Caste row: Dalit students yet to return school in Kendrapada

--Dalit student of same school scolded for touching salt  

BHUBANESWAR: “When I was bringing a pinch of salt to add in my served dal while eating mid-day-meal in my school, the cook and helper scolded me taking my caste name for touching the salt which was kept for serving general caste students,” said Bikram Mallick, an eighth class student of Chakada-Gogua High School in Mahakalapada area of Kendrapada district, attending a State-level public hearing on MDM programme organised by Right to Food Campaign (Odisha) here on Tuesday.

Bikram stated that when he and his father Abhay Mallick, member of school MDM committee, told all the matter to the school headmaster, he wisely solved it without taking concrete step to stop the practice in the school. “We can’t sit with general caste students in a line to have MDM and even we can’t touch water,” lamented the student.

Notably, the student belongs to the same school which was in news recently for not permitting dalit students to offer prayer to Lord Ganesh during the Ganesh puja in the school. Protesting the unequal treatment in the school, more than 60 students stopped going school from day after the puja on September 9.

After getting complaint from the parents of the school students, the police on September 10 registered a case against three youths under the Scheduled Caste and Tribe (Atrocity Prevention) Act, 1973.

On the day of the puja, over 60 dalit children studying at the high school were allegedly disallowed to break coconuts and offer prayer to Lord Ganesh while upper caste students were allowed to do.

Though a separate probe by the School and Mass Education Department had been ordered into the casteist episode, no improvement has found so far to bring the students to the school.

According to National Conference of Dalit Organisations (Nacdor) women wing president Bidulata Mallick, the teachers are also responsible for silently avoiding the issues without taking a step to check the untouchable practice in the premises of the school. The students were told that they were coming to the school for getting benefit of the Government schemes for dalits. “Though they know that mocking at students taking their caste name is an offence, why the teachers were silent,” said Mallick, adding, “How the students will continue their studies with this mental pressure.”

Right To Food campaign convener Pradip Pradhan said that they would appeal to the High Court regarding the matter. Untouchability which ostracises the group by segregating them from the mainstream is against the law and to protect the rights of the students we would go to the court, he added.