Saturday 28 April 2012

Welfare programmes and life of Dalits and Adivasi in India!

For the last few days, my mind is being agonised to see the reports about the plight of poor , dalits and Adivasis in India even after the facts that the Union government and various state governments pumping huge resources  for their upliftment  through various flagship programmes and implementation of  laws stringently for their welfare . Instead of development in  poor, dalits, and adivasis zones in the country and improvement in their life-style, they are getting more and more poor and these people are being exploited more and more! Just this reminds  me one of the statements of Dr B R Ambedkar," My final words of advice to you are educate, organise and agitate. Ours is a battle not for wealth or for power. It is battle for freedom. It is a battle for reclamation of human personality."
Since the Independence of the country in 1947, it appears that some things tangible are being made to uplift the rural poor, tribal, and dalits, but on the ground realities, we find very insignificant impact of all these measures; exploitations are there; untouchablity and hatred towards dalits and adivasis are prevalent; Feudals' conservative attitude towards them continue-and what not? Slight changes are there in exploitation-earlier it was by and large by  landlords, moneyed people, upper caste people,, bureaucrats-now a different class of neo-rich class in the shape of influential  political class, corporates, capitalists, industrialists, multinationals has emerged. Attitude of upper caste, landlords, conservative people have also added new dimensions to the present state of affairs.
Socio-economic rights of people through "flagship" programmes like Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan(SSA), Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MANREGA), National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), Integrated Child Development Scheme(ICDS), Indira awas Yojana(IAY) for houses to homeless as well as semblance of equality before law like removal of untouchablity, continued hatred of sons and daughters of lower caste in different spheres of life, particularly in educational institutions are gradually being trampled in India because of politicians-bureaucrats -upper caste - vested interest nexus! Same tales are with various state governments' welfare schemes to uplift poor , dalits and tribal! Amount for all these flagship programmes of government of India as well as welfare schemes of different state governments are being spent but fruits of benefits hardly reach to them in rural areas.In Human Development Index, deprived people are at the lowest level on almost all fronts.
Teams of social audits of implementation of  all these welfare measures by various organisations even of the Sample Survey Organisations of India (SSOI) and also by the international organisations like World bank and its subsidiaries, International Children Emergency Fund (ICEF) have exposed the hollow claims of the union  government and state governments about benefits and improvements in their life.Particularly , ICDS programme implementation  throughout the country is marred  by corrupt practises and the benefit to poor under the scheme fail to reach at the ground level.
 A recent book ," the Integrated Child Development Services: A flagship adrift" by K R Venugoapal, Konark Publication highlights important insights into functioning of the scheme In Andhra Pradesh and other parts of the country.Apart from that,audit reports of Audior and Comptroller General of India (CAG), specially in Bihar has pointed out various irregularities and corrupt practises in the flagship programmes of the centre and also welfare mare programmes of the Bihar government.Under NDA rule led by chief minister Nitish Kumar. Non-utilisation of fund on various flagship programmes of the centre by the Bihar government have been rampantly pointed out as per recently released CAG report on Bihar. The report has came down heavily on the Bihar government for financial indiscipline.The report has commented that Rs 10309 crore were transferred by the centre directly to the state implementing agencies, but the Bihar government hasd failed to submit proper documentation and status of expenditure by these implementing agencies. Fate crores of rupees spent by the Bihar government are not known, the report said,adding that  out of Rs 25331.05 crore drawn on 83542 AC bills, only 9425 DC bills for Rs 2755.68 crore were submitted to the Accountant General of Bihar. As on September 14, 2011, DC bills in respect of 74117AC bills for Rs 22575.37 crore drawn between 2003 to 2010-11 were not submitted despite repeated requests.Under one flagship programme ---Indira Awas Yojana----The Bihar government  due to carry over of funds in excess of the prescribed norms, resulting into non-release of Rs 794.14 crore by the central government.Over 10000 crore of central fund on MGNREG, ICD, NRHM etc have not been utilised, . Utilised amount of over Rs 3000 crore on these scores have been misappropriated at different level of Bihar government in the last two financial years!
Venigopal's book has given many food for thoughts how the major chunk of ICDS have been misappropriated in Andhra Pradesh districts, specially Anantpur of that state and other districts of of other states. The book of Venugopal has covered a wide range of issues including immunisation, health check ups and referral and the form it takes (locally cooked or prepared ready to eat) pre-school  education, maternal health, nutrition education. In all these aspect, the book has described the situation dismal and disappointing. Under the ICDS, even supply of iron and folic acid tablets to pregnant women and vitamin A tablets to children are not distributed in rural areas. All these have resulted into unsafe pregnancy and defects in birth. There are no centres, formally opened in the rural areas of the country.. Anganwadi Sevika , workers and helpers have lack of inadequate training for such activities. Venugopal has suggested in the book "all aganwadi centres be converted into creches that function from 8.30  am to 5.30 pm, retaining all the current services with additional provision for serving supplementary nutrition thrice a day, doubling the strength of anganwadi workers and helpers, utilising voluntary services of trained and willing adolescents girls and raising the honourarium of anganwadi workers for the longer hours of work."Apart from bungling of funds meant for ICDS under Aganwadi being misappropriated by government officials inconvenience with aganwadi workers, there is wide scale social discrimination . Upper caste children and women do not attend aganwadi centres, located in dalit tolas. They do not take food prepared by dalits anganwadi workers under ICDS. Upper caste men do not allow their children and  women to mix with lower caste children and women in aganwadi centres.Thus centre's major flagship programme is in deep sea like other programmes including MGERGS in rural areras of the country.
Such point has shocked me when I further analysed the facts about social discrimination and untouchablity practise  in educational institutions, particularly of national repute like AIIMS, where dalit and advasis students are tortured, resulting into their deaths in many cases. Such incidents have taken place with Angita Veghada, a first years students of B Sc. Nursing  ,Institute of Nursing, Ahmedabad,Jaspreet singh , final year MBBS, Government Medical college, Chandigrah,S  Amravathi, national-level young women boxer, Centre of Excellence, Sports Authority of AP, Hyderabad,Senthali Kumar, Ph D School of Physics, University of Hyderabad,Malepula Shrikant, Final year B Tech, IIT, Bombay, G Suman, Final year M Tech, IIT Kanpur, Ajay S Chandra, integrated PhD, Indian Institute of science, Banglore, D Shyam Kumar, First year B Tech, Sarojinin Institute of engineering and Technology, Vijayawada,Anil Kumar Meena, First year AIIMS, New Delhi, Sushil Kumar Chaudhary Final year MBBS, Chhatrapati shahuji Maharaj Meducal university (former KGMC), Luchknow, Manish Kumar,3rd year student of B tecxh, IIT Roorkee, G Varalakshmi, B Tech first year, Vignan Engineering College, Hyderabad,,Linesh Mohan Gawle, PhD, National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi, Madhuri Sale, Final Year B Tech, IIT Kanpur, J K Ramesh, second year B Sc. University of Agriculture Sciences, Banglore, Bandi Anusha B Com final year Villa Marry College, Hyderabad,and  Pushpoanjali Poorty, First year MBA, Vesvesvaraih Technological university Banglore. Lists are long!
A recent Opinion piece by S Anand in Outlook India, has pointed out, " Most children of from Disadvantaged caste end up as maids, child labourers or drop outs. In most of rural India Dalit students are asked to sit apart, sweep the school veranda or clean toilets.Omprakash Valmiki, the Hindi Dalit writer in his autobiography JOOTHAN, recalls the humiliation of being forced to perform his caste occupation by his head master, who told him,' Go sweep the whole playground. Otherwise, I will shove chillies up your arse and throw you out of school" Almost every first generation formally educated Dalit has such horror stories to share. For every youth who manage to persist with the skewed education system for members of the family skip a meal; sibling work as farm labour to help one person hope for and dream of a life of dignity. For a Dalit girl, the odds were are worse."
Following a report in the Telegraph, UK: " fewer than one in 100 students beginning courses at Britain's two oldest universities in 2010 were Black, including just 20 of the 2617 British students accepted to Oxford, a fall from 27 in 2009" A Black Labour Party MP collected data using freedom of information and wrote a column in The Guardian, ", lamenting, The Oxford whitewash."S Anand further wrote in his Opinion piece, "the debate in Britain is in sharp contrast to the silence in India. In 2006, following reports of discrimination in internal evaluation (especially practical and viva), segregation in  hostels, mess rooms and  in sports and cuiural events, A three-member  committee  headed by  Sukhdeo Thorat , then  chairman of the University Grants Commission,  conducted an enquiry into   the state of affairs in the AIIMS. The 77-page report of the Thorat committee indicted the administration on many counts and offered  recommendations but it was dismissed as prejudiced and no action was taken."
There is no murmur when dalit students are murdered in campuses, Anand says, What makes Indian society so shameless as to not just deny but even justify such prejudices against Dalits that lead to murders?" Anand further argues, " Just imagine the repercussions if Black students were to die half as routinely in Harvard or in Oxford as Dalits and Adivasis students die in AIIMS, IITS and IISCS."
Are you we not living in primitive  retrograde society?

Wednesday 18 April 2012

Are the publications of books on 100th Year of Bihar by Bihar Legislative C-ouncil untrue and beyond historical fact?

One cannot ignore the historical facts based on true events, learning and historical records. And If one do that, he will have to put himself in ridicule. There is a phrase or proverb , " for hiding one truth, one has to speak thousands of lies to justify his stand and ultimately he becomes ridiculous in the eyes of both history, culture and many other aspects".
Such unprecedented stories are being planted by the Bihar government as well as the Bihar Legislative Council for celebrating the so called 100th years of the state. While the chief minister of Bihar Nitish Kumar is cashing on image building by holding centenary celebrations of Bihar here and in different parts of the country, the chairman of the Legislative Council Pundit Tara Kant Jha has gone a step further in celebrating 100th years of Bihar throughout the year-1912 as part of the centenary celebration programme of the Legislative Council and origin of Bihar. Over a dozen books , narrating Bihar and its people, culture, participation of people of Bihar in freedom movement etc, have been published in multi-coloured glossy papers in book forms. Contents in many books have ignored the facts on Bihar, based on history!
( I have  written two articles on March 5,2012 and March 14, 2012 on my blog-www.kksingh1.blogspot.com under headlines "Hype over Bihar Diwas vis-a-vis Facts about Bihar and Strange political development in mid 1950s to merge Bihar and Bengal  as joint state.)
Exactly, the Bihar government and Legislative Council have based that the origin of Bihar was   on March 22, 1912. It appears that both Bihar government and Legislative Council have erred in establishing of the exact year and date of creation of Bihar. As per historical facts, it was in 1912, a state of "Bihar and Orrisa" was created after carving out of the greater Bengal by British Raj-than how could anybody say that Bihar was created  in 1912-it was both Bihar and Orrisa was separated from Bengal and made a separate state.Exactly Bihar was finally came into shape as separate state in  in 1936 through an Act passed by the British Parliament. The Act was named as British India Act-1935 on which our Constitution is mainly based!
If one go into detail and admit the contention of Pundit Tarakant Jha and Mr Nitish Kumar's , sponsored books and statements, that Bihar was created in 1912 and its origin was in 1912 and that is 100th years of Bihar -than one  has to peep into the historical facts since East India Company days much , much before when our country was slaved by British Raj snatching the rule of slavery of  India from East India Company.In 1764, East India Company, which had initially come here for trading, had started taking interest in the rule of India. At that time,a battle, namely" Battel of Buxar" had taken place between Nawabs of Awadh and other small rulers one side and Birtish India Company on another side. Ultimately, the British East India Company had won the battle. The Company got raiyati rights of Bihar, Bengal and Orrisa and started ruling over them. The company formed "Presidency of Bengal", comprising Bihar, Bengal and Orrisa. after ruling for several years the company handed over the suzerainty to British Raj and India along with entire south, and west, east was slaved by British Raj.
Historians and History books have such orientation about creation of Bihar. Only Mr Nitish Kumar and Pundit Tara Kant Jha could tell the justification of exact date of origin of Bihar state in India. Facts are crystal clear! Facts need broader debate over exact date of origin of Bihar although Bihar is ancient old and formerly named as Behara Books on centenary celebrations on glossy coloured papers with aggrandisements of present day political rulers have hardly referred the historical facts about the origin of Bihar, published by Legislative Council and also by the Bihar government.
However, the legislative Council has engaged on at least one historian, Prof Nihar Nandan Sinha, a professor of Patna university, who had has mainly written on the contributions of people , engaged in the freedom movement instead of digging up historical facts about origin of Bihar except at one point he has mentioned about creation of Bihar and Orrisa as separate state by carving out Bengal in 1912. Other persons engaged in the publications of the books , published by Legislative Council, come from general walks of life and they have no connections with historical facts about origin of Bihar.
In my opinion Pundit Tara Kant Jha and Mr Nitish Kumar should hold a broader debates by historians bo, expert ON both ancient and medieval period to come the conclusion of exact dates of origin of Bihar! Both owe an explainations from the people of Bihar!