#we can be hindus without being casteists

[sudamaniparva]

idk what hindutva bigot needs to hear this but literally nothing and no one will ever be as good at vilifying hinduism than hindus themselves.

saying this as a hindu who regularly goes to temple.

[incorrectmahabharatquotes]

I'll probably doing this but um hi, anon here. just your average teenage hindu girl. your blog is lots of fun, I never thought I would find something like this lmao...but the reason I'm writing this is because I admire you guys and I've kinda been having a crisis lately 😅 so I want to ask - how do you guys do it? a lot of people tend to call indian epics proof of how Secretly Hateful hindus can be, and if you guys recognize it can get like that sometimes, how do you still love that part of you?

We got this ask three years ago and we put it in the drafts to answer it but the answer is so complicated that we never got around to answering it. I don't even know if the anon who sent us this still follows us or not. A lot has changed since then. I'll try to attempt to answer this but keep in mind that it's one person's view on it and everyone's approach to life is different.

What reminded me of this ask specifically is actually all the other drama that went down on the blog earlier this year. Remember this, we'll circle back around to this.

Religion is an interesting aspect of life. Most of the time, for most people, you never choose the religion you belong to.

Religion is something you get from your parents and your family as a whole. You grow up with it. You learn the rituals, the prayers and the songs. You enjoy the wonderful food that the festivals bring you. You associate your religion with joy. Your religion isn't just a religion, it's a part of your family and you know your family is good. Maybe you grow interested in your religion for whatever and want to learn more, so you read the scriptures available to you. Maybe you don't, the end result remains the same. You continue being from that religion. You're proud of how good and pure and kind your religion is.

One day you encounter someone who claims that the religion you grew up in, your parents' religion that you so dearly adore, is misogynistic/casteist/harming others. What do you do? This is the point in your life when you actively choose anything related to your religion. Before this moment, everything was chosen for you, very conveniently, by others. Do you choose to listen? Do you choose to ignore? Mock? Belittle? This is a difficult decision, I will not lie to you. This isn't just about your religion, remember? This decision can potentially change your relationship with yourself, your family, your friends and your place in society.

For many people, they hear the criticisms and they choose to ignore and then go on with their lives. Some will listen and try to fact check and research. Some will call the person criticising the religion of overreacting. Some might even ostracise the person. There's so many choices.

I can't make the decision for you. This is something you decide for yourself.

This is where I circle back around to the drama that was happening on the blog earlier. There are some people who will encounter criticism about their religion and their reaction would be to double down on it. They cling harder to their religion, become furious, start calling the person hateful for being the voice that has brought this kind of discord into their life. This reaction is understandable. If you want to continue living your life comfortably in the status quo without having to risk causing upheaval in your own self-image, you do this.

I, personally, have a lot of thoughts about it. Hell, I might be the person criticising the religion in the lives of some people. I think at this point people already know what I think. But this isn't about me.

How can you have pride in yourself as a Hindu if your religion can also harm others or be used to harm others sometimes? I think the answer here is to think about what's important about your religion to you. What aspects of it are important to you. If your religion is harming others, can you do something to change the parts that are?

I keep emphasizing the words "decisions" and "choices" because you have to start thinking of yourself as an active participant in life. You can even change your religion to be better if you wish.

-Mod S

[gayathreya]

leftist suriya characters appreciation post

since soorarai pottru, been thinking more about all the explicit leftist characters suriya has played in his career. and i actually mean explicit - characters that are supported by the narrative framing and structure and not just my own headcanons and stuff or a throwaway generic goody-shoe typical hero line. i have been itching to talk about this cos it’s obviously in my field of interests

suriya has played 4 openly various brands of leftist now, and that’s pretty cool! i love that none of them are cookie cutter personalities of each other, they all have their own select trait. this post is a toast to them;

michael vasanth (ayutha ezhuthu, 2004)

vimalan (maattraan, 2012)

iniyan (thaanaa serndha koottam, 2018)

maara (soorarai pottru, 2020)

[small write up on each character with pics behind the cut]

*****

1. michael vasanth (ayutha ezhuthu, 2004)

so michael was his first, said to be inspired by an actual university popular marxist student leader, george reddy. michael is very obviously somewhere along these lines - he himself is within the film known as the leftist student leader on campus with a huge following, much to the chagrin of his professors who want to stamp that out of him. he’s openly engaged in campus politics as well as politics outside, and he’s most definitely no weak willed liberal because he has no problems with violence or direct action, which he organises. he organises villagers to stand against others on their own feet, never once preaches about lying down and taking it easy or playing polite. which was nice to see lol i hate liberals who have morals about property damage but in ayutha ezhuthu, michael clearly doesn’t give a fuck. he and his group break things and smash cars and lorries on their way and threaten physical violence on their opponents too which is the way it should be because to him human lives are worth more than any property or vehicular damage. he never shies away from that. hell yes to violence and structural damage!

probably the most definite trait of michael compared to other suriya leftist characters is that michael still believes in the establishment and electoral politics, which u don’t particularly see his other leftist ones talk about. but here, michael works within the system, and trusts it to bring change if u put in the effort into that. though, it’s not as frustrating as it sounds cos michael’s work is not geared towards other liberals, but in villages and rural districts where he goes to spread word, and makes them choose their own leadership to represent. it’s way more marxist aligned and ~rise of the proletariat~ here instead cos he bypasses liberal bougie nonsense and never once is his voice used for that, but used towards and for the working class directly to both take up arms and resist violently themselves + hold ranks for themselves and choose their own leaders to influence their local politics/protect their environment.  

michael is fundamentally very marxist, with a dose of direct action plus violent resistance if need be, and supports organised proletariat uprising within an established political system playing towards electoral politics

(of course, a point to note in why this isn’t as frustrating as it sounds as mentioned above is cos this film was released in 2004. would michael still believe in the establishment and electoral politics now? things in 2020 are very different with all of us more aware of things around us and globally, it’s definitely a debate to be held. i doubt he will, since he’s not a pacifist or liberal. he’d say fuck electoral politics, all my homies hate electoral politics)

2. vimalan (maattraan, 2012)

second very openly communist character he played. prob gone a bit forgotten for others since he does die halfway through the film (which itself isn’t a favourite of anyone either, fans or neutrals) rip but can’t go by without mentioning cos i remember liking this character a lot and i teared up in the cinema first watch when he died. i was mad they killed the suriya i loved instead of the other one whom i found annoying lmao

vimal supports workers’ strikes and unions against bosses, even when that boss is their own shitty father. this automatically makes him stand out instantly considering he is sympathetic to the working class despite at the cost of his father’s annoyance with him. he’s also the first character suriya plays who’s explicitly anti-capitalist with line(s) about it, since michael had no canon lines regarding capitalism from what i recall. vimal outright does.

the leftist imagery tied to vimal the most is che, which is a nice touch. his room has at least one poster of him, and his phone’s wallpaper is also him. u can also see bhagat singh and ho chi minh books on his shelf. so.. safe to claim where vimal’s political ideologies are. it’s both tied in pictures and him siding with workers for their rights against corporations, since he obviously likes revolutionaries. vimalan was a class traitor and a supporter of the working class poor bb tragically gone too soon. ilu u didn’t deserve your terrible fate, sweet commie good boi :(

3. iniyan (thaanaa serndha koottam, 2018)

iniyannnnnn i love him and i think it’s a suriya char with one of the best character arcs in his whole career. mostly cos he had a very distinct ‘’yes i want to work for the government and change things from within’’ phase which gets squashed over the course of the film. we see him start off obviously in a very blatantly communist neighbourhood in a song that is also very specifically anti-establishment/politicians with a lot of hard resistance vibes. the entirety of sodakku is a very good introduction to him and what he stands for - in general the film promises upon wealth disparity, useless bougie politicians, and the rest of us being crushed under them.

what happens to him at the end of the movie is FANTASTIC because he no longer gels with what he wanted at the start of the movie. iniyan’s key leftist trait to me is that he’s the most anarchist of suriya characters, varying from other leftist suriya characters. he refuses to work with government powers and authorities, he looks down on their entire establishment and institutions (he does not at the start of the film, which is vital cos again, he wanted to work alongside them at first), and depends more on the good will of individual people over job titles, while clearly engaging in mutual aid and distributing wealth. these are very distinct anarchist ideals. i’d still peg him as anarcho-communist but would say he leans more towards anarchy and progressing on mutual aid over official state resources or state people for any kind of positive change since his faith in them has pretty much diminished by the climax. he does not give a shit about politicians, cops, or any kind of authorities at all, leaving them in the dust to raise his black flag and do his own anarchist hot shit.

iniyan is a good example of an anarchist arc for me in tamil cinema in simple commercial terms without heading too deep into actual words and phrases in a big hero movie, cos it’s also very easy to explain to anyone the shift in his ideas and his eroding faith in institutions with power. good for him!

4. maara (soorarai pottru, 2020)

this should be fresh in everyone’s memory, but yes, a character who is obviously in your face about it since he has an actual line - ‘’you’re a socialite, i’m a socialist’’ which caused all of us with good taste to whoop and cheer. plus he was very sexy in this whole scene, so what a bonus. it’s the most explicit thing said by him in the film, but there are also other little things peppered into his speech and background imagery showing u the kind of person maara is.

he gets married to bommi in a self-respect wedding ceremony. no priests or any kind of traditional hindu iyers/chants involved. u see it clearly with a periyar pic hanging behind him explaining who he is. he wears black a lot in the film, which fits him being a periyarist so i’d label him as such and consider it his standout trait from other leftist characters suriya has played previously because this is the only character with explicit periyar symbolism (i kid u not i saw multiple sanghis being very angry suriya dressed in black in this movie and were harassing him on twitter constantly since sp released. die mad, uglies). obviously, this also fuses well with the little things we see of him implying he’s ~lower caste~ like his in-laws being embarrassed about him on behalf of their own caste, and paresh sanitising his hands after shaking hands with maara on the plane, which is not subtle at all and trademark casteist behaviour about touching someone ‘’lesser’’ than you and u view them as ‘’dirty’’ or beneath you. as well as maara’s remark about breaking the class and caste barrier during his radio interview. being a periyarist fits seamlessly.

there’s also a bts vid of suriya on his bike where you can see an ambedkar pic pasted onto the side. i can’t remember any scene in the film where u can see his bike from this angle but it doesn’t matter, cos u can definitely tell the kind of person maara is and how he was envisioned as a character - an explicit socialist and periyarist, with a natural fondness for ambedkar too since ofc they overlap as many do irl as well. it is very in tune with his background in the film and i liked seeing the tiny aspects of these things seeded within the movie throughout from beginning to end. it’s explicit in a way that isn’t jarring or artificial, and a nice layer to him and feel endeared to since maara is a great character. u support him all the way with him being unquestionable in his stance and ideology. the sexiest leftist suriya character, if i say so myself, ahem.

/////

5. ngk (ngk, 2019)

bonus: THIS IS IT. THE BIGGEST SIKE. THE BIGGEST WHIPLASH. THE BIGGEST BASTARD.

it’s here cos damn, when they released that first look, i completely lost my shit cos that poster was sooo heavily che inspired and very, very obviously marxist. cue me thinking that holy shit suriya is openly playing some kind of marxist guerilla revolutionary in ngk and he’s gonna be some brand of violent radical leftist i’m gonna fall in love with. the beret, the raised fists, the red.. i was ready to be head over heels for this guy.

except of course, none of this was true, cos once the film released, u know that poster was only meant to signify how his village looked up to him before he sold them all out. it’s literally just a mural on the wall where a kid stares up at him in a larger extended poster. he COULD have been that character, but ngk’s character arc was a negative character arc and his moral downfall from the start to the end of the film, sacrificing all he stood for to arrive at his end point which was just dragging his village and all the youngsters who believed in him to the pits before jumping party to the winning group and abandoning all of them after manipulating them to act in his favour to gain sympathy. not to mention, also selling out to corporate tools to harness their power and influence in order to rise to the top himself, something he very openly states at the beginning of the film to his mum and wife that working like that is no way to live. he has a full reverse by this point, compared to how ngk was introduced to us as an audience with that first look of him.

the marxist poster was a complete 180 to how ngk falls on the spectrum at the end, but it was a great ride nevertheless and at least one thing was still true - i still fell in love with him cos he was such an asshole bastard but still so hot i had to give in. biiiicchh. i love u, non-leftist regressive jerk. u may have pulled the biggest sike on me, but.. my heart is yours, slut <3

*****

ok that’s really it and all i wanted to say so hopefully at least a few people read this lmafooo. i do think these characters and time have sort of seeped into suriya over the years as evident by his shifting left in the last couple of years, and openly also saying he has had a lot of perspective changes on things around him. he has been noted in recent interviews saying stuff like how he’s in favour of a cashless society, talking about a whole new level of poverty class being created during this pandemic. his written articles/statements/agaram related speeches takes jibes at india’s education system being brahministic/casteist in nature and how it creates barriers for the lowest strata of society while also being very sensitive about student suicides, showing understanding of it as a systematic failure and not an individual one, courts not functioning for justice, not demonising protests as it’s the only act left for the voiceless, etc. it’s nice. i wouldn’t go as far as to call him a leftist until he proves that to me (suriya is still very much in that liberal zone of appreciating the police and military institutions so i will never consider him one of us until he sheds these allegiances and rethinks his stance on them in society), but i’d say he’s definitely the furthest left of all prominent actors in tamil cinema as no one else really has said or written the things that he has, for which i’m very proud of him.

so keep up the good work and hot shit comments and ballsy articles, suriya, i look forward to u shifting further left and pissing off everyone from right wing patriotic assholes, to centrist bootlickers, and even cowardly liberal pacifists. i believe in u and i hope he crosses that steep liberal curve soon since we were all there at some point as well.

that’s all goodbye i love suriya thanks for reading 

[rheaitis]

spoilery trigger warnings for smzs

it’s bizarrely casteist, insofar as the ironsmith (obvs Dalit) can only thrash his kid and the Tripathi Brahmins end up being accepting in the end. For, like, no good reason at all. We never see Kartik’s family, or community, no reason for them to not have been caste-Hindu as well?

Kartik gets beaten with a bigass stick, to horrified reactions by much of the cast, but also to jaunty music. He subsequently hugs the guy who’s doing the beating, without significant if any remorse involved.

There is not-insignificant ableism in the film, both on the Watsonian and Doylist levels.

[ashfaqqahmad]

Faith versus Logic 4

Does God really make couples?

Click here to read the previous part of this article

There is a similar complication about weddings, in which case it is said that God makes the couples or the couples are made in heaven… Look at the wedding cards – somewhere you will find written that couples are made in heaven. Otherwise, on the rest of the earth, Pandits match the Kundalis and make them couples and somewhere else the pairs are even set without the matching by a Pandit/Kundali—  somewhere they set by themselves.

The common understanding and belief of our society are also that God makes couples and that’s why vocals of the songs like “Rab ne banaya tujhe mere liye, mujhe tere liye” can be heard.  

Now let’s consider this question with reasoning—  can it practically happen?

Suppose this is so, then first of all the casteist character of God emerges in front—  because in almost all religions, most marriages are fixed in the same caste, Pandits are also found to match the Kundalis of the same caste.

Why brother— wasn’t this system anthropogenic? In the early stages of human civilization, there was nothing like this, with the development of civilization human chain kept dividing into religions and castes, with them marriages too started to become homogeneous in the same way – means after looking at humans, God also turned a racist. Is man through God or God through man?

How Homo sapiens won the battle of survival?

Then there is also a belief in the case of God that God does not make mistakes. Is it so? how many marriages in the world, end at the threshold of Divorce. In western countries, marriage merely lasts for a few years and the situation in Muslim countries is just slightly better.

Talking about Western countries, at least three or four marriages are done by a man or a woman in their lives—  that eventually means the same amount of divorces. So how come, wrong pairs are made on such a large scale? That means if God makes Couples then in this case he makes horrible mistakes.

Biased characterization of God

Then it also reveals the masculine face of God— from past to present, thousands of such men may be found who had ten, twenty wives to sixteen thousand queens… but hardly a woman, with ten or twenty husbands will be found.

There are thousands of examples in Muslim countries where one man has more than one wife— but no woman will be found with more than one husband. Now don’t cry about the social recognition – because if God makes couples then this responsibility will fall on him.

Then one face of God will look like an unjust to you – in older times you will find plenty of people with names like slaves/kaneez/laundi/mistress who were never matched— even today people like Kalam, Atal, Ramdev, Maya, Mamta, Jaya may be found in our society who lived alone and went alone or will go alone.

Why was the happiness of that of a couple not written in all these cases— is it not injustice? Don’t say it was their wish – Neither would this have been a will of Modiji, otherwise why would he have been alone – but at least the marriage took place.

Then there is another trend nowadays, of gay couples— where the boy is determined to live with the boy and a girl with the girl, and in many societies of the West, it is already recognized and now it is allowed in India too. Now, this is just opposite to the reproductive nature, how God is making such a mistake?

Couples are also made in Live-in relationships, just like in a marriage, the difference is just of the certificate— Suddenly the attitude of God becomes interracial here. Why so?

On one side, Jannat was barred for ‘Gair-momins’, on the other side Aamir was matched to Reena, Kiran, Saif to Amrita, Kareena, All the children of Salim Khan were married to non-Muslims. Lord, isn’t this a matter of double standard?

Now there is society— which shouts to the core, that couples are formed in heaven but as soon as their son/daughter married a Muslim boy/girl – They raise the flag of Love Jihad and start to wail. When a Hindu daughter-in-law or son-in-law comes to a Muslim house, they start preparing to teach them Kalma and if a Dalit boy/girl marries an upper caste boy/girl, they do not delay in killing them with sword/gun.

Where did religion come from and how logical from the point of view of science?

In every such situation, the ‘Couples are made in heaven’ is wrapped, folded and hidden.

Look, brother— if you still believe that God makes couples, then face this accusation on God, or assume that we make the pairs, not God.

Religious books are not science research books

Religious books are not the books written on scientific research, but they are actually there so that people take the lesson from the things related to them, not to hold their stories and start searching science in them, whereas unfortunately people sit and start looking for science in those books which were written in those times when the knowledge about Earth or the Universe was very limited and very nominal. Now if people make claims, then those with a questioning nature will also raise questions.

Similarly, in my view the Quran is that instruction manual— it is a book of instructions, which is not meant to earn the reward but to read and to implement its instructions, to implement its teachings in one’s life. It tells you that as a human being or as a society how do you have to stay, how to live life and how to make decisions — through different events, it tells you the things you can apply in your life by learning through them. It is not any theory book which was written by Darwin or Einstein, that you start finding the rules of science in it.

what possibilities are there in the universe outside our planet

In any book, only the scientific rule or formulas can be entered of the time it was written, in which the corrections or radicals changes can occur with changing times. So it is obvious and natural to develop an error in the theory written in those old books— but the faith of the people is so strong that in the name of error their feeling gets a punch as hard as of Muhammad Ali’s, and the tarnishing and squealing feeling is relieved only by a bitter certificate.

If you really think that religious books written hundreds of years ago are science-based, then let’s consider a question. I hope that by not taking it otherwise, just considering it as a curiosity, we must solve it with our scientific cum religious intelligence.

There can be Up and Down on just one planet

In Surah-al-Bakra of the Quran, Allah while commanding the Adam, Eve and Iblees the devil, orders a punishment while saying that now you all get down and stay on the earth for a certain period of time (Verse No. 30-38)— This verse makes it clear that everybody is somewhere in the ‘Up’ and they are being asked to get ‘Down’. Even in normal language, we call him the ‘One above’. Similarly, the stories which are in the Vedas and Puran’s does also state that Devlok is somewhere ‘Up’ there and from there they come ‘Down’ as Deities themselves, and sometimes in the form of an Avatar.

If God is there then how can it be from the point of view of science

Now let’s get to the basic issue— in science, the law of ‘Up-Down’ is according to the Gravity, which applies to every planet. Till the time you are on the ground, you are in the restriction of ‘Up-Down’, but as soon as you step out of the planet and reach into space, the rule of ‘Up-Down’ ends automatically.

Now do an experiment— in the very centre of a room, hang a ball tied with thread. Suppose room is ‘Universe’ and the ball is your ‘Earth’… now because Gravity keeps you standing upright in every part of the planet and on your feet side is ‘Down’ and head side is ‘Up’ then according to the direction of the heads of humans present in different parts of the land according to that determine the exact ‘Up’.

How to write a book in Microsoft word  

According to the gravity Indian man’s head (above) is in the East direction (towards the front wall), the Jamaican man’s head is in the West direction (towards the back wall), an Algerian’s head in the South (towards the right wall), Hawaii’s man’s head is in the North (towards the left wall), the head of the person standing in Norway is (towards the roof) and the head of the person standing in New Zealand is on the side of (floor)…

So to say that the ‘Up & Down’ for the people standing in six different parts of the Earth are not equal, but at different angles— so now you have to tell that “Up & Down’ written in your books is on which side according to human beings on the earth? Also, do notice here that the universe is not as small as your imagined room, but it is so wide that from one end to the other It will take billions of years for light to reach.

Do not say here that your God or God ‘Above’ is everywhere because the celebrity outside the room (whatever name it has) can only be on one side of the room, while there are six directions in the form of front, back, right, left, top, bottom of the ball hanging in the middle of the room… so finally which side is your ‘Up’?

Click here to read the next part of this article

इस लेख को हिंदी में पढ़ने के लिये यहाँ क्लिक करें

[globalpeacefoundationindia]

Why Women from marginalized communities more prone to gender-based violence

On the morning of September 30th 2020, the country woke up to some very disheartening images that were described as, “the bleak image of a burning pyre illuminating a ghastly night while the policemen stood guard”. By looking at the chaotic arrangement of the wood, and the ungodly hour of the entire scene, one could infer that the deed had indeed been hastily planned and put to action.

The 19 year old girl had been assaulted, physically and sexually on 14th September by four upper-caste men while she was out in the fields collecting fodder. The assailants fractured her spine and slashed her tongue, and she succumbed to the injuries in the early hours of 29th September in Delhi’s Safdarjung Hospital. Her body was hastily cremated, and allegedly without the consent of her family members. This motives behind this act remain questionable, because the police officials denied the sexual assault soon after the news broke out.

Crimes against women in our country have been a matter of shame for all of us, and a dark blot that stares at our faces when anyone claims the age old slogan, “Mera Bharat Mahan”. Recent years have seen a rise in such crimes, partly due to the fact that more cases now reach the law enforcement agencies and the media. But also because of the constant exposure to insensitive, sexist and patriarchal load of nonsense that is being fed to everyone through the media. A rather unfortunate reality is that there are many forms of violence and abuse that have not yet been penalized. While all women are facing the brunt of this, Dalit women in general, are in a much worse spot.

Violence faced by women of minority communities, especially those who belong to the scheduled castes/tribes can be attributed to the fact that the regressive social system has led to them being considered non-human. They are seen as a worker with no value as a human being and as someone whose validity is constantly under scrutiny. To add, very few studies have tackled the nature of atrocities, the circumstances that lead to them and the cultural and social logic that legitimizes them. And most of such studies are quite recent, dating to the last ten years or so.

Verbal abuse is an integral part of a woman’s experiences of violence that she faces; and in case of the Dalit communities it also reflects the dominant caste men’s worldview as regards their ‘inferiority’, their inferior class and their inferior gender . And consequently, their powerlessness and vulnerability. Built into the same patriarchal and casteist system is the view that these women are available for all forms of exploitation and violence because of their ‘low’ and impure character. This gender-caste-class axis provides a systematic base for all such crimes against Dalit women; that is, this violence is an in-built component of the caste system.

The same worldview that enables men to commit crimes against these women also enables them to retaliate with brute force and barbaric violence when the women object to such actions. Other causes of violence, mainly physical or verbal are a result of women breaking some sort of ‘customary laws’ by entering a temple, or by trying to assert her rights by demanding fair and equal treatment.

The list of such reasons goes on for a while. In contravention of both national laws and international human rights standards that prohibit any physical, sexual or psychological violence against women, varying forms of violent acts specifically targeting Dalit women are occurring on a large scale across India today. Even the range of casual factors that lead to women being dehumanized is pretty long. One cannot help but ask, what is the way forward?

The National Policy mentioned in the 10th Five-Year Plan states many things, one of which is: “All form of violence against women, physical and mental, whether at domestic or societal levels, including those arising from customs, traditions or accepted practices, shall be dealt with effectively with a view to eliminate its incidence.” We need to attack the very system that enables our men to think that it is alright to commit a crime like this. We need to remove those politicians from power who deliver casual, irresponsible and questionable statements blaming women for such crimes. India needs to fulfil its national and international obligations by protecting Dalit women from violence, and by adequate focus on improving the socio-economic conditions of such women.

It is important that we do not let the ones in power silence the voices of those who suffer today. Finally, it is important that justice is done with women like the one from Hathras, whose family couldn’t even see her face once before cremation. Rohini Devi, from Champaran, Bihar was asked if she would stand up publicly and fight for justice for her community, she said, “yes. I may lose my life in the process, but I want to live with dignity... Tell me, is there any Dalit family left in our village in which someone has not been raped [by the dominant castes]? We will no longer tolerate it!”

By Somya kumar

References :

Undying Embers: On Hathras Case The Hindu October 2nd 2020

Fifty Key Concepts in Gender Studies: JANE PILCHER AND IMELDA WHELEHAN (pg 174)

Dalit Women Speak Out: Violence Against Dalit Women in India by Irudayam, Jayshree Mangubhai (March 2006)

Gendering Caste: Through a Feminist Lens, Stree, Calcutta, 2003

National Commission for Women, Women of Weaker Sections: Socio-Economic Development of Scheduled Caste Women,New Delhi, 1996, p.3

[therewasabrowncrow]

The Joint Action Council (JAC) Statement

“We, the various Ambedkarite student organizations across the country, unequivocally condemn the brutal rape and murder of Dalit woman in Hathras and the violent casteist actions of anti-Dalit Ajay Bisht’s government that works in the interests of Thakurs alone,” a joint statement reads.

Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Ajay Singh Bisht aka Yogi Adityanath must resign immediately, they said.

Read the unedited text of the joint statement:

The Khairlanji massacre perpetrated by Maratha Kunbis of Khairlanji village, 14 years back, on 29th September 2006 in Maharashtra, has over the years, become a textbook example of caste-based horror for the mainstream Savarna academia, media, and activists. In Khairlanji, the Kunbis raped the women of the Bhotmange family over a land dispute and paraded them naked around the village and then hacked four members of the Bhotmange family to death. The incident was not even reported on national television until Dalits raised the issue and protested in Nagpur. It has been 14 years since the Khairlanji massacre and the Upper caste and dominant caste sexual violence against Dalit women remains unchecked. Bhaiyalal Bhotmange, the lone person alive in the family, died in 2017 without due justice, and even till his death, the Supreme Court had not recognized the incident as a caste atrocity. Post-Khairlanji, there have been multitudes of caste-based sexual atrocities across the country, just that these didn’t catch the eye of the Savarna mainstream. An atrocity against a Dalit woman does not elicit similar kind of outrage by both the Savarna Brahmanical media and the Savarna activists, as that of the violation of Savarna women. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, out of the total 32,033 reported rape cases in the year 2019, 11% i.e., 3524 rapes were that of Dalit women. On a daily basis, around 10 Dalit women get raped in India! The data also states that the rape vulnerability of women has increased by 44%, and more so for Dalit women, in the last decade. This is a direct reflection of the Brahmin masculinity project that has been waging furiously in the last few years. What we see is a growing sense of impunity for the Upper and dominant castes with the protection from caste police-state-media nexus.

On 14th Sept. 2020, a 19-year-old girl from the Valmiki community (still considered as ‘untouchable’ by the caste Hindus) was raped and brutalized in Hathras, Uttar Pradesh. The victim had gone with her mother to collect fodder in a nearby field, where 4 Thakur men — Sandeep Singh, Lavkush, Ravi Singh, and Ram Kumar — from the village grabbed her, dragged her aside by her neck with her dupatta, and gang-raped her. Her tongue was cut and she was strangled because of which she suffered gruesome injuries on her neck and spine, which rendered her body paralysed. Despite the brutal injuries, the victim was somehow able to give her statement to the police where she narrated the entire incident.

The victim was being harassed by the Thakur rapists for a long time, and there has been a history of atrocities being committed on the victim’s family by the rapists’ families. After battling her grave injuries, the victim died 15 days later, at Safdarjung Hospital. If the atrocities committed by the rapist-murderers were not enough, the State government led by Ajay Singh Bisht, also known as Yogi Adityanath, made sure that the victim was not given even a shred of justice. The accused were not arrested for 10 days, even after the crime was reported, and they were taken into custody only after massive public outrage by Dalits. The victim was also denied adequate medical attention. Despite the gruesome injuries to her spine, abdomen, and mouth, the victim was not given proper medical facilities. She was kept in a normal ward in the District Hospital and was then shifted to Aligarh’s Jawaharlal Nehru Medical Hospital. Given her grave injuries, she was referred to AIIMS Delhi, but for undisclosed reasons, she was brought to Safdarjung Hospital (Delhi) on 28th September, where she died the next day.

The police manhandled and arrested the angry protestors and secretly took her body out of the hospital and brought her body to her village in Hathras in the middle of the night. When the body reached her village, the victim’s mother cried and wailed on the bonnet of the ambulance, begging that her daughter’s body be handed over to the family so that they could take her home for one last time. But the police and the administration did not listen. Instead of giving her body to her grieving family members, the monstrous district administration forcefully cremated her. For the Yogi-Modi regime, Dalits have no dignity even in death. Forcibly, her body was cremated at 3 AM, while her family was locked up in their house.

After this tragedy that was unleashed upon the family, first by the rapist- murderers, and then by the State machinery, the forensic report has now declared that the victim was not raped. This is a deliberate ploy to protect the rapist Thakur men by the State led by the CM Ajay Bisht, a Thakur himself. Instead of ensuring justice to Dalit woman and her family, the Ajay Singh Bisht government has put a price on her body and life — 25 lakhs, a house, and a government job; and is systematically putting the family members of the victim through humiliation, by announcing that they would be put through a lie detection test! . In the midst of this tragedy, yet another Dalit girl has been raped and killed in Balrampur. All this while, the Prime Minister of the country, and his Cabinet Ministers have maintained complete silence. The Union Home Minister Amit Shah and the Union Minister for Women and Child Development, Smriti Irani, have been equally irresponsible. Their unusual silence is, in itself, caste violence.

The media, the so-called fourth pillar of democracy, has also exposed its own casteist nature. More interested in sensational news, a gruesome rape and murder of a Dalit woman was not considered worthy of reporting or coverage by them. There are only a handful of media channels that have covered the crime properly and have tried to ask the right questions. Yet, even among these handful, there are many who refused to acknowledge the ‘upper caste violence angle’ or only focused on the gory violation of Dalit women’s bodies. Not even a dead and brutalized Dalit woman can evoke empathy and responsibility from the casteist media. Instead of asking questions to the government and the administration, Savarna journalists were found asking Dalit leaders and protestors questions about ‘disturbing peace’.

There has been a rising trend of violence against Dalits across the country and specifically in Uttar Pradesh, the state ruled by Thakur Chief Minister Ajay Bisht. According to the National Crime Records Bureau, a total of 45,935 cases were registered under atrocities against Scheduled Castes, amounting to roughly 126 atrocity cases every single day, with Uttar Pradesh recording the highest incidence of crimes against Dalits. Thakur-Rajput dominance and impunity have been on the rise in the state, and the instruments of the Administration, including the bureaucracy and the police, are being systematically used to protect the “upper” caste aggressors. This phenomenon is a clear manifestation of Ram Rajya and Hindu Rashtra – both of which are conceptions that uphold and glorify the caste-based hierarchy of the Hindu Varna system.

We, the various Ambedkarite student organizations across the country, unequivocally condemn the brutal rape and murder of Dalit woman and the violent casteist actions of anti-Dalit Ajay Bisht’s government that works in the interests of Thakurs alone. We request all social, political, and cultural organizations who are involved in fighting for the rights of Dalits and who consider themselves part of anti-caste movements, to unite and rise in rage against the rising Hindutva supremacy.

We rise together and we shall not stop until there is absolute justice and an end to “Upper” Caste Hindutva supremacy and impunity!

A “Joint Action Council (JAC) of Ambedkarite Student Organizations against Caste Violence on Dalits” was formed in the context of this incident. The JAC aims to bring together Ambedkarite Student Organizations across the various educational institutions of the country, to organize the struggle against Caste violence perpetrated by the savarnas on Dalit bodies. In the present context, we aim to keep the struggle for Justice for Dalit woman alive and co-ordinate our efforts towards this objective.

We put forward the following demands:

Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Ajay Singh Bisht aka Yogi Adityanath must resign immediately

District Magistrate, Hathras, Praveen Kumar Laxkar and Superintendent of Police, Hathras, Vikrant Vir must be terminated from service immediately

Charges of SC/ST Atrocities Act must be pressed and action must be taken against District Magistrate, Hathras, Praveen Kumar Laxkar, Superintendent of Police, Hathras, Vikrant Vir, and the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Ajay Singh Bisht

Withdraw the NARCO test announced by the Ajay Bisht government on the victim’s family members

Supreme Court monitored investigation with majority of representatives from the Scheduled Caste community, to be conducted

An enquiry committee must be set up to investigate the Doctors involved in the case and those involved in the post-mortem of the deceased

Land should be provided to the victim’s family, and the family members should be ensured government jobs

Complete protection and security should be ensured by the government until the time the family is no longer susceptible to threats by the Thakurs of the village, or for lifetime, whichever comes first

Fast-track courts for redressal of SC/ST atrocities must be set up and made functional in all districts of India

Reservation for Dalits in Media, with priority to Dalit women

We, the Joint Action Council of Ambedkarite Students’ Organizations against Caste Violence on Dalits, on behalf of all the signatories listed here in this statement, appeal to the various anti-caste organisations and like-minded individuals, to join us for a nationwide peaceful protest on 10th of October, 2020 to register our dissent against the caste based sexual violence on Dalit women.

Signatories and Endorsements (in alphabetical order):

Adivasi Chhatra Sangh, Jharkhand

Ambedkar Students’ Association, Central University of Kerala, Kerala

Ambedkar Students’ Association, Hyderabad Central University, Telangana

Ambedkar Students’ Association, Maharashtra

Ambedkar Students’ Association, Pondicherry University, Puducherry

Ambedkar Students’ Association, Punjab University, Punjab

Ambedkarite Students’ Association, TISS (Mumbai), Maharashtra

Ambedkar Students’ Association, Wardha, Maharashtra

Ambedkarite Students’ Collective, IIT-Bombay, Maharashtra

Ambedkarite Students’ Organization, FC Pune, Maharashtra

Bahujan Collective, TISS (Hyderabad), Telangana

Bahujan Sahitya Sangh, JNU, New Delhi

Bahujan Students’ Front, Hyderabad Central University, Telangana

Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association, Central University of Gujarat, Gujarat

Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association, Chattisgarh

Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association, Gujarat University, Gujarat

Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association, Hemchandracharya North, Gujarat University, Gujarat

Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association, JNU, New Delhi

Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University, Gujarat

Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association, Veer Narmad South Gujarat University, Gujarat

Birsa Ambedkar Phule Students’ Association, West Bengal

Dalit Art Archive

Dalit Students’ Union, Hyderabad Central University, Telangana

Dalit Queer Project

Dalit Women Fight

Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar National Students Federation, Nagpur, Maharashtra

Jai Bhim Foundation, Mumbai, Maharashtra

North East Collective, IIT Bombay, Maharashtra

North East Students Forum, JNU, New Delhi

Radical Students’ Forum, Puducherry

Republican Student’s Federation, Chandrapur, Maharashtra

Tribal Students’ Forum, Hyderabad Central University, Telangana

Source: Maktoob Media

In solidarity. Redistribution of land and secured jobs for victim’s family over punitive justice like police ëncounters