To replace ‘Dalit’ with ‘SC’, as the Thorat panel recommends, is to be inaccurate A commission led by S.K. Thorat, and charged with reviewing NCERT political science textbooks in the wake of the cartoon controversy, has singled out a specific word in the text for removal. All instances of the word “Dalit”, it is recommended, should be replaced with “Scheduled Caste” (SC). The blogosphere is rife with speculation on the motivation...

-The Hindu THE SUNDAY STORY What’s in a name? Ask a Muslim buying or renting property in the city that never sleeps. Mumbai, which prides itself on its cosmopolitan character, is divided on religion, food habits and language. When radio jockey Yunus Khan wanted a house in Gorai in suburban Mumbai, he was told it was a “Sena type” area — a reference to the saffron political party Shiv Sena. “Agents told us...

This month a group of Dalit (or Untouchables, as they were formerly labelled) students organised a Beef Festival in Osmania University of Hyderabad. It was the festival to assert their culinary rights in public and make a political statement of dietary habits of Dalits and Muslims – by cooking and eating beef Biryani on campus. About 2000 students participated and although it started out well, the festival was disrupted and students...

Several activists have asked the Planning Commission to take into account cultural norms if it wanted to ensure success of minority welfare schemes. To make his point, Shabnam Hashmi, of the NGO Anhad, cited as example the plan panel’s proposal of giving bicycles to girls from the minority community where school attendance is low. “This,” Hashmi said, “shows the complete lack of understanding of cultural norms in Muslim areas.” While bicycles provide mobility...

The media's failure to recruit Dalits is a betrayal of the constitutional guarantees of equality and fraternity. There were almost none in 1992, and there are almost none today: Dalits in the newsrooms of India's media organisations. Stories from the lives of close to 25 per cent of Indians (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) are unlikely to be known — much less broadcast or written about. Unless, of course, the stories are...