Friday, July 6, 2007

Dalit issues

What?
The Rajasthan state Govt. is planning to bring a bill in assembly to amend the provision of 42-B of Rajasthan tenancy Act. 1955. Which barred the people of other than SC/ST community to purchase the land of SC/ST communities.

Why?
For your consideration, during the last 8 months some unknown people of other than SC/ST communities have purchased thousands of hectares of land of SC/ST communities in almost all the districts of Rajasthan.

The cities of Rajasthan are getting populated every day due to the every day findings of petroleum and mineral products and ever increasing tourism industry. Alike the findings of minerals, new construction houses are also coming to the state to en cash the everyday increasing demand of houses for newly rich of the area. The share of SC/ST communities in the land around the small and big cities is about 30%. In the presence of bar 42 B this land can not be purchased by any person other then SC/ST community. The builders are lobbying in side the Govt. to bring amendment in the bar 42 b so that these builders could purchase this land to earn millions of bucks.

The effect
If the bar 42 b is eliminated, the builders then freely can purchase the land of SC/ST communities, not only this the upper caste people, because of whom this act came in the existence are ready with the money to purchase their agricultural and residential lands.
There are thousands of cases are pending the different courts under this bar, if it is eliminated, the SC/ST community would loose millions of hectares of lands.

Due to this bar the land of SC/ST community is speared from sell. This is well known that this community owns very small portion of land only and this is the basis of livelihood for them.
People of these communities are very poor and suffer with stark conditions in their daily life. They always remain in the need of money due to persisting diseases and debt.
This is to sensitize the community on the issue so that all the people show there objections and pressurize the Govt. for not take this step.

Thursday, July 5, 2007

PROMOTING DALIT RIGHTS THROUGH CIVIL SOCIETY INITIATIVES
In Western Rajasthan

PRESENT STATUS OF DALITS IN RAJASTHAN
The population of dalits in the state of Rajasthan is 17.29%, which is higher than all India population of around 15%. Rajasthan, having a feudal past, the target groups, the dalit men and women are the worst sufferers of Indian caste system which not only perpetuates social hierarchy but also institutionalised discrimination and social exclusion, The key issues are untouchability, susceptibility to physical violence, barriers to participate in decision making process and access to basic services. All these lead to extreme level of marginalisation and dehumanisation of the dalits and women.

India’s social structure has kept a vast majority of its population under utterly sub-human conditions. That is why human rights in India cannot be just restricted to rhetoric of the international conventions and constitutional provisions. In this context, Dr. Ambedkar’s remarks in the Constitutional Assembly must be kept in mind. “On 26 January, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics, we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics we will be recognising the principle of one man, one vote and one vote one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man one value. How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic democracy in peril? We must remove this contradictions at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which is assembly has so laboriously built up”.

Following are some of the issues of dalits in Western Rajasthan;

Discrimination and atrocities
Violence against “untouchables” is growing, according to Human Rights Watch Report (1999). This can perhaps be attributed to a growing awareness amongst dalits leading to more reporting of the cases and/or increase retaliation by the caste forces. Western Rajasthan is also witnessing growing incidences of caste violence. The violence ranges from verbal abuse to rape to even murder. Dalits continue to suffer discrimination, harassment and victimization in public and private domains including state controlled institutions and community managed organizations. There is discriminatory access to basic services like water points, health centres, schools. There is complete denial for access to religious places. Non conformity to these invites violent reaction including atrocities. This exemplifies the deep rooted bias in society’s attitude to dalits, which not only negate the existence of the community but also stigmatizes them.

Loss of livelihood and landlessness
Due to the stigma associated to certain occupations of dalits, the community is tending to disassociate itself from there hereditary occupations. Although dalits have started to explore alternative livelihood opportunities such as agriculture, their comparative disadvantage at not being adept to the profession leaves them with few opportunities. Further, land available to them is usually of the poorest quality and situation get aggravated due to recurrent droughts in the region. Local influential caste forces in communion with political elements have also played a significant role in grabbing lands belonging to the dalit community. The Rajasthan Land Tenancy Act, 1955 created to regularise the land possession and collection of revenues was also routinely manoeuvred to by the influential people to gain control of lands owned by the dalit community.

During the last several years, there has been increasing trend of automation and mechanisation of public work. Although it increases efficiency, such practices do not create employment for local people. The main sufferers as a result of this trend are the dalits. In such a situation they are left with few opportunities apart from hard physical labour to earn their livelihoods. Globalisation and free market big industries have also reduced the meagre income that dalits could make from small scale and home based industries. Notable are the leather and handloom sectors.

Double Marginalisation of dalit women
The situation of Dalit women is characterised through double marginality. Their situation is marked by a double oppression: they experience an oppression of society, based on caste discrimination, and an oppression committed by men at family level, which is based on the patriarchal values. Dalit women’s oppression is related to all existing levels: social, cultural, political, economic, religious, etc. Especially in the rural scene a lot of prejudices concerning Dalit women are still predominant and they turn everyday life of women into a daily survival struggle. In the dominant social context, there are prescribed expectations and role models for an ideal woman. Women’s lives are determined and regulated by these cultural as well as religiously influenced rules or expectations. Right and control over women and their lives lie in the hands of male family members.

Women are virtually absent from decision-making positions in the society as well as in the political, administrative and academic sphere. This can be seen as due to various factors, like insufficient knowledge, lack of experience, inadequate support, sense of duty regarding their families and last but not least the influence of a patriarchal system that doesn’t want to see women in this kind of positions.

The prejudice concerning dalit women’s “loose morality” is due to the fact that the women in dalit community enjoy more freedom than in other caste groups. Due to the fact that they work they are more tuned to the public sphere. In an economic way they are more independent than other women and thus in the perception of other caste seem to be failing to adhere to the norms of society. Dalit communities in their attempt towards upward social mobility also tend to demand similar behaviour patterns from women of their community, thereby curtailing their freedom.

Barriers to access to basic services – education , health and water
Due to the practice of untouchability dalit communities are not allowed to access basic services in equal terms. Even when village level plans are developed, needs of the dalit communities are not give due consideration. As a consequence dalit communities do not have adequate access to facilities and services. In villages, dalits are not allowed to sit with the rest of the community in the panchayat or in schools. There are incidences when dalit women have to wait for hours to fetch water from community wells as they are not allowed to use the facility on their own. Because of this dehumanising practice dalit children drop out from schools, dalit elected representatives do not attend meetings. In tea shops dalits are not allowed to use the cups, and they have stopped drinking tea to maintain their dignity. Though government has fixed reserve quotas in government jobs and educational institutions, very little has been reached to the dalits.

Almost same condition can be found for the other facilities like health and water. Dalits because they are working in extremely bad conditions (especially in mining), lack of nutritious food, inaccessible good drinking water and harsh climatic conditions are vulnerable to health related problems. They can not afford private means of health care and government centres are not always accessible because of both discrimination and physical distance.

Restricted Political participation
Even though the 73rd and 74th amendment to the Constitution of India provides for reservation to dalit communities for representation in panchayats and municipalities, their leadership has not achieved social acceptance. In many places, dalit sarpanches are not allowed to function as the leader of the panchayat and the up-sarpanch from other castes continue to play the lead roles. The matter becomes more serious in the case of women dalit elected representatives. Such cases do not even get reported as there is high coercion on the dalit leaders. There are many instances where dalit men and women are not allowed to hoist the National Flag, or even sit in their designated chairs.

ORGANISATION’S EXPERIENCE ON DALIT ISSUE
Jai Bheem Vikas Shikshan Sansthan is a voluntary organisation working in the blocks of Sheragarh and Balesor to organise and build capacities amongst dalit. The organisation is a part of Western Rajasthan level campaign on dalit issue, ‘Dalit Rights Campaign’, which is a collaborative initiative of local NGOs and dalit community leaders in the region. Focuses of our activities are as follows;
To organise dalit men and women at village, block and regional level.
To build leadership of dalit men and women through capacity building on issues of legal understanding, local advocacy, social analysis and facilitating process of evolving dalit ideology at all the levels.
To support men and women victims of dalit discrimination, atrocities and land alienation through legal support, counselling and mobilising local dalits on the issue.
To promote participation of dalit men and women in local self governance so that they can effectively participate in the decision making process.
To strengthen livelihoods of dalits through promotion of income generating activities.
To support dalits in accessing services of government and non government institutions.
To develop linkages with like minded institutions and individuals for promotion of dalit rights.
The present proposal has been written in light of our experience working with the dalits of the region for the last ten years. Though we and other NGOs working in the region have done tremendous work at grassroot level, there is a need of strengthening such initiative through macro level activities at regional and state level. Such holistic approach would complement the existing micro initiatives in the region, which at present is missing.