Cynthia Stephen

(Cynthia shares her reflections on the recent debate over violence against women through a poem and a short note)

Don't cry for me.

Don't cry for me.

Don't cry for me.

Anonymous I may be to you, but

I have a name, a self. I too get thirsty

But when I go to drink they say the well is not for me.

I go to work in your field but you think my work is not worth paying for.

You pay me a pittance. That man asked me to go with him last week but I refused.

Now I just might, because I have to pay the doctor to treat my child. His father, the wastrel,

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Madhuri Xalxo

I am a bit shaken by what outrages the mainstream media on rape. The incident is horrifying and yet so very familiar to us dalit, bahujan and adivasi women.

In the same Delhi, hundreds of adivasi girls are taken as domestic slaves and get raped, and go missing. Why doesn't the mainstream media even consider that newsworthy? Why is there no uproar for the death penalty for these upper caste men from elite backgrounds raping us? Is it because we are born to get justly raped by the others?

The present protests and silences only endorse the caste hindu paradigm that the upper caste woman's body is sacred and its violation requires the highest retribution while the bodies of dalit, bahujan and adivasi women and women under military regimes such as Manipur and Kashmir are 'rape-worthy' and the men's sexual depravity on these women need no correctives.

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- An interview with Du Saraswathi

(First published in the Dalit students' magazine 'Insight Young Voices' in 2005 as "Coalition is the philosophy and need of the hour")

Du Saraswathi is a Bangalore-based writer, poet, artist and an activist. Since her student days, she has been involved with women's groups, the DSS, peace movements and the struggle of the farmers and the labourers. Here she interacts with Vijay on various issues.

Could you tell us about your experiences as a Dalit student, in your college life?

I studied in a predominantly brahmin college, there were only brahmins around. You could only see Dalits who had come through the reservation category, other wise we could not even step inside the college. Caste exists very subtly in urban areas, and is quite discreet in the cities. For instance, the brahmin girls avoid eating the food which we offer, I never understood that previously. They would say 'no, we don't taste other homes salt'.

How did they come to know you are a Dalit?

By my caste certificate, they all knew about that. I never talked about it. I first opened up about my caste when I was in my 2nd year of pre-university college. Jenny and Dr Siddalingiah (from Karnataka Dalit Sangarsha Samiti) came to our college for a talk. Jenny sang and later Siddalingiah joined in. That opened me up and I started to feel proud about my caste.

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Anu Ramdas

We stand in solidarity with the gang raped student in Delhi, fighting for her life in the hospital.

No, we are not going to say why no outrage for the rape and murder of the 8 year old dalit girl in Bihar, and why no outcry for the series of horrifying gang rapes on dalit women by upper caste men in Haryana. Dalit and adivasi girls and women are raped, gang raped, mutilated and murdered all over the country by upper caste men, dominant caste men, men in uniform, and some of them, like women in all communities across castes and classes are raped by their own husbands and other relatives. Rape is not used just as an instrument of violence; it is used to perpetually define both the gender and caste vulnerability of dalit and adivasi women. You see, our battle appears to be a different one.

No, all the coverage that the Delhi rape incident gets is not excessive attention; the amount of expressed outrage never needs to be quantified for crimes such as these against women. But expression of societal outrage should lead to social reform, and the key for this is the media machinery, which in India is exclusive for certain classes and remains unavailable for rape survivors from marginalized communities. Can a society that ignores the existence and struggles of large groups of rape survivors effect transformation of gender relations? There is a deeper problem for dalit and adivasi women, expression of outrage also needs a degree of safety. The probability of being chance victims of gang rapes is not a given for dalit and adivasi women, as repeat assaults are an ever present threat to rape survivors from our communities. Cold silence is sometimes our only resistance. You see, our struggle is a different one.

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Neel Kranti Media

(First published in the 'Dalit and Adivasi Students' Portal' in 2010)

Born and brought up in a Haryana village, Dr Kaushal Panwar teaches Sanskrit in Delhi University. Her life is one of the most remarkable testimonies of human grit and determination towards achieving one's goal despite insurmountable odds.

Kindly tell us about your family back ground.

I belong to Balmiki community in Rajour village from district Kaithal (Haryana). My father who died in 2001 was a landless labourer. I have two older brothers. All my family members worked in jat landlords' fields. I also used to work in the fields along with my family and had also worked as manual labourer in road constructions.

My elder brother could not clear class X and joined Punjab police as a sepoy but due to some reasons he left the job. Today he is unemployed. I am the only one from my district Kaithal, from Balmiki community, who has reached to this level. Otherwise our community is still mostly engaged in scavenging and manual labour.

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Anoop Kumar

Gujarat assembly elections are here, and Round Table India takes this as an opportunity to post an interview of French Scholar Dr. Christophe Jaffrelot that was first published by the Dalit students' magazine 'Insight Young Voices' (Feb-March, 2008). This interview was taken by Anoop Kumar for the magazine on the eve of the  last Gujarat assembly elections, on 27th Novemeber, 2007.

Dr. Jaffrelot is Director of CERI-Sciences Po/CNRS in Paris. He is the author of 'India's silent revolution: The rise of the lower castes in North India' (2003) and 'Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analysing and fighting caste' (2005); both books have been published in Delhi by Permanent Black.

You have been consistently writing on the rise of 'Hindu' nationalism in the country. Recently, we all saw Tehelka's expose of the involvement of the state in the Gujarat pogrom. The whole country felt the shock, however, the Congress government did not respond at all. Even the Left gave a much muted response. Most of us have been outraged. We knew everything, nothing new came out in this expose and yet, it was shocking for us.

Yeah, the Left and the Centre have remained silent, except, Sonia Gandhi and Digvijay Singh who spoke about the "Hindu terrorists". I was in Ahmedabad recently to investigate about these issues. Talking about Tehelka, talking about Godhra and the riots, infact, helped Narendra Modi. Dallying with these issues has polarized the electorate and made Hindus vote more for the BJP.

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