Govt of India asks media not to use 'Dalit' word to identify members of Scheduled Castes

Phule, Ambedkar

A Government of India (GoI) advisory, issued by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (I&B) has, in a surprise move, asked media to refrain from using the word Dalit. Seeking "Urgent compliance with court order", the advisory says that it is "advised that media may refrain from using the nomenclature Dalit, while referring to members belonging to Scheduled Caste, in compliance with the directions of the Bombay High Court and the Constitutional term Scheduled Caste in English."
While the I&B Ministry's advisory is dated August 7, 2018, the matter has been made public by the Mumbai Press Club through a tweet on September 3, which says, "I&B advisory for media: Compliance with the High Court order for refraining from using word 'Dalit' while referring to members belonging to Scheduled Castes."
Siddharth Varadarajan, founding editor of India's top news portal, "The Wire", immediately commented through a tweet, "The word 'Dalit' was coined by Jotiba Phule. It was picked up by the movement led by Babasaheb Ambedkar as a political umbrella term to unite groups of "outcastes" ostracised by the Hindu Law of Dharma Shastras. The Information & Broadcasting ministry wants us to ban it."

The I&B Ministry advisory, addressed to "private satellite TV channels, said, this was in "compliance" with "directions" given in the Order dated June 6, 2018 passed by the Bombay High Court's Nagpur Bench, in PIL No.114 of 2016 filed by Pankaj Meshram "regarding refraining media from using the nomenclature 'Dalit' while referring to members belonging Scheduled Castes".

Govt of India "advisory"

"Earlier", the I&B Ministry advisory said, the Ministry of Social Justice "had issued a letter dated March 15, 2018 thereby requesting all the State Governments/UT Administrators that for all official transaction, matters, dealings, certificates etc., the Constitutional term Scheduled Caste’ in English, and its appropriate translation in other national languages should alone be used for denoting the persons belonging to the Scheduled Castes notified in the Presidential Orders issued under Article 341 of the Constitution of India."
The advisory said, Para 6 of the High Court order reads that "as Central Government has issued necessary directions to its officers, we find that it can also issue suitable directions as per law" to the government and the media "to refrain from using same word."
The order continues, said the advisory, that "various institutes in the field are not before us and hence, we direct" the government "to consider the question of issuing such direction to the media and take suitable decision upon it within next six weeks.”

Comments

When Pakistanis whispered: ‘end military rule’ — A Moscow memoir

During the recent anti-terror operation inside Pakistan by the Government of India, called Operation Sindoor — a name some feminists consider patently patriarchal, even though it’s officially described as a tribute to the wives of the 26 husbands killed in the terrorist strike — I was reminded of my Moscow stint, which lasted for seven long years, from 1986 to 1993.

Ahmedabad's civic chaos: Drainage woes, waterlogging, and the illusion of Olympic dreams

In response to my blog on overflowing gutter lines at several spots in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur, a heavily populated area, a close acquaintance informed me that it's not just the middle-class housing societies that are affected by the nuisance. Preeti Das, who lives in a posh locality in what is fashionably called the SoBo area, tells me, "Things are worse in our society, Applewood."

Tracking a lost link: Soviet-era legacy of Gujarati translator Atul Sawani

The other day, I received a message from a well-known activist, Raju Dipti, who runs an NGO called Jeevan Teerth in Koba village, near Gujarat’s capital, Gandhinagar. He was seeking the contact information of Atul Sawani, a translator of Russian books—mainly political and economic—into Gujarati for Progress Publishers during the Soviet era. He wanted to collect and hand over scanned soft copies, or if possible, hard copies, of Soviet books translated into Gujarati to Arvind Gupta, who currently lives in Pune and is undertaking the herculean task of collecting and making public soft copies of Soviet books that are no longer available in the market, both in English and Indian languages.

RP Gupta a scapegoat to help Govt of India manage fallout of Adani case in US court?

RP Gupta, a retired 1987-batch IAS officer from the Gujarat cadre, has found himself at the center of a growing controversy. During my tenure as the Times of India correspondent in Gandhinagar (1997–2012), I often interacted with him. He struck me as a straightforward officer, though I never quite understood why he was never appointed to what are supposed to be top-tier departments like industries, energy and petrochemicals, finance, or revenue.

PharmEasy: The only online medical store which revises prices upwards after confirming the order

For senior citizens — especially those without a family support system — ordering medicines online can be a great relief. Shruti and I have been doing this for the last couple of years, and with considerable success. We upload a prescription, receive a verification call from a doctor, and within two or three days, the medicines are delivered to our doorstep.

Environmental report raises alarm: Sabarmati one of four rivers with nonylphenol contamination

A new report by Toxics Link , an Indian environmental research and advocacy organisation based in New Delhi, in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund , a global non-profit headquartered in New York, has raised the alarm that Sabarmati is one of five rivers across India found to contain unacceptable levels of nonylphenol (NP), a chemical linked to "exposure to carcinogenic outcomes, including prostate cancer in men and breast cancer in women."

Revisiting Gijubhai: Pioneer of child-centric education and the caste debate

It was Krishna Kumar, the well-known educationist, who I believe first introduced me to the name — Gijubhai Badheka (1885–1939). Hailing from Bhavnagar, known as the cultural capital of the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, Gijubhai, Kumar told me during my student days, made significant contributions to the field of pedagogy — something that hasn't received much attention from India's education mandarins. At that time, Kumar was my tutorial teacher at Kirorimal College, Delhi University.

A conman, a demolition man: How 'prominent' scribes are defending Pritish Nandy

How to defend Pritish Nandy? That’s the big question some of his so-called fans seem to ponder, especially amidst sharp criticism of his alleged insensitivity during his journalistic career. One such incident involved the theft and publication of the birth certificate of Masaba Gupta, daughter of actor Neena Gupta, in the Illustrated Weekly of India, which Nandy was editing at the time. He reportedly did this to uncover the identity of Masaba’s father.

Powering pollution, heating homes: Why are Delhi residents opposing incineration-based waste management

While going through the 50-odd-page report Burning Waste, Warming Cities? Waste-to-Energy (WTE) Incineration and Urban Heat in Delhi , authored by Chythenyen Devika Kulasekaran of the well-known advocacy group Centre for Financial Accountability, I came across a reference to Sukhdev Vihar — a place where I lived for almost a decade before moving to Moscow in 1986 as the foreign correspondent of the daily Patriot and weekly Link .

Search This Blog