A Joint Statement by Vikas Samvad and the Asian Human Rights Commission Despicable it might be, yet it is a relatively irrelevant incident in India. The latest is the case of Firoz, a 12-year-old boy who is now reportedly suffering from serious psychological trauma after being forced by a Head Constable of the Railway Protection …
The Badanavalu Caste Clashes of 1993 in Karnataka
by Prakash Holayar, Chamarajanagar [Pronouncement of Court verdicts in cases pertaining to Dalit’s murders, massacres and atrocities often takes several years. In this article Prakash recounts the Badanavalu Caste Clashes and the final verdict; we invite writers to share their experience and memory of such caste clashes and participate in the documentation of delays and …
Caste in Urdu Prose Literature (Part 2)
by Ajmal Kamal Premchand (1880 – 1936) can be counted as a sympathetic voice against caste discrimination, although in recent times the Dalit circles in India are reported to have severely criticized him for being less than sensitive to the miserable life of the lower castes in the rural North India. However, in his writings …
Gandhi today
Kancha Ilaiah In my childhood, way back in the early Sixties, there was a Gandhi statue in my village. His clean shaved head and semi-naked body with a tucked-in dhoti, in a walking posture, resembled my illiterate shepherd father in every respect except for the classic stick in the right hand, a book in the left …
Constitution for inclusive policies
by Abusaleh Shariff There is nothing in the Constitution which bars identification of beneficiaries of public programmes based on religion. Of late, there has been a debate on whether public programmes such as school education, scholarships, health-care delivery and access to microcredit can be targeted at beneficiaries based on religion; some consider this ‘unconstitutional’ and …
Response to P V Indiresan’s “No quotas for higher studies, please”
by Thavaseelan G [A former director of IIT Madras writes an essay which is featured in the Vision 2020 series of The Hindu Business Line. The title and the content reflects his racist, casteist and classist understanding of basic concepts of social justice, merit, testing, teaching and the responsibilities of a government funded teaching Institute. …
What actually happened in Paramakudi and how it happened
Karthik Navayan [Karthik Navayan was a member of a fact-finding team that visited Paramakudi town on 19th and 20th September, 2011, and interacted with the victims and also with the district officials in Ramanathapuram. This article contains his observations and analysis- Round Table India] On September 11th the police killed six among the several Dalits who …
Upper caste uprising
By Chandra Bhan Prasad Hazare’s movement used symbols that were non-Dalit Recently, a foreign correspondent from a well-known publication wanted to know what I thought about Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement. He was accompanied by his Indian colleague. He had done his home work, and asked me to the point question. One of his question’s was …
I was in Paramakudi
Thamburaj Dharmaraj (part I) I came back to Madurai after wandering in and around Paramakudi for the past two days. I have never really experienced such a disappointment and helplessness in my life. The entire trip was disgusting. The way we construct our own history through oral and written sources as a political move …