The Dalit Photo School Project

by Laura Lizancos Mora

I decided to spend my summer holidays working on a project with the Dalits.
First of all, I should acknowledge my gratitude to Woophy. When I read about the project , I looked for "Bangalore" on the city search... where I found the pictures taken by Woophy members . I met "Typpy". I wrote her and she advised me to go to a peculiar hotel. The Green Hotel in Mysore.

I was so lucky! It was much more than a hotel! There, I discovered Mari Marcel Theaekara, an incredible women, working with "endless faith" on projects on the exploitation of the Dalits and Bhangis . All the best for her!With such a fantastic start I was looking forward to arriving in Manvi, and Pannur. After another incredible train journey, there it was: Loyola School, where I got to know F Eric and find out about his projects.

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But, first of all, what does DALIT mean?
The word 'dalit(a)' comes from the Sanskrit root dal, and means 'held under check', 'suppressed', or 'crushed', or, in a looser sense, 'oppressed'. Dalits were commonly banned and segregated from full participation in Hindu social life (they could not enter the premises of a temple), while elaborate precautions were sometimes observed to prevent incidental contact between Dalits and other Hindus.

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Being Dalits means that you belong to the poorest of the poorest. Being born a Dalit means being untouchable: even their shadows are considered unpure. Mahatma Gandhi made it part of the Indian National Congress’s and the untouchability has been officially abolished in India, BUT the social practice still exists today, particularly in rural villages.
In these extremely traditional villages, Dalits are still not allowed to let their shadows fall upon a non-Dalit caste member -particularly a Brahim, for fear of ritually contaminating them-, even the Brahim "uses" Dalit women for his pleasure.

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The Bhanhi / Dalit community is trapped in a system ordained by the caste structure. They are the lowest of the low. Everybody is superior to them. So, even nowadays, since they are child they clean the streets and do manual scavening on public toilets. They are forced to handle sewage with an unhygienic, degrading and primitive manual system of cleaning.

Dalits, are still required to sweep the ground where they walk to remove the 'contamination' of their footfalls. In some of these villages, rural Dalits are forbidden to worship in temples or draw water from the same wells as caste Hindus, and they live in segregated neighbourhoods, slums, outside the main village. There is only a tap for most than 7.00 families.

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There are many Dalit woman who were and are still given to the Temples as "sacred virgins" when they are 6/8 years old. They grow up there and they dance...and become "used" by the Brahims or the landlords.
Many families have been forced to give one child to the landlord in order to be allow to grow rice on his lands to feed the other children at home.
If a daughter gets married, poor families have to give the first child to the "temple use". A daughter will only be allowed to marry in the temple if this has happened.

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The project

There is a man, Eric who has been the magician for thousand lives. He was sent almost 10 years ago to Pannur, one of the poorest village in Karnataka state, South India to work on the area.
Pannur almost doesn't exist on the maps, but there are so many souls there. When Eric arrived there, that night, a pregnant woman knocked on his door shouting. Yes, a boy was about to be born. They took a tractor, in order to take the woman to a place where they could help her. But ...she died on that ill fated journey. Then, Eric decided he would stay in Manvi forever.
There is a UK group, Wimbledon School students, lead by B.Tim Byron, who have been travelling to Manvi for the last 3 years to work on this Project. This summer, I was lucky enough to go there with an incredible group from Comilla´s University from Madrid who were working with Eric. There are Italian and German young groups who go there to do their gap year as well.

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What do this volunteers do there?

It´s 6:30 AM in Pannur. Everybody is at the dry river, filling the tractor with sand. The way to Manvi takes 1:30 on the tractor. There, the volunteers help to build up the school. After having a plate of rice with children, its class time: teaching English and playing with them, speaking with families, takes all the busy afternoon.

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Giving children dresses, food and sitting, eating, singing with them and their families is as essential as giving them a place where they can learn, even where they can make their own home (women taken away from Braihms temples). It has now its own effect.
It is giving them dignity for the first time in their lives. No one else had ever touched them or eaten with them ever before.
The Loyola Project (www.preoyectoindia.com) focuses on child education, health, relief, building a "first aid" hospital and a hostel for the children and "sacred women" coming out from the Temples.

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What can we do?

We've been observing the people. Everybody shouted at us "PHOTO PHOTO". They love being photographed. And they love taking photos, too!! There is a group of young Dalits who want to learn photography. Then I thought: yes, why not! As we said, it's not giving the fish, it is teaching them how to use the rod.
That´s how we decided to begin this project: DALIT PHOTO SCHOOL in MANVI. That's why we’ve started to collect second hand materials (cameras, printers, paper, books) in order to teach them to have a business, a job, a profession for their futures.

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We are collecting all these materials to take them to Manvi to go on with our Project. All ideas and help is very welcome.
It's not a matter of religion, of global changes, or society / political discussions. We only want to make movements in order to help this people to have another future: to be able to feed their children, to live in healthy conditions, to recover their human dignity.
Perhaps something will change in the future. They will make the change themselves.

dalitphotoschool@yahoo.es