31.01.2026.Untouchability News.(News of Dalits,Adivasi,atrocity,buddhist,Dr Ambedkar,Employement,Education news details from various sources)by Sivaji.Ayyayiram UTNews.9444917060
Denied access to funeral ground, Dalits light pyre on Bihar road
PATNA: Dalit villagers in Bihar's Vaishali lit the pyre of a 91-year-old woman in the middle of a public road after allegedly being prevented from accessing the local cremation ground, sparking tensions and an inquiry.
According to villagers and police, the funeral procession of Jhapsi Devi, a resident of Sondho-Vashudeo village in Goraul area, was on its way to the cremation ground on Thursday when some “influential” villagers allegedly stopped them. Enraged, the villagers carried the body to the middle of the road and cremated it there in full public view amid chants of Vedic rituals.
Jhapsi died late Wednesday. The woman’s son, Sanjeet Manjhi, said the family was left with no option. “Jab ham logon ko nahin jane diya, toh gaon ke log bole ki yahi (road) par phoonk do (When we were not allowed to go the cremation site, villagers said we should hold the cremation here on the road itself,” Sanjeet said.
Mewalal Manjhi, 67, another villager who was part of the procession, voiced deep despair. “We are poor, with no house and no land. Now, we are not even being allowed to cremate the bodies of our dead,” Mewalal asked.
Courtesy : TOI
Coimbatore: Cow dung smeared in office after Dalit manager’s transfer, bus driver suspended
Coimbatore: A deeply shameful incident of caste discrimination has come to light from Coimbatore district of Tamil Nadu. Here, a bus driver from the Mettupalayam branch-1 had the floor of his branch manager's office cleaned with cow dung after the manager's transfer. The reason behind this despicable act is said to be the manager's Scheduled Caste (SC) background.
According to a report by the New Indian Express, after the incident came to light, senior officials of the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) took swift action and suspended the accused driver, S. Sashiraj. Sashiraj is also the secretary of the transport corporation’s ‘LPF’ union.
What is the whole matter?
The incident took place on January 23. The then branch manager of the Mettupalayam branch, D. Prakashkumar, who belongs to the Scheduled Caste, was recently transferred to Ukkadam. It is alleged that immediately after his departure, Sashiraj had the office floor smeared with cow dung through a cleaner. According to eyewitnesses, the driver made derogatory remarks, saying that “the dirt (referring to the manager) has been cleaned from the branch.”
Surprisingly, all this happened in front of Prakashkumar, who is deeply shocked and has not returned to work since then.
Serious allegations of bullying and discrimination
Sources in the transport corporation have made several serious revelations about Sashiraj’s working methods. While holding the post of Traffic Controller, Sashiraj allegedly assigned long and difficult routes to Scheduled Caste employees, while allocating shorter and more comfortable routes to people from his own community. It is alleged that he extorted money from employees for granting leave and preferred duties.
Due to his political influence, he also disregarded the orders of the branch managers. In the last one and a half years, six branch managers have been transferred because of his actions. Reason for the conflict
The current manager, D. Prakashkumar, had refused to comply with Shashi Raj’s arbitrary demands and had also issued him a memo for engaging in caste-based discrimination. Angered by this, Shashi Raj allegedly exerted pressure on higher officials, resulting in Prakashkumar’s transfer without any valid reason.
The accused’s defense
On the other hand, the suspended driver, Shashi Raj, has completely denied all these allegations. He claims that the accusations against him are politically motivated and false. Shashi Raj argued that he was merely maintaining the cleanliness of the office and that the room was cleaned that day as part of routine maintenance because it was dirty.
TNSTC’s Coimbatore regional officials have confirmed that an internal inquiry into the matter has been initiated. The driver will remain suspended until the inquiry report is submitted. This incident has once again brought the deeply entrenched casteist mentality within government departments to the forefront of public debate.
Rajan Chaudhary
Courtesy: Hindi News
30 yrs on, man accused of attemptto rape of Dalit girl gets 5 yrs in jail
Agra: A special SC/ST court in Firozabad has sentenced a convict, now 60, to five years' imprisonment and imposed a fine of Rs 14,000 in a case dating back over three decades, involving the attempt to rape of an 11-year-old Dalit girl.
“The incident took place on May 6, 1995. The case remained pending in court. Now, under ‘Operation Conviction’, police traced the girl (now 41, married and settled in another district) and produced her before the court for testimony. Also, retired police personnel who were witnesses in that case were identified and located,” Narendra Solanki, additional district govt counsel, told TOI.
The ADGC added: “After examining all witnesses and evidence, the court of additional district judge, Navneet Kumar Giri, on Wednesday finally held the accused man guilty and sentenced him to five years’ jail. The court also stated that half the fine amount should be given to the victim.” After the court’s verdict, the convict was taken into custody and sent back to jail.
Meanwhile, police in Firozabad, in its statement, stated, “The victim was only 11 years old at the time of the incident. Through tireless efforts, she was located. There were a total of four police officers who were witnesses in this case, all of whom retired (on pension) over time. Their testimonies provided a logical and strong basis for the case.”
In 1995, after receiving a complaint by the girl’s father, an FIR was registered under IPC section and the SC/ST Act. The accused was arrested and sent to jail. He later got bail. Police then submitted a chargesheet in court.
In the complaint, the father had stated, “The accused forcibly took away our daughter while she was asleep. He grabbed her and attempted to rape her. When she screamed out aloud, he thrashed her, repeatedly. Villagers came out and identified the man, before he managed to flee.”
Notably, ‘Operation Conviction’ was initiated by UP Police to deliver swift and time-bound justice in serious criminal cases, particularly against hardened criminals.
Courtesy : TOI
Refusal to see caste discrimination, not ‘false complaints’, is the real crisis on campus
Little will change until institutes recognise the experiences of Dalit, Adivasi and OBC students.
An Indian student during a protest rally against the government’s recommendation for 50% reservation for backward classes in education and government jobs, in this photograph from Bengaluru in May 2006.
The University Grants Commission’s updated rules to address caste discrimination in higher education institutes have sparked outrage among Savarna commentators and students. They claim that they will become victims of false complaints and that the provisions will be weaponised against them.
But this reflects a continuing refusal to listen to experiences of caste discrimination on campuses, something I have witnessed closely since 2022 when I became the first elected student representative of the Equal Opportunity Cell at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
As part of student committees and through my research on caste injustice, I have seen how the claim that Dalit, Adivasi and OBC students misuse guidelines against general category students is invoked when a caste discrimination complaint is filed. This negative framing favours the student or professor accused of casteism and rarely accounts for the humiliation or insensitive behaviour faced by the student making the complaint.
Over the past few days, Savarna students have framed themselves as potential victims of the UGC rules, issued on January 13, recentering the issue of casteist discrimination around their anxieties. On January 29, the Supreme Court stayed the new rules after hearing a public interest litigation which claimed that the guidelines were vague and could be misused.
Akhil Kang, a queer Dalit scholar who has extensively written about “upper-caste victimhood”, argues that claims of upper-caste victimhood are not about actual harm. Instead, they are about preserving moral innocence in the face of caste accountability.
Illustrating Kang’s observation, upper-caste students are floating hypothetical situations in which they could be victimised by the UGC guidelines. For example, one Instagram post claims that a general category female student is now afraid of being accused of caste discrimination if she rejects the advances of a male student from the Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe category.
Such claims displace attention from the everyday experiences of discrimination of Dalit and Adivasi students, who remain unacknowledged in classrooms and are rendered invisible on campuses where merit is routinely read through caste.
Caste on campus
As part of a meeting called by the National Task Force set up by the Supreme Court on January 12, I highlighted three crucial observations based on my experience of observing casteism on campus. The meeting was attended by anti-caste intellectuals, academics, activists and student representatives from universities in Delhi.
First, caste is seemingly invisible and so it is difficult to prove that it exists. But the discriminatory effects of caste are primarily experienced by Dalit, Adivasi and OBC students.
For example, a professor may make a student wait outside their office hours every day just to address one concern or speak to them. The student could wait for days on end, often feeling humiliated. But this will not be recognised as “casteism”.
This same professor could ask about the student’s rank in the entrance exam – using the phrase “hawa kya hai?”, or what’s the AIR, or all India rank. Ambedkarite student collectives across the IITs have stressed that asking a student’s rank should be counted as caste discrimination. Rank indicates whether a student was admitted in the general or Dalit, Adivasi and OBC students.
The student might then be labelled incompetent and underperforming, and the professor could suggest that they be expelled from IIT Delhi for not being meritorious.
The student could find their admission and place at the institute being attacked and so end up writing to the administration and Equal Opportunity Cell, or SC/ST cell, seeking legal recourse. The Equal Opportunity Cell registers the student’s complaint, and thereafter, a committee is set up to inquire into caste discrimination. This illustrates how faculty and resource persons in an institution refuse to listen to a student who feels neglected or socially excluded.
Congress workers protest against the death by suicide of doctoral scholar Rohith Vemula, in this photograph from January 2016. Credit: AFP.
Second, caste reveals itself through networks and support systems.
A general category student might instantly feel a sense of belonging in the classroom while a Dalit, Adivasi or OBC student may continuously invest energy in proving or defending their merit.
As a student representative, I have observed that the network of Savarna scholars does not easily offer support to Dalit, Adivasi and OBC students and often has preconceived notions about who is meritorious or deserving.
Savarna students travel easily through these networks, receiving guidance on scholarships abroad, building academic connections, seeking funding and finding opportunities to get published. But Dalit students have to hustle merely to get signatures on recommendation letters.
Even if students have got admission on merit, they are always made to feel inadequate. “No matter how I perform, I feel invisible in the classroom,” a Dalit BTech student told me off the record on campus. “The Savarna professor never acknowledges my greeting.”
Such an environment attacks the confidence of Dalit, Adivasi and OBC students. The demoralisation shows itself in lesser grades, poor progress reports and lonely or isolated students in campus spaces.
It is a challenge to define this experience of being made to feel invisible, but what can be defined are broader actions – the implicit or explicit bias on the campus.
Many Dalit and Adivasi scholars report feeling depressed, which I believe is a result of an uncaring institutional structure that does not provide motivation, appreciation nor respond to their efforts properly.
In 2022, I emailed the IIT-Delhi mental health team asking why caste-based trauma was missing from the counselling options of gender, LGBTQ+, violence, relationship problems and campus problems. It was aimed at making the institute recognise the reality of the trauma of caste. IIT-Delhi positively implemented this, by adding “caste-based trauma” as an option on its YourDost website, which provides counselling to enrolled students.
The third observation was the challenge Dalit Adivasi students face to “prove” casteist discrimination. Students resort to methods such as recording verbal encounters with the perpetrators. Committees view this suspiciously, furthering the narrative that the complainant has “misused” their freedom as a student. I highlighted this concern to convey the need for camera surveillance inside hostel lobbies, as deaths often occur in hostel rooms.
The unheard testimony
The refusal to acknowledge casteism is a structural response to Dalit assertion, an indignation sparked by outspoken Dalit, Adivasi and OBC students. Students who file caste discrimination complaints are seen as “troublemakers” rather than lonely, isolated individuals who had no other recourse.
Listening demands acknowledging the testimony of the narrator. But the benefit of the doubt is largely given to the accused student in these instances since it is assumed that the perpetrator was “unaware that their behavior was casteist”.
Despite the complainant narrating that they were made to feel socially excluded or discriminated against through certain actions, words, or behaviour, the perpetrator is likely to dismiss such claims.
The events that follow the filing of such a complaint are rarely discussed.
Social redressal largely depends on the equity committee and how it is formed. The UGC had told the Supreme Court that 90% of caste complaints were “resolved”, but it does not state what the resolution entails. Committees often bargain to ensure that the accused apologises to the survivor, recognising discrimination. There are many instances when the complainant never receives an apology and the case is closed.
Finally, caste consciousness may differ among students as well: based on friendships or other ties, Dalit, Adivasi and OBC students can also disagree about whether an incident counts as caste discrimination.
Together, it shows how ending caste discrimination on campus is an enormous social challenge.
But until individuals and institutions embedded in caste privilege are willing to listen and extend care through listening, caste will continue to reproduce itself through denial and deepening divisions in universities.
Any equity policy, including the UGC’s latest guidelines, will do little to eradicate casteism unless there is an institutional commitment to listen to testimonies of discrimination without suspicion or dismissal.
Shainal Verma
Shainal Verma is a sociologist trained at IIT-Delhi, researching gender, labour, and caste, and was a former student representative of the SC/ST Cell.
Courtesy : Scroll
Elderly Dalit Woman Cremated on Road in Bihar After Family Barred from Village Cremation Ground
An elderly Dalit woman was cremated on a public road in Bihar’s Vaishali district after her family was allegedly stopped from accessing the village cremation ground, triggering outrage and tension in the area.
The incident took place on Thursday at Sontho Andhari village under the Goraul police station limits. The woman, identified as Jhapki Devi, 95, belonged to a Mahadalit family. According to locals and police, when her family tried to take her body to the cremation ground, some people blocked the route, leaving the family with no option but to perform the last rites on the road.
Family members and residents said the obstruction has been a long-standing issue. “Every time we take a body for cremation, the way is blocked. This has happened earlier too, but no permanent solution was given,” said a local resident from Manjhi Tola, expressing anger over repeated denial of access.
As tensions rose, the funeral procession stopped at Andhari Gachi Chowk, where the body was placed on a pyre in front of a Shiva temple and cremated on the road. Angry villagers alleged that the pathway from the main road to the cremation ground has been encroached upon by local landowners.
Police and administrative officials later reached the spot. A fire brigade vehicle was called to extinguish the pyre, and the road was cleaned after the cremation. Public representatives who arrived at the scene were reportedly chased away by protesting villagers, who accused the administration of ignoring their complaints for years.
Vaishali Superintendent of Police Vikram Sihag said the issue arose due to the absence of a clear path. “Earlier, there was a route to the cremation ground, but some people built a temple on that path. Due to the lack of access, the family carried out the cremation on the road,” he said. He added that discussions were held with local officials and that arrangements would be made to restore access to the cremation ground. “The situation is currently under control,” the SP said.
Block Development Officer Pankaj Kumar Nigam and Circle Officer Divya Chanchal said the area has been cleared and the matter is being investigated. “All aspects will be examined, and steps will be taken to ensure that such incidents do not happen again,” they said.
Courtesy : TOP
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