Wow!: Cut! Barber ‘for all’ ends discrimination against Dalits of India
ANURADHA NAGARAJ, writing for Thomson Reuters Foundation, reports on how a “salon for all” aims to correct an historic wrong in India…
Lower-caste Indian villagers given cremation ground after funeral stopped
Lucknow, IndiaThomson Reuters Foundation A low-caste Indian community prevented from holding a funeral by their upper-caste neighbours in a case that triggered widespread outrage have been given their own cremation ground, authorities said on Thursday. About 200 men intervened to stop the cremation last week, removing the body of a woman from a funeral pyre […]
Outrage in India over Dalit farmers’ suicide attempt after police beating
Lucknow, IndiaThomson Reuters Foundation A lower-caste Dalit couple in India attempted suicide after police beat them and destroyed their crops, triggering calls on Thursday for an end to brutal evictions of poor minorities. An online video showing half a dozen police officers dragging and beating the couple with sticks to evict them from government-owned land […]
Essay: COVID-19 – The story of the other half billion
SALLY BRUCE, a member of the communications team at DFN (Dignity Freedom Network) – which advocates and cares for India’s oppressed peoples, looks at the hardships facing the vulnerable in India and how the organisation is helping…
US protests spur calls for India to wake up to anti-Dalit discrimination
Chennai, IndiaThomson Reuters Foundation Spurred on by US anti-racism protests, lower-caste Dalits on Wednesday called on India to acknowledge centuries of oppression they have endured and recognise that “every life matters”. Dalits are at the bottom of India’s ancient caste hierarchy, whose membership was determined at birth, and have historically faced violence, segregation and been […]
Essay: India’s coronavirus pandemic shines a light on the curse of caste
In an article first published on The Conversation, SUMIT GANGULY, of Indiana University, says he’s not surprised that India’s Dalits are among those worst affected by the coronavirus crisis in India given the caste system which still operates in the nation…
India’s rural poor may lose out as drones map village land
Bangkok, ThailandThomson Reuters Foundation A government plan to map residential areas in rural India and issue title deeds could benefit hundreds of millions of people, but exclude lower-caste communities and those traditionally denied land, human rights experts said on Monday. Prime Minister Narendra Modi last week unveiled ‘Swamitva Yojana’, or ‘Ownership Scheme’, to map rural […]
ESSAY: CAN SOMEONE BY A HINDU BE CULTURE AND A CHRISTIAN BY FAITH AT THE SAME TIME?
The Most Rev JOSEPH D’SOUZA, founder of Dignity Freedom Network, Archbishop of the Anglican Good Shepherd Church of India and president of the All India Christian Council, looks at the intersection of Christianity and culture…
Denied in life, India’s lower-caste Dalits fight for land in death
New Delhi, IndiaThomson Reuters Foundation India’s lower-caste Dalits are increasingly asserting their claims over land so they can bury their dead, human rights activists said on Friday, as their traditional burial grounds are targeted by real estate developers and higher-caste Hindus. Last year, a viral video of Dalit men lowering a dead body by a […]
India’s Dalits protest against plan to develop common land
Bangkok, ThailandThomson Reuters Foundation Protests have flared in the Indian state of Punjab over a government plan to use common land for industrial development, a move that activists and analysts said last week would deny lower-caste Dalits their land rights. The state government last month approved a proposal to amend a 1964 law to include […]