by K G Sankarapillai

‘Dalit’ means broken, oppressed, untouchable, downtrodden, and exploited. They come from the poor communities which under the Indian caste system used to be known as ‘untouchables’. They constitute nearly 16% of the Indian population.

The caste system, with a history of more than 3000 years in India, is a shameful system of social segregation, which works on the principle of purity and impurity. Purity is rich and white or whitish, impurity is poor and dark. Hidden powers of wealth can be easily traced in every feudal Brahmanical concept of the ideal. Material milieu of purity and beauty and prominence and command and comforts is also wealth. Economic division is reflected in the social classifications. But it should not be registered that caste is racial or economic. Dr. Ambedkar says that the caste system came into being long after the different races of India had commingled in blood and culture. To hold that distinctions of caste are really distinctions of race and to treat different castes as though they were so many different races is a gross perversion of the historical facts. Ambedkar asks: What affinity is there between the Untouchable of Bengal and the Untouchable of Madras? The Brahman of Punjab is racially the same stock as the Chamar of the Punjab and the Brahman of Madras is the same race as the Pariah of Madras. The caste system does not demarcate racial division. (Annihilation of caste – in writings and speeches vol.1 .p.49 Dr .B.R. Ambedkar) (more…)

By K. Ratnayake and Peter Symonds

An unexpected landslide for the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) in Constituent Assembly elections on April 10 underscores the depth of the country’s social crisis and the extent of popular hostility, not only to the monarchy, but to the entire spectrum of establishment parties.
Full results in the complex election process may not be known for weeks, but the Maoists have won a clear majority of 240 directly-elected seats. Of the 218 seats finalised so far, the CPN-M has 116 compared to just 34 for its nearest rival, Nepali Congress, and 31 for the Nepal Communist Party-Unified Marxist Leninist (NCP-UML). The ethnic-based Madhesi People’s Rights Forum won 24 seats.
Another 335 seats will be decided by proportional voting, with quotas set to ensure the representation of women, lower castes and ethnic minorities. The overall vote for the Maoists is about 33 percent, ensuring that the CPN-M will be by far the largest party in the 601-seat Constituent Assembly, but unlikely to hold a majority. The remaining 26 seats will be appointed by the interim cabinet, which the CPN-M will dominate.
The decision to establish a Constituent Assembly, which will draw up a new constitution as well as appoint an interim government, is the product of a protracted political crisis. In April 2006, sustained political protests against the absolutist monarchy finally forced King Gyanendra to stand aside and hand over power to a seven-party alliance led by Nepali Congress and the NCP-UML. In November 2006, the Maoists concluded a deal with the government to end their 12-year armed insurgency, enter the cabinet and participate in elections for a constituent assembly. (more…)

Negotiating with my middle class guilt, I have been pondering over this article. I had posted on Richistans earlier - somehow the obscenity of excessive (many would disagree here) wealth continues to irk me and thankfully countless others. (more…)