S.R.Nair thinks not. Unless, it turns more inclusive:
Politicians and leaders use the word inclusivity, started originally by welfare economists such as Amartya Sen, as a mere lip service. In fact the inclusivity was never there, whether economically or socially. The dalits are dalits and the poor turn poorer with casteism continues to be at the [...]
Archive for the 'Adivasi' Category
North East Diary
Published by March 31st, 2008 in Adivasi, Culture, North East, Personal and Women. 0 CommentsSriram Anathanarayan notices the strong presence of strong women in the North East:
Of course my heart took a little dive when I saw the local Sub-Inspector of the Assam Police at the station receive his weekly bribe as they were unloading the sacks, but even here the women’s chutzpah was evident. She handed him [...]
Poverty is a political issue
Published by March 27th, 2008 in Adivasi, Caste, Dalit, Development, Economy, Human Rights, Policy, Politics, Poverty and Religion. 0 CommentsAnalysing a paper published in the Economic and Political Weekly, John Samuel suggests poverty isn’t just about incomes, it is also about identities :
The notion of impoverisation (or the process of the active creation of poverty with in society or economy) needs to be seen in the context of social, economic and political inequality. Such [...]
Why is Modern India Vegetarian?
Published by March 24th, 2008 in Adivasi, Caste, Dalit, Economy, Food, Government, Policy, Poverty and Religion. 0 Comments41.9% of adults belonging to the ST and 38.4 % belonging to SCs have Chronic Energy Deficiency, while the pooled average of the nation is 34.8 %. Further, 62.7 % of the children born to Scheduled Caste parents are under-weight, 57.6 % are stunted, while among the other castes it the numbers are 53.1 % [...]
Naxalism and conventional politics
Published by March 18th, 2008 in Adivasi, Dalit, Democracy, Development, Government, Human Rights, Justice, Policy, Politics and Poverty. 0 CommentsGautam Sen says he doesn’t support Naxalism but he doesn’t seem to believe in the efficacy of ‘conventional politics’ either:
Despite these differences, my answer to my brother’s imprisonment is not the advocacy of violence. It is a waning and tenuous hope that perhaps the system does work, as Pai thinks it does. Perhaps my brother [...]
‘Gandhi’s spell’
Published by March 17th, 2008 in Activism, Adivasi, Caste, Dalit, History, Human Rights, Poetry and Women. 0 CommentsPremasri points to a growing campaign for land redistribution spearheaded by Dalit women in Andhra Pradesh:
Recognizing the the need to make their voices heard, dalit women in Andhra Pradesh are rising up and demanding their rights by filing applications for ownership of unused land. To date, over 25,000 applications have been filed by women in [...]
Beyond the Open Road, Wandering and Wondering
Published by March 3rd, 2008 in Adivasi, Culture, Environment, History, Language, Personal, Spotlight Series and Travel. 1 Comment[ This is Essay # 22 in our Spotlight Series. Click here for the archives.]
Beyond the Open Road, Wandering and Wondering
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Anil P
Now when I look back I wonder if I’ve been lucky to not confront, even once, any introspective thought on the merits of travel. However, I’ve been asked just that by people. This [...]
More on the Gulabi gang
Published by February 23rd, 2008 in Activism, Adivasi, Caste, Dalit, Democracy, Feminism, Government, Justice and Patriarchy. 2 CommentsBecky B devotes some (much needed?) attention to the gang:
What is so amazing to me is the anomaly that the leader figure represents. Not only that one woman could be so unabiding to the expected norm, but also that she can mobilise hundreds of women to fight for her causes. As I said in my [...]
Rural Poor- Human Rights, Inhuman State?
Published by February 22nd, 2008 in Adivasi, Business, Caste, Community, Culture, Dalit, Democracy, Development, Environment, Human Rights, India, Justice, Policy, Poverty and Spotlight Series. 7 Comments[ This is Essay # 18 in our Spotlight Series. Click here for the archives.]
Rural Poor- Human Rights, Inhuman State?
Theory and Practice in a Liberal Democracy
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Rahul Banerjee
Over the past two years or so the normally un-newsworthy rural poor in India have time and again made the headlines with their vehement opposition to the forced acquisition [...]
Dreams die hard.
Published by January 21st, 2008 in Activism, Adivasi, Community, Development, Energy, Environment and Geopolitics. 0 CommentsRahul Banerjee writes about the struggle of an Adivasi boy fighting for his community on Anar-kali, his blog about the lives of tribal communities trudging along with Shining India.
Banerjee tries to make sense of rural development in tandem with the lifestyle of the Bhils of Jhabua district in Madhya Pradesh. The blog is his means [...]
Bhima Koregaon and 1857
Published by January 2nd, 2008 in Adivasi, Caste, Dalit, History and Human Rights. 0 CommentsJNU Dalits salute the Dalit martyrs of Bhima Koregaon:
As the world celebrates the New Year today, we take the opportunity to celebrate the190th anniversary of Battle of Bhima Koregaon fought on 1st January 1818, we salute the Dalit martyrs who fought courageously against the Peshwa Army. Simultaneously, the country is also celebrating the 150th anniversary [...]
Mukundan Menon, fighter
Published by December 18th, 2007 in Activism, Adivasi, Caste, Dalit, Democracy, Human Rights, Justice, Media and Politics. 0 CommentsChespeak mourns the passing away of veteran journalist and human rights activist, Mukundan C. Menon:
Mukundan’s professional life can be divided into three stages: the first , his days in Delhi in the most turbulent period of Emergency and its aftermath; then his life in Andhra Pradesh when the state was the inferno of Indian left [...]
Non-Sanathanists are not Hindus
Published by December 2nd, 2007 in Adivasi, Caste, Dalit, India and Religion. 0 CommentsIniyan challenges the indiscrminate use of the term Hindu for the followers of India’s indigenous religions:
One of the fundamental flaws in the stand of Periyarists, Ambedkarites and also related progressive forces in India is that they equate the non-Sanathanist religions and indigenous religious schools of worship of Bahujans and Dalits with the term “Hinduism” and [...]
The natural order
Published by December 2nd, 2007 in Adivasi, Caste, Dalit and Democracy. 0 CommentsJeena Shah visits a Gujarat village and realizes the ‘invisible strength of empowerment’ and a few other things:
The Patels got around the minimum wage law and its reporting requirements by keeping registers of false wages and having their Dalit and adivasi laborers, who are illiterate, give them thumb print on them certifying the amount they [...]
In the Land of Seven Sisters
Published by November 26th, 2007 in Adivasi, Human Rights, India, North East, Society and Women. 3 CommentsBadly Drawn Girl writes on the stripping and beating of an adivasi woman in Guwahati yesterday.
peaceful protest on a street of guwahati (assam) turned violent. an adivasi woman was stripped naked, chased after, kicked repeatedly on her breasts and vagina and paraded down the street.This news played over and over again with a caption [...]
Rahul Banerjee translates a few poems by Vaharu Sonawane, an adivasi poet from Western India, and points to more translations available on the internet.
My tattered quilt
soiled.Inside the quilt I remain
suffocatedat
its sour smell nose
twitching up and down
turning from one side to the other
nose buried in the quilt I kept
suffering its sour smell.
In this same quilt
ancestors had [...]
Gandhism: The Last Resort of the Hapless
Published by October 29th, 2007 in Activism, Adivasi, Dalit, Development, Environment and Politics. 0 CommentsMajboori ka naam Gandhi, (Gandhi is the last resort of the hapless), so goes popular wisdom. While the Indian government claims that the demands of the 25,000 Gandhian protesters have been “met”, VB Rawat gives the other side of the picture:
Today, India is at war with its own people. Thousands of people have died in [...]
Impending ethnicide
Published by October 23rd, 2007 in Adivasi, Development and Human Rights. 0 CommentsPeter Foster explores the Niyamgiri hills, the world of the Dongaria Kondh adivasis:
What I hadn’t realised was the extent to which, in the 1930s, the Congress party rejected the notion - partially advocated by the British - that the tribes should allowed to do their own thing.
Instead, it was felt that the tribes should be [...]
Non-Brahmin Hindu is an angry person:
I’m sure that Upper Castes Controlled Indian State Will Never Allow Developments of Non-Upper Castes Indians at Any Cost Come What May, India Can Become a Big Market & Economy Only When Original Indians Will Develop & As Long as Upper Castes Controls Indian States It’s Impossible. Original Indians Want [...]
Etching Rebellion in Verse
Published by October 8th, 2007 in Activism, Adivasi, Language, Poetry and Politics. 0 CommentsRahul Banerjee recounts some of the verses of the Bhils, and notes how contemporary struggles have been etched in verse.
Some of the modern Bhili poets have used the traditional style and put in new revolutionary lyrics and this has been most effective in mobilising the Bhil masses to rebellion. The greatest of them all are [...]
Salwa Judum and the Outsourcing of State Violence
Published by September 8th, 2007 in Adivasi, Human Rights and India. 0 CommentsThe Social Blog points to the humanitarian crisis unleashed by Salwa Judum in Chattisgarh and the judiciary’s condoning of the State’s outsourced “counter violence”.
What was proposed by the State to be a Counter insurgency program has now resulted in a mass humanitarian situation. In Dec 2006, more than 80 % of the residents in Dante [...]
Astralwicks points to another reason for ‘rebels to feel alienated, angry and to seek retribution and justice’:
On Monday morning, 20th of August 2007, 11 tribal women in Vishakapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India were raped by local policemen. After a routine search operation to flush out Naxals did not yield any results, the cops took their ire [...]
‘Release Saroj Mohanty’
Published by July 22nd, 2007 in Activism, Adivasi and Development. 0 CommentsAnivar Aravind brings to your notice an urgent appeal from Kashipur Solidarity Group which is agitating for the release of Saroj Mohanty, ‘poet and long-time activist with Prakrutik Sampad Surakhya Parishad (PSSP), which has over 15 years been opposing the entry of large bauxite mining companies in Kashipur’:
The charges against him are completely fabricated but [...]
Market Segmentation of a Peculiar Kind
Published by July 6th, 2007 in Activism, Adivasi and Environment. 0 CommentsLongtime activist Rahul Banerjee writes on the preparation of genetically modified BT cotton seeds developed by Monsanto, that despite opposition by environment groups, continue to be in demand.
Obviously the work of cross-pollination of male and female plants to produce the seeds is a labour intensive one and this is where the Bhils come in in [...]
Samuel Navkar talks about the Katkaris of Raigad, and the government’s (and NGOs’) half-hearted attempts to help them:
In its true nature, free education, is yet could not meet the needs of thousands of katkari children in the district. The government run hostel cum school or ashram schools for tribal are the worst of its kind, [...]
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