Murder of Dalit leader: stones pelted at buses
Stray incidents of stone pelting on buses were reported in different places in the district in the late hours on Tuesday after news of the murder of Dalit outfit leader C. Pasupathi Pandian in Dindigul broke out.
Police sources said unidentified persons pelted stones at a government bus at Kolakudi damaging the front glass pane.
Stones were also pelted at a couple of private buses at Thachankurichi near Somarasampet and Kottapalayam. The unknown persons fled the spot after hurling stones. A group of persons was arrested in the city after they attempted to indulge in picketing agitation near the Combined Court complex condemning the murder of Pasupathi Pandian, who was the founder leader of Devendra Kula Velalar Kootamaippu.
Those arrested were later released.
The Hindu : Cities / Tiruchirapalli : Murder of Dalit leader: stones pelted at buses
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Satara: Dalit woman stripped, beaten
Exactly a month ago, her son left their village home saying he had found a job in Pune. After that she never heard from him. The only thing this 45-year-old Dalit woman heard was taunts and blame from villagers who said her son had eloped with a girl from an upper caste family in the village.
Things went out of hand on Monday, when she was tied to a tree, stripped and beaten up by fellow villagers in Moolgaon village in Patan taluka of Satara — Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan’s home district.
Lying listlessly in Ward No 9 of Krishna Medical hospital in Karad, the woman broke down at the mention of her only son. “Why did I have to see this day?’’ she said on Thursday, surrounded by Dalit Mahasangh activists who have taken up her cause.
For the three days that she has been in the hospital, she has not had a single visitor from her village. She recalled how the neighbours would blame her and threaten her for what her son did. She said on Monday the threats turned real when the girl’s family and other villagers hit her and dragged her across the village. This followed a spat near the village well with the girl’s parents.
“For three hours I was beaten up till one of them said that if they did not stop I would die. I had to drag myself to a rickshaw after I was freed to approach the local police station,” she said.
Five persons from the village were arrested in this connection. On Thursday, a court sent them to police custody for two more days. They have been booked under the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
“I have been staying in the village for the last 22 years after my marriage. I lost my husband very early in life and I have been doing all odd jobs to raise my two children. My daughter is married and settled and my son, who has studied till Class X, has been trained in driving. I run a small grocery shop from my own house,” she said.
“On December 12, my son left the house saying that he had a job in Pune. I even packed his tiffin. Since then, I have not heard from him,” she said.
She said she did not know anything about her son eloping or his reported affair with the upper caste girl.
Although there were allegations that the Patan police station was initially hesitant about registering her complaint, Superintendent of Police K M M Prasanna told The Indian Express that the police extended full cooperation. “She is admitted to the hospital and we are ensuring that there is peace in the village,” he said.
The villagers are tightlipped about the entire incident.
Despite everything, the woman said after discharge from hospital she wanted to go back to her own village. “I will not be treated well, but I can’t live in fear elsewhere. I would rather die in this village itself,” she said.
Satara: Dalit woman stripped, beaten - Indian Express
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Inheriting injustice: A chilling film on India's Dalits
"Every day two Dalits are raped and three killed," goes a shocking statistic in well-known filmmaker Anand Patwardhan's latest documentary, " Jai Bhim, Comrade".
It begins with such murderous day, July 11, 1997, when 10 Dalits gathered to protest the desecration of an Ambedkar statue were shot dead by Mumbai Police. Six days after this massacre, unable to take the pain and grief of his people and as a mark of protest, Dalit singer, poet and activist Vilas Ghogre committed suicide.
"Jai Bhim..." then traces the legacy of the unique democratic protest style of the Dalits through their stirring poetry and music and the story of Ghogre and other singers and poets.
What emerges are tales of injustice and atrocities in the world's largest democracy that will wrench your gut. Its riveting parallels span not just Maharashtra (where the film is situated) but the world.
A Dalit leader in the film is heard saying, "We have a singer, a poet in every home." It is here that you realise the similarity between the fight for justice of the mostly lowly and oppressed of Indian people with that of Afro-Americans. Both share a strong tradition of music and poetry that provides them relief, strength and prepares them to fight against injustice.
This is the reason why the state of Maharashtra blacklisted one of the strongest Dalit music groups (prominently featured in the film), the Kabir Kala Manch (KKM), by calling them Maoists.
Patwardhan has a keen sense of social satire. He rips apart the notion that equal justice prevails for everyone in India. When you see political leaders of national stature speaking of wiping out entire castes and religions, which in a true democracy would have landed them in jail, you realise how truth can sneak out from rhetoric and rewriting of histories, and punch you in the gut.
Documentaries thus serve as a public justice system. The powerful may not be punished for their murders, but those who see the film can see their true face, and remember.
'Jai Bhim...' also abounds in irony of how a constitution drafted by a 'dalit', Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, continues to fail his own community. It balances the grand sweep of dalit injustice with individual stories. Thus on one side you see a Dalit working in a garbage heap without the basic protection, cleaning Mumbai's *****, you also see middle-class Mumbai talk about 'how dirty and ****** these people are.'
The film's objectivity is laid bare because it spares no one. Speaking to IANS, Patwardhan said, "The film is critical of everything, even the Dalit movement, except its youth who have been forced to go underground."
In a fitting screening, which Anand calls its 'real' premiere (previously screened in a few film festivals), over 800 people in BIT chawl in Byculla, where a part of the film was shot, sat mesmerised Monday, without a break for its 200-minute duration.
In an ideal world, cries against Dalit injustice would have sprung all over. Since we don't live on a just planet, "Jai Bhim, Comrade" will retain relevance so long as caste-based atrocities are not uprooted.
Inheriting injustice: A chilling film on India's Dalits - Times Of India
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^ With all these atrocities committed against these poor dalits, they deserve their own separate country.
