In a shocking incident of untouchability, students in a Bihar village school refused to eat mid-day meals cooked by Dalit women. The incident occurred in the village of former Bihar chief minister Karpoori Thakur, a staunch socialist and champion of social justice. Official sources said students of Laxmi Narayan Madhya Vidayalya in Thakur’s village in Samastipur district, belonging not only to upper castes, but backward castes and even Dalits, have refused meals cooked by two lowest ranked Dalit women for the last few days. Interestingly, the Dalit women were appointed as cooks by the Shiksha Samiti members of the school. After the incident came to light, district officials sent a team to the village to inquire into the matter. “Most of the students have refused even to touch the food cooked by Dalit women on the ground of caste untouchability,” said officials.
Members of the School Shiksha Samiti are not satisfied with the steps taken by the district officials. The incident was reported to district officials but no action has been taken, according to Shyam Bihari Singh, a member of the Samiti. “We persuaded some students to take cooked food but a majority refused. Still we were trying to pacify them,” he said. Two months ago, a similar incident was reported in the middle school in Harpur Eloth village of Samastipur district. 450 students, including some Dalits, refused to eat food cooked by Sunita Devi and Renu Dev because they belonged to the Dom caste. Doms are the lowest ranked Dalits. Early this year villagers in Gaya district stopped mid-day meals in a school because the cooks were Dalits. According to the Hindu caste system, Dalits are at the bottom of the social hierarchy and considered untouchables by the upper castes. While untouchability is outlawed in India, the social evil is widely prevalent.
Re: “High caste” Hindu students refuse food prepared by Dalits
^ Right Reza. This is what they call the Dalit Women “Chamar Chamriya”
“I was told by the officials that **chamar-chamariya (Dalits) cannot hoist the national flag **at the centre of a market place,” Anita Bai wrote, giving an account of how she was prevented from raising the flag in a chowk that fell under the jurisdiction of her panchayat.
A similar Incident happened in Indian National Assembly where a Dalit lady was kicked, beaten to prevent here from hoisting Indian flag. This happened in 15th August 2004…
RAIPUR — Two Dalits were killed in Chhattisgarh’s Durg district by a group of Jat settlers from Haryana in a case of personal enmity and police had to be deployed in the area after the incident took on caste overtones. Tension gripped the town of Bemetara and nearby Bhurki village after a group of about seven jats attacked a Dalit family on Saturday evening and killed two people with sharp edged weapons and injured another. According to the senior superintendent of police of Durg district, Ramesh Sharma, the killings took place due to personal enmity but the incident snowballed into a caste conflict with some Dalits taking to the streets in protest. Sharma is camping in the village with around 300 police personnel. Describing the situation as serious, Sharma said police have rounded up five Jats and raided some farmhouses run by the Haryana jats.
Re: "High caste" Hindu students refuse food prepared by Dalits
There is a problem in India, regarding Caste.
Fortunately it is better in the cities-no one enquires who cooked the food/washed the dishes/caste of the waiter. But at the time of marriage-caste is considered even in the cities.
The good thing is that it is going down, and there is an awareness against the caste system and the Government is constitution bound to take action against this.
Can Pakistan too say the same-that Honour killing is going down & there is no caste structure.Syeds and high (caste!) ranking Muslims do not to marry low (caste) ranking Muslims.
NWFP has now proclaimed Islamic laws and even women cannot be shown on posters etc.
For each finger you point to India-3 point back to you.!!
Re: “High caste” Hindu students refuse food prepared by Dalits
Malhot ji, it’s very good that these kind of unhealthy activities are going down, however, the question remains, are the majority of Indians still practising such traditions, and the answer is unfortunately a “Big Yes”.
As expected, you brought up an issue of honor killing, something which is a curse, if you read the Pakistani newspapers as much as I do, then you will agree with me that the government is taking serious actions against those who are found guilty. One point you brought up, where you mentioned caste system in Pakistan, I can proudly say, that we in Pakistan might have several challenges, but caste system is definitely not one of them. Syed Muslims are the direct descentants of the Prophet Muhammad(P.B.U.H.), however, they are not considered superior. My whole family is filled with such cases, where Syeds married Sheikhs, Rajputs marrying Syeds etc, and this tradition is not only limited to my family only, its widely practised. It’s funny, that I’m visiting Peshawar at the moment, and just saw hundreds of Reema’s posters with some hero(I’m not sure about the dude’s name).
P.S. I have no problem, people Criticising Pakistan, as long as its valid, and not made up in some la-la land…
Re: "High caste" Hindu students refuse food prepared by Dalits
i know theres a whole bunch of threads lately critical of India, opened by Pakistanis. We have similar threads in Pakistan affairs, directed at Pakistan, and in neither case is tit for tat flaming allowed.
Stay on topic, if it is an India specific topic, then stick to talking about India.
Re: "High caste" Hindu students refuse food prepared by Dalits
i'm sorry but where in the topic does it say the discussion is india specific?
the first post is a cut and paste about dalits in bihar, followed by dalits in punjab and dalits in bhopal. why was my reply on how this is remarkably similar to the chooras (who are nothing but dalits once again) of lahore deleted?
Re: "High caste" Hindu students refuse food prepared by Dalits
dalits = so called lower castes. same is the case with chooras, who converted to other religions when promised equal status, but still remain dalit/weak. singled out into choosing menial professions, denied entry into places based on their birth by the rest of the society.
Re: "High caste" Hindu students refuse food prepared by Dalits
thats why dalit muslims and christians demand to be included in quota system since
just changing religen dont bring them eqality . quota system should be based on
income rather than religen and caste.
Re: “High caste” Hindu students refuse food prepared by Dalits
Well said. Indian’s are all too sensitive about the Caste issue, and wish nobody would mention it, and will seek all amount of diversions to stop talking about this issue.
Mr Chakravarthy demanded that the Centre should come out with a legislation immediately providing reservation for the poor and meritorious in professional colleges. Members of Ahinda (organisation of backward classes, minorities, and dalits) on Thursday staged a dharna near the deputy commissioner’s office in Gulbarga, putting forth their demands. The dharna was led by Ahinda district President B V Chakravarthy, P N Malipatil, Girappa Kattimani, Basavanappa Gaunatti, Basavaraj Konkal, Bhuthale Davoji, Padmaraj Rasangi, and others. They later submitted a memorandum of their demands to the deputy commissioner, addressed to Chief Minister N Dharam Singh. Mr Chakravarthy stated that the backward classes, minorities and dalits, who form the major part of the society, have been suppressed and exploited since ages. The present political situation is not conducive for them, as none of the political parties think about the welfare of these classes, he added. **Moreover, he said, measures were being taken to suppress the dalits educationally too. “It is being seen that the dalits were kept out of professional courses. And this has been done by the Supreme Court through its recent judgment removing reservations in private professional colleges,” he charged. **
Mr Chakravarthy demanded that the Centre should come out with a legislation immediately providing reservation for the poor and meritorious in professional colleges. Through this, he said, the students from backward classes, minorities and dalits could get admissions in professional courses. Referring to the killing of a dalit at Hallikeri village in Gadag district recently, he said, the government should provide a compensation of Rs five lakh to the family of the victim and also provide adequate security to the dalits in the village. He also urged for the immediate arrest of the accused who had reportedly set ablaze dalit settlements at Gohan in Harayana State.
Re: “High caste” Hindu students refuse food prepared by Dalits
and is that why all your cut and pastes are from indian newspapers? anyway carry on, as this is the only way for you to maintain your national identity.
Re: “High caste” Hindu students refuse food prepared by Dalits
Reza,
You do not understand a bit about Indian politics. I have a few points to counter your arguments:
My cousin’s children attend government schools in village, but they never eat food in the school. The reason is not because that the food is prepared by a dalit, but because of sanitary reasons. The program that is operated in Karnataka is called as “Bisi Oota”. Only one item (Rice with Sambar) is served and the children want more varieties. So many children (almost 20%) prefer to walk back home and have food. However, this scheme is a boon for children of lower income people whose parents work as labourers at meagre wages. It has also proved as a good incentive to reduce the school drop outs among the poor.
Supreme court’s guidelines are clear cut and they are based on the constitutional provisions. You have quoted that supreme court’s recent verdict to show that Indians are suppressing dalits and minorities, but actually supreme court’s verdict has benefitted minority institutions (Muslim and Christian). Hindus are by definition majority and are ruled out. By this verdict Muslim and christian institutions can admit students of their choice and government cannot enforce any quota. For eg. there are 16 minority engineering colleges in AP (nearly 8000 engineeing seats) and earlier, more than 70% were reserved for government students, but with this ruling, the colleges can give a great majority of the seats to people of their own community and no one can question!.
In fact it was a Islamic educational institute (Refer : Islamic Academy of Edn. & Anr. vs. State of Karnataka & Ors ) that first filed a case (along with T.M.A. Pai Foundation & Ors. vs. State of Karnataka & Ors) that sought to end government’s reservation in private educational institutes. Your above article is in condemnation of this verdict:- So, now the govt. of India is in a tricky situation, if you provide reservation to dalits, then minorities will loose their quota of seats, else dalits will loose.
Refer to this link below for more details about the judgement…
Re: "High caste" Hindu students refuse food prepared by Dalits
WTF why was my post deleted?... i posted a response on not bashing either India or paksitan and it was deleted.....How come GS will allow posts on country bashing and delete those on reconciling????....I would really like to know the reason why my post was deleted......
Re: “High caste” Hindu students refuse food prepared by Dalits
Reza,
Follow this link to read about the reactions of the muslim community on one of the earlier judgements of the supreme court regarding this reservation issue"
“The recent Supreme Court judgement on educational institutions run by linguistic and religious minorities has been welcomed by all and sundry. It has put to rest apprehensions and resolved misunderstanding about the rights and privileges of minorities in the country. The court’s majority judgement delivered on October 31, is a fine piece of judicial review and wisdom. Not only the 11 judges who formed the Constitutional bench, but also the counsels of more than 200 petitioners contributed their thoughts and views on the issue. The court held that the rights of linguistic and religious minorities (as well as majority community) to set up educational institutions of their choice are unfettered, but the right to administer them is not absolute as the State and the Universities can apply regulatory measures to maintain educational standards and excellence, even if unaided.”
, I’ll post more about this issue.