quote :

Dalit tortured for daring to wear slippers

February 20, 2010, Dindigul, Tamil Nadu

Even after 60 years of Independence, there still exists a side of India that is hard to believe. A Dalit man in Tamil Nadu was forced to eat human excreta because he wore slippers in the presence of upper caste people.

“They said hereafter no one should come in wearing slippers. Arokiasamy told Anbu to put human excreta into my mouth. They hit me severely on my abdomen and shoved it into my mouth,” said the victim Sadayandi.

“Even men who come by cycle have to get down and push it into the village,” said his wife Nagajothi.

The police took more than a week to file the First Information Report (FIR) under the Prevention of Atrocities Act. And even after that, they were not willing to book the accused. Instead, they want the victim – who is in hiding because of fear – to prove that the crime occurred.

“If this has happened he has to come forward to give some clues and explain about the incident. Only then I can go deep into this matter,” said the Deputy Superintendent of Police.

The Madras High Court has now asked for an action taken report.

A few years ago, NDTV had exposed atrocities against Dalits in the state. In many areas they are forced to remove footwear before entering the village, walls deny them access, thorny fences greet them in fields they use as toilets. Even elected Panchayat leaders are forced to quit. Thanks to vote bank politics successive governments seem to have only gone soft on dominant communities.

Politically, Dalits are a divided lot in Tamil Nadu. While the state pampers them with welfare schemes, its tacit support to human rights violations by powerful dominant communities is only making things worse.

– unquote –

Man ceases to respect man. Why ? Over-man-made suppositions. The Master-Slave mentality (as Neitsche says)… Bhadra-lok… (high-born)… versus the Malich (the dirty filthy low born). From where do such evil thoughts get sanction ?

From evil social practices. There were times when SATI had social acceptance too. Such evil has to be condemned… irrespective of geography.

Murder / rape / atrocities are deplorable… whether they occur in India or Pakistan. Jai Ho.

What does all marriages being based on ‘love’ and free choice lead a society to? Going by all that has been happening in countries where that is the case, the answer appears to include a 60-70% divorce rate, in addition to auxiliaries like a high teenage-pregnancy rate and problems related to the use of narcotics. I am not qualified enough to further elaborte on the impact in the manner that only psychiatrists, sociologists and other such professionals can. However, if I may use an anecdote, the ‘free love’ that is prevalent there appears to have been largely responsible for a 12-year old boy and a 15-year old girl having begotten a girl-child. Not that it ends there though, since 7 other boys in the same age bracket, with whom the 15-year old mother had physical relations at the same time that the child was conceived, have claimed paternity.

Somehow, whenever any one claims that either the ‘arranged’ or ‘love’ route to marriage is superior than the other, I can not seem to agree completely. Perhaps there should be room for both, in a harmonious society.

I have always been amazed at the way our popular culture/media has kind of demonized love and marriage with the term “love marriage”.

Marriage is supposed to be an agreement between two consenting adults. One has to ponder how close “arranged marriages” are to this idea.

I think its time that now arranged marriages should be demonized with an exclusive title while the term marriage be reserved for what it stands for.