“Governmental Discrimination in Srilanka”

Dr Brian Senewiratne is  nephew of S.W.R.D. Bandaranaike, the former prime minister of Srilanka who conceived the idea of discriminating against the Tamils to win over the majority since 1965- as you will listen in the following interview- which escalated into the bloody massacre we witnessed (we didn’t, it was blacked out! no, he says, he has documentary/visual evidence), and left 160,000 Internally Displaced and 300,000 in concentration camps/welfare villages (depending on whose language u speak).

Excerpts

“…the most serious thing is the toilet facilities, i mean, you might think that it is absurd, it is not absurd. because the toilet facilities are holes in the ground. they are latrines and some of the latrines are full and overflowing. I mean, I hate to discuss the crudity on air but it is a very coarse crude thing that they are doing. And now the area is filling up with water cause the monsoon is just about to break. and in the pre-monsoonal rain, the rain fill the area and maggots and feces actually float into the tents. I mean, the people who couldn’t be killed by shells and bombs are going to be killed by cholera, typhoid and infectious diseases.”

“…..It not just the Srilankan government. But the govt. assisted by India and particularly china and Russia, for their own geopolitical gains, because the whole thing hinges on the control of the India ocean….”

Interesting ? listen it here [link]  [its 34 min. long]

Scorn: A Short Story By Bama

The most abundant genre of Dalit writing you can find online is analytical. Poetry is next. Rarely you see a short story. Asking for a novel or an autobiography online is probably too much. One can hardly expect something like the Golden Notebook Project [link] at this stage.  Besides, the UN has just begun to see  us, the Norwegian committee will take its time. So till then,  enjoy reading Scorn by Bama, in The Little Magazine [link], if you haven’t already…

“Sir, what does this child know?” asked Paripoornam sorrowfully. “She does not know that she should not take things from the children of your street. She should not be beaten for that. If they all study in one school, things like this will happen.”

“That’s why we did not want to admit the children of your street. But then we took pity on them, and see what problems you’re creating now! You people should be kept in your place. If she does not want to come to school, get her four piglets. She can look after them. It would be good for you, too. Now go. Don’t waste our time early in the morning,” said the headmaster and got up. The other teachers followed him out of the door. Paripoornam took her daughter’s hand and returned home.

Leave a link if you discover more.

Obstinate India

Obstinate India

Not Helping

How does this question help a debate on caste and judiciary?

Are dalits above the law?

It is the first question Dr. Anand Teltumbde had to answer for an interview with The Asian Age, with respect Chief Justice Dinakaran. It appears to me, Dr. Teltumbde is hard pressed to explain that Dalits ( and Dalit intellectuals) don’t rally around powerful and corrupt Dalits. May be it was needed after many of us blindly supported Mayawati despite corruption allegation (how many cases of corruption except Taj Corridor Project Case against her?) or our almost total silence over the allegations against A. Raja ( back on the ministry- not that it absolves him of the allegations).

Should there be a separate law for dalits? What about the judiciary? Can the dalit card be used to protect “corrupt” and “criminal” elements?

That was another question. Tell me if a school going kid who has heard cricketer turned politician cum the-man-who-laughs-on-tv shiddu speak on TV, couldn’t ask such questions?

And instread of playing the class and suggesting that the upper-class Dalits who benefited already from the establishment

” should be isolated from the constitutional protection lest they should bring the entire constitutional structure itself to disrepute”

could it be answered the way Ranjit did once,

“this kind of warning comes bz of the stereortypical belief the popular polemical essentailist equations among Dalit circles such as Dalit= good and brahmin=bad OR that which has been hegemonically imagined at the national level ie; Brahmin=good/merit and Dalit = bad/merirtless will never help address social realities..Dalit is a human being with all good and bad qualities..let us accept it”

By the way, there is no constitutional or legal protection against corruption or any form of criminality for Dalits, afaik. All that is there, is a mechanism, an act which seeks to prevent any outward atrocity/abuse/discrimination of Dalits in public places. There is a difference.