHILE TATA AND ESSAR STAGE "THE BIGGEST GRAB OF TRIBAL LANDS SINCE COLUMBUS"

Experts seek land ceiling like Bengal (The Telegraph (Calcutta))

"The Centre has been asked to impose the Bengal model of land distribution across the country by a panel it appointed to suggest land reforms.

"The non-binding advice, which recommends rural land ceilings more stringent than those in Bengal, comes at a time the [CPM-led] Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government has tried to raise those limits to promote industry but seen its efforts stalled. [...]

"In Bengal, the ceiling in non-irrigated areas is 17 acres and in irrigated areas, 12 acres. Left-ruled Bengal, Kerala and Tripura are the only states with rural land ceilings, the limit for irrigated land in Kerala being 15 acres. Some other states have tried and failed to enact land ceilings.

"So, although the report on 'State Agrarian Relations and the Unfinished Task in Land Reforms' was handed in last January, the Centre has been unwilling to reveal its contents given their controversial nature."

anti-caste: The report of the government-appointed panel mentioned above, which is available online here in full, makes interesting reading, with frank and well supported analyses of the near-total failure of capitalist India to solve the land question. And it's only getting dramatically worse, with the current drive to separate poor and middle peasants, landless laborers (who are overwhelmingly untouchable), and tribals from what meager resources they had claim to on behalf of native and foreign-based capital. That shouldn't be news to the government that commissioned the report, since, as documented there, it's the one facilitating it. Liberal reformers regret the state taking on this role; Marxists know it's only doing its job. It's a dirty job, too: just look at Operation Green Hunt.

Excerpts below from the report's fourth chapter, Alienation of Tribal and Dalits Lands (with emphasis added by us throughout):

"Land and Social Hierarchy - Dalits and Adivasis in India

"Land is not merely an important economic asset, its ownership is also socially valued, sought and denied. In rural societies, ownership of land was and to a large extent is still coterminus with social status. Hence, its unequal distribution reflects both prevailing social stratification and also helps maintain the hierarchical structure of the society. In contrast, fair distribution of land strikes directly at the roots of an unequal social order and skewed power relations, and frees the marginalized from the clutches of perpetual bondage, for want of a sustainable livelihood. The landless, whose only remaining asset is their labour, are effectively separated from the other means of production, namely land, and remain dependent on large land holders for their survival. Powerful landlords have always opposed land reforms, fearing not only loss of control of assets, but also their dominant position in society, which straddles the economic and the political realms. The denial of access to land, thereby, functions both as a means of exclusion as also a mechanism of bondage. [...]

"The pattern of land distribution in India, therefore, reflects the existing socioeconomic hierarchy. While large landowners invariably belong to the upper castes, the cultivators belong to the middle castes, and the agricultural workers are largely dalits and tribals. [...T]he data of absolute landless families proves that the feudal society is firmly anchored in large parts of India, notwithstanding claims to the contrary.

"Tribal India – Land and People

"The tribal people, referred to in the law and constitution, considered the descendents of the original inhabitants, are largely located in the hilly tracts of Central and North Eastern India, Andaman and Nicobar Islands. [...] Earlier the temples of modern India reduced millions of tribal people to ecological refugees, now the minerals seen as the building blocks of modern India put the tribal people at risk of losing their land through acquisition and further disruption of their societies and economies. [...] Left without an alternative, either in the government or non government organizations, and left to a harsh fate of unmitigated exploitation, the tribal people initially gave the Naxalites succor and now have become their base. Most tribal areas in Central India are the abode to the naxalites, whose presence is a response both to past and future land alienation, the failure of the government to live up to its constitutional mandate and the withdrawal of the state from its responsibility to protect the tribal realm. [...]

"The data gathered from the village studies and from the records of the various governments all point out to the inescapable conclusion that alienation of tribal land continues unabated and alienation of land has actually accelerated in areas where irrigation and modernization of agriculture are making rapid strides and roadways, industrialization and urbanization is enveloping larger areas in the towns and cities. Four apparent forms of tribal land alienation are listed below. [...]

"Conclusion - The Biggest Grab of Tribal Lands after Columbus

"A civil war like situation has gripped the southern districts of Bastar, Dantewara and Bijapur in Chhattishgarh. The contestants are the armed squads of tribal men and women of the erstwhile Peoples War Group now known as the Communist Party of India (Maoist) on the one side and the armed tribal fighters of the Salva Judum created and encouraged by the government and supported with the firepower and organization of the central police forces. This open declared war will go down as the biggest land grab ever, if it plays out as per the script. The drama being scripted by Tata Steel and Essar Steel who wanted 7 villages or thereabouts, each to mine the richest lode of iron ore available in India.

"There was initial resistance to land acquisition and displacement from the tribals. The state withdrew its plans under fierce resistance. An argument put forward was ‘you don’t play foul with the Murias [a tribal group]’, it’s a matter of life and death and Murias don’t fear death. A new approach was necessary if the rich lodes of iron ore are to be mined.

"The new approach came about with the Salva Judum, euphemistically meaning peace hunt. Ironically the Salva Judum was led by Mahendra Karma, elected on a Congress ticket and the Leader of the Opposition and supported wholeheartedly by the BJP-led government. The Salva Judum was headed and peopled by the Murias, some of them erstwhile cadre and local leaders of the Communist Party of India (Maoist). Behind them are the traders, contractors and miners waiting for a successful result of their strategy. The first financiers of the Salva Judum were Tata and the Essar in the quest for ‘peace’. The first onslaught of the Salva Judum was on Muria villagers who still owed allegiance to the Communist Party of India (Maoist). It turned out to be an open war between brothers. 640 villages as per official statistics were laid bare, burnt to the ground and emptied with the force of the gun and the blessings of the state. 350,000 tribals, half the total population of Dantewada district are displaced, their womenfolk raped, their daughters killed, and their youth maimed. Those who could not escape into the jungle were herded together into refugee camps run and managed by the Salva Judum. Others continue to hide in the forest or have migrated to the nearby tribal tracts in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Orissa.

"640 villages are empty. Villages sitting on tons of iron ore are effectively de-peopled and available for the highest bidder. The latest information that is being circulated is that both Essar Steel and Tata Steel are willing to take over the empty landscape and manage the mines."

See also:

‘The biggest land grab after Columbus’ (Hindustan Times, December 4, 2009):

"It seems no coincidence that India’s mining heartland is also the Maoist heartland.

"'If you map the forest wealth, the mineral and the poverty of India, it’s a complete match,' said Sunita Narain, head of the Centre of Science and Environment."

And see anti-caste: OPERATION GREEN HUNT: INDIA’S DIRTY WAR ON TRIBALS AND LEFTISTS.

INDIAN COPS DEFEND PRIVATE PROPERTY AND ENFORCE CASTE OPPRESSION

The following story is a good example of why we warn at the top of this page that "links to outside sources below are offered for information's sake." As valuable, if unsurprising, as the documentation in the report by Human Rights Watch described below is, we want to dissociate ourselves categorically from its political conclusions. In reality, by brutally enforcing class and caste oppression Indian cops are simply doing their jobs as agents of the capitalist state. This role does not "undermine" but epitomizes Indian "democracy." The working masses of India don't need police "reform"—they need their own state.

India's police undermine democracy, human rights - Human Rights Watch (Reuters)

"India's police discriminate against people on the basis of caste and financial status and consider themselves above the law, undermining the country's democratic ideals, a leading human rights group said on Tuesday.

"The New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report that Indian police also stood accused of illegally detaining crime suspects, torturing them and even carrying out extra-judicial killings in custody with impunity.

[...]

"Official figures showed 23 policemen were charged with atrocities since 2005, but none has been convicted.

"[The Asia Director of Human Rights Watch] said Indians avoided contact with police out of fear because they perceived them as discriminating on the basis of caste and financial and social status."

See also:

Broken System: Dysfunction, Abuse, and Impunity in the Indian Police (Human Rights Watch, August 4, 2009)

SURVEY CONDUCTED ACROSS RURAL INDIA FINDS NAKED UNTOUCHABILITY

Untouchability alive in rural areas: Study (Times of India)

"Dalit participation in social activities has improved, with 591 invited for wedding feasts. But the improvement stops there. Around 29% said they wait for others to finish eating before they can eat while 20% non-SCs said they expected SCs to wash their plates after eating.

"The primitive manifestations of untouchability still exist, even if they are on the wane. In the survey, 7% respondents said they were barred from entering main streets of villages while 7% said they could not wear sandals and walk in front of a dominant caste member. In fact, 9% revealed they had to talk with folded hands and 29% said they had to stand up in respect.

"A sore point of old caste segregation was bar on entry of SCs in non-Dalit houses. While 82% revealed they were allowed in, around 18% were still not.

"A big section of non-SCs said they would not allow SCs into their houses while an equal number refused to comment, showing the sensitivity was not easy to overcome. SC women work as maids in other caste homes but a majority said they were not allowed inside. Many in Karnataka, MP and Rajasthan named Brahmins and Konkani castes as barring their entry while in Bengal, 34 different OBCs were identified.

"As many as 20% said they were not served food and water in non-Dalit homes while 24% claimed being served in separate vessels. At least 25% non-SCs concurred with the claim.

"Dalit children are still growing with the stigma of being from inferior class. While seating arrangements are common in schools, SC kids in many cases are asked to take the back benches. Also, many are served midday meals separately from other children.

"The bias showed when over 40% non-SC respondents agreed there were no SC teachers in their village schools.

"Vestiges of mediaeval society became apparent when upper castes and OBCs, if only a handful, revealed they served SCs in towels or their upper garments; while some poured water directly into the cupped Dalit hands for drinking instead of giving a tumbler. A few cases showed that barbers used separate instruments for haircut of Dalits.

"The survey was carried out in six states and 24 villages, a mix of those with highest and lowest crimes under PCR Act. [...]

"For all the empowerment, Dalits in the countryside are still forced into services seen as 'menial' — 154 of 553 Dalits performed drumbeating, 42 grave digging while 97 were into making chappals [leather sandals]. As many as 78 said they were asked to carry out animal sacrifice and 57 said they were sweepers."

And see:

Drink your own water, dead dog or no (Times of India, July 31, 2009):

"Citing one instance, the study says a dog had fallen into this well and died. The dalits were left with no option, but to consume the toxic water after removing the carcass. 'Even in such inhuman conditions, dalits are not allowed to enter the main part of the village and fetch water from the tubewells situated inside the village, where the upper castes live,' the study says."

REPORT ON CASTE-BASED DISCRIMINATION IN SCHOOLS

Dalit kids cannot use school loo but have to clean them (Times of India)

"The report says physical access to schools is the biggest problem for Dalit children. In Bihar, UP and Rajasthan, most of the schools are situated in the dominant caste localities and Dalit children have to travel on an average half-an-hour to reach school. In the case of middle and high schools, Dalit children have to travel almost 3-4 kilometres in all the states. It is only in Maharashtra that Dalit children do not have to travel that far. But here too, the schools are located in dominant caste areas.

"Asked why they came late to school, Dalit children gave various reasons including household chores, school distance, inability to keep track of school time and also the fact that they had to wait for other friends to go in a group due to fear from dominant caste children. In the school, it was found that participation of Dalit children was minimal. The morning assembly was invariably always conducted by upper caste children. In the class, Dalit children were made to sit at the back and in some schools of Bihar on the barren floor while mats were given to upper caste children. Even the notebooks and homework of the Dalit children were not checked by teachers.

"As per the report, Dalit children in UP were also assigned menial caste-based tasks like cleaning the yard, filling up water buckets and cleaning the toilets. This led to other children treating them badly and considering them inferior. And what was shocking was that Dalit girl children were seldom allowed to use toilets. Dalit children are kept out of even functions like Independence Day."

See also:

Kerala: Dalits discriminated against in schools: study (The Hindu, August 3, 2009)

REPORT: UNTOUCHABILITY IS COMMONPLACE IN MADYA PRADESH SCHOOLS

Apartheid funded by the Indian tax-payer (Hindustani Times)

"According to a survey on social discrimination conducted by Jansahas, an NGO, and Unicef, in 24 villages across four districts – Ujjain, Sheopur, Katni and Jhabua – in Madhya Pradesh, more than 63 per cent of Dalit children are subjected to caste discrimination while being served mid-day meals in government schools.

"They are forced to sit in separate rows, bring utensils from home or given food in plates marked boldly with permanent ink to distinguish them from the rest.

“'As many as 40 per cent of Dalit students facing discrimination were given mid-day meals in plates specially set aside for them,' Jansahas activist Ashif Sheikh told Hindustan Times.

"While some were asked to bring utensils from home, most were served their mid-day meals on leaf plates. Non-Dalits, however, were served on metal plates.

"The survey found that most teachers were insensitive to the discrimination against Dalits because of caste-based traditions being followed in rural areas, he said.

"In a majority of the schools surveyed, Dalit students were not allowed to sit in the front row. As many as 78 per cent of school-going Dalit students were backbenchers or forced away from the front row and subjected to casteist abuses.

"And 79 per cent of such students were compelled to clean the schools. In some schools, this chore was given only to Dalit girls."

REPORT ON ANTI-UNTOUCHABLE, ANTI-CHRISTIAN ATTACKS BY HINDU RIGHT IN ORISSA AND KARNATAKA

From Kandhamal to Karavali: The Ugly Face of Sangh Parivar (Andhra Pradesh Civil Liberties Committee, Human Rights Forum, Organisation for Protection of Democratic Rights, Peoples Democratic Forum, Peoples Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) Karnataka State Unit, Federation for Peoples Rights, Committee for Protection of Civil Liberties, Peoples Union for Human Rights, Committee for Protection of Democratic Rights)

"This is a report prepared jointly by a number of Rights Organisations and individuals on the large scale violence against Christians in Orissa and Karnataka during August-September 2008. The violence was committed by Sangh Parivar organisations, mainly the Bajrang Dal. Their political wing, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) happens to be in power in both the States, and that has ensured that the police watched benignly as the arson and murder took place in public. The ideology and the organization of their mentor, the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), pervades the media in both the States to such an extent that with a few honorable exceptions, the Press has reported the violence in a manner that puts the onus on the victims: they were at fault and had it coming."

AGRARIAN CRISIS DEEPENING

Report: Over 16,000 farmers committed suicide in India in 2007 (The Earth Times)

"Most of the farmers in Maharashtra, who are engaged in cotton cultivation, had committed suicide owing to crop failures and falling prices.

"Although the national total represented a slight fall from 17,060 in 2006, the broad trend remained unchanged, the report said, adding that the total farmer suicide toll in the country since 1997 stood at 182,936.

"Besides Maharashtra, southern Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and central Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh states report nearly two-thirds of the farm suicides in the country.

"According to Indian Agriculture Ministry officials, the main cause of the suicides is indebtedness. Many farmers who work on small land holdings have taken loans from private lenders who charge up to 120 per cent annual interest from the farmers."

See also:

anti-caste: AGRARIAN CRISIS IN INDIA: A SUICIDE EVERY 32 MINUTES (November 17, 2007)

And see:

the Indian Together page on farmer suicides

UNTOUCHABLE SCAVENGERS IN DEHLI MOSTLY WOMEN

Manual scavenging still rampant in North East Delhi, says report (The Hindu)

"Dr. Singla said the profession can be completely abolished only when the authorities convert 'dry' latrines to 'wet' latrines with simultaneous programmes for their rehabilitation.

“'As long as there is a demand for their services, scavengers will continue to exist,' she concluded."

STUDY FINDS UNTOUCHABILITY IN 47 OUT OF 47 TAMIL NADU VILLAGES VISITED

Untouchability unlimited (Frontline)

"These apart, the study found some quirky restrictions on Dalits. They were, for instance, forbidden from keeping male dogs. In some villages, during the temple festival Dalits were supposed to stay hidden from caste Hindus. The two-tumbler system, under which Dalits and non-Dalits were served tea in different vessels, was still prevalent in teashops in many places and in some village eateries Dalits were compelled to sit on the floor.

AGRARIAN CRISIS IN INDIA: A SUICIDE EVERY 32 MINUTES

Neoliberalism's Price Tag: 150,000 Farm Suicides in India from 1997 Through 2005 by P. Sainath (Counterpunch)

"But what has driven the huge increase in farm suicides, particularly in the Big Four or 'Suicide SEZ' States? 'Overall,' says Professor [K.] Nagaraj [of the Madras Institute of Development Studies], 'there exists since the mid-90s, an acute agrarian crisis. That's across the country. In the Big Four and some other states, specific factors compound the problem. These are zones of highly diversified, commercialised agriculture. Cash crops dominate. (And to a lesser extent, coarse cereals.) Water stress has been a common feature - and problems with land and water have worsened as state investment in agriculture disappears. Cultivation costs have shot up in these high input zones, with some inputs seeing cost hikes of several hundred per cent. The lack of regulation of these and other aspects of agriculture have sharpened those problems. Meanwhile, prices have crashed, as in the case of cotton, due to massive U.S.-EU subsidies to their growers. Or due to price rigging with the tightening grip of large corporations over the trade in agricultural commodities.'

"'From the mid-'90s onwards,' points out Professor Nagaraj, 'prices and farm incomes crashed. As costs rose - even as bank credit dried up - so did indebtedness. Even as subsidies for corporate farmers in the West rose, we cut our few, very minimal life supports and subsidies to our own farmers. The collapse of investment in agriculture also meant it was and is most difficult to get out of this trap.'"

UNTOUCHABILITY PRACTICED IN 65% OF VILLAGES IN A DISTRICT OF KARNATAKA

Untouchability exists in Bidar villages (The Hindu)

According to The Hindu, a report by the district social welfare office found:

"Dalits are not allowed to enter public places such as temples, shops and hotels freely in 193 villages. There are 63 such villages in Bidar taluk, 55 in Bhalki, 58 in Aurad, 11 in Basava Kalyan and six in Humnabad.

"There are 97 villages where Dalits are given separate set of plates and glasses in hotels. Of them, 48 are in Bhalki, 22 in Bidar, 12 in Aurad, nine in Basava Kalyan and six in Humnabad.

"There are restrictions on Dalits on using public taps and rivers, wells, tanks and ponds in 64 villages.

"There are 32 such villages in Bhalki, 11 each in Bidar and Aurad, six in Humnabad and four in Basava Kalyan.

"Services of barbers, laundry etc., are not freely available to Dalits in 29 villages. Such practices are followed in 13 villages in Bhalki, seven in Bidar, five in Basava Kalyan and four in Aurad.

"Dalits are not allowed to bury their dead in public burial grounds in 14 villages. They include seven villages in Bhalki, five in Bidar, and two in Aurad."

LANDLORDS ABANDON PLANTATIONS, LEAVING WORKERS TO DIE

Workers starving due to closure of tea estates in North Bengal by Maureen Nandini Mitra (Down to Earth)

"More than 17,000 workers at these tea estates have been struggling; there are no other means of livelihood. An estimated 1,000 people—workers and family members—have died of malnutrition and related diseases since 2003 in the Dooars region.

[...]

"Most of the affected gardens are far from towns and villages, limiting employment options and healthcare services for the unskilled workers. Public transport to towns is infrequent and expensive—it costs Rs 60 for a 30-km bus trip to Jalpaiguri town from Raipur. The Plantation Labour Act of 1951 makes it the estate owners’ responsibility to provide the workers basic needs—food, education, healthcare. With the tea estates becoming unprofitable after the late 1990s, the owners abandoned their responsibility.

[...]

"Ethnicity of the workers has also been a crucial reason why this abysmal situation has been allowed to drag on for so long, human rights activists allege. More than 85 per cent of the workers are tribals—fourth generation immigrants of migrants brought in by the British from Jharkhand, Bihar and Chhattisgarh or low-caste refugees from Bangladesh’s Jassore, Khulna and Barishal regions."

See also:

Hundreds of workers die as India's tea industry suffers crisis (Guardian (UK), June 11, 2007)

And see:

Study on Closed and Re-opened Tea Gardens in North Bengal by Anuradha Talwar, Debasish Chakraborty and Sarmishtha Biswas for Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity and International Union of Food, Agriculture, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco, Plantation and Allied Workers’ Associations (IUF) (September 2005):

"In spite of the spate of re-openings that have taken place in the past one year, the 22 gardens seem to still be crisis ridden. Many may be on the verge of closing down once again. Huge amounts of money are owed to the workers. This is a criminal offence, but action has not been taken on this by the Government and/or union leaders against the rogue employers. At the same time there has been little long term planning by any of the stakeholders to ensure that these gardens become viable in the long run.

"Owners on the other hand in the closed gardens and in the industry in general are taking advantage of the closed gardens and the defensiveness of the workers and the unions to gradually cut down on the workers’ benefits."

And see also:

in Assam: A storied industry falls on hard times (Associated Press, September 29, 2007):

"The 'burra sahib'—the big boss—still lives in a cavernous house, overseeing nearly every aspect of life for thousands of employees, from housing to schools to medical care. Planters still gather from far-flung estates to drink at century-old clubs, and their wives still pass their days tending elaborate flower gardens.

"The laborers—tea plantations employ nearly 3 million, mostly women, in jobs often handed down through families for generations—are unionized these days, but most live just a few steps above the poverty line. In Assam, tea workers earn about $1.25 a day, plus free housing and subsidized food. According to union leaders, only about a third are literate."

tea worker in North Bengal (image via arnabchat)

REPORT ON CASUAL LABOR IN INDIA

“Most unorganised workers paid poorly” (The Hindu)

"An overwhelming 79 per cent of workers in the unorganised sector live with an income of less than Rs. 20 a day, according to the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS).

"A report on 'Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in Unorganised Sector,' released by the Commission here on Thursday, says over 394.9 million workers (86 per cent of the working population) belong to the unorganised sector and work under 'utterly deplorable' conditions with 'extremely few livelihood options.'

"The report says that 88 per cent of the Scheduled Tribes [oppressed tribals] and the Scheduled Castes [untouchables], 80 per cent of the Other Backward Classes [other oppressed castes] and 85 per cent of Muslims belong to the category of 'poor and vulnerable,' who earn less than Rs. 20 a day.

Rs. 20 is less than fifty cents a day. In 2004 the National Commission of Rural Labour determined that the minimum subsistence wage was Rs. 66. The NCEUS report described above found that a total of 836 million people in India, or 77 per cent of the population, including wage-earners and non-wage-earners, were living on less than Rs. 20 a day.

"Unorganized" workers are those who do casual labor that does not pay regular wages and carries no legal protections. The term does not refer to workers not represented by a trade union, as it does in the U.S. and Britain: most workers in the "organized sector" are not unionized. Unorganized workers include piece workers, migrant workers, vendors, and unskilled laborers in quarries, kilns, and farms.

See also:

'Most Indians earn less than Rs 20/day in India' (Reuters)

REPORT: NANDIGRAM VIOLENCE WAS A "PRE-PLANNED, STATE-SPONSORED MASSACRE"

Report of the People’s Tribunal on Nandigram, Executive Summary (All-India Citizens' Initiative, May 26-28, 2007)

"The population is predominantly a mix of Muslim and lower caste Hindus, who have lived harmoniously together for a long time. The area has been till recently a political stronghold of the CPI and the CPI (M).

"More than anything else the area is famous for its historical role in the struggle against British colonial rule and during the Tebagha movement in the mid-forties when peasants in many parts of pre-Partition Bengal captured vast quantities of land demanding it their right as tillers of the soil.

[...]

"How the Police Firing Started

"On 14 March 2007 around 9.30 a.m. hundreds of policemen gathered at two entry points into Nandigram—one from the Tekhali Bridge, Gokulnagar, Adhikaripara and the other from the side of Bhangabera Bridge, near Sonachura. Apart from policemen local leaders and cadres of Communist Party of India (Marxist) were also present.

"The deponents claim that the people were peaceful. Only one deponent said there was stone throwing by boys and girls. There is no evidence of the carriage of any arms by the villagers.

"There was an announcement by the police party asking the villagers to allow them to repair the 'bund' [embankment, into which the villagers had dug a trench to defend themselves against developers and the state]. People replied that they would undertake this work themselves. There was very little dialogue over this issue and very soon the police went into the offensive. Police fired tear gas and immediately followed with bullets & rubber bullets, chased the people, mostly women & children, hitting out with lathis and iron rods, and firing. They were chased, and many were caught and mercilessly beaten, with sexual assault, including rape.

"The lack of parleying seems to suggest that the carnage caused by police firing on the retreating mass, mainly of women & children, was pre-planned.

"The depositions before the Tribunal also clearly bring out that police went on firing after the people started to flee and that they were not firing towards the legs.

"The police behaviour was brutal. According to one deposition Uttam Pal, after being shot down, was asking for water. Policemen spat on his face and beat up those trying to give him water.

"Several depositions before the Tribunal accused policemen of rape. Apart from rape, many women have deposed about being stripped, molestation (the breasts being frequent targets), indecent exposure, and filthy language. One deponent accuses policemen of having slashed her breasts. Several accuse policemen of forcing rod/lathi/gunbarrel into sex organs and turning the insert in some cases.

"The evidence definitely points towards serious sexual assault, including rape, by policemen.

"CPI (M) Cadre Allegedly In Police Uniform

"The deponents before the Tribunal spoke of the presence among policemen of others in police dress but wearing slippers (chappals [sandals]), black masks and red arm/wrist bands. There is also reference to others in white dress (sari) and 'ghomta' (veil) pointing out people. These persons were also firing guns and assaulting people with iron rods. They were even more vicious than the policemen.

"A large number of deponents agree that they were cadres of the CPI (M) and some of them identify and name the cadres too."

See anti-caste: CAPITALIST STATE TERROR IN WEST BENGAL: POOR VILLAGERS RESISTING LAND SEIZURE—UNTOUCHABLES AND MUSLIMS, MOSTLY WOMEN AND CHILDREN—CUT DOWN BY POLICE AND PARTY ACTIVISTS IN CPI(M)-RULED STATE (March 22, 2007)

AGAINST THE INDIAN GOVERNMENT'S DEFENSE OF CASTE BEFORE THE UN

Misrepresenting caste and race (Seminar [New Dehli])
by Balmurli Natrajan

Before issuing its report (see March 2, 2007 below) on caste oppression in India, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racism met with a delegation from the Indian government that included the anthropologist Dipankar Gupta, who defended the government's position that since caste is not race, the committee had no jurisdiction. In this commentary, Balmurli Natrajan takes on Gupta's arguments, which are reprinted below his remarks in summary form.

SACHAR COMMITTEE REPORT DOCUMENTS DEPRIVATION OF INDIAN MUSLIMS

Radical thinking by Jo Johnson (Financial Times)

• "Commissioned by the prime minister and produced by a committee chaired by Rajinder Sachar, a former justice of the Delhi High Court, the report presents a sharp counterpoint to perceptions of India as a stable, inclusive and multicultural society. Of all the groups yet to benefit from India’s spectacular recent growth - set to hit 9.2 per cent this year - none, apart from so-called dalits (once known as 'untouchables') and tribals, have fared as poorly as Muslims."
• "The Sachar committee found that India’s Muslims, constantly battling perceptions that they are 'anti-national', 'unpatriotic' and 'belong in Pakistan', are reluctantly withdrawing or being pushed into ghettos. Markers of their identity, such as the burkah, the purdah, the beard and the topi, a Muslim cap, invite ridicule and harassment. Bearded men find that they are routinely picked up for interrogation, hijab-wearing women that they struggle to find jobs."
• "Sachar notes that many Muslims are unable to buy or rent property in the area of their choice and find their children rejected from good schools. This has contributed to the sharp growth in the number of madrassas. The phenomenon should not be exaggerated: just 4 per cent of Muslim school-age children now attend full-time madrassas, according to Sachar. But in some states, including the populous northern state of UP, where more than 7 per cent of Muslim schoolchildren are being educated in religious seminaries, madrassas are spreading rapidly."
• "Poorly educated Muslims generally end up working as self-employed, economically vulnerable casual labourers. Relatively few pick up coveted salaried jobs, which tend to be monopolised by high-caste Hindus. And those Muslims who do receive regular salaries tend to occupy the lowest rungs within organisations, with more than 70 per cent having no written contract or social security benefits. Poor work conditions are also reflected in lower earnings. The proportion of Muslims living below the poverty line, at 31 per cent, is higher than the 22.7 per cent for the country as a whole."
• "Sachar found that Muslims had an 'abysmally low' share of prized government jobs, accounting for just 3 per cent of posts in the Indian Administrative Service, the elite corps of the civil bureaucracy, 1.8 per cent of the Indian Foreign Service and 4 per cent of the police. They had such a low profile in the military that the Ministry of Defence denied Sachar the data. The community is only consistently over-represented in the prison population. In Maharashtra, for example, Muslims account for more than 40 per cent of those jailed for less than a year."
• "Of the 700,000 towns and villages in India, the vast majority are free from communal conflict from one year to the next. But the potential for such violence is a terrifying underlying reality. Communal violence left 40,000 dead and injured between 1950 and 1995, according to research by academics Steven Wilkinson and Ashutosh Varshney. The costs of riots have been overwhelmingly borne by Muslims, forced to leave their homes, businesses and land for sanctuary in safe Muslim areas."
• "'Fearing for their security, Muslims are increasingly resorting to living in ghettos,' the Sachar report notes. But access to water, toilets, electricity, schools, clinics, banks and ration shops is often limited or non-existent in Muslim areas. The absence of these services affects women in particular because they are reluctant to venture beyond the confines of 'safe' neighbourhoods to access these facilities from elsewhere, with knock-on effects on literacy and child health."
• "'The root problem is economic,' says M.J. Akbar [editor of the newspaper The Asian Age]. 'If you look at Indian Muslims, their traditional businesses, such as crafts and weaving, have been wiped off the economic map, and there has been no effort to create jobs in the space stolen from them. And now the malls that are coming up across the country are about to eliminate their traditional role as suppliers of meat, wiping out another large source of employment. The impact of all of this will be 10 years of serious violence.'"

See also: full text of the Sachar Committee report

CAPITALIST STATE TERROR IN WEST BENGAL: POOR VILLAGERS RESISTING LAND SEIZURE—UNTOUCHABLES AND MUSLIMS, MOSTLY WOMEN AND CHILDREN—CUT DOWN BY POLICE AND PARTY ACTIVISTS IN CPI(M)-RULED STATE

[See also India: The Nandigram Massacre—“Left Front” Government’s State Repression in West Bengal,
Spartacist Canada No. 159 (Winter 2008/2009)]

In late December public notice was given that 25,000 acres of farmland in the Nandigram area of West Bengal was to be forcibly appropriated by a development authority linked to the state, which has been ruled for the past three decades by the Stalinist Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)), to allow an Indonesian firm to build a huge chemical manufacturing center there (along with hotels, a golf course, etc.). The local residents immediately began to organize to defend their homes and livelihood. On the morning of March 14, several thousand of them gathered in protest of the seizure and were met by half as many police and CPI(M) cadre disguised as police, whose planned attack on the unarmed crowd—with women and children stationed at the front precisely to deter such an act—is described in the report excerpted below. The government admits to killing fourteen people and injuring over 200 more; residents and others put the actual death toll at over 100.

Report of Investigation into Nandigram Mass Killings by Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR) and Paschim Banga Khet Majoor Samity (PBKMS)

"People were aware that there would be an attempt by the police and party goons to re-enter the area as a first step towards taking over their land. They decided to offer peaceful resistance by organising a Gouranga Puja [Hindu worship ceremony] (incidentally Gouranga is the God believed to be protector of the people nearby). They also planned a Koran recitation ceremony. Once this programme was known, people flocked to the spots where the Puja and Koran recitals were being held. At Bhangabera the Puja was in a trench that had been cut in the road earlier. About 5,000-6,000 people were present, of which 3000 were women and about 400-500 were children. The people were unarmed as they were in religious ceremonies. The women and children decided to stand in front as the people assumed that the police would not be that much violent with women and children.

"A large police force with firearms and tear gas arrived in vehicles and buses on the Khejuri side of the Talpatti Khal in the morning. They were accompanied by many armed CPM goons. They were also carrying truckloads of road repair equipments and materials. At Bhangabera Bridge, they first filled up a large trench near the bridge. None opposed this. They then began advancing across the bridge. There seems to have been no prior warning. It eas reported that, Anup Mondal of the CPM was using a hand mike, but most barring a few nearby heard nothing and were not forewarned about the police action. Without any proper warning the police-CPI(M) combine began throwing bombs and tear gas shells. This blinded the crowd and created confusion and panic. At this juncture, the the police-CPI(M) combine began firing from various firearms and advancing further while firing. Operations, including the firing and the filling up of the trench seemed to have been planned earlier. While the firing continued for about 15 minutes, other forms of violence followed for the next hour and a half or so.

"There are many complaints of horrific and deliberate acts of violence during this phase and afterwards. [...] Women were taken away and raped. Women who tried to hide or wash their burning eyes in ponds were forced to come out and then beaten up again. Houses and shops were looted. Instead of using minimum force necessary to disperse the unarmed people gathered there, maximum possible force appear to have been applied to instil fear and terror in people, to break their morale and teach them a lesson. The large presence of armed CPI(M) men, many also in police fatigue injected the element of vengeance and revenge in the operation.

[...]

"According to all the 200 or more villagers we met and the patients admitted in Tamluk Hospital and Nandigram Hospital, more than 100 persons have died in the firing. They alleged that most of the bodies were taken away by the Police-CPI (M) combine by truck towards Khejuri or buried under the newly repaired road at Bhangabera."

See also, on CPI(M) strategy:

Police and Cadres Kill 125 in Nandigram Massacre (appeal by Sanjay Sanjvai, an activist for the National Alliance of People's movements, at Kafila.org, March 15, 2007)

"The plan to push in police into the trouble-torn and tense area was chalked out by the CPI(M) top brass last Saturday. They were under pressure from the East Midnapur unit of the party led by MP Lakshman Seth who felt that the CPI(M) would permanently lose ground in the area unless barricades were removed and ‘normalcy’ was restored in Nandigram. A large section of the CPI(M) secretariat was also of the same view and felt that the manner villagers were keeping the administration paralyzed for over two months was creating a bad precedent.

"According to the strategy, the police was asked to remove resistance, enter the villages and ‘restore law of the land’. They were to be followed by CPI(M) activists, who would 'reinstall civil society' in Nandigram."

And see, on events leading up to the massacre:

A Bridge Too Far by Satya Sagar (Combat Law, May-June 2007):

"In Singur [where despite resistance local people had their land seized to set up an SEZ for Tata Motors (later abandoned by the company); see anti-caste: SINGUR, WEST BENGAL: CPI(M) CADRES RAPED AND KILLED FOR TATA (November 12, 2007)] while a section of absentee landowners had agreed to sell their land to the state, a bulk of farmers and sharecroppers in the area refused to acquiesce. In response, the state government occupied and fenced the Singur land, imposing section 144 of the Indian penal code to prohibit public protests—in other words using brute force to oust farmers from their own land.

"So when towards the end of 2006 state ministers and CPI(M) leaders started talking publicly of setting up a huge chemical hub in Nandigram under the Salim group, an Indonesian multinational, the local folk here started getting agitated.

"At a public meeting in Nandigram market on December 29, 2006, the CPI(M) member of Parliament, Lakshman Seth, urged farmers to pave the way for development and industrialisation in Nandigram by giving up their lands in return for monetary compensation. Seth, who is also the chairman of the Haldia Development Authority, in his speech, named the villages that would have to make way for the chemical hub. The total area to be acquired was a whopping 14,500 acres to set up the SEZ that would include a mega chemical and petrochemical hub and a shipyard.

"Though, according to CPI(M) leaders, no final decision has yet been taken about the exact location of the projects, an informal notice for public information regarding likely location of this project was circulated by the Haldia Development Authority to all blocks and Gram Panchayat offices of the area.

"This announcement, however, was enough to aggravate tension in the area as resentment grew among villagers at not being consulted on the issue and at the thought of being kicked out of their ancestral lands. 'If we leave our land we will become beggars in the cities,' says Jayanti, another resident of Sonchura, explaining the strong sentiments behind the local resistance.

"On January 3, 2007, villagers clashed with a police patrol that was surveying the Nandigram area. According to the CPI(M), the police had to be called in after members of the opposition Trinamool Congress ransacked the office of the local panchayat pradhan. Four people were injured in the police lathicharge and gunfire that ensued while one police jeep was set on fire by an angry mob.

"On January 5, 2007, several opposition party groups that had already been working in the area—ranging from the Trinamool Congress to the Socialist Unity Centre of India and the Santosh Rana faction of the CPI(Marxist-Leninist Liberation) decided to join hands to form the Bhumi Uchchhed Protirodh Committee (BUPC) loosely translated as ‘committee for resistance to eviction from homeland’.

"According to locals, the response to this political consolidation of opposition forces got a swift response from the ruling CPI(M). In the early morning on January 7, villagers alleged, CPI(M) cadres, armed with sticks, knives and guns attacked Nandigram, crossing the Bangabhera bridge from Khejuri. The official CPI(M) version is that it is the BUPC members who started the fight by attacking their people camped in Khejuri.

"Whoever started the fight, in the process three people from Nandigram—Bharat Mandal, Shekh Salim and Biswajit Maiti (just 12 years old)—died of bullet injuries. In retaliation, enraged villagers lynched Shankar Samanta, a local landlord accused of giving shelter to what they called CPI(M) goons and also taking part in the firings after which they ransacked and burnt down his palatial house close to the bridge.

"It was following this incident that the locals decided to dig a trench on the road connecting the Bangabhera bridge to Nandigram and block the road further with tree-trunks, boulders and bricks.

"In the weeks and months after the violence of early January, the Bangabhera bridge and adjoining areas became a war zone with almost daily attacks by CPI(M) cadre who had gathered in Khejuri, villagers said. These cadres included some of those who had left the Nandigram area, along with their families, due to threats from those opposed to the acquisition of land for the chemical hub project.

"In response, Nandigram villagers blockaded all entry points into their area making it a no-go zone for the state officials, particularly police. There are reports that some arms and ammunition also found its way into the hands of locals to be used against what has been termed as the superior firepower of the CPI(M) cadre, who, after all, also had the backing of state authorities."

And see also:

Nandigram, an atrocity on dalits by Tanveer Kazi, national secretary of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights and member of a fact-finding team in Nandigram on March 16-17 and later from April 20-25 (India Today, May 5, 2007):

"It is clear that the majority of victims did come from the Scheduled Castes – not surprising as in the area and most parts of India the most economically vulnerable are the dalits. Lip service is all that these vulnerable communities receive in place of rehabilitation and compensation, and the same has happened in the case of land seizures too. As villager Santosh Patro reiterated to our team of the former residents of Haldia '...all those who left their land are selling cucumber and cleaning shit.'

"The decision to act with such force and brutality must be seen as pre-meditated and could also be related to caste or the perceived status or lack of, of those living in the area. Effectively the local residents were claiming political autonomy of the area, ridding it of party cadres and asserting themselves. This can be seen to reflect a deeper tension that the SEZ issue finally inflamed. The response was a decidedly brutal one, in order to put residents 'back in their place'. Terror is one of the most effective tools to manufacture submission and in this instance has already been effective; the mere sight of police was enough to disperse a crowd that had gathered after the discovery of charred remains in the area."

Muslims are also heavily represented among the peasants of Nandigram. As noted in the report quoted above, the mass protest that came under attack, though religiously oriented, was explicitly intercommunal (featuring both puja and recital of the Koran).

REPORT BY UN COMMITTEE ON THE ELIMINATION OF RACISM

UN report slams India for caste discrimination (CBC News [Canada])

"The report found more than 165 million Dalits continue to face segregation in housing, schools, and access to public services. It also said many are forced to work in degrading conditions and are routinely abused by police and upper-caste community members who enjoy the state's protection."

NEW HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH REPORT

India: ‘Hidden Apartheid’ of Discrimination Against Dalits

"Exploitation of labor is at the very heart of the caste system. Dalits are forced to perform tasks deemed too 'polluting' or degrading for non-Dalits to carry out. According to unofficial estimates, more than 1.3 million Dalits – mostly women – are employed as manual scavengers to clear human waste from dry pit latrines. In several cities, Dalits are lowered into manholes without protection to clear sewage blockages, resulting in more than 100 deaths each year from inhalation of toxic gases or from drowning in excrement. Dalits comprise the majority of agricultural, bonded, and child laborers in the country. Many survive on less than US$1 per day."

MALNOURISHED CHILDREN: INDIA—46%, CHINA—8%

Even Amid Its Wealth, India Finds, Half Its Small Children Are Malnourished (New York Times)

"In this young nation, where 40 percent of the people are under 18, figures released by the government on Friday offered an alarming portrait of child health: Among children under 3, nearly half are clinically underweight, the most reliable measure of malnutrition.

"Additionally troubling, the incidence of child malnutrition declined only one percentage point, to 46 percent, in seven years, according the latest National Family Health Survey. During that time, the economy grew at 6 to 8 percent; it is poised to swell by more than 9 percent in the current fiscal year, the government announced this week.

"India’s economic prospects pivot in part around what it calls its demographic dividend.

"But the child malnutrition rates put India roughly on a par with Burkina Faso and Bangladesh. Sudan posted better results, according to data compiled by the United Nations Children’s Fund, or Unicef. Malnutrition in China was about 8 percent, Unicef said."

STATE-BY-STATE REPORT ON CONDITION OF UNTOUCHABLES

Victims, still (Frontline)

See also:

further special coverage in Frontline in the wake of the militant mass protests over Khairlanji:

on dalit activism: At a crossroads

on atrocities: Khairlanjis of the past

see anti-caste: KHAIRLANJI MASSCRE: Maharashtra Burning

NEW REPORT SURVEYS 565 VILLAGES ACROSS INDIA

Untouchability in Rural India by Ghanshyam Shah, Harsh Mander, Sukhdeo Thorat, Satish Deshpande, Amita Baviskar, 2006. New Delhi: Sage Publications. 216 pp.

from a review by Radhika Govinda:

"It highlights how untouchability exists in some form or the other in more than 80 per cent of the villages under study, most extensively in personal and religious-cultural spheres and less visibly in public and political spheres. Food and water touched by Dalits is considered polluting by upper castes: Dalits are denied access to water sources in 48.2 per cent of the villages surveyed; in over 70 per cent of the villages surveyed Dalits are prohibited from inter-dining and entry into non-Dalit houses. In 64 per cent of the villages, Dalits are denied entry into common temples. Despite repeated promises from several governments since Independence, Dalits continue to carry night-soil on their head in over 25,000 Indian towns and villages. As many as 40 per cent of schools practise untouchability while serving mid-day meals, making Dalit children sit in a separate row. Even NGOs are not immune to such practices. In a country that prides in its democratic traditions, Dalits are either denied access to polling booths, or are forced to form separate lines to enter them in 12 per cent of the villages. They are prevented from entering the police stations and ration shops in more than 25 per cent of the villages surveyed.

"Another core chapter, that deserves mention, focuses on Dalit women and the practice of untouchability. [...] Dalit women's bodies become the site on which caste violence is played out."

REPRESSION OF TRIBALS RESISTING SEIZURE OF THEIR LAND

People's Version of Kalinganagar Firing by Independent Media

"At a protest in Kalinganagar, Orissa, on 2nd January, 2006 the State police opened fire on a protest by local tribals against the takeover and seizure of their land by a Tata Steel plant. Sixteen people died on the spot, four more died in the hospital, and a police constable was also killed in the clash."

family of tribal cut down by police

See also:

Resistance and tragedy (Frontline, January 14-27, 2006):

"The demand of tribal people who would be affected by the proposed project was that the government allow the construction of the boundary wall only after the company paid them adequate compensation and ensured proper rehabilitation. Instead, they were silenced with brute force by the government. As shots fired from semi-automatic rifles broke the mid-day stillness, panic-stricken men and women ran helter-skelter. The firing continued for nearly an hour. The policemen appeared bent upon avenging the death of their colleague."

And see:

Police firing at Kalinganagar, A Report by People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) Orissa (April 2006)

ATROCITY OVER DRINKING-WATER RIGHTS IN MAHARASHTRA

Dalit burnt to death in Maharashtra for using handpump

"Caste barriers run deep here and the Patils' writ dictates that it's their privilege to use handpumps first. On the day of the incident, the Patils reportedly tried to get fresh with Lata Shendge (17) for questioning their privilege. Her brother Dilip intervened only to be accosted by a group of belligerent Patils in the evening, who allegedly set him, his sister and his mother ablaze right outside their mud-walled hut. [...] "'Four years back, the only source of water was the Dudhna river, which was a 40-minute walk from here. We got the government to install these two pumps and now it's only a five-minute walk. These Dalits can't even give us the right to use it first,' says Damodar Patil (50), a land-owner."

See also:

Dalit boy killed for sister's 'folly' (NDTV.com, May 19, 2003)

The caste cauldron of Maharashtra (PUCL report, December 2003)