Dalits Media Watch
News Updates 06.06.12
Indian 'untouchable' lynched - The News International
http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-52912-Indian-untouchable-lynched
In name of Dalits, a land racket in Nitish's Bihar - The Indian Express
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/in-name-of-dalits-a-land-racket-in-nitishs-bihar/958495/0
Panchayati raj and untouchability - The Hindu
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/article3493868.ece
In cut-off Dalit colonies, holes dug to steal dirty water - The Hindustan Times
The News International
Indian 'untouchable' lynched
http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-52912-Indian-untouchable-lynched
PATNA: Police in north India said Wednesday they were hunting for a village strongman accused of beating to death an "untouchable" neighbour who broke strict caste-based rules by using a local handpump.
Mohan Paswan, in his late 40s, was lynched in Parhuti village in Bihar state last Thursday when he disobeyed an order by a local thug not to use the pump during a heatwave.
"Paswan was attacked and brutally thrashed by a village strongman Pramod Singh and his henchmen for taking water," local police official Saroj Kumar told.
"Police have been trying hard to arrest the accused in the case but they are absconding."
Caste-based discrimination is illegal in India, but abuse is rife, particularly in remote rural areas where the rigid system that places "untouchables" at the bottom of the social order remains in tact.
The low castes, also known as Dalits, traditionally do menial, dirty and often dangerous jobs and are seen as spiritually and physically dirty by the high castes who sometimes prevent them from drinking at the same wells.
A fortnight ago there were tensions in the Arwal district of Bihar where Dalits were prevented from entering a Hindu temple where high castes were worshipping.
The Indian Express
In name of Dalits, a land racket in Nitish's Bihar
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/in-name-of-dalits-a-land-racket-in-nitishs-bihar/958495/0
Santosh Singh : Araria, Bihar, Wed Jun 06 2012, 03:47 hrs
If the government had bought bicycles to give them to schoolgirls, you would have had a bicycle scam in Bihar, Chief Minister Nitish Kumar famously said, explaining why he gave bicycle vouchers to families. But when it came to giving land to landless Mahadalit families — the poorest and most marginalised of Dalits — the government forgot this wisdom.
Result: Allegedly acting in concert, government officials and brokers ganged up to buy land dirt cheap from villagers and then, within days, sold it to the government at four to five times that price. That land was then distributed under the Mahadalit Vikas Yojana.
This scheme was launched in 2009-10 to give 3-decimal (or 1,306.8 sq ft) plots to landless Mahadalit families to build a home under Indira Awas Yojana. (A decimal is one-hundredth of an acre.)
The Nitish Kumar government identified 2.18 lakh families across the state as beneficiaries under the scheme. Until last September — up to when figures are available — 1.53 lakh (just over 70 per cent) families were given plots. Under the scheme, the government must first try to secure gairmajura land (government land under illegal possession of individuals) and, if that isn't available, it can buy residential land at a "ceiling price" of not more than Rs 20,000 for three decimals (or Rs 6,666 per decimal).
The government has so far purchased land for 29,920 families, and will purchase land for another 27,603. Total cost: Rs 115 crore.
An investigation by The Indian Express in Araria — one of the top five districts in the number of beneficiaries — has revealed that plots given to at least 300 of these families were purchased at low prices from villagers who were largely unaware of the scheme, and then sold to the government at the ceiling price.
At the centre of the alleged nexus is the circle officer of Araria's Raniganj block, Ramvilas Jha, who is in charge of the scheme's implementation in the district. His cousin is married to Umesh Mishra, who runs a brick kiln and is a member of the Raniganj panchayat. Two of Mishra's employees in the kiln are also brokers who bought land from poor villagers and sold it to the government.
One of these men is Anil Panjiyar, a resident of Barbanna village employed by Mishra at a monthly salary of Rs 3,000. Records with The Indian Express show that on August 24, 2010, Panjiyar purchased 2.64 acres (264 decimals) in Kajra from Shahidi Khatoon and Shaquiba Khatoon of Rampur village for Rs 3.83 lakh (@ Rs 1,450 per decimal).
"He told us this was the best price he could offer given that the land was near a stream," said Shahidi Khatoon, a 32-year-old housewife. "We were desperate, we had loans from moneylenders, so we sold our land."
Shahidi's husband Mohammed Fayaz has four bigha of land which supports their family of six. They live in a tiny mud hut with a thatched roof, which stands in an open field. They have no money for a fence around the dwelling.
Barely 11 days after buying Shahidi's land, Panjiyar, as per records, sold it to the government, represented by Jha, for Rs 17,60,000 (@ Rs 6,666 per decimal, the government's ceiling) — a premium of nearly 360%. This land was then distributed to 88 families on September 1 on condition that they could neither sell nor transfer it.
"I was cheated," Shahidi said. "The circle officer used his relationship to get Panjiyar to buy land from us. They never told us that the government had fixed Rs 20,000 for 3 decimals. Had we known this, we would never have agreed to sell the land so cheap. The land's real price (Rs 17.6 lakh) would have come to us."
Shahidi's sister, Rahmati Khatoon, was wiser. She sold her 111-decimal plot on April 1, 2011 directly to the government at the ceiling price. But Rahmati is stuck as well — she has not been paid so far, and she alleged that Jha has been asking for a "bribe" to release her money.
Another of Mishra's employees, Mohammed Khurshid, struck a similar deal. Official records obtained by The Indian Express show that Khurshid got one Arun Thakur and his brother Tarun Thakur, poor farmers of Barbanna, to sell their 3.56 acres (356 decimal) at Bistoria on September 11, 2011, for Rs 4.90 lakh (@ Rs 1,376 per decimal).
With this money, the brothers bought a small jewellery shop in Raniganj town, from which they make about Rs 10,000 every month.
Less than 40 days after being the Thakurs' land, Khurshid sold it to the government (through Jha) for redistribution to Mahadalit families for Rs 23.73 lakh (@ Rs 20,000 per three decimals).
The land registration papers establish the nexus: Panjiyar signed as a witness just below Khurshid's signature.
In all, Raniganj block — under Jha — distributed land to 852 Mahadalit families for Rs 1.7 crore.
When contacted, Jha claimed the government had purchased land "directly from farmers". But when confronted with Khatoon's and Thakur's records, he declined to comment. Asked about buying land from brokers who are on his brother-in-law's payroll, Jha refused to comment.
Jha's brother-in-law Umesh Mishra and his employees Panjiyar and Khurshid did not respond to several phone calls.
Pradeep Kumar Singh, the BJP MP from Araria, said: "The government must follow up the Kajra and Bistoria cases and expose the guilty. There is no question of sparing those who are making money through the NDA government's showpiece scheme."
Not many are seeing it as a showpiece, though. Corruption isn't the only problem with the scheme; many of the beneficiaires have got their plots but are stranded — with neither access roads nor a house.
The Hindu
Panchayati raj and untouchability
http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/article3493868.ece
Simon Chauchard
Reservations for SC/STs may not impact redistribution as much as they can alter social prejudices and hierarchies.
June 5, 2012:
This year, India celebrates the 20th anniversary of the 73rd amendment. One of the most striking aspects of the modern Panchayati Raj defined by the amendment is the systematic reservation of political positions (pradhans, sarpanchs, and ward members) for villagers from the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes (SC/ST). In spite of strong initial opposition from traditionally dominant caste groups, these reservations have now been implemented during several electoral cycles in most Indian states and have guaranteed the election of tens of thousands of SC/ST candidates that would not have been elected otherwise.
While Dalit voters have gained importance as a force in national and state and federal elections, the election of SC candidates to local posts would have been unlikely without the intervention of the Indian state. Village institutions, and more generally speaking, rural India, remain centers of caste conservatism. In spite of slow but notable progress, recent empirical studies have shown that major discriminations persist. A 2006 nation-wide independent study designed by leading Indian sociologists, titled "Untouchability in Rural India," suggests that members of the scheduled castes remain discriminated against in most of their interactions with others. Among dozens of other instances of daily discrimination, members of the SCs remain barred from entry into places of worship in more than 50 percent of the surveyed villages. They are denied access to water facilities in more than 45 percent of the villages, and denied seating among other villagers in 30 percent of the villages. Atrocities and physical violence against SC/STs also remain disturbingly common, including towards those SC/ST villagers serving in political office.
In this context, these elections in villages across the country constitute an achievement of Indian democracy in and of themselves. That a state bureaucracy successfully managed to implement such an unlikely reform on the ground is, after all, no small deed.
But while these reservations are witness to the might of a state administration, their ability to trigger meaningful social transformations on the ground remains difficult to evaluate. How, if at all, has mandated access to local-level political representation benefited SC/ST villagers on the ground?
For the past three years, I have gathered data in Rajasthan focusing on reservations for members of the SCs for the key position of sarpanch (village council head). Interviews with several dozen sarpanches, both from the SCs and from other groups, as well as several large-scale surveys of villagers from all groups, have led me to a simple conclusion: while members of the SCs on average do not materially benefit in a significant way from an experience with an SC sarpanch, these reservations lay the ground for what may be an equally important kind of social change.
Why do we find the material gains made by villagers from the SCs to be minimal under an SC sarpanch? Although the reason for this may seem to be intrinsically budgetary – the resources disbursed by gram panchayats are not large, and SC sarpanchs may not have the resources necessary to improve the lot of members of their castes – the reasons are more complex. While the resources of gram panchayats are indeed not immense, they are sizable enough that they can potentially make a big difference in the lives of a village's most deprived citizens. Would gram panchayat elections be so harshly contested if voters were not aware of this fact?
A mix of factors explains why SC sarpanches are unable to significantly improve the lot of SC villagers. First, to the degree that Untouchability persists, SC sarpanches are often not provided with the authority and respect that is traditionally accorded the sarpanch. Second, the sarpanch's ability to aid SC villagers is limited by the local political context. Electorally speaking, successful SC sarpanches depend on a multi-caste coalition, and do not have a free hand in making decisions favorable to their own group. Indeed, SC sarpanches may become indebted to other groups, in extreme cases behaving as proxies for influential local strongmen. The most significant constraint faced by SC sarpanches may be the institutional structure of the panchayat system itself, in which ward members may play an outsized role, especially in the face of a sarpanch perceived as weak or "illegitimate." Finally, the potential for redistribution generated by the presence in office of an SC villager is limited by embezzlement and personal gains; there is no reason to expect this new breed of politician to depart from the norm in this regard. Incidentally, many of the villagers I interacted with described these gains for the family of the sarpanch as a positive aspect of reservation, implying that a rotation in corruption was preferable to entrenched corruption.
If common SC villagers do not receive any tangible advantages from reservation, why are these reservations valuable? This newfound access to political representation opens the door to profound changes in the way Untouchability is practiced and perpetuated in India's villages.
Even in the case of weak, incompetent, or manipulated SC sarpanches, reservation has two automatic consequences: it increases contact between villagers and at least one member of the village's main Dalit caste, and it provides members of that Dalit caste with a degree of linkage with local authorities. These structural changes, often dismissed as unimportant by villagers themselves, have the potential to impact two types of beliefs related to members of the scheduled castes: beliefs about the norms of interaction with members of the scheduled castes and beliefs about the level of protection enjoyed by villagers of the SCs.
According to responses to two audio surveys (one survey of members of the SCs and one survey of non-SC villagers), the experience of an SC sarpanch changes the psychology of caste relations among members of both groups. This psychological impact is subtle and specific: while villagers that experienced reservation retain overwhelmingly negative stereotypes about members of the SCs, they nonetheless perceive the emergence of new social and legal norms. In spite of persistent prejudice, the daily experience of a visible SC sarpanch increases the perception that society is evolving towards more tolerant norms, and that openly hostile behaviors towards members of the SCs will not go unpunished.
Why are these rather limited psychological changes so important when thinking about the evolution of Untouchability? Specifically, why does the perception that norms are evolving matter? Untouchability-related behaviors are often explained away as expression of Brahminical ideology or as expressions of socio-economic rivalries between groups. But these motivations constitute only partial explanations for the extraordinary stickiness of Untouchability. As scores of social-psychological studies have shown, it is often a simple desire to conform to societal norms – in this case, a pernicious norm of domination of one group by another – that really drives hostile or discriminatory behaviors at the individual level. With this in mind, it is reasonable to hypothesize that the perception that social and legal norms are changing will have a far-reaching effect on the propensity with which individuals choose to reproduce Untouchability-related behaviors. Upper-caste villagers that experienced an SC sarpanch were significantly less likely to self-report in a confidential interview that they would engage in an openly hostile act towards an SC villager. SC villagers that experienced an SC sarpanch were more likely to self-report that they would behave in a more assertive or counter-stereotypical way in front of an upper-caste villager. These changes, although small in size, exist among members of all ages, education, and caste groups.
Whether or not a generalized policy of "reservations" constitutes India's best strategy to redress past injustices remains unclear. More empirical research into the material, psychological, and interpersonal impact of reservation policies is needed. If there is value to be gained from these policies, it may emanate not from its impact on redistribution, but from subtle and indirect changes in perceptions. By fostering a perception that Untouchability-related behaviors are changing, relatively modest local-level reservations may have far-reaching consequences for interpersonal relations among castes in India's villages.
Simon Chauchard is an Assistant Professor of Government at Dartmouth College. He is currently working on a book exploring the connection between political reservations and the practice of Untouchability in rural India.
This article is by special arrangement with the Centre for the Advanced Study of India, University of Pennsylvania.
The Hindustan Times
In cut-off Dalit colonies, holes dug to steal dirty water
Surinder Maan, Hindustan Times, Moga, June 06, 2012
Last Updated: 17:38 IST(6/6/2012)
Even for contaminated drinking water, more than 2,500 villagers of Lopo have to dig holes and break into the main underground line.
Moga's groundwater is rich in fluoride and uranium and its surface (canal) water in heavy metals. The hand pumps and cavities from where the people of two Dalit colonies in the district's Lopo village get water are near sewage disposal points.
"At Lopo, Badhni Kalan, Meenian, Rauke Kalan, Butter Kalan and 26 other villages of the Nihal Singh Wala jurisdiction, the reverse-osmosis (RO) water filtration plants are of no use to the Dalits," said Baldev Singh, district vice-president of the Kirti Kisan Union (KKU). "Their settlements are at the farthest ends, where the trickle being supplied in summer is all sucked up before."
The entire villages have installed illegal motor-driven pumps, so minimum water reaches the endpoint colonies, space assigned to the downtrodden. "The heat wave has forced us to beg for drinking water two times a day," said Baldev Singh. "Nobody has cared."
To get to underground water, people in the affected colonies have dug up holes outside their homes to puncture the main line running below, all for a little more volume than the trickle in their taps. Chamkaur Singh, a disabled social worker of Lopo village, has seen more than 2,000 dwellers of Lohatbadhi Dalit colony and another 500 people of Nangal Basti struggle for drinking water for the past two months. "I fetch drinking water from a hand pump 2 km from my house," he said. "The health department has declared that water unfit but we don't have another source."
Persinn Kaur, 80, queues up for drinking water every morning, and sometimes her effort goes waste. Every summer, some of the children of Nangal Basti become sick after drinking polluted water. "We yearn for pure water," said the octogenarian woman. "On days when we have water in the supply lines, we store it and drink it the next day without purification."
NO FINE, NO HELP
Most families in these villages, affluent or poor, are yet to pay their fine for fitting pumps to steal water from the supply lines, so the gram panchayat and authorities concerned have declined to act on their complaints.
The government had built three new-technology waterworks, confirmed Harjit Singh, sarpanch of Lopo. "The people of Nangal Basti and Lohatbadhi are short of drinking water indeed, and it's our duty to serve everybody, but many villagers never pay their pilferage fines," he said, "and continue to run illegal pumps to draw groundwater. The panchayat has decided to sever their connection."
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.Arun Khote
On behalf of
Dalits Media Watch Team
(An initiative of "Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre-PMARC")
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Peoples Media Advocacy & Resource Centre- PMARC has been initiated with the support from group of senior journalists, social activists, academics and intellectuals from Dalit and civil society to advocate and facilitate Dalits issues in the mainstream media. To create proper & adequate space with the Dalit perspective in the mainstream media national/ International on Dalit issues is primary objective of the PMARC.
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