Saturday, 27 September 2014

School dismisses 11 Dalit cousins over ‘defiling’ of water - The Hindu

School dismisses 11 Dalit cousins over ‘defiling’ of water - The Hindu -September 21, 2014



This refers to the News Report “School Dismisses 11 Dalit cousins over
‘defiling’ of water” by Aarti Dhar, The Hindu, September 21, 2014.

             After reading this report, one is left aghast that even in this day and
age, there are still bigots like the upper caste primary school teacher Mangal
Singh who had the temerity and impudence to dismiss eleven Dalit Cousins from
the school, that too, a Government run school, for no major fault or crime by
them except for two of them showing the unexpected gumption and drinking  water from the earthen pot that was
exclusively kept for the upper caste teacher!

          This incident that is a Glaring Example of the pernicious practice of
untouchability against Dalits is only the tip of the iceberg that got reported
by a watchful and concerned reporter of The Hindu, since such and similar
incidents are still very common in rural India, despite the prevalent stringent
law on prevention of atrocities on Dalits.

           The reason for it is the predominantly upper caste nature of the
demography in the Indian Police Force and so, many policemen either don’t
register a FIR on a complaint from a Dalit or even after registering the
FIR,  drag their feet during  investigation and delay the  arrest of those committing the atrocity since
almost all such atrocities are most often committed by members of their own
upper caste groups! This anomaly in ‘disproportionate’ representation of Dalits
and even Minorities in the police force needs to be corrected on an urgent
basis for preventing such Biased Enforcement of law by the police.



      Fortunately, in the current case,
the police has at least acted within ‘Three Weeks’ (!)  to arrest the culprit and one hopes that they
will complete the investigation, at least, at the same rate, without
deliberately scuttling the probe, the possibility of which is immense because
the Accused Teacher on his part has apparently foisted a ‘False Case’ against
the parents of the eleven Dalit students! Some Local NGOS / Social Service
organisations should ensure that this case does not get derailed as many such
cases have in the past and that this abominable behaviour / crime of a person,
that too ‘a Teacher – a Guru’ by profession against his own ‘students-
shishyas’ gets an exemplary punishment at the earliest and his fate becomes a
strong deterrent against persons of a similar bent of mind. 

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