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Dalit boy served food in school,
so it stands locked
He
doesn't go to school anymore, police seems helpless, and caste
discrimination seems to be the norm
WSN Network
JAIPUR: When all
the guarantees that the Indian Constitution talks of are read out in
seminar halls and when the Indian leaders finally get tired of
telling us how much they have done for ameliorating the lot of the
poor dalits in the country, the ground level real story of the dalit
barely begins.
And here is a
slice of that.
In a brazen case
of bigotry, angry villagers of Kholada in Bundi district of
Rajasthan misbehaved with the teachers of the
Government
Middle
School,
even locked it, all because a Dalit student had served mid-day meals
to the school children.
The villagers
predominantly belong to the Meena tribe.
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56 Dalit
families face eviction
DHARMAPURI: Fifty six Dalit families who have been living on
0.56 cents in Sengodipuram Colony for more than six decades face
eviction. The colony was established by the late Communist
leader Jeevanantham in a plot of 4.78 acres and the Dalit
families were settled there in 1948. Cosmopolitan Club and
members of other communities were given patta in this plot for
4.23 acres but not the Dalits. Dharmapuri Municipality Council
at a meeting on July 27 passed a resolution to evict the Dalit
families with the help of the district administration. However,
Communist councillors opposed the resolution. Many of the caste
Hindu families had been paying only 0.12 paise as tax from 1954.
Instead of raising income by restructuring its tax structure the
municipality with ulterior motives was bent upon evicting the
poor people. |
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Even before the
villagers came to know of a Dalit boy serving the meals, the young
students at the school refused to eat the food rendered “impure” by
the Dalit’s touch and threw it away. Ever since the incident past
week, no Dalit student has been allowed to serve mid-day meals
anywhere in Bundi district.
A fact-finding
team of the Jaipur-based Centre for Dalit Rights came across an
atmosphere of tension and hatred against Dalits during its visit to
Kholada earlier this week. The Dalit boy is reportedly terrorised
and has stopped going to school, while there is resentment among
Dalits over the rampant untouchability.
A day after the
food was served by the boy, some anti-social elements allegedly
stopped the school Principal, Surajbhan Jat, and teacher, Ghasilal
Bairwa, on their way and misbehaved with them. Later, a group of
about 50 villagers stormed into the school and locked the building
in protest against the Dalit boy serving the meals.
According to CDR
Director Satish Kumar, the police had deliberately registered the
first information report under Sections 341 (wrongful restraint) and
353 (criminal force to deter public servant) of the Indian Penal
Code to push the issue of untouchability under the carpet.
“The FIR has not
invoked the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, which is a must in
cases of untouchability. The accused will easily escape under the
mild sections of IPC,” said Kumar.
No wonder the
police has still not arrested even a single person.
The news comes
in the same week when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh spoke of
extremely low rate of convictions in cases where lower castes were
the victims.
9
September 2009
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