PRAGOTI

 
 C.Umashankar,a well known Dalit IAS officer of Tamil Nadu cadre was suspended from the service recently by the Tamil Nadu Government,alleging him of producing a fake caste certificate.Umashankar earned reputation by taking an unflinching position against corruption and nepotism which has irked the prominent Dravidian parties of the state. Pragoti presents a translation of an article written in Theekathir about this in detail highlighting the brazen caste discrimination that exist behind the rationalist facade of DMK and the deepening of the crony capitalism in the state. Translation courtesy, Karthik.
A complaint filed by Shri.Umashankar against the Tamil Nadu Government in front of the National Commission for SC/ST is also uploaded here.

In our time all what the ‘emblem’ of Dalit politics strives is to simply hold on to power. Thereby, losing its ‘real’ political edge in the world of Indian politics - of the clientele- patronage system, which in turn has resulted in directing the whole movement towards a path which can be anything but the path towards a larger societal change where one wishes to see the absolute dismantling of the caste hierarchies.Moggallan Bharti, student of political science at Jawaharlal Nehru University, writes. 

Tamil Nadu “accepts in principle” a 3 per cent quota for a few sub-sects within the existing 18 per cent reservation for the Scheduled Castes,writes S. Viswanathan.

CPI(M) spearheaded the agitation of Arunthathiyar community,which is one among the most marginalized sections among the lower castes in Tamil Nadu.A significant section of Arunthathiyars still work as night soil removers and underground sewer cleaners,for whom the exclusive reservations would certainly be a respite,though the lingering upper class stigma against the "untouchables" in Tamil Nadu and the resultant social exclusion points out the need for more affirmative measures from the authorities.

The Khairlanji case is not a private concern of Bhotmange. It is, instead a mirror of the caste-based discrimination that continues to stalk the villages across the country and a reminder that Article 17 of the Constitution abolishing untouchability and caste based discrimination is a far cry even after almost six decades after India became a Republic.

V. Krishna Ananth, assesses the Khairlanji verdict and compares it to the judicial intervention of the Supreme Court in the Sohrabuddin-Kauserbi murder case in which Sohrabuddin and his wife Kauserbi were shot dead by a team of the Gujarat Police led by DIG D.G.Vanzara and thereafter described this act of cold-blooded murder as one of an encounter.