DALIT ATROCITIES IN INDIA - 2004 - Indian Social Institute

was found in his home at Shweta Duplex on Wednesday. Parmar, his wife Madhu (40) anddaughters Payal (19) and Nisha (17) had consumed insecticide. An engineer with LIC, Parmarhad been suspended from the company for corruption charges two years back. In his sixpagesuicide note, he has blamed five LIC officials and two Rajkot-based contractors for drivinghim to suicide. He has charged the officials with nurturing an anti-Dalit bias. A case of accidentaldeath has been registered, but the police may book the named LIC officials. The note beginson October 20, though Par-mar signed off on October 23, suggesting that it may have beenwritten over three days. Neighbours claim to have last seen the Par-mars on Sunday. RajanKapadia, a relative, said that Nisha seemed "normal" when he visited her on Sunday. (Times ofIndia 28.10.04)2 nd Nov.Dalits upset over Shinde’s removal (2)Mumbal: The removal from office of Maharashtra's first Dalit chief minister .Sushilkumar Shindeby Congress has created widespread resentment among Dalits. The fact that now chief ministerVilasrao Deshmukh and his deputy R R Patil and even the leader of the opposition in the assemblyNarayan Rane are all Marathas has further upset the backward castes. Prof D N Sandanshiv,a prominent Dalit intellectual and legal expert, said not only the removal of Shinde but also themanner in which he was ejected from Mantralaya was unbecoming of a party which claims tostand by Dalits. He said Shinde was eased out even though he had led his party to victory againstall odds. Also, till the eleventh hour it appeared that Shinde will be allowed to retain his job. Butall of a sudden Deshmukh was pitchforked to the CM’s post. Obviously Maratha leaders cannottolerate a Dalit chief minister, he alleged. He said Shinde had angered the Maratha lobby bytaking the historic decision of providing reservation for backward castes in jobs in the cooperativesector which has hundreds of sugar factories, spinning mills, dairies and banks in its fold in ruralMaharashtra. He said the Maratha Mahasangh and other bodies of the Maratha caste had openlyopposed this decision taken by Shinde in May, 2004. He feared that this decision may be dilutedby the new Maratha-dominated dispensation. (Times of India 2.11.04)8 th Nov.Dalits demand their ‘due’ rights (2)NEW DELHI, NOV. 7. The All India Congress Committee secretary, Jaikishan, today organised aMahapanchayat at the Ambedkar Bhawan here to seek immediate solutions to the socioeconomicproblems of the Dalits and Backward Classes from the Congress governments at theCentre and in Delhi. Mar Jaikishan said the Mahapanchayat has passed six important resolutionspertaining to different problems of the Dalits and Backward Classes. It has urged the Delhi ChiefMinister, Sheila Dikshit, to withdraw the more than six-year-old decision of the previous BJPgovernment to deprive lakhs of families from the constitutibiial right of .reservation by not issuingSC and BC certificates to those who had come to Delhi after 1954. Ms Dikshit has been calledupon to extend the time limit to 2004. Stating that the decision had not only affected the rights ofDalits and BCs, he said, it has also affected the promotions of government employees. Further,the Mahapanchayat also called upon the Delhi Government to allow the Scheduled Tribes too theright of reservation on government services. Noting that thousands of vacancies existed in thereserved posts in various government departments, it said filling of these slots would also checkthe growing problem of unemployment. (Hindu 8.11.04)10 th Nov.Another couple in caste trouble (2)Rohtak, Nov. 9: Close on the heels of a panchayat allowing a couple to live as husband and wife,another couple in Haryana's Jhajjar district, exiled four years ago due to lineage, were onTuesday allowed to return to their village with a rider. A panchayat in Jaundhi village decided topermit Ashish and his wife Dar-shana to reside on the outskirts of the village provided theywithdraw their petition in the Punjab & Haryana high court seeking rehabilitation. Ashish acceptedthe decision, but his mother-in-law protested saying the two were not animals who could live infields. She insisted that her daughter and son-in-law be allowed to stay in their home in Jaundhi.The meeting was attended by representatives of Dagar and Gahlout khaps (clans), Jhajjar SSP