Dalits in India

Across the world, governments design and implement policies with the explicit goal of promoting social justice. But can such institutions change entrenched social norms? And what effects should we expect from differently designed policies? This book is an empirically rich study of one of the most extensive electoral quota systems in the world: the reserved seats for the Scheduled Castes (SCs, the former “untouchables”) in India’s legislative assemblies. Combining evidence from extensive quantitative datasets, archival work, and in-depth interviews with politicians, civil servants, activists, and voters across India, the book explores the long-term effects of electoral quotas for the political elite and the general population. It shows that the quotas for SCs have played an important role in improving social justice for SCs in some ways, primarily by weakening the status hierarchy associated with the caste system. The extent and nature of the gains in social justice have not, however, been what all advocates of these quotas had expected or hoped for. This is a study of India, but the findings and discussions have broader implications. Policies such as quotas are usually supported with arguments about various assumed positive long-term consequences. The nuanced discussions in this book shed light on the trade-offs inherent in how these policies are designed, and lays the groundwork for a comparative research agenda on the politics of inclusion.

Abstract:
The concept of engaged Buddhism, from Thich That Hang to Daisaku Ikeda to Dr. Ambedkar- has been consistently advocating for the activists of world peace in their specific manner. The unprecedented awarding of Nobel Peace Prizes to two Buddhists in three years, and the prevalence of the theme of “inner peace and world peace”, suggests this as a distinguishing mark of contemporary engaged Buddhism. The tone and style of Buddhist activism do not always match the stereotype of the mild and self- effacing Monk. Indeed the tensed arms and clenched fist of a robbed Monk addressing a public gathering in Sri Lanka makes a striking cover for Thambiah‟s Buddhism betrayed? , While Ambedkar‟s slogan “Educate. Agitate ... Organize” sounds unlikely as an update of the Ancient Buddhist precepts. In the current socio-political situation in India, Ambedkarite Buddhism or the new Buddhism is becoming an increasingly popular option for marginalized and un-satisfied Dalits across India because converting from Hinduism to Islam or Christianity is now legally not valid in several States. This paper discusses the socio-political and historical causes and effects of the use of Buddhism in the form of „Engaged’ one.
Key-words: Neo-Buddhists, Liberation Movement, Dr. Ambedkar, Neo-Dalits in India

Conversation : S V Rajadurai, V Geetha & Vidya Bhushan Rawat on Periyar's ideology, self respect movement and opportunism of political parties S V Rajadurai is one of the leading intellectuals from Tamil Nadu who has written, in English and Tamil, on a range of issues to do with Marxism and literature; with Tamil politics and modern history, including Periyar and the Dravidian movement and translated widely, both fiction and non-fiction. Associated with a broad spectrum of left movements, he has worked for several years in the civil liberties movement and was Vice-President, PUCL. V. Geetha is a feminist historian, writer and translator, who has been active in the women's movement for several years. She writes, in English and Tamil, on issues to do with caste, education, feminism and contemporary Tamil society. V. Geetha and S V Rajadurai have worked together for over 25 years-as authors and translators. Their major work comprises essays on the Dravidian movement and politics published in the Economic and Political Weekly, and the book, Towards a Non Brahmin Millennium: from Iyothee Thass to Periyar. They have also authored monographs on western Marxism, including a comprehensive volume on the life and thought of Antonio Gramsci. Rajadurai and Geetha continue to translate poetry and fiction from English to Tamil. The importance of Periyar and his self respect movement is immense and yet neither the Indian state nor the state of Tamilnadu where politicians chant his name, none have felt it important to compile Periyar's speeches and writings and make it available to rest of the country men. This rare conversation of Vidya Bhushan Rawat, with Rajadurai and Geetha will definitely be important for students of social movements and political science in India. Even though it is lengthy yet it explains so many things hitherto unknown to common people. VB : Periyar was one of the tallest revolutionaries of India. His thoughts on secularism, on Brahmanism surpass any other political leaders of his time. He was enormously popular with the masses. Why does today's Tamil Nadu seem absolutely reverse to Periyar's thoughts when we see the growing religiosity in the state and a huge number of Shudras following it? SV & VG : Periyar's radicalism comprised several parts – his critique of Brahminism was many-sided. At one level, it was a rejection of the Brahminical abhorrence of labour and touch. Describing the differences he harboured with Rajaji, who was also a personal friend, he remarked that C. Rajagopalachariyar (Rajaji) stayed true to his mission, which was that ‗he did not want his caste men to have to pick up a spade and labour'. In another instance, speaking of the winning flexibility of Brahmin intellectualism, he observed that some Brahmins might abhor a ‗Panchama' entering their homes, whereas others might not be averse to the same ‗Panchama' entering their kitchens; why, some might even ‗allow' a Panchama to enter the sanctum sanctorum of their altar-room, and there were Brahmins who did marry Panchamas. In all this, though Brahmins made choices that worked to their advantage – he used the Tamil word ‗balithavarai', that is whatever ‗worked' for them. At another level Periyar argued that Brahminism had to do with the hierarchical logic of varnadharma, which, like a ladder implicates everyone – in this sense, each of us carries a ladder in our consciousness, and we measure ourselves and others on the basis of where we are placed on this ladder. However, what drew the

This article looks at three groups in diverse geographies: Dalits in India, Burakumin in Japan and Roma in Europe. Although, these communities are different from each other and have distinct histories, they are bound by their existence in a world marked by hierarchical discrimination.

This article traces the history of cow's holiness in the Vedic period documents and how it has been manufactured by the Hindutva gang, specially RSS to persecute Muslims and Dalits.
Link for Hindi versions:
https://hindi.sabrangindia.in/article/cow-and-hindutva-facts-and-myths
http://www.hastakshep.com/hindiopinion/cow-hindutva-myth-reality-14421
Link for English version:
https://sabrangindia.in/article/cow-hindutva-some-myths-facts

Submissive,  subdued,  subjugated,  dominated,  exploited  have  become  the  part  and  parcel  unwilling  traits  of  when  it  comes  to  being  a  woman. Women  in  this  ‘developing’  universe  have  been  meted  to  injustices  throughout  epochs.  From  time  and  again  history  has  been  the  rightful  evidence  of  such  injustices  inflicted  upon  women  under  the  shameful  veil  of  tradition,  culture,  caste,  class  and  others.  The  pathos  of  being  a  woman  in  India  escalates  when  one  comes  from  the  lower  rung  of  the  varnashram  system  i.e.  a  Dalit.  A  Dalit  woman  not  only  faces  the  exploitation  of  being  a  woman  but  bears  the  ill  treatment  of  the  savarnas  or  the  twice  born  castes  for  being  a  Dalit.  Her  pathos  soars  when  she  has  to  bear  the  brunt  of  the  atrocities  of  men  belonging  to  her  caste.  These  Dalit  men  being  ruthlessly treated  by  the  upper castes,  satisfies  their  anger  by  hurling  it  upon  their  women.
The  crux  of  this  paper  is  to  present  the  hapless  condition  of  the  Dalit  women  in  India,  their  rights  from  which  they  remain  ignorant  and  the  so  called  protective  mechanisms  of  the  country  that  goes  numb  when  it  comes  to  safeguarding  a  Dalit.

Despite segregation of the locals from the Aryans, metisation continued for close to a millennium, from the absolute sexual right the Aryans had over their women slaves.  The mixed-Aryan communities` thus formed, along with the pure local communities, were outcastes for centuries before the Aryans included them in the caste system, by creating the ‘Sudra Varna’ 3.  These were the Adwiji, the once-born (born of one Aryan parent) referred to in the ‘Dharma Sastras’.

Baluta is the first Dalit autobiography written by Daya
Pawar, published in 1978. Originally written in Marathi and
took a long time of about two scores to be translated into
English in 2015 by Jerry Pinto. The depiction of the writer’s
personal life, feeling, and encounters with upper-class people
is bitter and heart-wrenching. The self-revelation of the
author has stupefied and made dumb stricken those who have
gone through his autobiography. The book is an account of
the clinical reality of people living in squalor, poverty, and sordid
dirtiness of the unhygienic ambience of brothel, gambling
and pub-houses. There are many sorts of characters ensuring
the variety and giving a glimpse of Chaucer’s The
Canterbury Tales.

Bhakti Movement in India and Negro Spirituals in America are both created out of social misconduct and spiritual inclination to solve this misconduct. Bhakti Movement started to address the issues of Caste discrimination in Indian subcontinent and Nero Spirituals were created by the Africans who were captured ns brought to the US as slaves. Bhakti poets were denied social acceptance because of their low caste and Africans were deprived of their languages, families and cultures. But music and songs bound these two down-trodden communities. Over the years these African slaves and their dependents adopted Christianity and reshaped it into a deeply personal way to deal with their personal oppression and trauma. Just like that, the Bhakti Poets created their own faith by having their personal relation, sometimes to their personal God. This article compares some of the socio-religious similarities between the Bhakti Movement and the Negro Spirituals. Introduction:

never deeply anti-business (p. 4), the political and economic elite always had a working relationship (ibid.), Nehru was no antibusiness ideologue (p. 6) and similar views can be found scattered around in the book. Even the often-used example of the nationalisation of the largest private banks in 1969 (p. 284) is not by definition an example of socialist policies. This, finally, also raises the question of the concept of ‘power’ in the book. The way power is conceptualised seems to be as a zero-sum relationship between state and business power. The overall conclusion then is that business power has increased, and state power has declined. But is this really the only and the best way of conceptualising what has happened? It can be argued that both state power and the power of business has expanded, or that business power has increased compared to the power of other social forces, but that state power is an altogether different matter. In the end, the editors conclude that the Indian state will remain an activist state that promotes private-sector-led growth, and especially growth by national capital (p. 284). I fully agree!

Engaged Buddhism refers to Buddhists who are seeking ways to apply the insights from meditation practice and dharma teachings to situations of social, political, environmental, and economic suffering and injustice.
The Non-duality of Personal and Social Practice is making such engagement possible even today.  Buddhist teachings themselves as the restrictive social conditions within which Asian Buddhism has had to function. To survive in the often ruthless world of kings and emperors, Buddhism needed to emphasize its otherworldliness. This encouraged Buddhist institutions and Buddhist teachings (especially regarding karma and merit) to develop in ways that did not question the social order. In India today, Modern democracy and respect for human rights, however imperfectly realized, offer new opportunities for understanding the broader implications of Buddhist teachings. Furthermore, while it is true that the post/modern world is quite different from the Buddha’s, Buddhism is thriving today because its basic principles remain just as true as when the Buddha taught them.
A classic case of engaged Buddhism in India is discussed in this paper which deliberates on the Dalit- Buddhist equation in modern India. For Dalits, whose material circumstances were completely different from the higher castes, the motivation continually remained: to find out concerning suffering and to achieve its finish, in every person’s life and in society. Several of them have turned to Dhamma in response to the Buddha’s central message concerning suffering and therefore the finish of suffering.

This paper estimates the constituency-level development effects of quotas for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) in India, using a unique dataset of development indicators for more than 3,100 state assembly constituencies in 15 Indian states in 1971 and 2001. Matching constituencies on pretreatment variables from 1971, I find that 30 years of quotas had no detectable constituency-level effect on overall development or redistribution to SCs. Interviews with politicians and civil servants in 2010 and 2011 suggest that these findings can be explained by the power of political parties and the electoral incentives created by the quota system.

never deeply anti-business (p. 4), the political and economic elite always had a working relationship (ibid.), Nehru was no antibusiness ideologue (p. 6) and similar views can be found scattered around in the book. Even the often-used example of the nationalisation of the largest private banks in 1969 (p. 284) is not by definition an example of socialist policies. This, finally, also raises the question of the concept of ‘power’ in the book. The way power is conceptualised seems to be as a zero-sum relationship between state and business power. The overall conclusion then is that business power has increased, and state power has declined. But is this really the only and the best way of conceptualising what has happened? It can be argued that both state power and the power of business has expanded, or that business power has increased compared to the power of other social forces, but that state power is an altogether different matter. In the end, the editors conclude that the Indian state will remain an activist state that promotes private-sector-led growth, and especially growth by national capital (p. 284). I fully agree!

When Women Paid Tax to Cover Their Breasts by Lavanya Shanbhogue Arvind
BEWARE! HINDUTVA RULERS ARE COMMITTED TO BRING BACK SUCH OBNOXIOUS TIMES WHEN CASTEISM RULED
MUST READ.
LINK:
https://madrascourier.com/insight/when-women-paid-tax-to-cover-their-breasts/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=when_women_paid_tax_to_cover_their_breasts&utm_term=2019-04-01
This amazing piece appeared in MADRAS COURIER and is being reproduced with thanks to MC. It is an exclusive work of Lavanya Shanbhogue Arvind.
Incidentally, my FB page was blocked for the crime that I put this piece there!

Dalit musicians offer a radical imagination of music that breaks open the binaries of the sonic while adopting multiple genres, technologies, and emerging soundscapes. Radhika Kumar T he young Dalit rapper, Sumeet Samos, from Odisha, was recently in the news for crowdfunding his tuition fees at the University of Oxford. While he was able to raise around `38 lakh in three hours, Samos also faced vitriol, hate, and abusive social media posts, forcing him to

MUST READ
https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/landlessness-takes-away-dalits-legal-and-official-validity-as-indian-citizens/story-1QeT0Tjwp3dbdJjI93OXQJ.html
Landlessness takes away Dalits’ legal and official validity as Indian citizens
Citizenship requires entitlement to resources. The community must stake claim to State-owned land.
Analysis Updated: Jul 01, 2019 09:00 IST

Suraj Yengde

According to the recent data published by the Census of India, 71% Dalits are landless labourers who work on land they do not own. (Ravindra Joshi/HT PHOTO)
We must face the fact. And the fact is: our krishi pradhan desh (farming-prime country) is also a jaati pradhan desh (caste-prime country). If we merge these two phenomena, a toxic cocktail emerges, which is the reality of the country right now: a jaatiya-krishi pradhan desh (caste-prime farming country) responsible for creating more poverty, increased atrocity, and low productivity.
Dalits are not independent in India. They are a displaced people, exiled in their ancestral land, wandering about as stateless subjects. This landlessness takes away their legal, official and constitutional validity as the Indian. The community is desperately in need of a second freedom — which must be material freedom, and not merely on paper. The first step towards becoming an empowered Indian citizen is the ownership of land.
REPRODUCED WITH THANKS TO HINDUSTAN TIMES, DELHI

https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/payal-tadvi-mumbai-doctor-suicide-caste-5753378/
The Shadow of Caste by Professor Shah Alam
Mumbai doctor’s suicide highlights, once again, discrimination in medical institutions.
In his victory speech at the BJP headquarters following the enormous Lok Sabha mandate, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that there are only two castes in India now — the poor and those who will alleviate poverty. Even before the reverberations of his words died down, a young doctor from Mumbai, Payal Tadvi of the BYL Nair Hospital committed suicide. She was allegedly facing persistent caste-based harassment from her seniors at the hospital. Tadvi had taken admission in the MD gynaecology course in May 2018 through the caste-based quota. Despite what the PM says, caste continues to be the horrific reality of Indian society.

REPRODUCED WITH THANKS TO THE INDIAN EXPRESS, DELHI, 29-05-2019.

Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar was inspired from Mahatma Phule. He raised women’s issues as Member of Legislative Council during a debate in the Bombay Legislative Assembly. In his address on November 10, 1938,
he strongly advocated family planning measures and said that besides many other problems, giving birth to too many children negatively  ffects a mother’s health....The movement of Mahatma Jyotiba Phule was, thus, very well carried forward and enacted by Dr Ambedkar.

We are passing through very critical times. With PM Modi and his ministers claiming that they are RSS cadres and taking instructions form their 'Mother', the RSS the days of a democratic-secular India seems to be numbered. It is because RSS wants to convert India into a Hindu theocratic state, denigrates Tricolour, Indian Constitution, federalism, democracy. It wants to replace Indian Constitution with Manusmriti which does not treat Dalits and women as humans.  This article produces documents from the RSS archives to show its anti-national and anti-social character.

This paper estimates the constituency-level development effects of quotas for the Scheduled Castes (SCs) in India, using a unique dataset of development indicators for more than 3,100 state assembly constituencies in 15 Indian states in 1971 and 2001. Matching constituencies on pretreatment variables from 1971, I find that 30 years of quotas had no detectable constituency-level effect on overall development or redistribution to SCs. Interviews with politicians and civil servants in 2010 and 2011 suggest that these findings can be explained by the power of political parties and the electoral incentives created by the quota system. (JEL D72, J15, O15, O17, Z13)

Engaged Buddhism refers to Buddhists who are seeking ways to apply the insights from meditation practice and dharma teachings to situations of social, political, environmental, and economic suffering and injustice. The Non-duality of Personal and Social Practice is making such engagement possible even today. Buddhist teachings themselves as the restrictive social conditions within which Asian Buddhism has had to function. To survive in the often ruthless world of kings and emperors, Buddhism needed to emphasize its otherworldliness. This encouraged Buddhist institutions and Buddhist teachings (especially regarding karma and merit) to develop in ways that did not question the social order. In India today, Modern democracy and respect for human rights, however imperfectly realized, offer new opportunities for understanding the broader implications of Buddhist teachings. Furthermore, while it is true that the post/modern world is quite different from the Buddha‟s, Buddhism is thriving ...

The intimate and intense conflict developed between Tollywood actor and Jana Sena Party (JSP) founder Pawan Kalyan and Director Mahesh Kathi in the year 2017 due to the enthusiasm of the former fanatic fans is analysed.

Primarily published on personal blog: www.ssanthiswaroop.wordpress.com

Engaged Buddhism refers to Buddhists who are seeking ways to apply the insights from meditation practice and dharma teachings to situations of social, political, environmental, and economic suffering and injustice. The Non-duality of Personal and Social Practice is making such engagement possible even today. Buddhist teachings themselves as the restrictive social conditions within which Asian Buddhism has had to function. To survive in the often ruthless world of kings and emperors, Buddhism needed to emphasize its otherworldliness. This encouraged Buddhist institutions and Buddhist teachings (especially regarding karma and merit) to develop in ways that did not question the social order. In India today, Modern democracy and respect for human rights, however imperfectly realized, offer new opportunities for understanding the broader implications of Buddhist teachings. Furthermore, while it is true that the post/modern world is quite different from the Buddha’s, Buddhism is thriving ...

RSS/BJP claim to safeguard the interests of Dalits who are referred to as Sudras in Manusmriti. Is it possible? A renowned Indian journalist tries to find out the answer. Since RSS/BJP held Hinduism/Hindu nation/Casteism as synonymous, this set of Indian rulers are simply fooling the Dalits.

For the past few months a lot of discussions and debates have been going around India on the question of ‘Freedom’ (Azadi). After the death of Rohith Vemula and the arrest of Kanhayya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirbhan Bhattacharya the echoes of Azadi has touched sky heights across India. Parallel to this, another question dominating the public spaces is that of nationalism or anti-nationalism and one’s loyalty towards nation. Freedom of speech, expression, religion, thought, governance, choice of ones’ likes and dislikes has been upheld by the Indian Constitution and by various international laws, covenants and conventions to which India is also a signatory as well as ratified by the Indian state. This paper discusses the need for such a critical discussion at this juncture

Doms are the most marginalised and isolated community among the Dalits in India. Varanasi is famous for its Ghat and one of them where the Doms burns the dead bodies. Doms had been traditionally engaged in picking up and cremating dead bodies but that apart they are also engaged in cleaning human excreta manually. They are still out of civilisation and thoroughly isolated and ostracised. It is time when we seriously make our policies and planning as per communities and reach them. Varanasi Municiple Corporation claim there is no manual scavenging in the city but we have proof of it. We ask the government, what has it done to honorably rehabilitate those who are engaged in Manual scavenging.