knowledge has no horizons

(I intend in this essay not to classify the internal divisions of scheduled castes as Paraiyar and Arunthathiyar; instead, I desire to put the general term “Dalits”.)

Three women are raped everyday; thirteen are killed every week; six are kidnapped or abducted every week; five homes or possessions are burnt every week – thus goes the survey of NCDHR – and all this is because they are born dalits and of dalits. What is there being born so? Of course, India has recorded in the past and is recording in the present innumerable incidents of inequality. While the Indian sub-continent boasts of its “unity in diversity”, it is now time to question the “thought” itself that every Indian tends to take pride in.

This essay confines itself in discussing about a race that is called “Harijan” in Gandhian term, “Scheduled caste” in English term, “Dalits” in Tamilian term. This is about a race that formed the 17 percent of the total population of India in the 2001 census. This is about a race that is kept on neglecting in either of the scenarios – political, educational, professional. This is about a race that is viewed with visceral dislike of and is made to dance to the tunes of the upper-caste hindus and is puppets in the hands of politicians.

“If untouchability continues to exist in India, it is sure to lead only for its destruction”, cursed Mahatma Gandhi, who viewed harijans as gods. Forget the Gandhian view on them. After all, they are human beings.

India has registered various embarrassing incidents targeting datits, and Tamil Nadu has always been the place of violence against them. Although there exist several acts (!) to protect them, it is excruciating to know that they continue to be targets of assaults and are victimized for longer. Which section of Indian Penal Code prevents a dalit taking part in a land auction? Of course, it is a cognizable offence, according to the upper-caste hindus’ codes, and death is the punishment for this in their courts. Sennakarampatty is such a village in Madurai district, Tamil Nadu, that executed such sentence. Four of the dalits belonging to Sennakarampatty that took part in the land auction were brutally murdered on their way to their homes in July 1992. The village witnessed yet another massacre of two dalits – Velu and Ammasi –who were dragged from the bus to be beheaded.

Madurai, notoriously earned fame of being the biggest village in India, has been a place of concern and was known for its law-and-order problems, until recently. Who can erase from their memory the agonizing incidence of brutally butchering the seven people – Murugesan and others – traveling in a bus, simply for the reason Murugesan contested elections and won in the neighbouring village of Sennakarampatty, Melavalavu, in june, 1997. Political powers are fated to particular castes?

Thinniyam, a village in Trichy district, staged a yet another embarrassing scene. A dalit named Karuppaih along with two other dalits Ramasamy and Murugesan was branded with a hot iron and made to eat human faeces for asking to reiterate the money. One can’t turn a deaf ear to this as it was staged by a woman, who was the president village at that time, and by her husband.

How cruel it is for Dalits to live in a society in which even bringing up a dog was prevented by the upper-caste Hindus, and this is because they might have contact with their dogs resulting in mixed breeding. This atrocity goes up at its height in Velayathapuram, a village in Tuticorin of Tamil Nadu. A dalit named Mariappan was refused marriage hall in Erode district; those that opposed the dual tumbler system in Udumalaipet were beaten; and the list goes.

I remember reading Rousseau’s Man is born free, but everywhere he is in chains. But in the case of Dalits in India, he is made from his birth to bear the stamp of untouchable until his death.

No longer women are maids in the halls, cooks in the kitchens, and whores in beds. Nor are they considered to be the bringers of pain into the world. Forget about the Bible tale!

Women are making their marks in all the fields, which were once thought to be unfit for them, either in the field of politics, or in astronomy, or in literature, or in the lucrative field of information technology. The world has witnessed and is witnessing women ruling the countries and states efficiently. In India, Indira Gandhi, called the ‘iron lady’, ruled the country without a rival – albeit for a span of years. In the state level, many achieved fame to their names and are now deciding the destiny of governments. Jeyalalitha adorned the chair of Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for 10 years, Mayawathi and Sudesha kirubalani – the latter having the credit of being the first woman chief minister of an Indian state – the chair of Uttar Pradesh; Rabri Devi, the chair of Bihar; Parvathi, the chair of Andra Pradesh. Apart from women being PM and CMs, many have entered the local politics and managed to win to become Mayors and councilors. India ecstasied with nominating a woman – Pratiba Patil – to the top of post of the Indian sovereignty and Meera Kumar to the chair of Parliamentary speaker.

Coming out of the confinement of politics in India, we can also see many to set their feet in it and succeeded becoming the supreme leaders of their states. Countries surrounding the Indian sub-continent always honoured women with high posts. Sirimavo Bandaranaike registered herself in the Sri Lankan as well as the world political history as the first woman prime minister. Who forget Chandrika Bandaranaike Kumaratunge of Sri Lanka, Sheik Hasina of Bangladesh and Aung San Suu Kyi of Myanmar?

Many unprecedented changes have occurred in their lives in the recent decades. Women, once thought to be fit only for kitchens, prove now equal to men and to be as efficient as their male counterparts to earn for themselves livelihood. It is explicit and evident from what we are seeing everyday that they, standing o their own legs, gained good positions in the society, not expecting their men for their survival. It is welcoming that the percentage of women working is exponentially grown in the few decades. Many have added laurels to their heads as successful entrepreneurs and have achieved fame as the supreme heads of organizations, like the Chennai-born Indra Nooyi to become the CEO of PepsiCo.

Women’s participation in the field of science and technology is also of paramount importance. Their explorations and attempts of exploring of what is above and under the earth proved significant. Kalpana Chawla claimed the credit of being the first women to make space voyage. Also, the domination of women in the field of literature becomes an often-felt one. Three women – Elfriede Jelinek of Poland, Doris Lessing of Britain and Herta Müller of Germany – are in the row of Nobel Prize winners for literature within a decade.

It is no hyperbolic to say that 2009 is year for women, as, for the first time in the history of Nobel Prize, five women are awarded the Nobel Prize. Beating the record of 2004 when three women got Nobel Prize, all the five made their marks. Marie Curie started the count in 1903 winning the prize for physics, and from then onwards, 40 women have registered their names for 41 times in the Nobel records. It is perspicuous from the fact that women’s dominance is on the fields of literature and peace, in which they were awarded 12 times each, respectively. This year is noteworthy for women for yet another reason. Right from the year of inception of the prize for Economics in 1969, Elinor Ostrom is the first to get it. Of course, women folk have all rights to take pride in this.

Now, read the beginning paragraph of the essay.

Days passed by after the TN MPs “insisted” on the Centre allowing them to visit war-ridden Sri Lanka and to study the situations and conditions of the Tamils in relief camps, who are living as refugees in their own homeland, and things are now going good for the DMK supremo, Karunanidhi, to stage a different drama to prove him the ever only leader of Tamils across the world. Yes, a team of TN MPs started their journey to Sri Lanka this afternoon. The team comprises MPs from Congress that gave weapons to root out Tamils, from DMK that backed and is backing Congress in the centre, and VCK leader Thirumavalavan, who found the nerve to swear to pluck the congress to its roots from the Tamil soil. Find it rib-tickling!

“The MPs' delegation is in response to the invitation extended by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi to visit his country and see the relief operations”, said Natchiappan. He continued: “Our primary focus is to see how the internally displaced people are being maintained in the special camps in Sri Lanka and how the aid is being distributed to them”. The head of the team of Tamil MPs headed to Sri Lanka asserts, "The chief minister instead decided to depute a team of MPs of the ruling alliance on his behalf to have first hand information on the conditions prevailing there."

Now, it is time to turn to be serious to ask certain questions that are expected not to be evaded. Colombo announced that the war against the LTTEs ended in the month of May, and the war-affected Tamils are housed in relief camps from the time then. A lot of news is coming on the way that the Tamils in the relief are not provided with basic amenities like sanitation, food and others, and even things sent to them on humanitarian measures failed to reach them. What happened to Vanangaman, humanitarian ship carrying consignment of food, medicine, medical teams and other essential items to the suffering Tamils? In a petition filed in the Sri Lankan Supreme Court by the NGO Centre for Changed Principles, it painfully pointed out that 30 among the Tamils died of lack of nutrition, and around 3,00,000 Tamils housed in the so-called 40 relief camps are subjected to torment by the Lankan army (Watch Video). This happened in the month of June (Click to read). The news of worse and deteriorating condition of Tamils keep flowing even at and after the war. It is worth noting here the statement of US minister for External Affairs, Hilary, who accused Sri Lanka of using rape as a weapon in the fight against the LTTEs (Click here to read). Hats off to the State and Centre for arranging such an earlier visit to study their conditions!!!!

T.R.Balu, the head of the team of MPs, says we are not getting any information regarding our visit from the sri Lankan government side, whereas the State Congress leader Thangabalu claims, which Natchiappan reaffirms later, that a letter from the Lankan president has reached the TN CM, asking him to send a team of MPs from TN to study the situations in the relief camps (Dinamalar). Why is this contradictions and why the letter sent to karunanidhi rather than to Manmohan Singh?.

The team is visiting Lanka as a representative of State or Centre? If representing the Centre, why should they give report to Karunanidhi and through him to Manmohan Singh? T.R.Baalu is of the opinion that “[t]he chief minister instead decided to depute a team of MPs of the ruling alliance on his behalf to have first hand information on the conditions prevailing there.” When is the external ministry coming in the concurrent list? And why was the Sri Lankan president writing to him instead to Manmohan? How can one expect a detailed and true from the team, as it does not consist of MPs from oppositon parties, at least from the state level? MPs from AIADMK, Communists and MDMK were not the sons of Tamil soil and are strangers to Tamils there in Sri Lanka?

The statement of Karunanidhi at the time of asking to pressurize the Centre to stop Lanka killing Tamils still lingers in Tamil minds. A sovereign country cannot interfere into the matters of another sovereign country, he said. But, now, he is sending a team, just for political stunt. The five-day visit will be for dining with Rajapaksa, and the team eventually concludes: “the condition is satisfactory”.

Star always seems to favour Obama, whether it is the presidential election or Nobel committee’s selection. The charismatic leader of USA is able to catch up the view not only of his people, but the five-member committee elected by the Norwegian Parliament. Of the 205 total nominations – that include 172 individuals and 33 organizations – for the prize for this year, the young Obama emerged the victor of winning the prize. The third man sitting on the American presidential chair to win the prize after Roosevelt in 1906 and Wilson in 1919 and the fourth of 44 US presidents, Obama is of course eligible to be rewarded with – but too earlier to be awarded.

Having gone into the history of whats, whens and wheres of the Nobel Prize will be a real waste of time, whereas prize for peace has something special and worth knowing. Peace for prize, unlike others that are given by Swedish institutions, is to be given by selected committee elected by the Norwegian parliament to a man who, Nobel himself states in 1895 Will, “shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between the nations and the abolition or reduction of standing armies and the formation and spreading of peace congresses”.

The prize comes as recognition of his vision of a world without nuclear weapons. The committee honours this man for instilling in people “hope for a better future” and for “his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”. The Norwegian committee didn’t forget to point out his outreach to the Muslim world. He is a man of his words and his pledge to withdraw the US troops from Iraq in the presidential election campaign is gradually getting realized.

The committee’s choice of him as the winner of Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is also left room for debates among observers of Nobel prize. The point that they seek to pinpoint is that Obama took office less than two weeks before the February 1 nomination deadline. That the committee comes with clarifications of its choice or simply leaves it to time to answer is left to time itself.

People live fearlessly because of fear of law, and law does its duty because of fear of Press. The so-called fourth pillar of democracy is broken with the arrest of the news editor of Dinamalar, Lenin, and it is absolutely an act of strangling the freedom of press. No doubt, Dinamalar has earned a good name among the people for pointing out whatever that goes against the people.

Bhuvaneswari, an actress, was arrested for involving in flesh trade along with two others at her home at Adyar on Saturday. The police found themselves shocked to see a photo a political big name hanging in the house, yet they continued with their action. While the boldness and sagacity of TN police was saluted, something is left to them to be answered. Dailies like Daily Thanthi and news site like thatstamil have all alike pointed out that Bhuvaneswari threatened the TN police with the list of actress that involve in the flesh trade, to take actions against them. But the questions that a man belonging to common folk seeks to clarify are: what happened to the list of Bhuvaneswari about those involved in flesh trade? What are the actions that the TN police have taken against them? What made the TN police rush action against the Dinamalar news editor?

I am not here supporting Dinamalar publishing of the news with photos of actress that are thought to be involving in the flesh trade without confirming from the authorized state agencies. The arrest coming at the time of actors’ union staging a protest demanding actions assumed added significance. What does the government of Tamil Nadu really intend to do? If the arrest came as a response to the ferocity of the actors’ union and the so-called actresses whose images were thought to be torn after the news in Dinamalar, what is the response for Bhuvaneswari publicly challenging the police to arrest others? Do the Police have their ready-made answers that “we are setting traps” and “we will catch them soon”, as usual?

Media is not just a matter of publishing news. It itself is police without uniforms. It plays a vital role in state and nation architecture and helps reducing crimes. And the part of it can’t just be arrested for someone’s protest. If anything related to media comes under criticism should be solved through Judiciary.