If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh?

Priya Venkatraman

In the last week of June 2009, the world celebrated the repealing of Article 377 in India, a landmark judgement which spelt freedom for thousands who had to lead dual lives everyday. In the midst of this jubilation, a talk held in the city raised uncomfortable questions that cannot be answered by passing laws alone.

It certainly isn’t easy to ‘come out’ if you are gay. But what if you’re a hetrosexual dalit? Is there a need to ‘come out’ to your friends as well? Yes, says Elavarthi Manohar, co-founder of Sangama and who is now with Jeevika, “there is hesitation in admitting to be of a ‘lower’ caste.” As moderator of the Dalit-Sexual Minorities Dialogue, held in the city on June 22^nd, Manohar shared some of his experiences that highlight the similarities between dalits and sexual minorities in the struggle for rights.

During a group discussion with sexual minorities in Cubbon Park, a young man let out that he was a dalit. “Everyone was so surprised,” Manohar said. “The truth is that even in such a setting, castes don’t mix. The ‘upper castes’ offer support during these meetings but never befriend (the dalits).” It is an understanding that everyone comes to unquestioningly.

The ‘Dalit-Sexual Minorities Dialogue’ was held as part of the week-long Karnataka Queer Habba, which culminated in the Bengaluru Pride March on June 28^th, following which a historic judgement was passed that repealed Article 377.

Nitin, who works with NGOs like Good As You and Alternative Law Forum, is part of the organising team. He says the ‘Dalit-SM’ dialogue is unique because it is “the first time someone has made an attempt to understand the two movements through one keyhole”. The initiative to bring them together came from NGOs working with sexual minorities, who found that at the core, both movements were a struggle for reclaiming self-respect and dignity.

The queer ones

While dalits don’t exactly wear their caste on their sleeve, sexual minorities have a harder time avoiding confrontations. “Buses aren’t safe for sexual minorities to travel in. Humiliated by passengers and being refused an entry are regular incidents,” said a homosexual. Another hijra said that she is molested whether she stands with the men or the women. Plus, there is only so much pointing at one can take.

The discussion covered education, job opportunities, marriage, family, law and social acceptance. “The pain of discrimination is the same,” said a dalit social worker after listening to a lesbian narrate her story. “In our case the law is on our side. In theory at least,” she corrected. Schools may have dalit teachers, but the ayahs will always be upper caste, she said, since the ayahs have to cook the mid-day meals.

One gay man insisted on knowing what the general group thought about homosexuality. “What do you think of men who have sex only with men?” he asked. A few said it was the first time they had spoken to a homosexual They had been brought up to look upon gays as freaks. “We’ve never heard your (a homosexual’s) opinion before,” said a mid-aged man.

While Revathi, a hijra, spoke about how she had to cover up her friend’s caste to her mother (“She was dark so I told my mother she was Christian”), for whom caste was a bigger consideration than sexual preference, most of the dalits felt they had definite advantages in comparison. For one, they had their family support. Ration cards or voter IDs were hardly a problem. Plus, they did not have to alter any part of their behaviour to fit in.

Nitin said this was one of the reasons the LGBT community was reclaiming the word queer. “Not using it (queer) and claiming to be just like the rest, curbs our expression. The debate has led us to retain the term queer as it states that we are indeed different and that is okay.”

Dalit sexual minorities

“Dalit hijras never admit they are dalit,” said Revathi. “They don’t fear segregation, because we don’t do that in our community. But someone might say something mean.” Several participants, who fell into both categories, agreed. One spoke about how her village was more livid that she ran away with an upper caste girl than with the fact that she was a lesbian. “They just think I am confused and that once I get married (to a man), I will be fine.”

One gentleman opined that people have more sympathy for the dalit’s cause over the hijras’ because they believe that unlike dalits, hijras have chosen to be the way they are. “That’s not true”, countered a participant. “Just like you might have wanted to become a dancer or an engineer, I wanted to be a woman. I felt normal only when I was wearing a saree. The sight of my own penis distressed me. Wanting to change my sex was a desire that was always in me and not something I chose.”

Anecdotes, misconceptions (“are there forced castrations in the hijra community”), jokes (“I used to be teased for behaving like a girl in school and now, after becoming a hijra, I’m told I am too much like a man!”), eye openers (police harassment, lesbian suicide rates, hijras despising the word homosexual) and confessions had hardly settled down, when the evening was brought to a close. “Discussions like this must be held over two to three days, so we can reach some sort of a conclusion,” voiced a participant.

Feeling like something has been achieved is the danger of attending open and honest discussions such as these. Who are we kidding; sexuality and caste aren’t things to be flashed around in public. “Only English dailies talk about gay rights,” said one when I told him the newspaper I worked for. “The Kannada dailies never do. It is when vernacular media picks up these issues that the war will be won.”

Enrich a Child’s Life

by Nayantara Mallya

“Just giving birth to a child does not imply parent status” explained Mary Paul, Executive Director of Vathsalya Charitable Trust. She was addressing volunteers and prospective parents as part of a drive “Enriching the Life of an Abandoned Child through Adoption and Foster Care” by Diana Tholoor, founder of Chrysallis Performing Arts Centre.

“Children do not have just material needs. They need a family’s warmth and care.” Diana strongly believes in the value of adoption and foster care as ways of protecting the runaway or abandoned child from abuse. “It’s a vicious cycle. Runaway children are abused horrifically in the communities they believe will protect them, such as rag-pickers and beggars. After a childhood of abuse, many turn to solicitation and drug abuse.”

Vathsalya is an adoption agency licensed for in-country and inter-country adoption of Indian children. It receives and cares for both abandoned and surrendered children. Mary summarised procedures followed for tracing an abandoned child’s parents and clearing a child for adoption. She also outlined Indian adoption laws and processes for prospective adoptive parents.

Parents resort to wilful abandonment when they feel they have no options left, especially with special needs children. Vathsalya has reunited 350 abandoned children over two decades with their birth parents. They are much more than a clearing-house for children awaiting families. “We counsel parents coming to surrender their children. Our counsellors use play-therapy and
group discussion with runaway and abandoned children” Mary explains.

Mary Paul and Diana Tholoor (Pic: Nayantara)

What about attachment and rejection? “Even a day old baby feels her birth parents’ rejection.” Mary answered. “Some carry immense pain and blame themselves. Many of the runaways fleeing abusive families refuse to divulge their addresses and history. They slowly regain their trust and start getting attached to us.”

Vathsalya also works with doctors approached by desperate mothers wanting late abortions and induction of pre-term deliveries. Most nursing homes are aware now of the illegality of arranging private adoptions. Vathsalya shelters pregnant mothers and provides pre-natal care and counselling. “We used to receive a lot of premature underweight babies who then died, but that has improved now.”

Vathsalya received its first child in 1990 when Indian families mostly adopted healthy children. Over the years the percentage of special needs children entering Vathsalya’s doors has risen. Foreign couples usually adopt these children. A critical goal this year for Chrysallis is promoting integration of special needs children into Indian families.

Vathsalya’s foster care program has been very successful. Children awaiting adoption are nurtured meanwhile by about 30 families in their homes. They receive a stipend and assistance for the child’s needs. “We call them our super-mothers and fathers. Even severely sick children bounce back in foster care.” Mary clarifies, “Though children living in-house at Vathsalya have a 1:2 caregiver:child ratio, they do better even with a 1:5 ratio in foster care. The family environment makes the difference”.
Children at Vathsalya (Pic: Nayantara)


Chrysallis organised an interactive program for the children, a regular occurrence over the last six years. “They sing, play and colour with us”, says Diana, pointing at a wall full of jolly cartoon characters, done previously by Chrysallis volunteers and Vathsalya children.

Listening to Mary and Diana describe their incredible work was moving and inspiring. There is hope for abandoned children here to dream of a future with loving families. Want to enrich your life? Build your family through adoption.

Links
Chrysallis: diana.tholoor@gmail.com
Vathsalya Charitable Trust

When elementary education gets complex

Aarti Mohan

An open hall session bringing together educators, lawyers, journalists and concerned citizens threw open some interesting questions on the right to education bill and its ramifications.

“All of us certainly believe in the right to education for all. What we need to discuss is how it should be implemented.” This set the tone for the Sunday morning session organized by PRS Legislative Research and Engaged Citizen’s Forum on the “Right to Education Bill of 2008.”

Free education for all

The Bill seeks to provide the right to “free and compulsory elementary education to all children between the ages of 6 and 14 in a neighbourhood school.” Introduced in the Rajya Sabha in Dec 2008 and referred to a Standing Committee, the bill is now in the process of receiving public feedback before it goes on to become a law. Some of the highlights of the Bill include its bid to stop “screening interviews”, “performance-based admission” and the exorbitant “capitation fees” charged by schools. Clauses in the Bill also talk of a 25% reservation in unaided schools for economically disadvantaged children.

Implementation a big challenge

“Passing the law is just the beginning, co-ordination between Centre and State for implementation of such laws, fund disbursement, enforcement etc has always been a huge challenge,” P.R. Dasgupta, (ex) Education Secretary, HRD, India. “For a while, the Centre even tried disbursing funds directly to the districts bypassing the State Govt so that rural schools received their share.” His take was that education should be decentralized, with the Govt just allocating and monitoring funds while PPPs or private institutions implement the policies. Sailesh Gupta of Deccan Group of papers also stressed the importance of delivery systems and single level accountability, which the Bill is ambiguous about.

What should be taught?

The Indian education system has always been accused of encouraging rote-learning owing to a rigid curriculum taught by teachers focussed on examination results. This system has no place for the “learn at your own pace” method recommended by the Bill where under-performers need to be coached specially and can continue in elementary school until they pass. Venkatesh Murthy of Youth For Sewa pointed out that about 70% of students drop out in Xth grade from village schools after failing, rendering them useless for semi-urban/urban jobs as well as too old to pick up the native profession of farming. “Tuning the curriculum to suit the vastly different needs of urban and rural education is a challenge. We need to universalize the education and not the curriculum,” he said.

Syed Ahmed of EduMedia also brought up the importance of using innovative and experiential methods of teaching to keep the children engaged and not “wait for the bell” as he put it!

Education only as good as its teacher

“We surveyed over 1000 teachers who do career-counselling, and not one of them discusses teaching as a prospective career among their wards.” said Vishnu Agnihotri of Educational Initiatives. India apparently is also the only country where there is no institute to train Principals. Good teachers and administrators in schools are keys to the Bill succeeding in achieving its purpose. All panellists pointed out that emphasis must be laid on attracting the right talent, training, motivating and monitoring their progress.

Other subtle questions like how to treat children who are differently abled, whether the medium of instruction should be English or the native tongue, would it be detrimental for the economically weak students to study in a class of affluent children and so on need to be investigated.

The Bill hopes to make education a level playing field by bringing all institutions, from Govt. schools to International schools, under the purview of this law. In order to achieve the goal of “Every child learning well” and not just “Every child going to school”, the Govt has to focus on implementation, enforcement and accountability. And citizen forums like these offer a platform for healthy discussion and debate, involving both the stakeholders and authorities.

This session was held on June 21^st at Purva Riviera, Varthur Main Road. To know more about these sessions, please contact Tulika at: tulika7@gmail.com

Links:

PRS analysis on education Bill

Full text of the Bill