Krishnaveni in Delhi

Krishnaveni (first from left) has received several awards for good governance. At an event in Delhi with Sonia Gandhi

 

Read an interview with Krishnaveni here. In response to the brutal attack on Thalaiyuthu Panchayat President Krishnaveni, this is the eleventh of a series of posts about attempts on the lives of dalit panchayat presidents. This attack has hospitalised an award-winning and popular elected leader and underlines the threat that caste poses to democracy. The Arunthathiyar Human Rights Federation’s statement on the issue is here and a poem by SRaj is here. There is also a fact-finding report on discrimination faced by Dalit Panchayat Presidents, a personal narrative from Jayanthi and Chellamma,  a complaint that murdered Dalit Panchayat President Jaggaiyan had written, and testimonies from the wife and son of murdered Panchayat President Servaaran. Ravichandran has written about responses to the attack on Panchayat President Krishnaveni.

 

 

Drawing caste

These are pictures taken at an art show organised by Save the Children at Gulmohar Park, Ahmedabad, on Children’s Day in 2010. Children have portrayed the various forms of discrimination they see and face in these drawings.

The description is a set of questions that follow after this 13-year-old artist says how ashamed he feels when he is made to sit separately during the mid-day meal. "What if I was not a a dalit?"

This drawing is by a 15-year-old child labourer who picks cotton. It shows a Patel family inside the temple, while the Solanki family is standing far away.

The Patels have bigger and sturdier houses, while the Solankis have smaller ones. The well is full of water but out of reach for the Solanki community, whose women go far away to fetch water

These pictures are from vmallya’s Flickr photostream.