Hathras not isolated case, is structural anti-Dalit violence: BIAS, TISS students, alumni

By A Representative

A large number of students and alumni of the Birla Institute of Applied Sciences (BIAS), Nainital, and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), with branches in Mumbai, Guwahati and Tuljapur, have said in an identical statement that the Hathras incident “cannot be seen in isolation but as structural casteist violence committed by upper caste people against Dalits as a community and Dalit women in particular.”
Commenting on the gangrape of Dalit girl Manisha, who subsequently died in September-end, in a statement, they said, “The family of the victim had been continuously harassed by two of the accused and other people from the upper castes of their locality”, blaming the incident on “the upper caste dominating Thakur community” which has been found involved in “caste-based violence before” in Boolgarhi village of Hathras district of UP.
Asserting that the “same men attempted to rape her even before”, the statement said, “There are countless cases where sexual violence on Dalit women has been committed in the guise of teaching lessons to the Dalit community as a whole”, adding, “The body of Dalit women has been subjected to sexual violence by abusive and barbaric upper-caste men time and again.”
Accusing the police system and state machinery for “shamelessly” siding with the powerful people which committed the crime in Hathras, the statement said, these people were extended “all the help earlier by not providing the proper treatment to the victim and then by denying the rights of the victim’s family to performing the last rites.”

The statement accused the authorities of “failing” to transfer the victim immediately to the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences “even after the condition was too critical for her survival”, adding, “Later also, after 14 days, she was only admitted a day before her death in the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi.”
Rolling out data, the statement said, “Over 3,500 Dalit women were raped in India in the year 2019, with one 3rd of them comes from the state of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. About 2.42 lakh rape cases in 7 years (2013-19), after the Nirbhaya gang-rape case, almost four women are raped every hour. Such barbarism is supported by the casteist state, it said, adding, it is “a blot on the Indian justice system” as well.
Demanding “immediate commencement of fast track trial and stricter punishment to the guilty”, the statement demanded “strong actions against the police officials who held the victim away from receiving proper treatment and denied the victim’s family of their rights to perform the last rites.” It added, strong actions should be taken against the police/government officials who have been “trying to destroy the evidence” and “threatening” the victim's families.

Comments

What mainstream economists won’t tell you about Chinese modernisation

By Shiran Illanperuma China’s modernisation has been one of the most remarkable processes of the 21st century and one that has sparked endless academic debate. Meng Jie (孟捷), a distinguished professor from the School of Marxism at Fudan University in Shanghai, has spent the better part of his career unpacking this process to better understand what has taken place.

A comrade in culture and controversy: Yao Wenyuan’s revolutionary legacy

By Harsh Thakor* This year marks two important anniversaries in Chinese revolutionary history—the 20th death anniversary of Yao Wenyuan, and the 50th anniversary of his seminal essay "On the Social Basis of the Lin Biao Anti-Party Clique". These milestones invite reflection on the man whose pen ignited the first sparks of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and whose sharp ideological interventions left an indelible imprint on the political and cultural landscape of socialist China.

10,000 students deprived of classes as Ahmedabad school remains shut: MCC writes to Gujarat CM

By A Representative The Minority Coordination Committee (MCC) has written to Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, urging him to immediately reopen the Seventh Day Adventist School in Maninagar, Ahmedabad, where classes have been suspended for nearly two weeks. The MCC claims that the suspension, following a violent incident, violates the constitutional right to education of thousands of children.

Result of climate change, excessive human interference, can Himachal be saved from natural disasters?

By Dr. Gurinder Kaur* These days, almost all districts of Himachal Pradesh are severely affected by natural disasters such as heavy rainfall, cloudbursts, landslides, land subsidence, mudslides, and flash floods. Due to frequent landslides and falling debris, major highways, including the Chandigarh–Manali and Manali–Leh routes, as well as several other roads, have been closed to traffic. Although this devastation is triggered by natural events such as heavy rainfall, cloudbursts, and flash floods, it is not entirely a natural phenomenon. The destruction in Himachal Pradesh is largely the result of climate change and excessive human interference with the state’s fragile environment.

Revisiting Periyar: Dialogues on caste, socialism and Dravidian identity

By Prof. K. S. Chalam* S. V. Rajadurai and Vidya Bhushan Rawat’s joint effort in bringing out a book on the most original iconoclast of South Asia, Periyar E. V. Ramasamy, titled Periyar: Caste, Nation and Socialism, published by People’s Literature Publication, Mumbai, is now available on Amazon and Flipkart . This volume presents an innovative method of documenting the pioneering contributions of a leader like Periyar, and it reflects the scholarship of Rajadurai, who has played a pivotal role in popularizing Periyar in English.

1857 War of Independence... when Hindu-Muslim separatism, hatred wasn't an issue

"The Sepoy Revolt at Meerut", Illustrated London News, 1857 By Shamsul Islam* Large sections of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs unitedly challenged the greatest imperialist power, Britain, during India’s First War of Independence which began on May 10, 1857; the day being Sunday. This extraordinary unity, naturally, unnerved the firangees and made them realize that if their rule was to continue in India, it could happen only when Hindus and Muslims, the largest two religious communities were divided on communal lines.

Ground reality: Israel would a remain Jewish state, attempt to overthrow it will be futile

By NS Venkataraman* Now that truce has been arrived at between Israel and Hamas for a period of four days and with release of a few hostages from both sides, there is hope that truce would be further extended and the intensity of war would become significantly less. This likely “truce period” gives an opportunity for the sworn supporters and bitter opponents of Hamas as well as Israel and the observers around the world to introspect on the happenings and whether this war could have been avoided. There is prolonged debate for the last several decades as to whom the present region that has been provided to Jews after the World War II belong. View of some people is that Jews have been occupants earlier and therefore, the region should belong to Jews only. However, Christians and those belonging to Islam have also lived in this regions for long period. While Christians make no claim, the dispute is between Jews and those who claim themselves to be Palestinians. In any case...

Fate of Yamuna floodplain still hangs in "balance" despite National Green Tribunal rap on Sri Sri event

By Ashok Shrimali* While the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Thursday reportedly pulled up the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for granting permission to hold spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's World Culture Festival on the banks of Yamuna, the chief petitioners against the high-profile event Yamuna Jiye Abhiyan has declared, the “fate of the floodplain still hangs in balance.”

Epic war against caste system is constitutional responsibility of elected government

Edited by well-known Gujarat Dalit rights leader Martin Macwan, the book, “Bhed-Bharat: An Account of Injustice and Atrocities on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-18)” (available in English and Gujarati*) is a selection of news articles on Dalits and Adivasis (2014-2018) published by Dalit Shakti Prakashan, Ahmedabad. Preface to the book, in which Macwan seeks to answer key questions on why the book is needed today: *** The thought of compiling a book on atrocities on Dalits and thus present an overall Indian picture had occurred to me a long time ago. Absence of such a comprehensive picture is a major reason for a weak social and political consciousness among Dalits as well as non-Dalits. But gradually the idea took a different form. I found that lay readers don’t understand numbers and don’t like to read well-researched articles. The best way to reach out to them was storytelling. As I started writing in Gujarati and sharing the idea of the book with my friends, it occurred to me that while...

Search This Blog