March 19th 2006 is one of the unforgettable day's in my life.
In CRY (Child Rights and You) we had a volunteer meeting organized by Mr.Ebenezer (CRY Volunteer coordinator, Chennai), Around 20 persons attended the meeting. One among them was a Dalit Activist and member of organization named "Research and Action" dealing with "Situation of Dalits in Schools".
She is Sherene, she was accompanied by her husband who is also a dalit activist and two law college students. On first look, She is very black and wore T.shirt, Jean and had hair cut short. One can easily guess that she is an tough girl. She was born and brought up in Kerala, after marriage she came to chennai.
When Ebe asked her to speak about herself and her activities, she started with the birth of dalits. I will describe those as she said.
History of dalits starts with Aryans Invasion, then peoples were living in groups while men will go for work, women's will stay inside home. This is the period when Smuruthi and Sruthi defined. Smuruthi speaks about law and sruthi speaks about vedas. Smuruthi had Varnas and Avarnas. Avarnas is opposite of Varnas. i.e un-touchables and unseables.
According to Manu which comes under the above category says un-touchable should close their mouth when they speak to upper caste, So that their saliva is not spit on the upper caste peoples body. Un-touchable should carry broom tied up to their body so that whenever they leave the place of an upper class, they will clean the place and move and they should not study and also it says women's are sexual objects !!!.
When British invaded india, Dalit's started converting to Christianity just because a white man was touching him and speaks to him in a gentle manner. First fight for right's of Dalit Education was happened in trivangore in the same period.
Dalits - Mean's Oppressed or broken People. Recent happenings in chennai which was witnessed by Sherene are, dalits were forced to sit separately in Perambalur schools and a girl is punished by her teacher just because her hair touched the teacher body when she was standing near her.Still dalits are given separate glasses in perambalur tea shops.
There was one un-bearable incident when some dalits (who drum for funeral's) hesitated to participate in a funeral for not allowing to sit and eat with the upper class peoples, the upper class guys caught the wife’s of those hesitated to participate, un-dressed and made them walk throughout the village
There are also incidents when upper class men’s asked the women’s of dalit community to sleep with them if they need water. These incidents made sherene to think why we are suppressed and what can we do to it. This thought was made in to action when an Dalit guy with amid opposition and threat won election and became M.L.A, He was threatened to withdraw the post which he refused and went to Police to lodge complaint for threat on his life, while returning from the police station he was brutally murdered, Shrene say she happened to see the body of that guy without head.
She decided to work with the dalits for which she was jailed for 6 months when she was pregnant. Her husband was also jailed for years, when they came out of jail they had no property left since all of them were spoiled by the so called upper class peoples, she says she used to sleep with her 6 month old baby in koyambedu market. Even during the jail period it seems the jailer beating on her stomach asked whether he can make her give birth to be baby there itself, how brutal.
She was not ready to give up the motto she was working, she started looking after the dalits in different angle, now they work with two groups of people Non-dalits and Dalits, to dalits they try to teach them so that they can match the levels of so called upper class peoples, instead of taking knife they try to make them stand up-right and look into someone eyes and say we are dalits and we are proud of it. She also says that instead of achieving something in quota try to achieve in merit. On the other hand they try to spread the message of equality between the non-dalits who are ready to accept, she says it is of no use to change and too don’t care those who are conservatives, if I can make some people think and get some support for my voice, it is success for me.
She also spoke about dalits women’s and girls. Moslty the school going girls are affected because of discrimination. She says she heard two male teachers talking, one asks the other to bring a particular girl and he will rape her, when the other said it will create problem, his response was that "Who will care for this Dalit Dog", ridiculous. Mostly gang rapes happen in dalit communities. She also witnessed Polls on which 110 peoples from 75Villages were beaten and hospitalized for voting !!!.
She is now working with the dalit Law College students, who study the subjects in Tamil and asked to debate in English in Courts. These guys because of shyness never make it to the court at all, she is trying to teach them English. She says you can easily identify a Dalit boy in a large group he will stand folding his hands and with his head down.
She says it is just because of the information they got, which said you people cannot improve , you people are born to serve somebody and it is also same information given to the upper class people who are in wrong perception. Now it is time to give them right information.
I have always loved to see a girl like her, with an aggression. Nothing can stop her. I wish best wishes for her and salute for her desires.
Hope i have given some information to you, so that next time when you could spread and bring some awareness among others, don't fall in argument with anybody, just convey them the message that's it. If you are willing to work with these guys on improving their skills do not forget to contact me, I will lead you to sherene and their team.
Just post you comments/views/grievances if any on this subject.
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