20.08.24.Untouchables News.Chennai.26.by Sivaji.and Team.
Health Minister inaugurates new school building in Chennai
Updated - August 20, 2024 12:29 am IST Chennai
Health Minister Subramanian on Monday inaugurated the new building for the Government Adi Dravidar Welfare High School in Chennai. According to a press release, as the building of the Government Adi Dravidar Welfare High School in Palavakkam was to be demolished due to the widening of East Coast Road, the school was moved to Secretariat Colony nearby. “The building was built in 1930s, and a substantial amount of the building was to be demolished due to widening works. So, on a rental basis we had taken a building owned by the University of Madras,” said an official. With as many as 300 students studying in the school, the building in Secretariat Colony was previously functioning as the A.L. Mudaliar Matriculation School. South Chennai M.P. Thamizhachi Thangapandian, Sholinganallur MLA S. Aravind Ramesh and others were present at the event.
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No pension for five months, kin of Tamil Nadu caste atrocity victims in distress
MADURAI: Hundreds of Dalit families, whose relatives were killed in caste atrocity cases, have not got the Rs 7,500 monthly pension for the past five months. The Tamil Nadu government started giving enhanced pension for these families from November 2023, sources said. According to Dalit Liberation Movement (DLM) state secretary C Karuppiah, around 506 beneficiary families across the state have not received the amount from March this year.
According to Adi Dravidar welfare department officials about 49 families in Madurai, 29 families in Dindigul, and several families in Tiruppur have not got their pension. “The pension scheme has not been scrapped. There is a delay in disbursal of the monthly payment due to fund allocation issues. It will be sorted out soon,” said a departnent official in Madurai.
Speaking to TNIE, Karuppiah said, “These are not isolated cases. Around 506 beneficiary families are suffering for past five months. Almost all the families are poor and some of them have no male members as the husbands and sons had died in caste clashes.”
K Murugambal (51) of Dindigul said, “My son Dinesh was studying in Class 11 when he was hacked to death by the brother of a girl and his friends over suspicion of relationship in 2010. A case was registered under the SC/ST Act and the accused were convicted by the Dindigul sub-court. I received a compensation of Rs 75,000 and was promised Rs 1,000 per month as family pension under SC/ST Act.
But the money wasn’t paid. In 2021, I was paid Rs 1 lakh as arrears of the total pension. In November 2023, a family pension of Rs 7,500 per month was offered. But, after four months, the pension amount got stopped.” S Thanikodi of Madurai said, “My sister Lakshmi was murdered by a youth from a dominant community at Thottampatti village in Madurai in 2007.
After much delay and judge’s warning, the culprit was arrested and a case was registered under the SC/ST Act. The accused was sentenced to life in 2019. We received a compensation of Rs 75,000. In 2021, we received Rs 1 lakh as compensation arrears. We got Rs 7,500 monthly pension for four months between November 2023 and March 2024, but it was stopped later.“
Adi Dravidar welfare department secretary G Lakshmi Priya could not be reached for her comments.
Thangalaan: The gold mined in Kolar’s KGF is indeed the blood of Dalits
*Spoilers ahead*
“It was super!” exclaimed Faiz, the eight-year-old son of youth and labour activist Muneer Katipalla, as we walked out of the film theatre after watching
Faiz then told my partner Kavya Achyut, “If you dig the ground for gold, your house above it could turn to dust. Just ask your mom once.” Before the movie began, Kavya had mentioned to Faiz that there was a gold mine under her house in KGF (Kolar Gold Fields), in Kolar district of Karnataka.
Such was the power of the magical realism in Pa Ranjith’s Thangalaan that an eight-year-old child picked up on the destruction caused by the mines. If you go to watch the film expecting a chronicling of the tragedy that unfolded in KGF, you might think that Pa Ranjith has made it into a horror film — given the snakes, spirits, and possessed people that appear throughout the film. But the effect is such that the tragedy that KGF’s gold mines wrought stays etched in your mind, long after leaving the theatre.
Couldn’t Pa Ranjith have simply told the story of how the British, in their lust for gold, extracted slavery from a Dalit community from Tamil Nadu, and how they were buried in the very earth that they dug, in a straightforward manner? Had Ranjith climbed the cyanide hills — the hillocks of cyanide-laden waste generated by the mines — wouldn’t he have found real stories of thousands of Dalits? Couldn’t his film have told the stories of the struggles of those buried beneath the red and blue flags visible from the KGF shafts? These questions may occur to people who know of the destruction that KGF wrought. But magical realism possesses a power that goes beyond direct storytelling and leaves its mark on the minds of everyone, be it children or adults. It has the power to imprint reality in our minds through magic, and Thangalaan succeeds brilliantly at that.
Through the spirit Arathi who repeatedly asks if “gold brings everything,” the film tells the story of how gold mining laid waste to KGF and of those who survived it, and concludes that “gold will destroy your life.”
Pa Ranjith clearly conveys that the gold we wear is the blood of Dalits. In the film, Ranjith shows that after the head of Buddha’s idol was severed, the oppressors used the oppressed to attack Arathi’s body, which then bleeds rivers of blood. Arathi’s blood turns into gold. The king then finds gold in the very plains beneath the mountain that Arathi protected. The blood of the black panther, representing the Dalits, also turns into gold.
This blood turning into gold is not merely a metaphor limited to Ranjith’s fictional film, but reflects reality. The gold mined from the earth beneath KGF is indeed the blood of Dalits.
The disease silicosis was first identified in India in the KGF mining area. In 1934, Dr S Subba Rao, a senior physician of the Mysuru government, identified silicosis and submitted a report to the government. Those suffering from silicosis die from coughing up blood. Three lakh Dalits over three generations worked in the gold mines and perished, coughing up blood. This is what the film refers to, when it shows the blood gushing from Arathi’s body and turning into gold.
At the centre of Pa Ranjith’s film is the message: “Once you descend into the KGF mines in search of gold, there’s no possibility of a prosperous life.”
Agricultural workers and bonded labourers from Tamil Nadu, who were still relatively healthy, had migrated to KGF in search of daily wages. However, once they began mining for gold, their bodies bore marks of ill health. In reality too, this finds resonance. People had descended into the mines and they never came back up, even as dead bodies. The bodies of around 8,000 people over two generations were never found.
Around the time the mines were being closed in 2001, three lakh workers were employed in the KGF gold mines, and all of them were Dalits and poor. There were no toilets for these workers’ families; thousands of labourers had to use the same public toilets. When the toilet pits filled up, excrement flowed like rivers, invading the homes of the labourers.
At the time, the communist red flag was the only support for the Dalit mine workers. A red flag in one hand and a bucketful of excrement in the other, S Balan, the son of a miner, once organised thousands of workers and led a march to the municipal office. The plan was to dump the excrement on the commissioner’s head. However, the police stopped them from entering the office and attacked them with lathis. Balan, then a 35-year-old lawyer, poured the bucket of excrement over the police inspector’s head. The police dragged Balan to the station and booked him. As the first accused, Balan represented himself in court and was acquitted.
“You are the chief, Thangalaan,” a British officer tells the titular Thangalaan, the protagonist played by Vikram, entrusting him with the task of finding gold. After Thangalaan discovers gold, he is also tasked with the responsibility of bringing more labourers to excavate it. Believing that they could live a life of dignity mining for the British, the whole village of Dailts migrates along with Thangalaan. But the situation in KGF had changed. Soldiers with rifles were stationed to guard the area where Thangalaan found gold. While this is the story Pa Ranjith tells, there is a connection between KGF and the British rifles that were used against our own people.
The gold mined by “our people”, represented by Thangalaan, was sent to Britain — 8 lakh kg of it. During World War II, this gold was sold by the British to the United States for weapons. The British maintained their rule in India with the use of rifles. Labourers who thought the gold that they had mined was theirs, and tried to take it with them, were shot by the British with rifles bought with that same gold. From 1930, workers organised under the red flag. Under the communist banner, they launched a protest against the British in 1946 demanding food and wages. Responding to the call of the red flag, thousands of miners who had descended into the shafts emerged in massive numbers. The British opened fire, killing six communist leaders who fought for Dalits’ right to food and wages. The martyrs’ graves still stand in Andersonpet, KGF.
Why was magical realism necessary to narrate the tragic stories of the Dalits and the poor in KGF? Through the surreal quality of the genre, history can be presented to the public without an ideological lens.
The Dalits are the original inhabitants of this land, though there are no historical records to show for it. This land historically and culturally belonged to them, but folklore does narrate this history. Sometimes, it becomes necessary to tell this history by weaving folklore, imagination, and people’s beliefs along with history, for which magical realism is a good tool. Pa Ranjith and his crew have succeeded in using this tool excellently, and the audiences have attested to that.
Man held for killing 27-year-old Dalit man over payment issue
A 40-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly killing a 27-year-old Dalit man in Koppal district over payment for haircut
A 40-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly killing a 27-year-old Dalit man in Koppal district over payment for haircut, a police officer said.
Circle inspector Moumeshwar Patil said the incident took place on Saturday in Sanganahala village, Yalaburga taluk, when an argument broke out between Yamanuraswamy Bandihala and Mudakappa Hadapada (owner of the barber shop).
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He said: “The argument began when Mudakappa demanded payment before giving the haircut. Yamanuraswamy reportedly assured the barber that his brother would pay later, but Mudakappa allegedly insulted him with caste-based slurs... The exchange quickly intensified, and Mudakappa, in a fit of rage, stabbed Yamanuraswamy with a pair of scissors he was holding.”
Following the incident, the passersby rushed Yamanuraswamy to the Sanganala primary health centre and later transferred to the Yalaburga taluk government hospital on medical advice. However, he died.
The incident sparked outrage, with many in the community alleging that the murder was not just the result of a disagreement but also motivated by caste-based discrimination.
Inspector Patil said that a peace meeting was held on Saturday evening by police and revenue officials in Sanganahala village. He also said that no prior reports of caste-based discrimination had been recorded in the village.
“We have registered a case under BNS section 103 (murder) and the Prevention of Atrocities on SC/ST Act. The accused, Mudakappa Hadapada, was taken into custody on Saturday, and further investigations are ongoing at the Yalaburga police station,” he added.
Thangalaan: The gold mined in Kolar’s KGF is indeed the blood of Dalits
*Spoilers ahead*
“It was super!” exclaimed Faiz, the eight-year-old son of youth and labour activist Muneer Katipalla, as we walked out of the film theatre after watching
Faiz then told my partner Kavya Achyut, “If you dig the ground for gold, your house above it could turn to dust. Just ask your mom once.” Before the movie began, Kavya had mentioned to Faiz that there was a gold mine under her house in KGF (Kolar Gold Fields), in Kolar district of Karnataka.
Such was the power of the magical realism in Pa Ranjith’s Thangalaan that an eight-year-old child picked up on the destruction caused by the mines. If you go to watch the film expecting a chronicling of the tragedy that unfolded in KGF, you might think that Pa Ranjith has made it into a horror film — given the snakes, spirits, and possessed people that appear throughout the film. But the effect is such that the tragedy that KGF’s gold mines wrought stays etched in your mind, long after leaving the theatre.
Couldn’t Pa Ranjith have simply told the story of how the British, in their lust for gold, extracted slavery from a Dalit community from Tamil Nadu, and how they were buried in the very earth that they dug, in a straightforward manner? Had Ranjith climbed the cyanide hills — the hillocks of cyanide-laden waste generated by the mines — wouldn’t he have found real stories of thousands of Dalits? Couldn’t his film have told the stories of the struggles of those buried beneath the red and blue flags visible from the KGF shafts? These questions may occur to people who know of the destruction that KGF wrought. But magical realism possesses a power that goes beyond direct storytelling and leaves its mark on the minds of everyone, be it children or adults. It has the power to imprint reality in our minds through magic, and Thangalaan succeeds brilliantly at that.
Through the spirit Arathi who repeatedly asks if “gold brings everything,” the film tells the story of how gold mining laid waste to KGF and of those who survived it, and concludes that “gold will destroy your life.”
Pa Ranjith clearly conveys that the gold we wear is the blood of Dalits. In the film, Ranjith shows that after the head of Buddha’s idol was severed, the oppressors used the oppressed to attack Arathi’s body, which then bleeds rivers of blood. Arathi’s blood turns into gold. The king then finds gold in the very plains beneath the mountain that Arathi protected. The blood of the black panther, representing the Dalits, also turns into gold.
This blood turning into gold is not merely a metaphor limited to Ranjith’s fictional film, but reflects reality. The gold mined from the earth beneath KGF is indeed the blood of Dalits.
The disease silicosis was first identified in India in the KGF mining area. In 1934, Dr S Subba Rao, a senior physician of the Mysuru government, identified silicosis and submitted a report to the government. Those suffering from silicosis die from coughing up blood. Three lakh Dalits over three generations worked in the gold mines and perished, coughing up blood. This is what the film refers to, when it shows the blood gushing from Arathi’s body and turning into gold.
At the centre of Pa Ranjith’s film is the message: “Once you descend into the KGF mines in search of gold, there’s no possibility of a prosperous life.”
Agricultural workers and bonded labourers from Tamil Nadu, who were still relatively healthy, had migrated to KGF in search of daily wages. However, once they began mining for gold, their bodies bore marks of ill health. In reality too, this finds resonance. People had descended into the mines and they never came back up, even as dead bodies. The bodies of around 8,000 people over two generations were never found.
Around the time the mines were being closed in 2001, three lakh workers were employed in the KGF gold mines, and all of them were Dalits and poor. There were no toilets for these workers’ families; thousands of labourers had to use the same public toilets. When the toilet pits filled up, excrement flowed like rivers, invading the homes of the labourers.
At the time, the communist red flag was the only support for the Dalit mine workers. A red flag in one hand and a bucketful of excrement in the other, S Balan, the son of a miner, once organised thousands of workers and led a march to the municipal office. The plan was to dump the excrement on the commissioner’s head. However, the police stopped them from entering the office and attacked them with lathis. Balan, then a 35-year-old lawyer, poured the bucket of excrement over the police inspector’s head. The police dragged Balan to the station and booked him. As the first accused, Balan represented himself in court and was acquitted.
“You are the chief, Thangalaan,” a British officer tells the titular Thangalaan, the protagonist played by Vikram, entrusting him with the task of finding gold. After Thangalaan discovers gold, he is also tasked with the responsibility of bringing more labourers to excavate it. Believing that they could live a life of dignity mining for the British, the whole village of Dailts migrates along with Thangalaan. But the situation in KGF had changed. Soldiers with rifles were stationed to guard the area where Thangalaan found gold. While this is the story Pa Ranjith tells, there is a connection between KGF and the British rifles that were used against our own people.
The gold mined by “our people”, represented by Thangalaan, was sent to Britain — 8 lakh kg of it. During World War II, this gold was sold by the British to the United States for weapons. The British maintained their rule in India with the use of rifles. Labourers who thought the gold that they had mined was theirs, and tried to take it with them, were shot by the British with rifles bought with that same gold. From 1930, workers organised under the red flag. Under the communist banner, they launched a protest against the British in 1946 demanding food and wages. Responding to the call of the red flag, thousands of miners who had descended into the shafts emerged in massive numbers. The British opened fire, killing six communist leaders who fought for Dalits’ right to food and wages. The martyrs’ graves still stand in Andersonpet, KGF.
Why was magical realism necessary to narrate the tragic stories of the Dalits and the poor in KGF? Through the surreal quality of the genre, history can be presented to the public without an ideological lens.
The Dalits are the original inhabitants of this land, though there are no historical records to show for it. This land historically and culturally belonged to them, but folklore does narrate this history. Sometimes, it becomes necessary to tell this history by weaving folklore, imagination, and people’s beliefs along with history, for which magical realism is a good tool. Pa Ranjith and his crew have succeeded in using this tool excellently, and the audiences have attested to that.
Naveen Soorinje is a Kannada journalist. A version of this article was first published in Vartha Bharati. Views expressed here are the author's own.
Minor sexually assaulted in ‘NCC camp’ in Tamil Nadu, 12 more girls allege molestation
Police have arrested nine people, including a NTK party worker, for abusing several teens. Charges have been filed under POCSO.
Sexual assault. Representational Image. (iStock)
The Tamil Nadu police arrested nine people including an NTK functionary for sexually assaulting a minor at a school camp in Bargur, in the Krishnagiri district of Tamil Nadu.
The minor, studying in class eight was attending an “NCC” camp organised by the private school she was studying. While the camp took place from 5-9 August, the assault had allegedly taken place on 8 August. However, the incident came to light much later.
The minor was allegedly woken up on the night of 8 August, taken to a scheduled place and molested. The camp was attended by 17 girls of whom, 12 other girls have also complained about inappropriate touch. A case has been registered under various sections including POCSO and IPC 5o6.
It is to be noted that NCC training camps are conducted from NCC headquarters, or coordinated by the NCC commanding officers. In this particular case, Sivaraman volunteered to provide training.
In this case, Sivaraman conducted the camp without any permission under the pretext of volunteering to provide training.
Following the incident, the authorities have instructed the schools to get proper permission from the NCC authority if such training is to be conducted in schools.
One accused on the run
Apart from the main accused—NTK functionary Sivaraman, five school correspondents, the principal and two teachers have been arrested.
Sivaraman sustained a minor injury while being arrested and is being treated at the government hospital.
Krishnagiri district Superintendent of Police Thangadurai confirmed, “We have so far arrested nine people in connection with this incident. However, we are yet to apprehend one other person.”
Speaking of the other accused, the SP noted that, “A series of measures have been taken in this regard. While a special team has been set up to catch the criminal, the investigation officer and others are looking into the case.”
(Edited by Sumavarsha Kandula, with inputs from Baskar P)
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Sub-Categorisation Debate: Unanswered Questions
Aug 19, 2024
The recent Supreme Court judgement in State Of Punjab And Ors v Davinder Singh And Ors, pertaining to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, has stirred debates on the future of affirmative action in the country, and has far-reaching political consequences. The seven-judge bench judgement — split at six-one — introduced two concepts —Scheduled Castes are not a homogenous group and can therefore be classified into groups for the purpose of reservations; and that SCs and STs can be equated to ‘other backward classes’ by imposing the creamy layer principle based on economic criteria.
The arguments heated up when Dalit and tribal political parties were the first to oppose the imposition of a creamy layer provision. Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party, Chirag Paswan’s Lok Janshakti Party, Rajkumar Roat’s Bharat Adivasi Party and Chandrashekhar Azad’s Azad Samaj Party denounced the judgement. Chief Ministers of Telangana and Karnataka, both from the Congress and Jitan Ram Manjhi’s Hindustani Awam Morcha welcomed the Supreme Court judgement immediately. So did the Telugu Desam Party, which made provisions to sub-categorise Dalits in the year 2000. After a long silence, Congress said it would oppose sub-classification, and that applying the creamy layer principle would crush SC and ST communities. Samajwadi Party leaders opposed it too.
In 2018, a Supreme Court judgement diluted the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, leading to widespread protests by Dalits on April 2, 2018. This forced the Modi government to amend the Act within four months. Now, within ten days of the sub-categorisation judgement, the BJP at the Centre has stepped back on the matter of creamy layer, with the official statement being: “according to the Constitution given by B R Ambedkar, there is no provision for a creamy layer in the SC-ST reservation.
Secondly, the judgement ventures into the obiter dicta of other judgements. It opines on the imposition of creamy layer on SCs and STs, and allows states to make policies to apply this principle. The communities, however, seem to have been handed this creamy layer judgement without being heard.
The Supreme Court bench was hearing an appeal by the Punjab government against the 2004 judgement in E V Chinnaiah v State of Andhra Pradesh, where a five-judge Constitution bench declared that the sub-grouping of Dalits is unconstitutional, since they are a homogenous group. By calling SCs heterogeneous, the apex court could be treading a path of opening up doors for non-Hindus to enter the list of Scheduled Castes, fitting into the newly created heterogeneity concept.
SCs have been listed solely on the basis of the practice of untouchability, and after the 1911 Census, they became a constitutional category in the Government of India Act, 1935. This continued in the Constitution of India and Presidential Orders on the basis of the 1931 Census listing.
In the current case, the Supreme Court, while delivering an opinion on sub-classification, supported the imposition of a creamy layer on Dalits and STs. This was outside the ambit of the questions before the court.
A similar issue happened with regard to the Mandal judgement of 1992, when the nine-judge bench, while accepting reservation for OBCs, also imposed conditions on reservations. This included (i) the 50% rule, (ii) the 27% reservation limitation for 52% OBCs, (iii) the creamy layer rule, (iv) abolishing reservation in promotions for SCs, STs and OBCs.
While the Mandal judgement abolished reservation in promotion, the Congress government, under P.V. Narasimha Rao invalidated this through the 77th Amendment to the Constitution in 1995.
This resulted in a series of Supreme Court judgements, adversely impacting reservations in promotion. The Vajpayee government passed the 81st, 82nd and 85th Amendments to the Constitution in 2000, further nullifying the judgements, making it four amendments in five years. The Supreme Court further diluted reservation in promotion by imposing more conditions in its 2006 Nagraj judgement, and there has been no change since then.
One should understand that SCs and STs are not only fighting against the societal dominance of the privileged castes dragging them to the Constitutional courts. Dalit communities also neither have the funds nor the resources to fight in courts for their rights. They rely on natural justice in the parliamentary process.
The representation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in services in the states have not yet reached the required level. Economic criteria and creamy layer could affect the availability of candidates and could further increase the number of unfilled jobs in Indian Institutes of Technology, Indian Institutes of Management, universities and scientific institutions. Even now, reserved posts are vacant in many institutes due to discrimination against people from oppressed castes.
Unlike dominant castes and backward classes, several people from the Dalit communities have no assets to be evaluated on economic criteria. The creamy layer concept could do more harm than benefit the implementation of reservations.
Sub-classification might open a Pandora’s box of issues. In the absence of 2021 Census data, the current population strength of the sub-castes needs to be ascertained first through enumeration. This would mean a caste census. The data can then be used to understand the adequacy of provisions. Implementing this judgement would, therefore, be fraught with long-drawn processes.
At the cusp of 75 years since the Constitution came into force, as we look back, we are still far from one of the primary mandates of the Constitution — the abolition of untouchability.
The parliamentary scrutiny of the fallout of the recent judgement would be interesting to watch.
The Supreme Court took 11 years in the Safai Karmachari Andolan v Union of India case of 2003 to pass its judgement. It is yet to be implemented in the abolition of manual scavenging and the rehabilitation of manual scavengers.
By narrowing its vision to solely deal with repetitive appeals against reservations by majority groups, Constitutional courts could lose sight of two important mandates: The abolition of untouchability under Article 17, as well as the special care for the social and economic upliftment of oppressed castes under Article 46.
Amidst this charged debate around reservations, in 75 years, we have to a large extent failed to stop the abject and heinous indignities and atrocities committed against oppressed communities. The current judgement could be a distraction from this primary duty.
Rehnamol Raveendran teaches Political Science at the University of Allahabad
This article was originally published in Deccan Herald.
A love affair, violence and fight for justice in Dharmapuri
Violent caste-based abduction in Morappur sparks outrage and calls for justice and protection for inter-caste couples
Updated - August 20, 2024 03:00 pm IST
Published - August 19, 2024 10:07 pm IST - DHARMAPURI
The house in Keezhmorappur in Harur which was vandalised last week. | Photo Credit: N. Bashkaran
A one-man police picket stood guard outside the 350 sq.ft house of Selvam in Keezhmorappur village in Parayapatti post in Morappur on Monday. Five days ago, this place was vandalised and Selvam and his wife Kannammal (name changed) were beaten, and the latter abducted and harassed in captivity.
Selvam’s son Surendran is believed to have eloped with his childhood friend from school. The fact that the couple were qualified Agriculture graduates, aged 24 and 23 respectively, and that Surendran was gainfully employed in Coimbatore made no difference to the girl’s parents.
Cost of coffee table book on PVTGs under govt scanner
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