Why Is Modern India Vegetarian?

The incident in HCU*, made us wonder about the much larger questions of food and nutrition in India, and how that, in more ways than one, relates in to the religion and caste. It is common knowledge, that Indian cuisine is as diverse as it comes. It is also common knowledge that certain types of food are considered taboo by some and relished by some. How many times have we seen vegetarians look at a meat loaded plate, crinkle their nose, and say, “Erguh! How do you eat that stuff?” How many times have we watched friends eat beef on the sly, because their mothers would “kill them if they found out.” Close home, in campus, when beef was prepared for the participants observing fast for Ramzaan, why was it a hushed up affair?

We are quick to judge some food as bad, unhealthy, and hence, a bad thing. Going by the HCU incident, some food are even considered “contagious”. Dislikes that stem primarily because one is used to a different kind and mode of cooking food, quickly converts into legitimising that dislike in terms of hygiene and health. But have we ever questioned the legitimacy of the standards that we are using to reach these conclusions?

This skewed hierarchy of food is not a result of a recent campaign, but something much simpler, and much more older. “…country can be said to have achieved complete food and nutrition security if each and every person in that country is able to consume a minimum quantum and quality of various ingredients of what I would like to call 'an adequate and balanced diet' on a regular basis,” reads a report ‘Indian Experience on Household Food and Nutritional Security’ by N.P. Nawani. But what constitutes this “balanced diet” is a matter of furious debate.

In India, this balanced diet is measured by the Recommended Dietary Allowance or the RDA, for various age groups, including special groups like infants, nursing mothers and so on. And this measure is not only for nutritional requirements, but also becomes an economic one. Says the Nawani report, “Availability and affordability of such diet, backed by health and educational services in an environmentally sustainable scenario will then enable each member of the society to live a 'good' life; each individual personality getting an opportunity to flower to one's full potential.” RDA thus has direct ramifications on the status of poverty, in determining the per capita incomes that will enable a person to achieve daily intake of the required 2400 K.Cal, and consequentially the minimum wages

The root of the problem, as Veena Shatrugna, Director, National Institute of Nutrition, points out, is one-sided diet itself, that was loaded with cereals—then seen as the cheapest, and the most easily available source of calories. Consequently, this decision, in turn affected the minimum daily wages, the determination of the poverty line, and not to mention, making the Public Distribution System what it is today, i.e. a machinery doling out rice and wheat at cheap rates, but no meat, egg or nuts, or any non-vegetarian food at all. So in a country where vegetarians are a definite minority, we now plan our daily meals based on a notion of a Brahminical notion of a “easily available, balanced diet”, and the cultural production of modern India as vegetarian. This was fine for the upper castes rich, who had the luxury of eating 3-4 kinds of vegetables, and other supplements like nuts, oil etc., along with their rice, but for the poor, this meant serious lack of vital sources of energy. So if the poor man got his plate of rice, and 3 rotis a day, he was expected to be happy and satisfied. The result? We survived, but barely.


The question that now arises is why the nutritionists, and the bureaucrats did not look at alternate sources of proteins, more importantly meat proteins, which, as Dr. Veena Shatrugna, points out, is not just widely consumed, but also highly recommended for anaemic populations such as Indians? Why was there no acknowledgement of differences in cuisines and the palette? The answer seems simple enough, the bureaucrats took the average Indian diet, but the average Indian that they had in mind, was not the majority who ate meat, but the dominant upper class minority. What was an alternative became the norm. The food that the various tribes used eat, says Dr. Shatrugna, was never analysed for its nutrient content. So while we romanticised their customs, did detailed anthropological investigation on how they lived and how they married, there is very little research to evaluate what they eat, and how their food, or the lack of thereof is affecting their health, growth, child birth or birth weight of their children.

The result? 41.9% of adults belonging to the ST and 38.4 % belonging to SCs have Chronic Energy Deficiency, while the pooled average of the nation is 34.8 %. Further, 62.7 % of the children born to Scheduled Caste parents are under-weight, 57.6 % are stunted, while among the other castes it the numbers are 53.1 % and 50.1 %

The women suffer more. Most studies and recommendations are made with the modern working class male, as the average and the requirements of the women are appropriated accordingly. Questions such as different working style, responsibilities, and requirements of the women are not taken into consideration. The birth weight in the low socio-economic groups have not increased significantly since the past 50 years. There pharmaceuticals rally to supplement women with iron, various multi-vitamins during pregnancy, but with no significant impact. NGOs, and activists blame the man- he eats first, the woman is left with the leftovers, but the problem is much simpler, says Dr. Shatrugna. “The low socio-economic groups get 80% of their proteins from cereal. In a scenario where there is not enough food to eat, where is the point in asking the women to eat first?”

What we need now is to a second look at the standards that we have put in place. The items of food that were delegitimised by the RDA—flesh food, egg, etc., must be allowed to become a part of the daily diet of people of all economic strata. The argument that it is beyond the means of the lower caste man, just does not hold. Egg is cheaper than vegetables, then why is egg not distributed via the PDS? Why are we raising a huge outcry over culture and heritage when eggs are being given out under the mid-day meal scheme? Why is eating beef against any religion?

The questions of why food becomes aligned to religion and caste, may still be unanswered. However, in a society that has claims to equality in opportunities and preferences, we need to realise that caste does not work in its open manifestations of discrimination and repression alone.
(Certain students who wanted to put up a beef stall in campus for one of the fest, where prevented from doing so. One of the arguement for the move was that beef is unhealthy. The Dalit Students' Union apporached Dr. Veena Shatrugna for clarity on the nutritional values of beef, and were given a letter certifying that beef was indeed neither unhealthy, nor "contagious".)

Also read Dunkin Jalki's article on food habits in student hostel messes

here

And S. Anand's Notes on My Brahmin Self

Thank you James for the links

AN INTERVIEW WITH JOOPAKA SUBHADRA

Joopaka Shubhadra works with the Andhra Pradesh secretariat. She holds an MA in Telugu literature. She has authored several short stories and also writes a regular column in the Telugu magazine Bhumika. She belongs to the Madiga community of Andhra Pradesh. Her writings reflect issues of caste and gender. However, she feels that in her writings the issue of caste gains predominance over that of gender.

How would you articulate the problems faced by the women in your community?

Women of my community grapple with the problem of poverty but are also subjugated to domestic violence. However this domestic violence must not be placed under a universal category called domestic violence. It has to be understood differently in terms of the difference in the positioning of men in the social structure . Dalit women work but have no right over the money they earn. They are triply subjected by the conditions of labor, caste and gender. They are treated differently by the society. To give you an example - a Dalit women’s complaint at a police station would not be treated in the same way as that of an upper caste women.

Tell us about your own experiences as a person belonging to the Dalit community.

I belong to the Madiga community in Andhra. In my case the question of caste superseded that of gender. In school we were taught that a house has 2 or 3 rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. I could not relate to it since I lived in a hut. When we were asked by the teacher as to what we had for breakfast, students would reply" eggs, bread, butter, jam etc." and again I could not relate to it since all we ate was rice and chilli powder. So the fact that I was different from the other students was posited early in life.

Since you say that very few Dalit women of the Madiga community are educated, how did you come to constitute the educated minority?

I am the youngest of 12 siblings. My father owned a small piece of land. Someone told my father that he must educate his children so that at least they could help him with his land documents. That is how I was sent to school. I studied while living in social welfare hostel.

What prompted you to write about caste issues?

I believe that only a person who is subjugated to a certain condition can represent it with authenticity. An outsider cannot look at it with the same perspective.

In case of Dalit women, does exposure to education make them more aware of their rights?

Education of Dalit women is a rare phenomenon, if it does occur, they are not conscious of it as a process which could enable them to bring about change. They are not in a position to apply and implement what they have learnt. Therefore education does not necessarily bring about a change in the thought process of women.
Also in the Dalit society, education is not a priority. In the upper castes children are educated by way of norm but in our community it is not so. It is a different domain altogether and very view venture into it.

Has modernization minimized the problem of caste?

No, the forms in which it is perpetuated have changed but the problem itself has not. Even in the cities Dalits live in separate bastis .They do jobs involving cleaning. Upper caste people are never seen in such occupations. The Greater municipal corporation of Hyderabad has no upper castes working in such jobs. The railways employ Dalit women for cleaning jobs. Even in the condition of poverty an upper caste person would not perform these menial jobs. They are always taken up by the people of my caste.

Do Dalit women have any representation in politics?

There is reservation for them in the village Panchayats but being uneducated; it takes a long time for them to understand political strategies and the functioning of Panchayats as an institution. So it is more of a struggle for them.

Tell us about the status of women’s movement in Andhra Pradesh.

The prominent Dalit women’s movements are the anti- liquor movement which started from Prakasham district in Andhra area. In Kurnool there were land struggles. The current struggle is regarding caste differentiation and categorization. Almost all of Dalit politicians, IAS, IPS officers, doctors, lawyers, and writers belong to the Mala community. So they have come to constitute the creamy layer which claims reservations generation after generation. There is hardly any representation of sub- castes like the Madigas. This problem has been identified by us now and a demand for proportional representation is being made.

Are there government schemes for Dalit women?

No, there are no well structured schemes. Even when schemes, for example the pension scheme are available, people are unaware of it. The government makes no efforts to increase the level of awareness amongst people. In my village about 50 Dalit women of pensionable age receive no pension. In most of the schemes only a minuscule amount of the total funds allotted is utilized.

Prisons We Broke

"We may not be able to work for twenty-four hours a day, but a little time out of our busy schedules is not too much to expect, is it? Friends, you may be busy for six days a week with your own Work; what about giving half a day each week for the poor? Believe me you will achieve a lot. If all educated people show a little sympathy; for the weak, it will be a great service to society. Those weaklings will receive a new breath of life; they will be able to take at least a few faltering steps ahead. All they need is a little support. What we need therefore is a group of intellectuals dedicated to the task of pulling out these helpless people from the mire of poverty. It is our duty to ignite a new spark in the community that is bereft of all life. Today you live in bungalows. You have wives who are educated. Your children are graduates. You have occupied high positions in society. You are going to continue the tradition of fighting for human values and rights of the downtrodden. Your life is of the same quality as a life lead in heaven. Did our people even enjoy such a life?

You must remember that it was one man who achieved the impossible task of transforming beasts into human beings. That glorious ray filled millions of lives with brightness. That pure stream managed to wash away the sins of all people. He was the only man who made it possible for millions to taste a drop of elixir. There are so many intellectuals today, millions of them crawling around. Why is it that none of them are able to provide leadership even to a small section? Don't you understand that ignorant people like us can see through your games? Isn't it a shame that millions of people are unable to achieve what one person could achieve? How did millions of illiterate people follow one man? He was a man who believed in himself. He had courage and fortitude; he was neither a defeatist nor an escapist. His words had the sharp edge of a vajra. Nobody could seal his lips with bribes. He had fire coursing through his veins. He had iron in his soul. He never changed his positions; nor did he ever compromise his principles for selfish gain. Money, prosperity, fame ­nothing could tempt him. He understood the times. Whims and fancies did not sway him. His heart was soft and tender, full of love for the down trodden: He never sacrificed helpless people for his own selfish motives. His character was spotlessly clean, without any blemish.

But what about us? Our dark settlements do not have even an
iota of clean space. There is a world of difference between him and us. "

The Prisons We Broke: Baby Kamble

“The Prisons We Broke” is the first work that comes in Dalit Literature which is written by a woman. It is because of that itself, the book deals with the two major problems of the society: firstly, the oppression and exploitation of the Dalit by the upper class: secondly, the discrimination towards women in a patriarchal society. In the memoir, the retrospections of the author flow out profusely in beautiful colors. She talks about the life in her village, called Veergaon. In her memory, the Maharwadas never had a prosperous life. On one side, ignorance and lack of reasoning ruled them, on the other side, the Maharwadas life was dominated by poverty and epidemics. Death rate was high because of the ceaseless starvation and lack of medical facilities for the fatal epidemics. More over superstitions adorned their blindness.

Though Hindu Religion and gods considered Mahars as dirt, Mahar community upheld the Hindu principles and they thought of gods with great sanctity. Potrajas, and possessed women are common in the village. They never forget to give offerings to gods. Generations after generations Mahar community broke their heads on the stones of Hindu temples with hopes. But the effect was curses. They cried at the feet of idles with hopes. But the gods never heard them. They smeared kumkum and haldi on the gods. The possessed women are greeted with respect. It is believed that they could speak about the future of the Maharwada, and they could bless them with good wishes. So they often practiced the rituals that are taught by the same religion which considered the Mahars as dirt.

Poverty was an unresolved problem among the Mahars. They were fated to eat left-overs. The stale bhakris, and the rotten rotis were their common food. Upper caste considered them as the dirt in the garbage where others throw away their waste materials. Mahars had to fight with the animals like cats, dogs and vultures for their food. They were the masters of the dead animals. The upper caste Brahmins wiped away all the human qualities from the Mahars and converted them into beasts. They were enclosed in dark cells, and their hands and foot were in the chains of slavery. Mahars also valorize the prestige of Yeskar stick. And they thought that it is their duty to work for their masters. They never had complaints. They lead a very satisfactory life. They ate the leftovers and were content. They accepted their fate as part of their life. They considered themselves as untouchables. For their hardships, and laborious work for their masters, they earned miseries and abuses as remuneration. Even in their poverty stricken life, they never forgot to love each other and show kindness to their fellowmen. Generations after generations, the Mahars served their masters very obediently. The upper caste community threw abuses at the Mahars, if they did not fall at the feet of their masters, or if they did not give the way to their masters when the masters came across in their way.

The condition of the Mahar women was miserable. They had to do all the house hold duties, and go for selling wood to earn for their daily bread. They collected all the left overs from other places to give them to their children. Most of the time women had to go on hunger unendingly. When a ritual comes, the work of the women got doubled. They had to plaster their house with cow dung, and clean the utensils and the clothes. Girls got married at the age of eight or nine. And they became pregnant at a very tender age which created a lot of complications in their first delivery. They lead a very pathetic life in their husband’s home. If a girl could not do the house hold duties, she was abused by her in-laws. She could not go back to her home also, in the fear of scolding from her father and brothers.

The author talks about the influence of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in the memoir. Ambedkar was the light of their life. He asked the Mahars to educate their children, and inspired them to fight against the atrocities. He asked them not to give offerings to the gods who never cared about them. And he also asked them not to eat the dead animals. Baby Kamble and her relatives actively participated in the revolutionary activities. She was very much influenced by Ambedkar. She loved her father also. Her father often told not to work for money. Money is not the ever valuable thing in the world. The value of money will go, when we become poor. But the dignity that we earned in the course of our life will be there to support us. Money cannot always give us a satisfaction to our life. Author and her relatives and some of her friends went to school. They were ill treated by the teachers and others in the upper caste. But they managed to survive. Author is very much influenced by the movie ‘Sati Savithri’. Ambedkar’s speech reverberated in the village, and the villagers reiterated his words. We can also see an influence of Buddha in the text.

In the last part of her book Kamble talked about the responsibility of the present society. Even now discrimination is not completely wiped out from our society. There are a lot of villages which should be brought into the light of main stream. The educated people should work for them. Once, Baba Sahib worked for the community. That is why the society got freedom. Now those who enjoy freedom should work to unchain others. I, as a reader could hear another reformer’s sound in Baby Kamble’s voice. A new inspiration is born out of her voice. Education, prosperity and comforts should not make us unaware of the problems of society. We will have to utilize our faculties to support and guide others to the main stream, only then we can enjoy the real value of our life.

BAWANDAR (2000)

Producer: Jagmohan Mundhra
Director: Jagmohan Mundhra
Starring: Nandita Das, Rahul Khanna, Gulshan Grover, Govind Namdeo, Raghuvir Yadav, Lillette Dubay

Bawandar started out with an aspiration by Director Jagmohan Mundhra to make a film based on his homeland Rajasthan. Unfortunately, on his journey for a subject matter, he encountered a sad story from a reporter of a newspaper titled The Guardian. He read from this newspaper the tale of Bhanwari Devi, a worker in a group known as Saathin, who was raped by men of an upper caste.

Nandita Das plays the role of lead role as Sanwari Devi – a lower caste woman. Sanwari is the wife of rickshaw-puller Sohan (Raghuvir Yadav) and a mother to two kids. Sanwari is approached by 'Saathin' worker Shobha Devi (Deepti Naval) to take up cudgels against the prevalent system of child marriage. She does so with dynamism and in the course, invites the fury of the villagers.

The upper caste men of the village, the Gurjars and the village priest and do not like this 'reformist' attitude and in order to teach her a lesson gang rape her in front of her husband who is also beaten up.
Amy (Laila Rouass) arrives in Rajasthan with her friend-cum-interpreter Ravi (Rahul Khannal) to write about Sanwari Devi after having read about her case abroad. They rake up the case five years after the incident. Sanwari Devi (Nandita Das) belongs to potter's family of Dabri village. She is married to Sohan (Raghuveer Yadav), a rickshaw-puller in Jaipur, has two children and is a gutsy housewife.
A courageous Sanwari goes to the police station to file a FIR. The police officer (Ravi Jhanakal), a corrupt man, wants her to produce a medical certificate. Almost after two days with Shobha's help Sanwari manages a court order with the help of which she gets the medical certificate in Jaipur. About two days pass in this process. When the case is filed, the upper caste men panic and get the help of the MLA Dhanraj Meena (Govind Namdeo). The case is transferred to the CBI.
In the meantime, a women's NGO, in Delhi on hearing the incident, tries to help Sanwari. A Gurjar lawyer (Gulshan Grover) defends Sanwari but the influence and reach of the upper caste men is high.
The trial realistically takes some time and goes through a number of changes in the process. She is still waiting for justice- and that doesn´t change in the end of the film. Whatever so-called "justice" she achieves during the case, which is the only portion consisting of positive elements in this film, will clearly not benefit her in her endeavors to come.
So is the plight of the real Bhanwari Devi. As expected the judgment went against her. All the accused were let free. It didn't end there. The judge pronounced some of the most shocking remarks ever heard in a judicial statement.
Bhanwari Devi was a Dalit and so, her rapists — upper caste men — could not have possibly raped her.
Talking on the fact that she was raped before her husband the judge said
It isn’t possible in Indian culture that a man who has taken a vow to protect his wife, in front of the holy fire, just stands and watches his wife being raped, when only two men almost twice his age are holding him.’ The judgment also states that it is highly improbable that an uncle and his nephews would commit rape together. The presence of one Brahmin amongst those accused leads the judge to observe that gangs in rural areas is not usually multi-caste and so the accused could not have acted together.
Rape not about sex, it is about subjugation. It is a power statement. Especially so, when aligned to it is poverty and caste discrimination, it cannot but create a Bawandar.

Outcaste is a public wall-journal that was started and is run by the Dalit Studies class under the MA English program. It functions under the guidance of Professor. K. Satyanarayana. As stated in the first issue, we would like to represent Dalit issues and debates in contemporary India. In this, the second issue, we are looking at the issue of caste in wide range contexts- from the international- the caste-race debate surrounding the United Nations conference against Racism, to the national – the Bant Singh case and to local, concerning the death of a Dalit student at Hyderabad Central University. The Journal also includes a historical piece regarding the development of the Dalit movement in India, a review of K Stalin’s documentary India Untouched that attempts to dispel myths about the disappearance of caste and untouchability in Modern India

We would like to thank Dr. Satyanarayana, the administration for their continued support of our efforts, and Mr. Dhanaraj for his time.

Editorial Board

Sukanya Basu Ray Chaudhuri
Sudhams Cherukupalli
Gaurav Rajkhowa
Aarthi Sridhar
Priya Chandran

Death of a Dalit student in HCU

The bad name that Hyderabad Central University has acquired due to the continuous atrocities related to caste discrimination inside the campus is carried on by another incident that took place recently. A Dalit research scholar of the University was found dead inside his hostel room on 25th February 2008. The victim, Mr. Senthil Kumar, was a PhD scholar in Physics. The death of the student is suspicious due to a variety of reasons, all pointing to his identity as a Dalit. As the investigation is carried out, different Dalit students’ organizations like Ambedkar Students’ Association (ASA) and Dalit Students Union (DSU) staged protests in the university campus. What follows is the excerpts of an interview with the President of the ASA, Mr. Dhanaraj.

Q 1. How long have you been associated with the functions of ASA in the university?

I have been associated with the functions of ASA for eight years.

Q 2. Could you briefly tell us about the problems that Dalit students in the university face?

Dalit students in Hyderabad Central University are subjected to discrimination by the university authorities and teachers. Many incidents have been reported where the students are treated badly due to their Dalit background. Harassment by faculty members in the form of grading less for work and research papers of students has always been a serious issue among the Dalit students, which is not yet solved. Another problem is the one regarding the merit-based scholarships the MA and research students get and might lose, if they fail in any of the qualifying examinations. The scholarships are to be provided based on humanitarian concerns but when they turn out to be something that is directly linked with the performance they do not satisfy the requirement of ‘means of subsistence’. There have been reports of humiliation by the dominant caste students done through name-calling and hate campaigns. There has been an even more serious incident where a Dalit woman student of the university hanged herself after she was misused and abandoned by a Reddy guy. Though such atrocities are brought to light by the Dalit associations, no initiative was taken up by the University against them. In another incident that happened in the year 2002, ten Dalit students were rusticated without even conducting an enquiry.

Q 3. Let me come back to the most recent issue in this succession of events of humiliation, the death of Senthil Kumar. Did you know him personally? What do you think must be the reason for his death?

Senthil Kumar was a research scholar in HCU. I knew him personally. He had been a victim of the same humiliation and discrimination that is imposed on the other Dalit students in the campus. He was not allotted a guide even after two years of his PhD programme. Moreover he had a backlog to clear before his viva. When he approached the faculty in this regard, the response he got from them was disappointing. Mr. Senthil’s scholarship was withdrawn due to his failure in presenting the required performance level in some subjects. Ultimately he had to end his life.

Q 4. So do you believe that Senthil has committed suicide?

Yes, given the difficult situations he underwent, it is hard to imagine that he would have died a normal death. Not only that, the primary investigation report by the police also suspected the possibility of death due to poison. Though the newspaper reports were ambiguous initially, they themselves rectified the mistakes later. Some newspapers had said there were no bruises on the victim’s body and later they corrected the error.

Q5. What do the University authorities say about this?

The University refuses to admit any allegation of discrimination on the basis of caste. The authorities are trying to manipulate the postmortem report so that they can make it appear as a normal death. The university says the death might be due to cerebral hemorrhage or cardiac attack and is trying to wash its hands of the problem.

Q6. What measures have been taken by Ambedkar Students’ Association in this regard?

We have staged a dharna in front of the Vice-Chancellor’s office. We put forward three demands. i) An amount of rupees 10 lakhs should be given to the victim’s family. ii) The fellowships provided to the students are to be seen on humanitarian grounds and hence should be delinked with performance. iii) A letter has been given to the administration demanding judicial enquiry.

By Priya Chandran

Letter to the Vice Chancellor University of Hyderabad

SC AND ST TEACHERS FORUM

University Of Hyderabad

P.O University of Hyderabad Campus, Gachibowli, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India. Pin- 500 046,Ph: 040- 2313 5501

29/02/08

To

The Vice Chancellor

University of Hyderabad

Sub: Death of Dalit Research Scholar, Mr Senthil, under mysterious circumstances

Ref: No: UH/REG/Stud.Services/07/08 Dated 01/01/08

Sir,

The Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Teachers forum expresses its deep shock at the tragic demise of the PhD scholar, Mr Senthil. The Forum has taken strong note of the untoward event and in order to pre-empt such happening in the future, the Forum seeks to suggest the following:

• to technically delink scholarship from performance and to provide a much broader philosophical premise for the grant of scholarship. Salaries and scholarships need not be considered as parallel to one another and scholarships to Dalit students need to be perceived as source of subsistence. The Forum assumes that the Government of India has a responsibility of providing subsistence to all its citizens and it credits the University of Hyderabad for translating this responsibility into action through implementing the scholarship scheme for all students on the campus. As you are aware, Mr Senthil’s scholarship was withdrawn due to his lack of adequate performance in some subjects and this seems to have caused him considerable anxiety. In some sense, withdrawing of subsistence due to non-performance is not morally tenable and therefore the Forum urges the University to revise this short-sighted policy of linking scholarship with performance. Though the latest guideline via letter No: UH/REG/Stud.Services/07/08 does not deny the university fellowship for PhD scholars on the basis of one’s course performance, this useful guideline was completely ignored in Senthil’s case and the Forum perceives this to be a grave omission
• to make the procedures of allotting supervisors to doctoral candidates transparent in certain departments, so as to facilitate a much more open policy of the University towards various sections of society including Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribe doctoral candidates. It is very unfortunate that even after two semesters into his PhD programme, Mr Senthil was not allotted a guide. On the other hand, the approach of open policy is already evident in some departments and schools of the University and needs to be emulated across other schools and departments
• to expedite the inquiry in order to earn the trust and confidence of the Schedule Caste and Schedule Tribe community at large which has been shattered by this tragic event. The University should come clean and it should not leave any stains behind this gruesome incident

Even as the Forum expresses its skepticism regarding certain aspects of the culture of University of Hyderabad, it has deep and abiding faith in its scholastic traditions and practices that it has evolved over the years.

We hope you receive these suggestions with equanimity and grace of a public functionary and do the needful.

Thanking You

A

Convenors

P.Thirumal,Wilson Naik.B

Bant Singh’s Story

On the 5^th of January, 2006, 40 year old Bant Singh, a resident of Jhabbar in the Mansa district of Southern Punjab was beaten with iron rods by a group of Jat youths, resulting in the amputation of both his arms and a leg. Doctors are still struggling to save his remaining leg. The attack was a result of his efforts to secure justice for his daughter which was seen as a Dalit assertion in an essentially upper caste dominated society.

In 2000, Bant Singh’s eldest daughter, Baljeet Kaur, then a minor studying in the ninth standard, was raped. Their family was pressured to accept cash to keep the incident quiet, and threatened with violent repercussions if they didn’t. The Village Panchayat told them not to go to the police – no one would marry Baljeet if the assault became public. They were offered 10 lakhs, gold ornaments and a scooter to make up for a brutal gang rape. Bant Singh, however, refused to stop short of anything but justice.

In 2002, District Court ruling sentenced Mandheer Singh, Tarsem and Gurmail Kaur to life imprisonment. This was the first time a Dalit had secured a conviction against a member of the upper caste.

Mandheer Singh filed an appeal in the Punjab and Haryana Court, whereupon Baljeet Kaur started being threatened with dire consequences if she did not retract her statements. She was sent to live in another village for two years for her protection, where her hosts too were offered money to make her drop her charges.

Bant Singh was assaulted on two occasions; both times the police in Joga released the accused on bail. On January 5^th, 2006, he was attacked while returning home from the fields in the evening. While one Jat youth held a gun to prevent him from fleeing, six started mercilessly beating him with iron hand pump handles, sticks and axes. He was left bleeding in the field, until former Sarpanch, Beant Singh was informed that his man lay dying.

Bant Singh was rushed to Mansa Civil Hospital, but the doctor, Purushottam Goel refused to touch him without a Rs.1000 bribe. Singh lay in the hospital for thirty six hours and was finally bandaged on January 7^th. On January 8^th, the hospital authorities informed the family that they did not have adequate facilities to treat him, and he was shifted to PGI Hospital in Chandigarh. But by then, gangrene had already set in and Singh lost three of his limbs.

Significantly, the Jats of the village do not deny the assault took place, or that it was intended to silence Baljeet Kaur and serve as a warning to any other Dalit who dared assert himself/herself against the upper castes. Witnesses say they heard the Sarpanch ordering the men to break Singh’s arms and legs. It is believed that the attack was orchestrated by Sarpanch Jaswant Singh and former Sarpanch Niranjan Singh. Nothing has been done about these suspicions so far.

Of the seven convicted for the attack, two are the sons of Jaswant Singh, and two of Amreek Singh, a ration shop owner, who Bant Singh closed down on account of his hoarding goods. Amreek Singh is also a relative of Mandheer Singh who was sentenced in Baljeet Kaur’s rape. The police, however, maintain there is no connection whatsoever between the assault and the rape, that the two are separate incidents and the assault was the result of an unspecified “personal enmity”.

Dr. Pramod Kumar, Director of The Institute of Development and Communication says, “If the rapist is a Jat, it is not even considered a crime and the victim’s father is told to keep his daughter in check. But if a Dalit is accused of rape, they let the law take its course.”

Jeeta Kaur, the state organizer of CPI (ML) states,” after the attack, we contacted the media, but even local papers did not report the beating up of a Dalit. It was only when his limbs were amputated that journalists seemed to find the incident newsworthy.”

The number of cases reported under The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has increased over the years. From 4 rapes and 7 murders in 1992 out of 18 cases, the figures have gone up to 3 murders and 10 rapes out of 66 in 2000; and 13 rapes and 1 murder out of 94 in 2004. However there is sufficient anecdotal evidence to suggest that most crimes against members of the lower castes are not legally dealt with. Bant Singh’s wife, Harbans Singh, spoke of a minor beggar girl who had been raped at a gurudwara a month before her husband’s ordeal, which had gone unreported and ignored. Another minor was gang raped at Nayagaon, near Chandigarh. Her father, a police constable, too had faced threats from the upper caste rapists if he pursued the matter.

Bant Singh has now been heralded by the media as a symbol of Dalit defiance and refusal to relent in the face of oppression. His message of hope and his unbreakable spirit have found their way into a photo-essay by Raghu Rai, the images of which have been displayed here. Sanjay Kak’s documentary on him, titled “Bant Singh can Still Sing”, is available on the video bar.

By Sukanya Basu Ray Chaudhuri

Recast: rethinking issues of caste and race

In August 2000, the United Nations Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights passed resolution 2000/4 on Discrimination Based on Work and Descent. This addressed the issue of caste, and aimed at reaffirming that discrimination based on work and descent was in violation of international human rights laws. In 2001, the addition of caste to the agenda of the United Nations World conference on Racism at Durban brought the discussion of caste and race to the forefront within the public domain. This was done by classifying caste as a system of social stratification based on descent and occupation and, as such, it would fall under the purview of Article 1 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), therefore allowing its issues to be treated on parity with those of racial discrimination.

The Government of India vehemently opposed its inclusion on the agenda of an inter-governmental conference as it felt that caste was an internal matter. Attorney General Soli Sorabjee, at a regional preparatory conference at Tehran, said that efforts to connect the issues of race and caste were ‘misconceived’. As caste discrimination was constitutionally recognized and prohibited and the governments at the centre and state have taken step towards its elimination issues of caste had no place at an inter-governmental forum.

Another opponent to the inclusion of caste was anthropologist Andre Beteille who put forth the argument that the idea of caste as race had origin in the pseudo-scientific discourse of late 19^Th and early 20^Th century Europe. The move to include caste discrimination under racial discrimination would, for Beteille be ‘flying in the face of the distinctions between race, language and culture,… seeking to undo the conclusions reached by the researches of several generations of anthropologists’. As many critics rightly point out, while Beteille focuses on the survival and redefinition of his discipline, he seems to miss out on the larger picture of discrimination within society today. Another aspect he neglected to mention was that race, like caste, based on scientific research is no longer viewed as a biological or genetic fact. One valid issue he does raise is that in the pan- Indian context there exists no uniformity of race between all the Scheduled Caste taken together and all the Brahmins similarly grouped together. The Human Rights Watch, an organization working for the discussion of caste at the international level, recognizes this criticism; and while it admits to an outsider that there are no visual markers that separate the castes of India, it points out that as per the International Committee on Racial Discrimination, "the term `descent' contained in Art. 1 of ICERD has its own meaning and is not to be confused with race or ethnic or national origin.

On 7Th May 2001, a group of 40 academicians, jurists, and representatives of NGOs and Civil society organizations, mostly from Dalit communities, had a conference at Indian Social Institute, New Delhi, where they put forth the notion that `Caste is Race Plus' as it has been ‘inflicted by birth, sanctified by religion, glorified by tradition, Caste has had brutal repercussions for a fifth of India's population through the generations’. They argued that caste was race in the Indian context and the Indian government that had been at the forefront of the movement against apartheid in South Africa now chose to ignore the prevalence of apartheid within its own borders. In relation to the government of India’s rejection of caste as race, they argued that the Indian constitution recognized in many of its articles a parity between racial and caste discrimination.

The Human Right Watch sought to show that issues of caste were not only relevant in the India, but it was a widespread problem that warranted international attention. According to its report there existed caste discrimination against the Dalits of South Asia-including Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan-the Buraku people of Japan, the Osu of Nigeria's Igbo people, and certain groups in Senegal and Mauritania. There existed similarities in the modes of discrimination practiced against these groups with relation with marriage, labor, access to education, access to land, debt bondage and slavery. With its association as a system based on descent and occupation, in order to stress the global dimensions of the issue, caste effectively gets de-linked with the practices of religion when it is defined as ‘a distinct form of racism affecting victims equally irrespective of religion’, which goes against the grain of the arguments of many Dalit intellectuals, most notably Ambedkar. Kancha Iliaih puts forth an interesting argument that proposes a greater international stake in the removal of caste discrimination as "[t]he colonial world benefited from the cheap labor of the adivasis, Dalits, and OBCs," "the capitalist west owes a moral responsibility to uplift [the lower castes] as much as the upper castes of India do".

Finally due to protests of the Indian government, caste was not to be included in the Durban declaration. One of the key elements of protest was that the representation of the Indian state as a racist regime is in complete opposition to its self-understanding and image. Therefore as the debate progresses, the issue of caste and race becomes less about a need to equate the two, but rather to show that while racial and caste discrimination may not be identical, they both require international attention so as to avoid being swept neatly under the rug of India’s new found global image as a country of progress.

By Aarthi Sridhar

The Dalit Movement: From where, where to

The Dalit movement is regarded by many scholars as the most influential social movement in Independent India. While in the wider sense of lower caste struggle against Brahminical hegemony, the ‘Dalit movement’ has coexisted with the idea of caste itself; the movement as we know it – as a front of organized political resistance against caste oppression in Hindu society – may be seen to have emerged only in the colonial times. The British colonization with its bourgeois liberal ethos coupled with the imperatives of their ruling strategy created space for the working up of subaltern identities, mainly in terms of caste and religion. The changes during colonial rule – institutional, social, economic and cultural – gave an added impetus to the aspirations of the lower castes and created the environment for the emergence of an opposition to Brahminical hegemony on the basis of strong modern values of liberty, equality and fraternity; while the strategic compulsions of the British allowed an opportunity for deft political maneuvering within electoral and representational quotas.

In the pre-Independence period, the anti-caste movement comprised strong non-Brahmin movements in Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu as well as Dalit movements in Maharashtra, Punjab, western UP, Bengal, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, coastal Andhra and Hyderabad. Independent India saw two decades of silence through the Nehru era, before the issue of caste once again burst onto the national consciousness with the founding of the Dalit Panthers in 1972 and the emergence of the Dalits as a major electoral force through the 1980s and 90s.

The start of the Dalit movement can be placed around the 1920s with the emergence of Dr B.R. Ambedkar. Ambedkar, who was almost the sole national voice of the Dalits in the first 30 years of the movement, provided it with its ideological framework which demarcates the general rubric for Dalit resistance even today. Ambedkar’s resistance, in many ways, drew on the ideas of the 19^th century Dalit reformer Jyotirao Phule and yet, in other was markedly different. Ambedkar, like Phule attacked Hindu society from a metaphysical perspective and shared his stand on the complete dismantling of an innately anti-democratic and anti-modern Hindu religion as the only way to do away with entrenched hierarchies of domination and subjugation. Both propagated an idea of an equalitarian society with decidedly modern ideals. Phule, influenced by the European ‘Aryan theory of race’ and the doctrines of the ‘Right of Man’ proposed that Dalits and the Shudras were the original inhabitants conquered by the invading Aryans. In this, violence and ideology were the driving forces of history. Phule propagated the replacement of Hinduism with a more universalistic, equalitarian and rationalistic religion which Phule called the ‘sarvajanik satya dharma’. Ambedkar, on the other hand, rejected the overbearing racial element in Phule, believing the caste system to have come into being through practices of excommunication long after the intermingling of Aryan and indigenous races. Ambedkar chose to look at the caste system as a construct of power relations, as more of a social phenomenon. Moreover, while Phule’s criticism is directed more at the oppressiveness of Hinduism and calls on a discourse of benevolence and compassion; Ambedkar’s focus is on the irrationality and superstition of the religion, and he felt comfortable only with an alternative like Buddhism - which had effectively rationalized God – that would allow him recourse to the call of ‘reason’.

The 1920s and 30s saw Ambedkar’s increasing radicalism, and it is in these years that a number of his most crucial ideas were put into practice, like the right of untouchables to pubic utilities with the Mahad satyagraha in 1927 and the entry of untouchables into temples in Nashik in 1930. Through the 30s, Ambedkar became an increasingly controversial character on the Indian political scene for his dogged insistence on holding to communitarian identities amidst a strengthening nationalist freedom movement built on modern, secular ideals. Ambedkar, like Phule, was willing to appreciate the positive aspects of British imperialism, in that they were harbingers of modernity in feudal India and had been instrumental in alleviating the conditions of the Dalits, in whatever small measure. While he declared categorically his opposition to any form of imperialist hegemony, his primary concerns lay with his own Mahar community’s plight, as was clear in his advocacy for reservations for Dalits in jobs and electorates in British India.

In 1936, Ambedkar founded the Independent Labour Party (India), which won 15 seats in the 1937 elections to the Central Legislative Assembly. The party, the movement’s first attempt at formal political organization stuck to Ambedkar’s Dalit agenda but also broadened the scope and support for the movement by taking up peasant and workers issues which ran closely with those of caste discrimination. As a result, in 1937 the party pushed for legislation on the abolishment of the oppressive khoti landlord system prevalent in many parts of the country at the time. As the agitation reached its climax in 1938, Ambedkar was able to conduct a successful one-day general strike of Bombay textile workers in support of the peasants. In 1938, Ambedkar’s ILP joined the one-day general strike against the Bombay Industrial Dispute Bill, with its Dalit cadres fully in support of the workers.

In his attempt to weld together the class and caste movements, it would seem that Ambedkar would have a natural affinity to the Marxist movement which was also gathering strength at the time. But this was not to be, for a number of reasons. The main disagreement between Ambedkar and the Marxists was on the centrality of the caste question. For the Marxists, with their mechanical understanding of class, caste was a comparatively irrelevant category as it was only an outcrop of feudalism that would disappear with a successful class revolution. For Ambedkar, on the other hand, India could be mobilized to revolution only once its intense caste consciousness had been dismantled, which meant that caste was the bigger problem. For the Marxists, the main enemy was the imperialist, while for Ambedkar, it was upper-caste hegemony. Moreover, Ambedkar alleged casteism even within the ranks of the Communist movement, which drew its members primarily amongst the educated, upper-caste, university-educated bourgeoisie.

On similar grounds he laid out his opposition to the Congress party, which he labeled as also being a preserve of Brahminical hegemony. He accused the Congress of creating the delusion of a unified India, calling it an artifice to maintain the status quo in a country where caste forms the primary identity. He took particular exception to Gandhi’s ascriptive and patronizing use of the word ‘harijan’ and denounced Gandhism as unscientific, traditionalist and as still being within the clutches of Hinduism’s oppressive spiritual doctrines. The Dalits, Ambedkar claimed could never be represented by the Congress.

Thus, Ambedkar’s radicalism set him at loggerheads with the two strongest political forces of the time, thus foreclosing any possibility of support from them.

The 1940s saw escalating Hindu-Muslim tensions and increased political maneuvering in the run-up to Independence. In 1942 he formed the All India Scheduled Caste Federation (AISCF) which remained mainly as a pressure group to secure better conditions and legislation for Dalits in the soon-to-be-independent India. This party, after Ambedkar’s ambitious effort at a radical fusion of caste and class resistance, seemed lukewarm in comparison. But it was him only trying to make the best of his tactical position to strengthen the community in terms of both social standing and political representation.

As India entered the 50s with a new Constitution framed by Ambedkar’s Drafting Committee, he began to look towards a spiritual resistance to the hegemony of Brahmanism. Months before his death in December 1956, Ambedkar along with thousands of his supporters, converted to Buddhism as the ultimate sign of protest. In Buddhism, Ambedkar found a rational, equalitarian philosophy which he found in agreement with his political principles. Through his conversion to Buddhism, it can be said that Ambedkar intersected the ideas of both Phule and Periyar in that all three believed in the need for a weapon at the metaphysical level to combat Hinduism in all its claustrophobic irrationality.

After the death of Ambedkar, however, the Dalit movement began to lose its vitality. The Republican Party of India, which was again an attempt to try and make the AISCF’s narrow caste agenda into a broad-based movement against inequality, discrimination and injustice. The party, however, proved to be only a name-change and in the post-Independence Nehruvian utopia of industrialization and secular modernity, the call of the Dalits was either ignored or pacified.

But by the 1970s, as promises of development grew stale and the old resentment began to resurface, the Dalit movement returned in a decisively more militant mode. In 1972, the Dalit Panthers came to the fore with the stated intention: “We don’t want a little place in Brahman galli; we want the rule of the whole country.” Strongly influenced by the Naxalite movement, the Dalit Panthers showed no aversion towards violence – meeting Shiv Sena cadres in open street confrontations – and looked to define ‘Dalit’ in a far broader sense, looking to rally not just the untouchables, but workers, women and all other oppressed sections of society to a people’s revolution. The Dalit Panthers, in an attempt similar to what Ambedkar tried in the 30s, welded together disparate issues of land reform, untouchability and communalism. Like Ambedkar, the Panthers also stood as a critique of both the Congress Government and the facile, sold-out Left, and tried to bring together the most diverse groups as a viable political alternative. The group was active through the 70s but by the 1980s, it was rife with internal splits that rendered it ineffective.

With an apparent exhausting of the militant solution, the Dalit movement began to become politically more assertive as caste-based parties like the Bahujan Samaj Party started to gain political weightage. The 1990s have come to be defined by caste politics, particularly with controversy on the Mandal Commission report on reservations in government jobs at the start of the decade becoming a high point of the Dalit struggle.

In the new decade of coalition politics, as caste-based regional parties gain prominence, a few questions still cast a shadow of doubt. Throughout the Dalit movement, its response has always been tactical in nature, depending upon the incumbent circumstances. Consequently, one may at times find the movement's political positions to be in apparent contradiction – their use of caste identity in an attempt to fight caste inequality; their seemingly favourable stance towards British imperialism in India as against their opposition to globalization.

While such a strategic approach may have worked well until now, there is a need to think seriously on the question of ‘what is to be done’, now that the movement is gaining some measure of power – what is the agenda the movement can offer the country as a whole? What is required is a genuine ‘view from below’ based on a solid theoretical foundation, rather than purely empirical assertions. A viewpoint that can build a Dalit critique in every field of study and provide an alternative vision of the world.

By Gaurav Rajkhowa

India untouched :Stories of people apart (2007)

“India Untouched - Stories of a People Apart”, a film directed by Stalin. K., takes us through eight states and four religions as he explores different aspects and mutations of untouchability in India. The film brings to light many interesting aspects of the problem of untouchability as he places the problem in a diversity of environments and contexts. The documentary, through narratives of pain and humiliation, is a strong account of ongoing injustice, gross denial of human rights, atrocities and the pathetic state in which Dalits are living in this country.

The film, for a start, points out one of the most basic misconceptions about caste in India – that it is limited only to Hinduism. Stalin is able to highlight the prevalence of discrimination not just among Dalit sub-castes in Hinduism, but also in religions like Islam, Christianity and Sikhism that one thought to be caste-free.

The film documents the pervasive domination of the upper castes that often takes extra-judicial forms. For instance, the film shows a Rajput who holds that the police must consult their community before filing a case of atrocity against them. These statements depict the failure of the legal system in protecting the basic right sanctioned to every citizen of India by constitution.

The film on one hand portrays the sense of superiority prevailing in upper castes and on the other, we see the plight of “oppressed classes” because of ‘pollution’ bestowed on them by religion. It looks at how scripture and ritual play an important role in the perpetuation of caste. The film portrays the stand of several spiritual heads on the issues of caste and untouchability.

The film destroys any illusions one might have about caste discrimination being a primarily rural phenomenon, enforced through rituals of purity and pollution. It is shocking to know that discrimination is seen even in premier institutions like JNU. The experiences of a doctor who is subjected to discrimination on the basis of caste is the perfect example to show the ‘operation’ of caste in a sophisticated way in the present day world. The doctor calls it “Hi-tech discrimination”: even highly educated and meritorious Dalits are also subjected to untouchability and discrimination. In the light of these incidents, even education is not going to eradicate discrimination and untouchability. The prevalence of discrimination on the lines of caste in states like Kerala - which is recognized as a progressive state for its cent percent literacy, development and communism - is astonishing. It is shocking to know that even now in this so-called globalised world, Dalits are being denied a basic right like being allowed to draw drinking water from public wells.

Discrimination makes itself felt even in the education sphere. Dalit children are made to sit in the last row of the class and they are made to clean the toilets. The film depicts how a school going child in whose mind the seeds of discrimination are sown mindlessly end up unwittingly practicing untouchability in some form or the other. The film shows the pressing need to find an answer to the abomination of caste.

However, the film which highlights various form of discrimination, atrocities, and the plight of dalits end with a note of hope. The vibrant music in the film demands a change - a change that will bring for the oppressed Dalit equality, protection of his basic human rights and his life. The film calls for immediate action which will help those sections of people who are denied rights and are subjected to oppression for ages. Prevalence of caste discrimination and untouchability is certainly a black spot on the image of progressive India.

About the Director:

Stalin K. is a human rights activist and award-winning documentary filmmaker. In recent years, he has become known for his pioneering 'participatory media' work with urban and rural communities, in which local people produce their own videos and radio programs as an empowerment tool. He is the Co-Founder of DRISHTI - Media, Arts and Human Rights, Convener of the Community Radio Forum-India, and the India Director of Video Volunteers. He is a renowned public speaker and has lectured or taught at over 20 institutions ranging from the National Institute of Design and the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in India, to New York University and Stanford and Berkeley in the US.

'INDIA UNTOUCHED' is Stalin's second film on the issue of caste — his earlier film 'Lesser Humans,' on manual scavenging, won the Silver Conch at the Mumbai International Film Festival and the Excellence Award at Earth Vision Film Festival, Tokyo, and helped to bring international attention to the issue of caste.

By Sudhams Cherukupalli

Thank You For Your Valuable Response...

At this juncture of conceptualizing OUT-CASTE, we want to take the opportunity of thanking our readers for their valuable response to the first issue. Seeing the response from our readers, we wish to invite them to send us their detailed comments or write-ups regarding the issues being brought to light through this Wall Journal to our email address outcaste2008@gmail.com. We would be more than happy to publish some of these write-ups in the subsequent issues of OUT-CASTE.

We also wish to clarify to our readers that the blog is actually a virtual copy of a Wall Journal called OUT-CASTE that has been put up outside Sagar Stores in EFLU campus. It therefore does not follow all the paradigms of the blog format.

First Editorial Team
Reju George Mathew
Vivek Sunder
Pramod
Uttarika Kumaran
Damini Sud

Introduction to Out-Caste

Out-Caste is an informal, public wall-journal started by the Dalit Studies class under the guidance of our course instructor, Dr. K. Satyanarayana. This is an open forum that engages with the caste question in a specifically Indian context. We wish to look at caste as a category that structures both exclusion and privilege. Our main aim is to represent the Dalit visions of a new India.

We do not subscribe to any political agenda. Our motive is merely to engage the community with questions concerning the complex workings of caste and the struggles against this form of inequality and oppression and its relation with other forms of inequality and oppression such as social class, poverty, gender etc. Through this journal, we wish to acquaint our readers with certain key historical personalities and crucial events in the field of socio-political reform. Evidence of such neglect is obvious in the ongoing suppression and violence inflicted on Dalits on an everyday basis in different parts of the country. In this context, we wish to acquaint our readers with key narratives and debates in this area. We also wish to provide a space for the representation of alternative histories and literatures of Dalits.

While some consider the word ‘Dalit’ to be politically charged, we wish to bring out its emancipatory and inclusive potential. Dalit is a Marathi word whose literal meaning is ‘ground’ (verb) or ‘broken or reduced to pieces’. Dalits then are those people who have been deliberately broken and ground down in a very active way by those above them. As opposed to other terms like untouchable, scheduled caste, harijan etc, the word Dalit itself is a radical rejection of the religious legitimization of untouchability, social immobility and unequal access to opportunities. The clearest definition of Dalit in its contemporary usage is seen in a letter written to Eleanor Zelliot by Gangadhar Pantawane, founder editor of Asmitadarsh (mirror of identity), the chief organ of Dalit literature:

“To me, Dalit is not a caste. He is a man exploited by the social and economic traditions of this country. He does not believe in God, Rebirth, Soul, Holy Books teaching separatism, Fate and Heaven because they have made him a slave. He does believe in humanism. Dalit is a symbol of change and revolution.”

Keeping this in mind, we wish to inaugurate the first issue of this wall journal.

We would like to thank the administration for their continued support in bringing out this Wall Journal. We would also like to extend our sincere gratitude to all the people on campus who gave us their valuable time, support and inputs in bringing out this journal. We would especially like to thank our course instructor Dr. K Satyanarayana, Pro-VC Dr. Maya Pandit, Registrar Mr. T A V Murthy, Deputy Registrar Mr Murlidhar Tadi, DBMSA President Mr. Raju Nayak, T Jyoti, Mr Murti of Stores Department, Dr. Geetha Durairajan and Vidya Kesavan. We would also like to thank Dr Kancha Illiah and Mrs. Deepa of Anveshi for their invaluable support at all junctures of bringing out this journal.