---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Prabaharan Alagarsamy
Date: 2008/11/20
Subject: Fwd: Ambedkar law college incident ... Dr.Ruthran
To: anbunanban@gmail.com

dalit fury?

- Dr.Ruthran (http://rudhran.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/dalit-fury/)

Just a couple of days ago a violent and ugly scene was enacted in the
premises of the prestigious Chennai 'Ambedkar law college'. The
problem is alleged to have started after the name of Ambedkar was
dropped/deleted/ignored in some posters. Dalit students were shown in
the clippings aired repeatedly on Tamil TV channels, as perpetrators
of mass violence. True, about three or four of those guys beat another
young man to a pulp. Sentiments have been aroused. Tears stand in the
rims of viewing eyes. Angry fumes suffocate pained hearts. "how sad"
croon soap watchers. Indignant and righteous fingers type letters to
editors or blog if they can.

The mass reaction to this incident has now turned into sympathy for
the 'devar' caste persons who got the beating. Even those
secular,eclectic intellectuals who pretend to distance themselves from
casteism feel sorry for these `devar' boys. It is no more a sympathy
for the loser in a fight. It is not just a human empathetic concern
for a beaten and bruised man. It is a silent anger that 'those' guys
have found the guts to beat 'these' or 'our' boys. It is a silent fear
that screams in their minds that if these dalits are allowed to get
away with this act of retaliation, then slowly they would try to come
up and even sit in our temples!

Whether dalit or devar those boys had no right to gang up and beat
with murderous rage. They ought to be punished. But just because those
devar boys have been beaten up badly they cannot be absolved either.
They were the ones who were supposed to have started the fight. There
are even some visuals showing one of those devar boys running amok
with a knife in hand.

I just wonder what would have been the reaction if that boy had
managed to chop off all those who came to attack him? Would all these
tears still flow for the dalit boys had they been killed?

The whole episode is shocking the public because the hitherto trampled
dalit boys have dared to fight back. We are simply not used to seeing
this. It satisfies our intellectual itch to feel sorry that dalits
have separate living quarters, separate vessels to drink. We nod in
apparent understanding and pseudo-sympathy that dalits have been
barricaded away from mainstream by a real brick and mortar wall. We
are simply used to these guys being trampled. We have become so
insensitive to the casteist curse on the society that the painful
screams of dalits just gets lost in the air and never registers even
as a whimper in our ears. their men were made to eat shit, their women
stripped, their children not allowed to play in some areas, they were
not allowed to move freely, at times they werenot even allowed to take
their dead to their cemetry via the shortest route. we knew all this,
and we were silent. we were feeling 'bad'! Now a group of those boys
have taken sticks in their hand and beaten their opponent who had
allegedly cut off one of the dalit boy's ears. This is shocking.

Pragya and her prohit connections are not so shocking. Manmohan singhs
shameless licking of bush is not repulsive. Karunanidhi's constant
political stunts are not worrying. Just the fact that dalit boys have
dared to fight is shocking.

I am not like the BJP RSS gang that says godmen/whatever those goons
in spiritual garb are called should be protected even if they bomb
public places. I want those boys- those dalit boys to be punished. I
also want people to feel that though they may have over-reacted, they
reacted. It is time to think on ways to end provocations instead of
crying over reactions.

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