http://koyatoor.blogspot.com/2007/09/dalit-students-battle-prejudice-and.html
Sunday, September 30, 2007 Dalit students battle prejudice and violence Times of India Siddarth Varadarajan NEW DELHI: Vikram Ram, a Dalit student at the UniversityCollege of Medical Sciences (UCMS) in east Delhi, got a rudeshock when he sat down for his first meal at the hostel mess.``Bloody Shaddu'', he was told fiercely by a group of upper castestudents (using an abusive term for Scheduled Castes), ``youcannot eat with us''. Hurt and bewildered, he made his way to therow of tables where the Dalit students normally sit. According to the Dalit students, even the hostel has de factobeen ghettoised, with most of them on two floors. When RakeshKumar, an SC student, was assigned a room elsewhere, aneighbour said: ``We will not let you stay here, Shaddu. Yourkind of person cleans our toilets.'' Faced with the prospect ofconstant harassment, he asked to be shifted. When this reporter asked some upper caste boys at UCMSabout the term `Shaddu', they denied the word was ever used,except during arguments. After some prodding, one student,Anand Bakshi, said: ``It is only a pet name.''As for separate dining and living areas, the upper caste studentsthis reporter spoke to say there is no such policy. ``If at all theyeat and live together'', said Sudhir Kathuria, ``it is because theylike sticking to their own community''. Today, Vikram, Rakesh and several other Dalit students are ondharna. After years of discrimination, they say they have hadenough. The last straw was the violent attack on them by someupper caste students on February 22. UCMS authorities insist itwas a run-of-the-mill fight between students but the fact is severalDalits were badly beaten. The hostel PA system was used to asall `general category' students to assemble. The turban of DrJaswant Singh, a gentle, small-built Dalit, was pulled off and hewas punched and kicked. Another Dalit intern, Balwinder Bhatti,hid himself but the mob ransacked his room.When this reporter went to talk to the Dalit students, they weresuspicious. It was only gradually that their complaints poured out.Stubbornly, reluctantly. More than anything, it is the perceiveddiscrimination from the faculty that rankles. A tall, intensetwenty-something, Vikram had topped his school and had neverbefore experienced casteism. ``My parents say `thoda seh lo;but become a doctor at any cost','' he said, wistfully twisting hisstethoscope this way and that.The son of a driver, Vikram hasn't graduated despite being atUCMS for eight years. Like many SC students, he has frequentlybeen made to repeat exams. If the intake of reserved students is22, only four graduate on time.``We study as hard as anyone else but it is the faculty's casteismwhich is holding us back,'' said a Dalit student. Ram Das, a finalyear student, had just appeared in an exam. ``The first questionthe examiner asked was `Are you a bania?'. When I said no, hesaid `Then what? Are you from reserved category? What is yourcaste?'.``If an exam begins like this'', said Ram, ``we get demoralised,nervous. How are we supposed to cope?'' (The names of the students have been changed.)
