Scheduled Castes: status, issues (post-1947)
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Scheduled castes
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Christians, SC certificates for
Church-going dalit cannot be denied SC certificates: HC
A Subramani,TNN | Dec 27, 2013
CHENNAI: There is no rationale in denying scheduled caste (SC) certificate and other benefits to a church-going dalit, the Madras high court has said.
A division bench comprising Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar and Justice T S Sivagnanam, passing orders on a person whose application for SC certificate was rejected by a sub-collector in Puducherry, said going to church could seldom be considered a valid reason to reject the application.
"For deciding the community status, the factors that are to be verified are whether the person is suffering from any kind of social and economic disability and whether the scheduled caste Hindus in the locality are treating the person as one among themselves," they said.
Noting that the sub-collector got carried away by the VAO's report and rejected M Jayaraj alias Ramajayam's claim, the judges said: "Rejection of community/social status community certificate to deserving person will deny his valuable rights guaranteed under the Constitution and attaches civil consequences."
The report merely stated that the Jayaraj was often visiting the church in Othiyampattu village.
The judges said the sub-collector was bound to conduct a proper inquiry and could take a decision only after affording opportunity of hearing to the applicant. Pointing out that such a procedure had not been followed in the present case, they set aside the impugned order dated June 21, 2011. The court also restored the application of Jayaraj and asked the officials to consider the matter afresh and pass fresh orders within four weeks.
‘Dalit’ or SC?
A history of the expression ‘Dalit’
Dalit: A tortuous journey over 200 yrs, January 25, 2018: The Times of India
It has been through a journey spanning nearly two centuries that the term “Dalit” denoting “the oppressed” has ironically metamorphosed into an appellation signifying “assertion and self respect”.
Perhaps its emergence as the pan-Indian term for scheduled castes led to government functionaries inadvertently start using it in official work – leading to Madhya Pradesh HC on Tuesday ruling that only constitutional terminology, ‘SCs’, be used in official communication.
The court rightly called out the unwarranted blurring of lines between the official and the unofficial, but it only reinforced the power and appeal that “Dalit” has come to pack in contemporary society.
Says Vivek Kumar, senior sociologist in Jawaharlal Nehru University, “the term has become an assertion of identity accorded by the community upon themselves and not by the upper castes.”
The pithy summation aptly captures the symbolism of “Dalit” – a word that goes back to 1830s. According to Vivek Kumar, “Dalit” finds mention in 1831-compiled Marathi-English dictionary by JJ Molesworth — an army officer of the East India Company. Dynamic social reformer from Maharashtra Jyotiba Phule used shudras/ati-shudras and Dalit/pat-Dalit. In 1935, the greatest of emancipators B R Ambedkar used the term in a pamphlet he brought out to organise a congregation of “untouchables” who by then had begun to try to throw away the yoke of upper caste subjugation.
However, Ambedkar himself preferred to call his community “Depressed Classes”. For the community, it has been a tortuous search for the right name to call themselves. In the high caste dictated social order, they were variously referred to as “asprashya” (untouchable), “antaj” (last born), “antwaseen” (residing last).
It was a state of limbo — shunned by Hindu caste system but considered part of Hindu faith — that nudged “untouchables” towards a quest for identity. It went through experiments which intensified as the fire of independence struggle spread. Awakening to the need that they too needed freedom from caste subjugation as compatriots sought from the British, self-respect movements spawned across regions. 1920s reflected a stress on indigenous roots -- ati-Hindu, ati-Dravida, ati-Andhra, ati-Karnataka. A rebellious Manguram Walia in Punjab called the untouchables ‘ad-dharma’. There was also an adi-Hindu movement in UP . First steps, they were bound to be splintered.
But the dramatic birth of two pan-India platforms – Mahatma Gandhi and Congress – changed the course of Dalit movement beyond recognition. After Gandhi brought out “Harijan” newspaper, Congress became the vehicle to spread the name in every nook and corner of the country. The 1935 India Act settled on clubbing the “untouchables” under a Schedule – and thus was born the label, SCs. But it was officialese, bereft of the punch that a subaltern identity seeks. Into the vacuum of disappearing Dalit platforms, post-independence, stepped in the militantintellectual movement -- Dalit Panthers – in 1970. It resurrected the term from the anonymity of history.
HC bans use of word ‘Dalit’ by MP
January 23, 2018: The Times of India
The MP high court has banned the use of the word ‘Dalit’, especially in official government communication. The HC’s Gwalior bench issued the order while hearing a PIL pointing out that the word ‘Dalit’ was not mentioned in the Constitution. People belonging to different categories have been termed either ‘Scheduled Caste’ or ‘Scheduled Tribe’ in the Constitution. The HC has ordered that only the terms mentioned in the Constitution be used. The petitioner’s lawyer said the order would currently only be implemented in MP.
Education
Remarkable progress, high dropout rate
The Times of India, January 24, 2016
Subodh Varma
Enrol and dropout, education is a one-way street for Dalits
The surge in education among India's most deprived communities, the dalits and adivasis, is re markable: between 2001 and 2011, the share of dalits attending college zoomed up by a staggering 187% and adivasis, by 164%. The comparable increase for all other castes put together is 119%.
So, a large number of dalits and adivasis entered colleges and universities, many of whom would have been first-generation entrants like Rohith. This is all the more remarkable considering the difficult conditions they live in 21% dalit families live in houses with thatch or bamboo roofs compared to 15% overall, 78% stay in one or two roomed houses compared to 69% overall, 35% have a drinking water source within their home compared to 47% overall, 41% do not have electricity compared to 33% overall, and 66% do not have toilets compared to 53% overall.
While school-level enrollment for all castes and communities is roughly the same, there are many more dropouts among dalits and adivasis. Among dalits, the share of school students drops from 81% in the 6-14 years age group to 60% in the 15-19 group. It plummets further to just 11% in the 20-24 age group in higher education. This fall is noticeable across communities and castes but it is the sharpest among dalits and adivasis.
According to an NSSO survey, nearly two-thirds of male dropouts from school and college said that they were needed to supplement the household income while nearly half the female dropouts said that they were needed for domestic chores. The same survey also showed that attendance rates in educational institutions were about 50% in the poorest 10% families but rose to nearly 70% in the richest 10 per cent. Poverty is thus the biggest barrier to pursuing education, and poverty levels are highest among dalits and adivasis. Besides this, these groups also face social discrimination and sometimes, abuse. At a public hearing organized by the People's Trust and CRY in Salem, Tamil Nadu, a young dalit girl, who dropped out of school, said students like her were often taunted and abused by teachers as well as students. She had started working in brick kilns or fields. Shockingly, the same atmosphere prevails in centres of higher education as incidents from various universities and the IITs show.
So, on an average, very few --about one in 10 -students at the higher levels of education are from dalit or adivasi communities. This heightens the sense of isolation among disadvantaged students. And then you have the discrimination, the high costs, the pressure to perfor m, and perhaps -as in the case of Rohith's alma mater -even official hounding.
Offensive names of localities/ villages
Sandeep Rai, Village names are reason for shame, Feb 22, 2017: The Times of India
Calling a Dalit by his caste name is an offence under the SCST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. But Bundelkhand's rigid caste-based society continues to humiliate the Scheduled Castes. Here's how.
Several localities and villages spread over the region are named after the castes of people who live there. There's been a long-standing demand by Dalits to change the names of these localities. But nothing has happened, although candidates of political parties have in the past promised to implement the demand.
Barely 20km from Jhansi is Bajna village, where a large number of Dalits live in a locality called Chamarya. This term is generally associated with Dalit communities such as Jatav and Jatia. They are collectively known as `Chamaar', a prohibited term.
“Every election, we ask candidates to get the names of these villages changed, but we get empty promises.It's embarrassing when you are asked your village name.It immediately reveals our caste identity and the attitude of people around us changes drastically in this caste-driven society of Bundelkhand,“ says Budhh Prakash of Chamroa.
Deep Shikha, Chamarsena's pradhan, said, “We submitted an application to change the name of this village from Chamarsena to Amarsena but I doubt if it's been changed because no one takes us seriously in government offices.“
Owing to extreme subjugation of Dalits in the region, name change of a village or locality often becomes a matter of secondary importance.“A majority of people in these villages are illiterate and downtrodden. Politicians and their strongmen force these people to vote for specific candidates. So, the question of demanding their rights does not even arise,“ said Ganpat Kumar, a school teacher in Chamarya.
