***** UPPER AND LOWER CASTE CHRISTIANS CLASH, POLICE SHOOT AND KILL ***** Jai Maharaj posts
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
By Nirmala Carvalho
AsiaNews
Monday, March 10, 2008
In Tamil Nadu upper caste Catholics attack Dalits,
destroying dozens of their homes. They are "guilty" of
demanding a separate parish. Police move in and fire at
attackers.
Indraprasth aka New Delhi (AsiaNews) - Two Christians died
and many more were wounded shot by police who intervened
yesterday to stop clashes between Dalit Catholics and upper
caste Catholics in the diocese of Pondicherry-Cuddalore
(Tamil Nadu).
Troubles started on 7 March when a group of Dalit
Christians from the Villupuram district began a hunger
strike to protest discrimination in a local parish by the
Vanniyar.
Three months ago Dalits from St Jabamalais Annai Church in
Earyur built another church dedicated to Saghaya Madha (Our
Lady of perpetual Help) and sought to have it erected as a
separate parish with its own priest.
They were backed in their demands by two political groups,
the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi (Vck) and Ambedkar
Makkal Iyakkam (AMI). The VCK even put up posters calling
for the closure of St Jabamalai and the recognition of the
new parish church.
In response some 500 upper caste Christians went on a
rampage on Sunday, attacking Dalits and torching over 30
huts.
Police said that when they moved in to stop the protest
they were pelted with stones and were thus "forced" to open
fire on the aggressors. M Periy Nayagam, 40, and A.
Magimai, 24, were killed and 40 more people were wounded.
Fr G Cosmon Arokiaraj, secretary to the Commission for
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes of the Catholic
Bishops' Conference of India, told AsiaNews that the
"confrontation in the area between Dalit and Vanniyar
Catholics goes back quite some time, but the Church does
not want to split a parish along caste line," but is
working towards "gradually removing discrimination against
the Dalits and uprooting all forms of discrimination."
These tragic incidents show that it is urgent to ban many
forms of discrimination against Dalit Christians both
within the Christian community and especially society at
large. In fact "since the Christian community is perceived
as a single entity," he explained, "the government does not
recognise to Dalit Christians the same rights as other
Dalits."
In the Indian caste system, states have granted specific
benefits and quotas in schools and public service for
Dalits to compensate for their secular low social standing.
"For years Dalits have been discriminated within the Church
itself," he said. "They cannot sit with upper caste members
in the same church; they are buried in separate cemeteries;
they cannot use the same roads as upper caste people. When
the mother of a Dalit priest died in the 1990s the upper
caste did not allow the funeral procession to use the main
road; even the bishop failed to bring about a compromise."
"In India more than 65 per cent of all Christians are
Dalit, but Christians represent only 2.3 per cent of a
population of 1.1 billion people."
More at:
http://www.asianews.it/index.php?l=en&art=11726&size=A
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
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harmony
a hindu thing.
<use...@mantra.com and/or www.mantra.com/jai (Dr. Jai Maharaj)> wrote in
message news:20091220Isp6VkUT6pludECitB1HYyK@B8jcI...
and/or www.mantra.com/jai
Jai Maharaj, Jyotishi
Om Shanti
In article <4b2fc9da$0$5351$bbae...@news.suddenlink.net>,
"harmony" <a...@hotmail.com> posted:
>
> like everything else, kirastanistas mess up a good thing, specially if it is
> a hindu thing.
> Dr. Jai Maharaj posted:
P. Rajah
> like everything else, kirastanistas mess up a good thing, specially if it is
> a hindu thing.
That's right, here are kirastanis messing things up again:
Monday , Dec 14, 2009 at 0150 hrs
Rajkot:
Clashes between two scheduled caste groups at Chasiya village in Jasdan
taluka of Rajkot district has left the locals tensed for two days.
Security continued to be tight for the second day on Sunday following
the boycott of Dalits by the Kolis. But both the Congress and BJP have
been accusing each other of adding fuel to the fire.
The Rajkot rural police are on the trail of seven people accused in two
different incidents. Hemant Savaliya, who had allegedly attacked one
Hada Vala (40) for preventing entry in a temple, is one of them. The six
others had given a boycott call against Dalits in a Koli dominated village.
It all started when Vala was attacked with an axe on December 8 at the
temple premises. He was admitted in the Rajkot Civil Hospital. On
December 11, Gyanshyal Vala registered an FIR against six people for
giving a boycott call against Dalits, that they be given nothing from
shops and no rides in public vehicles. The six named in the FIR are
Kadva Jograjia, Zaver Rathod, Kunwar Jograjia, Lagharabhai Sarviya,
Mansingh Khisadia and Mohan Suvan.
--------------------------------------------------------
Vibrant Gujarat? 98% Dalits have to drink tea in separate cups
Vijaysinh Parmar, TNN 8 December 2009, 02:02am IST
SANAND (Ahmedabad dist): This is the taluka where Tata Motors has parked
its small car project. Nano has become a symbol of Gujarat's pride and
became a centre of attraction at the last Vibrant Gujarat investment
summit in January 2009.
But scratch the surface, and the scene is gloomy beneath this economic
boom in the state. Bhikhabhai Solanki, 50, a native of Lodariyal
village, has never shaken hands with non-Dalits in his life. Bhikhabhai,
an agricultural labourer, is Valmiki by caste - the lowest of the
socially downtrodden. "We are untouchables and nobody touches us here,"
he says.
The farmer he works for keeps a tea-cup outside his house. Whenever
Bhikhabhai arrived for work in the morning or leaves after finishing in
the evening, tea is poured into the cup. Strangely, this form of
untouchability goes in the name of religion. These cups are called �Ram
patra'.
The practice thrives across Gujarat, without exception, and has been
documented extensively in a first-of-its-kind study on a large scale,
representing 98,000 Dalits across 1,655 villages in Gujarat. The study
has been carried out by Ahmedabad-based Navsarjan Trust with three
US-based organisations - the Kroc Institute for International Peace
Studies at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, Dartmouth College at
the University of Michigan and Robert F Kennedy Centre for Social
Justice and Human Rights, Washington, D.C.
"This has been going on for generations. The only change is that earlier
there used to be cups made of clay and now they are made of steel," says
Bhikhabhai. He confesses that drinking the tea offered by his master
does hurt his dignity. But then, he does not want to lose his daily wage
because he has to feed five other members of his family. His
daughter-in-law, Ambha, agrees. She points out that she carries her own
utensils to work, but the person who serves the afternoon meal at the
farm drops the food into the plate without touching it.
In Lodariyal, Dalit women can't touch vegetables at the shop just to
sample them. Only once they pay up, and the money is kept on the side
and not handed over, the vegetables are flung into the hollow of their
saree. The tea stall owner gives tea to Dalits only in disposable
plastic cups. Others get it in ceramic cups.
According to the study, 98 per cent of the respondents said that
non-Dalits keep separate utensils at home to serve them food or tea. The
same discrimination goes only slight down to 96 per cent on farms.
Dalit rights activist Martin Macwan of Navsarjan Trust says: "In every
step of untouchability, the same concept is being applied - that of
purity. Gujarat has only tried to dignify an indignity by calling these
separate utensils as �Ram patra'".
-----------------------------------------------------------
Caste clash rocks Chennai Law College
Three students were seriously injured in a violent caste clash that
broke out between two groups of students at Ambedkar Law College on
Wednesday.The students waged a pitched battle, even as a posse of
policemen waited outside the gates and news photographers clicked
pictures.Knives, iron rods, wooden logs and tubelights were freely used
by the clashing students. The police remained silent spectators, waiting
for a call from the college principal for help.Tension has been running
high inside the campus since October 30. According to police sources, a
few Dalit students objected to the institution being referred to as just
�government law college� without the pre-fix �Dr Ambedkar� in posters
put up inside the campus by students from a caste Hindu community.It
degenerated into an ugly skirmish and police advised the principal to
look into the matter and set up a peace committee. The efforts of the
college authorities and the police to bring unity among the students
were in vain.Since it was the first year Dalit students who confronted
seniors on the poster issue, the latter allegedly vowed not to allow
them to sit for the examination.On Wednesday, trouble started when the
caste Hindu students tried to prevent freshers of the Dalit community
from appearing for the semester examination.As a group waited with
lethal weapons inside the college to attack the junior students, a few
seniors escorted them inside the examination hall. Suddenly, the armed
group attacked the Dalit students. Chitirai Selvan (21), a fourth year
student, sustained serious injuries in the ear and back of the head and
was admitted at Stanley hospital.A group of Dalit students retaliated.In
the attack, Arumugham (20), a third year student, was injured and
brought in a semi-conscious state to Government General Hospital.
Ayyadurai (20), a second year student, sustained injuries to his right
hand, forehead and leg. A third year student, Bharathi Kannan, was
injured in both hands, forehead and thigh.Finally, the principal called
the police, who rushed in and chased the students away.The police filed
a complaint with the police naming Gubendran, Ravindran,
Chithiraiselvan, Manimaran, Vetrikondan, Prem Kumar and Ravi Verman.
Three of them were taken into custody by the police.