Dalit children beaten to death in India for defecating in public ! [ Al Jazeera News ]

Dalit children beaten to death in India for defecating in public

Police arrest two men after two children, aged 10 and 12, were lynched in Madhya Pradesh state in latest mob killing.

Poor sanitation that forces Indians to defecate outdoors is one of the country's biggest health issues [FIle: Kevin Frayer/AP]

Two children from the Dalit community - the former untouchables - have been beaten to death in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh for defecating in public, according to officials and relatives.

Roshni Valmiki, 12, and her 10-year-old nephew, Avinash, were attacked at about 06:30 am local time (01:00 GMT) on Wednesday, in Shivpuri district of Madhya Pradesh in central India.

Police have arrested two men - identified as Hakam Singh and Rameshwar Singh - in connection with the attack.

"The accused are mentally stable and during the interrogation, they have said they committed this crime," Rajesh Chandel, the superintendent of police of Shivpuri, told Reuters news agency, adding an investigation was ongoing.

There are a lot of untouchability issues in our village.

Manoj Valmiki, Avinash's father

The two children belonged to what is known as the "scheduled castes", commonly called "Dalits", for their position in India's ancient caste hierarchy.

Avinash's father, Manoj Valmiki, said the murders followed an altercation between the two families, where "casteist slurs" were used by the accused.

"I heard them crying for help. I went out to see what had happened and to my utter shock, I saw two men hitting them with sticks at a distance of about 60 to 70 feet from our house," he told Al Jazeera by telephone.

"Before I could reach them, they were dead," said 32-year-old Valmiki, who works as a labourer. "I couldn't save them."

He said the attackers tried to flee from the spot, but were caught by the villagers who handed them to the police.

Discrimination on the basis of caste is illegal in India but still widespread in the country, especially in rural areas where hundreds of millions of people live.

"There are a lot of untouchability issues in our village," Valmiki told Reuters. "Our children cannot play with their children."

Valmiki told Al Jazeera that Shivpuri district's magistrate visited them on Thursday and gave two cheques of 400,000 rupees ($5,637) each as compensation.

He said the officer promised him that the two men would be given "strict" punishment.

"I want both of them hanged to death so that an example is set and no one kills anyone's child like this in future," he said.

Biggest health issue 

Valmiki said the children had to defecate in the open because the family didn't have a toilet at home.

Poor sanitation that forces Indians to defecate outdoors is one of the country's biggest health issues, and its eradication has been a top priority for the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Modi launched the Swachh Bharat, or Clean India, mission in 2014, and is planning to declare India "open defecation free" (ODF) on October 2 this year, according to Indian media reports.

Earlier this week, the Indian leader was felicitated by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation at a ceremony in New York for his role in building millions of toilets across the South Asian nation of 1.3 billion people.

International human rights activists slammed the decision by the foundation, which defended it by saying that Modi's efforts have helped millions to have access to safe sanitation.

Swachh Bharat has constructed more than 100 million toilets for some of the poorest in Indian society, according to official data, but problems in some areas remain.

Anugraha P, the district's top civil servant, told Reuters that Bhaukhedi village, where the two families live, had been declared ODF in 2018, but that Valmiki's house did not have a toilet.

In the past five years of Modi's rule, at least 44 people have been lynched, most of them Muslims, by cow vigilantes, according to a report by the Human Rights Watch.

Bilal Kuchay contributed to this report from New Delhi

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

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India West Diaspora Newspaper Sells Out to RSS Paramilitary

Admin | On 12, Aug 2019

Front page ad features RSS leader who praised Nazi racial policy

San Leandro, CA: August 12, 2019 — One of the US’s oldest Indian diaspora newspapers, India West, has angered segments of the Indian-American community after publishing a front-page ad featuring the founding fathers of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, including MS Golwalkar, who praised Nazi Germany’s racial policies.

The full-page ad celebrates the Indian government’s controversial decision to scrap Jammu and Kashmir’s autonomous status and strip the region of statehood. The ad states that “Akhand Bharat” — a Hindu nationalist demand for an “Undivided India” — is “finally a reality.” Showing a saffron flag planted in J&K, the ad features images of Golwalkar and RSS founder KB Hedgewar.

“India West has sold out to the RSS, a fascist paramilitary responsible for pogroms and lynchings of India’s minorities,” states Arvin Valmuci of Organization for Minorities of India. “The publishers of this newspaper are a disgrace to journalism. They have showered contempt on the millions of Indians who are persecuted by the RSS. Does India West stand by Golwalkar’s praise for the Nazi purge of the Jews? We demand a retraction of the paper and a sincere apology from the publishers.”

Golwalkar, who led the RSS from 1940 to 1973, infamously wrote in 1939: “To keep up the purity of the race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races – the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well-nigh impossible it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by.”

Subsequently, in 1966, Golwalkar endorsed annexation of Pakistan, calling for “the hoisting of our flag in Lahore and other parts of Pakistan.” The long-standing demand of Hindu nationalist outfits like the RSS includes establishment of a mythical “Akhand Bharat.” Such a nation might include every South Asian country from Afghanistan to Sri Lanka to Myanmar.

“We’re shocked at India West’s complete lack of judgement in approving advertisers,” says Balbir Singh Dhillon, the president of West Sacramento Sikh Gurdwara. “The RSS wants to purge India of Sikhs, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, and anyone else who isn’t Hindu. Fascists like the RSS are celebrating Modi’s tyranny in Kashmir, but Sikhs here in California are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our oppressed Kashmiri brothers and sisters. The publishers of India West should be ashamed of themselves.”

Dhillon, who spent months in jail in India in the 1990s on false charges, adds that the torture he experienced is a regular feature of life in Kashmir. “So many Kashmiris have been tortured like I was,” he says. “Tens and tens of thousands of Kashmiris have been simply murdered. The Sikhs in Punjab suffered the same thing.”

Last week, the Bharatiya Janata Party ruled Indian government passed a bill stripping J&K of statehood. The move was preceded by a presidential order abrogating Articles 370 and 35A of the Indian Constitution, which had officially granted J&K autonomy in most of its domestic affairs. Kashmiris generally considered the article as the primary legal justification for their state’s alignment with India. The BJP’s actions prompted international outcry.

Kashmiris have remained under martial law for over a week. Phone and internet service is blocked. A few images obtained by international outlets like The New York Times show furious Kashmiris clashing with Indian security forces. Reports from the BBC show security forces using tear gas to disperse a protest rally. India denies the protest occurred.

“The growing instability in this nuclear region presents a global threat,” concludes Dhillon. “By placing this ad, India West is openly intimidating minorities of Indian origin who are living in the US. India West’s publishers are sending a chilling message that they endorse the lynchings, torture, killings, and forced assimilation of India’s minorities under the saffron flag of Hindu supremacists.”

India West, a weekly print newspaper based in California, was founded in 1975 by Ramesh and Bina Murarka.