Editor,
The recent food poisoning in Karnataka of several young students from Meghalaya culminating in the untimely demise of two young students one from Lyndem in East Khasi Hills and the other from Nongstoin, West Khasi Hills has raised many an eyebrow and unleashed widespread public resentment against such a heinous fatality tantamounting to breach of human rights in its outrageous forms. This unsavoury incident in a private run school in Karnataka which is managed without proper license. To make matters worse the boarding school is run without proper infrastructural facilities worth its name like a hygienic toilet, besides other living amenities that befits its good name. In all thirty students were stated to have fallen sick requiring urgent medical assistance in hospitals,but, as stated above two from our State succumbed to toxic food substances. These students were virtually at death’s doors after consuming contaminated food-leftover by the Holi revelers elsewhere. To add insult to injury such leftover eatables from marriages and other relatable festivities are more often than not provided to the student-boarders to consume to their hearts’ content.
Recently while l was in conversation with some of my friends on manifold trending topics that were gripping the world at large, our discourse veered towards the foregoing tragic episodes in course of these brain storming discussions. A close friend raised a pertinent question to ask why BJP,leaving India apart, being one of the richest political parties in the world was unable to be a benefactor of quality food- provider to those students who have come from afar leaving behind their respective hearths and homes to pursue education, learn Sanskrit and imbibe Hindutva orientation religiously? This contention, he said, is premised on the fact that some well-known social media users have revealed that RSS volunteers in collaboration with some prominent local leaders have arranged to shuttle the gullible children in substantive numbers to Karnataka and elsewhere with an exclusive assurance to provide the latter qualitative education and free hostel facilities such as food and accommodation. And those students after having duly completed their avowed educational assignments shall accordingly be returned to their respective homes.
These strategic manoeuvres, I have been apprised, is factored on the premises that the RSS is unerringly alarmed at the exponential rise of Christianity in Meghalaya, hence, to nip this inclination in the bud, the RSS have been reportedly adopting this action plan to ferry as many impressionable children as possible from Khasi-Jaintia Hils districts to the RSS run institutions to mainland India for religious indoctrination for years thereby weaning them off the time-honored Khasi culture and traditions and thereafter having put them through their paces they are made to retrace their steps to their respective land of Hynñewtrep and thereby to engineer a deep wedge amongst the same ethnic tribe in the field of religious contentions precipitating to ultimate mutual self-destruction!
In a word, the recent statement of the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin,who has lately become the voice of entire South India,couldn’t have come at the right time when he befittingly took strong exception to some questionable actions of the Central government which is remotely akin to the instant case of our State. MK Stalin had said this is “Part of the conspiracy to Sankritise this land and cultural invasion.”
Yours etc
Jerome K Diengdoh,
Shillong-2
The casteist slur prevails
Editor,
A 15-year-old Dalit, Class 11 student went to Narendra Pratap Singh Higher Secondary School in Haripur Catholic village, Uttar Pradesh on March 29 and he picked up a water bottle placed on a table. This enraged the Biology teacher who reportedly hurled casteist slurs and said, “How dare you touch the bottle? Now it has become untouchable. Who will drink from it?” It appears that the science teacher practices untouchability.
It is intriguing that he, with utmost unscientific temper, teaches at the higher secondary level a science subject, that too Biology, which says all living human beings are relatives and have originated from one woman. Biology teaches us that fragments of the mitochondrial genome carried by all humans alive today can be traced to a single woman ancestor, living an estimated 150,000 to 200,000 years ago.
But the Biology teacher is not alone, as per a study, he is one among every four Indians! According to the India Human Development Survey (IHDS-2) in 2011-12, 27 per cent of the respondents across India said that they had been following the practice of untouchability. Be that as it may, the teacher then confined the student to a room during recess and so severely beat him with a stick that two fingers of his student got broken. The student sustained severe injuries on his thigh, shoulder, and jaw, apart from the broken fingers. When he reached home crying, his family rushed him to a hospital, where an X-ray confirmed the fractures.
As was the teacher, so too the police. When the student and his family went to Kishani police station to lodge a complaint, the police allegedly refused to take action. Then, they moved the Superintendent of Police. The SP, however, assured an investigation and action against the accused teacher.
The teacher might have got inspiration from Dronacharya to break two fingers of the Dalit student. He tried his best to cripple his student just like Dronacharya crippled Eklavya, so that he could never use his education in archery. That we have been giving the Dronacharya award to sports coaches shows we failed Ambedkar and the Indian Constitution.
The above incident is just the tip of the iceberg. The National Crime Records Bureau’s data show the crimes against Dalits increased from 50,744 in 2021 to 57,428 in 2022. Many parents educate their children from the school level that they are on a higher pedestal of the caste ladder. In some schools in Tamil Nadu, students wear colour-coded wristbands to show their caste identity.
A teacher from a lower caste was appointed in a school in Tamil Nadu, where students were mostly from upper castes. A ‘caste-educated’ student threw a firecracker at her in a classroom. It ruptured her eardrum and she was forced to leave.
Similarly, a young student was killed in Rajasthan in August 2022 for not getting enough education on caste. The student touched a drinking pot, and as a result, he was beaten to death by his teacher in Surana village of Rajasthan’s Jalore district.
All these clearly showcase the level of hatred lower castes still have to face every day from the higher caste groups. In such a situation, the caste reservation is not just to set the past wrong right. But it is a necessary antidote to counter caste nepotism at present.
It is too much to expect from people, like the Biology teacher or the police at Kishani police station or the 27 percent Indians who practice untouchability, that they will not favour candidates of higher castes during the selection process for admission, recruitment, and promotion. Therefore, caste reservation is still necessary not only in government but also in the private sector as a necessary antidote to caste nepotism.
Yours etc.,
Sujit De,
Kolkata