Skip to main content

Casteist? Gujarat official supported social boycott of Dalit fair price shop owner: RtFC

The civil rights group Right to Food Campaign (RtFC) has taken strong exception to the order given by the district collector of Patan, Gujarat, to transfer all the ration cards from the Dalit Fair Price Shop (FPS) dealer to another village based on the social boycott that has been continuing against a Dalit dealer by the Thakor Community (upper caste) in Kanosan village.
District Collector Arvind Vijayan transferred the ration cards of all 436 households in Kanosan to the FPS in Edla village in an order dated 12 September 2023.
In a media communique, RtFC said, “This order came after the majority of the non-Dalit community of the Kanosan village stopped taking their monthly ration from the FPS run by Kanti Parmar (a Dalit). The Kanosan village with a population of around 2,200 has more than 90 percent of the Thakor community. The Dalit FPS dealer has been running the dealership for the last 30 years but for the last two years, a negative campaign started after a Thakor leader of the village was denied ration because of the invalidity of his ration card.”
it added, “The boycott of the FPS first started when fake allegations were put in for the poor distribution of ration on the ration dealer with the signature of 371 people in the Kanosan village and through conspiracy ration were being distributed with the help of POS machine of savarna FPS dealer from the neighbouring village.”
Stating that this led to a mental trauma on Kanti Parmar due to which he tried to commit suicide by consuming poison during the month of May 2021, RtFC said, “The intake of poison led to a serious injury in one of his legs and it had to be removed. After this, a case was filed against 5 people and they were put behind bars.”
“But”, noted RtFC, “In a span of one month, they were released on bail and soon a mass social boycott of the FPS run by a Dalit where the majority of the households in the village coming from the Savarna community stopped buying ration from him and wrote a letter to the district collector to transfer their ration card to neighbouring Edla village. Currently, the licence of the Dalit FPS dealer is on the verge of getting cancelled.”
Claimed RtFC, “This kind of caste-based discrimination against a Scheduled Caste person is clearly an atrocity that comes under the Scheduled Caste and Schedule Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 amended 2015 and such an act of injustice by the district collector to transfer ration cards of the villagers to other FPS should immediately be taken up as a suo moto cognizance by the chief secretary of the Gujarat government.”
It added, “The mental torture of a Dalit FPS dealer is caste-based violence that also violates the National Food Security Act which upholds the democratic empowerment of Fair Price Shops in the village by advocating giving distribution control to the marginalised community of the society.”
According to RtFC, “As per the Scheduled Caste and Schedule Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989 amended 2015, Section 3(1) under which; (r): When an individual gets humiliated, (s): When an individual gets abused, (u): Creating a feeling of enmity, hatred and animosity against Scheduled Caste person, (Zc): Social exclusion of a person, family or group of a specific caste, (Za)(e): economic boycott, damaging the profession, employment, business, shop or any job are applicable in this case and 3(2)(va) as in this case the person has been forced to commit suicide, therefore, crimes of serious nature as per the sections of IPC along with other sections mentioned above needs to be applied immediately.”

Comments

TRENDING

60 crore in Mahakumbh? It's all hype with an eye on UP polls, asserts keen BJP supporter in Amit Shah's constituency

As the Mahakumbh drew to a close, during my daily walk, I met a veteran BJP supporter—a neighbor with whom we would often share dinner in a group. An amicable person, the first thing he asked me, as he was about to take the lift to his flat, was, "How many people do you think must have participated in the holy dip?" He then stopped by to talk—which we did for a full half-hour, cutting into my walk time.

Morari Bapu echoes misleading figures to support the BJP's anti-conversion agenda

A senior Gujarat activist phoned me today to inform me that the well-known storyteller on Lord Ram, Morari Bapu, has made an "unsubstantiated" and "preposterous" statement in Songadh town, located in the tribal-dominated Tapi district. He claimed that while the Gujarat government wants the Bhagavad Gita to be taught in schools, the "problem is" that 75% of government teachers "are Christians who do not let this happen" and are “involved in religious conversions.”

Breaking news? Top Hindu builder ties up with Muslim investor for a huge minority housing society in Ahmedabad

There is a flutter in Ahmedabad's Vejalpur area, derogatorily referred to as the "border" because, on its eastern side, there is a sprawling minority area called Juhapura, where around five lakh Muslims live. The segregation is so stark that virtually no Muslim lives in Vejalpur, populated by around four lakh Hindus, and no Hindu lives in Juhapura.

An untold story? Still elusive: Gujarati language studies on social history of Gujarat's caste and class evolution

This is a follow-up to my earlier blog , where I mentioned that veteran scholar Prof. Ghanshyam Shah has just completed a book for publication on a topic no academic seems to have dealt with—caste and class relations in Gujarat’s social history. He forwarded me a chapter of the book, published as an "Economic & Political Weekly" article last year, which deals with the 2015 Patidar agitation in the context of how this now-powerful caste originated in the Middle Ages and how it has evolved in the post-independence era.

Justifying social divisions? 'Dogs too have caste system like we humans, it's natural'

I have never had any pets, nor am I very comfortable with them. Frankly, I don't know how to play with a pet dog. I just sit quietly whenever I visit someone and see their pet dog trying to lick my feet. While I am told not to worry, I still choose to be a little careful, avoiding touching the pet.

Caste, class, and Patidar agitation: Veteran academic 'unearths' Gujarat’s social history

Recently, I was talking with a veteran Gujarat-based academic who is the author of several books, including "Social Movements in India: A Review of Literature", "Untouchability in Rural India", "Public Health and Urban Development: The Study of Surat Plague", and "Dalit Identity and Politics", apart from many erudite articles and papers in research and popular journals.

New York-based digital company traces Modi's meteoric rise to global Hindutva ecosystem over several decades

A recent document, released by the Polis Project Inc.—a New York-based digital magazine and hybrid research and journalism organization—even as seeking to highlight the alleged rise of authoritarianism in India, has sought to trace Prime Minister Narendra Modi's meteoric rise since 2014 to the ever-expanding global Hindutva ecosystem over the last several decades.

Socialist utopia challenging feudal and Brahminical systems: Kanwal Bharti on Sant Raidas’ vision of Begumpura

In a controversial claim, well-known Dalit writer and columnist Kanwal Bharti has asserted that a clever Brahminical move appears to be behind the Guru Granth Sahib changing the name of the 15th-16th century mystic poet-saint of the Bhakti movement, Sant Raidas, to Sant Ravidas.

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.