[This article by Rekha Raj was published in Kakkakkoottamon 16th August, 2017 and therefore the information provided by the author is from that time.]
“I wasn’t working in their yard or their farm for them to order me not to go for work from the next day”“I endured for eight months. I am not in their good books because I speak my mind. I might not be able to convince you of many a thing that I had to go through. But that does not mean that I did not go through it.”“If I don’t get justice, I will have to protest in even more severe ways”
The above words are by a Dalit woman-media person who is in hospital after a suicide attempt. I did some journalism on my own because I couldn’t see any of the extremely active activist journalists including women-media persons come this way. (I spoke to her in the morning and also to her close relatives and friends.) Comparisons and what might seem like ramblings are often and unavoidably put forward by Dalits. That is because of the helplessness that arises when our society turns a blind eye to subtle violence like the one mentioned in the second quote by the woman. I am going to make one such comparison now.
One or two weeks ago, a woman media person was reported to have been ‘cheated upon promise of marriage’. A case had been registered. People including me had proclaimed our solidarity with the media person. I believe that by supporting a concept of justice that is not socially accepted or ‘popular’, we were all stating that it was time that such concepts of justice should be dismantled. But when it came to a Dalit woman who is a media person, I don’t see anyone here. That is to say that Dalit women need not expect the ‘sisterly solidarity’ back. That is to say that only violation of the rights of women from the dominant castes need to be protested. In case of the oppression of a Dalit woman there is no scope of novelty or empathy for feminists and their many ideologies. Therefore, they easily ignore it. Just like the difference in protests against rape of Nirbhaya and the caste rapes that happen in North India!
Why doesn’t the suicide attempt in News18 hurt anyone’s conscience? Where are all the Left-secular liberals and wide left who frantically demand legal justice now? Why were the protests limited to a few Dalit activists and individuals and their social media posts? (Yes, a few online magazines like Narada reported it) Is it because the justice seeker is not a victim who is ready to be weak? Will you only support those who conform to your concept of a ‘naïve’ victim? Or is it that the talk is about caste, which is something the liberals consider to be ‘a thing of the past’? Or is it because the accused are Left leaning savarna males? If you take it a bit further, is it because they are your friends? Dalit women of Kerala deserve answers to these.
The main arguments against the Dalit woman media person are the following:
The suicide attempt by the media person is staged. Yeah, right. Somebody will just willingly ‘stage’ the intake of pills, be admitted in ICU for three days and enjoy it. Are you serious!
18 employees were terminated. Why did this media person alone attempt suicide? I’ll leave behind those who are pretending to be unaware. But the others – there exists something called a social background. Loss of job does not affect everyone the same way. If you just look around the colonies around you, you will be able to understand that the loss of job and income and the difficulty in finding another job are not things that can be easily dealt with by a Dalit woman. You have around ten such colonies in every panchayat. Won’t have to look much.
The third one is that her performance was bad. I spoke to four of her friends. All of them were unanimous in their opinion that she was great at her job. Even if she wasn’t what are these male seniority flag bearers there for? Why not teach her? What should one even expect from these people who make dark skinned subordinates work only in production? Don’t you dare talk about justice, you colony slaves who think that having white skin is what counts as ‘merit’.
The fourth argument is that the accused people and Saneesh [Saneesh Elayadath, journalist at News18 Keralam who later wrote in favour of accused] did not know that she was Dalit! What do they think? That their office is an annex of their ancestral property? Is it that they think that only people of their caste and similar ones will enter as media persons in a media house? You don’t even understand the social location of your co-workers. You don’t know how to encourage them and yet you appear in 9 o clock news shows analysing the society!
I believe that three things need to be done immediately in this matter.
I believe that three things need to be done immediately in this matter.
1) It should be ensured that in this case, the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Amendment Act and Workplace Harassment Act are slapped on the accused by the police and that good lawyers represent her in court. She has not yet received the FIR. She said she would give a copy as soon as she got it.
2) Every establishment in this country has to function according to the constitution. The media houses should subject themselves to retrospection. A survey or CDS about the Dalit-Adivasi representation in media houses should be demanded. In the light of that, programmes that ensure representation should be implemented.
3) For Dalit-Adivasis who go to Kerala after completing media studies, training of international standard and programmes that ensure employment should be implemented. Social Welfare ministry and SC/ST ministry should exert pressure for this to be done.
4) What is the representation, number and ratio of Dalits and Dalit women in Kerala’s news channels and newspapers? What is the number of drop outs? Dalit persecution that is implemented in a micro level and covertly in media houses and their operation as a savarna stronghold should stop. A group should be formed to ensure social justice in such media houses. They should strategize and hold talks with these media houses to put an end to this discrimination.
Rekha Raj is a Dalit activist and writer from Kerala.
This is part of a series of documentation that WASH intends to do in the sexist and casteist workplace harassment by News18 Keralam. See the rest of the series below.
Comments
Post a Comment