Monthly Archives: February 2020

Reader disagrees with

portrayal of Sanders

Robin Beres' recent column on Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and democratic socialism displayed shocking ignorance. Throughout her column she confused the democratic socialism advocated by Sanders with Soviet and Chinese communism. Communism advocates class warfare in order to achieve public ownership of all means of production, which the Soviet Union and China achieved through an authoritarian state. Sanders, on the other hand, seeks to strengthen democracy and roundly rejects Marxist theory and the abolition of capitalism.

In a recent speech at Georgetown University, Sanders explained that he supports a free market, but he wants to expand social programs in order to reduce widening income inequality. The economy needs to work for everyone, not just the few at the top who have the advantages.

Sanders is in the same progressive lineage as President Teddy Roosevelt and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Because of these previous presidents, we already have an economy that mixes capitalism with socialism. Sanders would like to see the U.S. develop programs such as universal health care similar to what exists in Canada and much of Europe. Such a program would save an enormous amount of money and be far more efficient than our current approach.

Sanders is not my preferred candidate. Too many of his ideas are political nonstarters. But he's certainly not a communist.

Original post:

Letter to the Editor, March 1, 2020: Reader disagrees with portrayal of Sanders - Richmond.com

Bernie Sanders wants to abolish ICE and halt deportations for everyone except violent criminals. Elizabeth Warren agrees with Sanders on deportations and says the U.S. should increase refugee admissions to 175,000 a year, nearly 10 times President Trumps current limit.

Amy Klobuchar promises to restore the right to asylum for victims of domestic violence. Joe Biden says he could persuade Congress, after decades of deadlocks, to overhaul and humanize the immigration system. Tom Steyer wants a virtual halt to deportations and an end to criminal prosecutions for unauthorized border-crossing.

Those views and others were in the spotlight for the first time in the Democratic presidential campaign at a recent forum on immigration issues a prime topic for Trump, but one that has received relatively little attention in debates and primary contests so far, with crucial votes looming Tuesday in California and several other states.

Of the candidates invited to send representatives to the Feb. 20 forum in Las Vegas, sponsored by Amnesty International, the only no-show was for Pete Buttigieg, former mayor of South Bend, Ind.

All the prominent contenders, including Buttigieg, agree on reversing Trumps most far-reaching policies: the zero-tolerance arrests and prosecutions of all undocumented immigrants, separating children from their parents, severe restrictions on asylum, and the wait in Mexico mandate for 60,000 asylum-seekers that was halted by a federal appeals court on Friday. Also, they would end Trumps cancellation of deportation reprieves for 700,000 migrants who entered as youngsters and another 320,000 from nations ravaged by wars or natural disasters, and diversion of federal funds to build a wall at the Mexico border.

But some of their differences were on display at the forum, including Sanders plan to break up Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the post-Sept. 11 agency whose officers conduct immigration-related arrests and workplace raids nationwide.

The nation doesnt need an agency roaming around simply for the purpose of terrorizing and deportation, said the Vermont senators representative, campaign manager Faiz Shakir.

He said current ICE agents should be reassigned to border safety work while immigration enforcement is turned over to the Justice Department. And the U.S. also needs a moratorium on deportations, Shakir said, removing only violent criminals who have served their sentences while sparing 99% of the people living here peacefully and contributing to Americas economy.

Warrens spokesman, Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, expressed similar views on deportation while saying ICE should be reformed from top to bottom, with immigration enforcement assigned to some other agency. Massachusetts Sen. Warren also doesnt believe that folks should be terrorized in their workplace, and wants lawyers to be provided for migrants seeking asylum, Castro said.

Bidens representative, Nevada state Sen. Yvanna Cancela, wasnt asked about deportation policy. But at another Nevada event hosted by CNN, the former vice president promised to halt all deportations for his first 100 days in office, and then to deport only immigrants who have committed a felony in the United States apparently not including the felony of illegal re-entry.

A week earlier, Biden had acknowledged, in an interview with Univision, that the record 3 million deportations under President Barack Obama including 1.7 million removals of immigrants with no criminal records had been a big mistake.

But he said the Obama administration began to get it right with Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, which allowed 700,000 immigrants brought to the U.S. before age 16 to remain in the country and get work permits for renewable two-year periods. Trump has sought to abolish the program, a dispute now before the Supreme Court.

At the immigration forum, Cancela said Biden opposes abolishing ICE but believes it has become a domestic witch-hunting organization that needs to return to its intended mission of combatting terrorism.

Similarly, Melissa Franzen, a state senator from Klobuchars home state of Minnesota, said Klobuchar does not propose to eliminate ICE, but wants it revamped and restructured to work toward keeping people safe, not terrorizing communities.

Asked about immigrants who have been sent back to Central America under Trumps order that bans virtually all Central Americans from seeking asylum, Franzen said Klobuchar would reverse the ban while taking steps to make sure the deportees can apply for U.S. asylum in their home country. Castro said Warren would allow them to return to the U.S. to apply.

Franzen said Klobuchars priorities would be to restore the right to asylum for those fleeing domestic violence, reversing a Trump administration policy; ending the caging of children, and, in the first year, winning congressional approval of a more enlightened immigration policy.

But Cancela said Biden was the one who has the relationship with Congress and the experience to get it done and rewrite the immigration laws, with a path to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants.

Steyer, the only candidate to attend in person, agreed with Sanders and Warren on deportation policy and also said unauthorized border-crossing should not be treated as a crime a position endorsed by Sanders and Warren, but not by the other candidates. The criminal law has been on the books since 1929, but was seldom enforced until the mid-2000s, and has been ramped up under the Trump administrations zero tolerance policy.

Steyer said ICE should be revamped, not abolished, but called for an end to the relationship between ICE and local law enforcement, a position akin to the sanctuary policies of California and many of its local governments.

When Steyer advocated a ban on housing detained immigrants in private prisons, the forum moderator, BuzzFeed News reporter Hamed Aleaziz, a former Chronicle staff writer, pointed out that the billionaires hedge fund had invested in Corrections Corp. of America, a leading owner of private prisons.

That was a mistake, Steyer replied, but I reversed it 15 years ago ... sold it for moral reasons, before anyone was talking about it.

Buttigieg, while bypassing the forum, has outlined immigration policies that include an end to ICE detainers orders to local police agencies to keep immigrants in custody so they can be deported and a pathway to citizenship for most current undocumented migrants.

He has not called for abolition or restructuring of ICE, but said he would favor cuts in the agencys budget and in the lockup of immigrant families and asylum-seekers to reduce detention of immigrants by at least 75%.

Another Democratic contender, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, was not invited to the forum since he did not take part in the Nevada presidential caucus. His positions on immigration, outlined earlier this month, include substantial increases in refugee admissions and visas including placed-based visas for states and local governments to meet their economic needs a ban on private detention of immigrants, and reversal of Trumps asylum restrictions.

As mayor, Bloomberg signed laws in 2013 that limited New York Citys cooperation with ICE and barred local law enforcement from holding and handing over migrants with little or no past criminal record. But in a 2017 television interview, he rejected the concept of sanctuary cities.

You cannot have everybody deciding which laws they should obey, Bloomberg said. The law is the law.

Bob Egelko is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @BobEgelko

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Democratic presidential candidates where they stand on immigration - San Francisco Chronicle

After a seven-year effort, Enrichmond has settled into the lead stewardship role at Historic Evergreen and East End Cemeteries, the too-often-forgotten resting place of generations of the citys African Americans. As our work unfolds, we witness the uncovering and resurrecting of so much of Richmonds history that was in jeopardy of being lost. Amid the overgrown brush and sprawling bramble are gravestones of many heroic figures who played proud and esteemed roles in shaping Richmonds story.

Foremost among them is Maggie L. Walker, the Jim Crow-era businesswoman who championed civil rights and economic empowerment and whose memory is celebrated today in many ways. Other luminaries include John Mitchell, the one-time slave and contemporary of Walker, who founded a bank, became a Richmond city councilman and could evoke fear as the editor of The Richmond Planet. Sarah Garland Jones (1866-1905) was the first African American woman licensed to practice medicine in Virginia, and she went on to found Richmond Community Hospital.

These are only a few cornerstones of Richmonds African American history and culture. The cemeteries include thousands of individuals who built our city, our commonwealth and our nation. They serve as a reminder of our collective history in making a more perfect union as Freedoms First Generation the first generation of African Americans freed after the (national) abolition of slavery.

Enrichmond and our partners have achieved much over the past three years. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) awarded Evergreen Cemetery the official designation as a site of memory associated with the Slave Route Project one of the first in the world. The National Trust for Historic Preservation awarded financial support through its African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund to help launch the first phase of Evergreen Cemeterys restoration. And finally, the recently completed two-year Historic Evergreen Cemetery master plan lays out a detailed plan for reclamation of Evergreen and a foundation for the same for East End.

The reclamation of Historic Evergreen and East End Cemeteries helps us unearth poignant stories and personages. Enrichmond is committed to its responsibilities and dedicated to its stewardship of these sacred places. This commitment was most evident when we hosted 500-plus volunteers during the 2020 Martin Luther King Day of Service. But our greatest display of commitment is when our staff goes to work each and every day to partner with amazing individuals, groups, organizations and businesses to reclaim these sacred places. It is our honor.

As with any journey of commitment, it is the collective effort of many that not only makes the work successful, but also fulfilling and enduring. Throughout our stewardship, we have taken to heart the African proverb, If we stand tall, it is because we are standing on the shoulders of many ancestors. Those who inspire us to stand tall and endure are the new heroes of Evergreen and East End who gave of their time, talents and treasures to preserve black history on 100 acres in the East End of Richmond. Individuals like Veronica Davis, who along with Jim Bell and others, formed the National Association for the Restoration of African American Historic Cemeteries and Virginia Roots to foster volunteerism in support of black history. Or John Shuck, who recently celebrated his 10th year of volunteer service in both cemeteries. Davis and Shuck teamed up to form the Friends of Evergreen and Friends of East End organizations that have provided years of support to volunteers. Or Marilyn Campbell, who has volunteered almost 10 years to the preservation of African American genealogical research.

These are only a few of the thousands of volunteer heroes who have cleaned gravestones, recorded names and cleared plots again and again. Above all, it has been the hope and commitment of Evergreen and East End family members the living legacies who never stopped coming to the burial sites of their loved ones. Even when the ivy seemed relentless, the privet and overgrowth unstoppable, they came. When Enrichmond needed a partner to lead its master plan of reclamation, they formed the Executive Planning and Review Team (ExPRTs). They moved heaven and earth to make sure the path was clear. It is their path we now walk together. It is a blessing to be at their side on this journey.

New stories are growing out of the hallowed earth at Historic Evergreen and East End Cemeteries, where a renewed sense of optimism is drifting through the trees and meadows. The Richmond community has come to recognize the historical treasures buried amid the 100 acres, and new generations of heroes are taking up the mantle to see that they are preserved.

Read more here:

John Sydnor column: A new generation of heroes at Historic Evergreen and East End Cemeteries - Richmond.com

The 14th Amendment is divided into five sections, all aimed at protecting civil rights in the wake of the Civil War and the abolition of slavery. Section 2 states:

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

The first sentence will, at least in its principle, be familiar to many: It ensured that apportionment in the House of Representatives would fully count the recently emancipated black Americans, thus supplanting the provision in the original constitutional text that counted enslaved persons as three-fifths of a person. But most Americansindeed, even most American lawyers and judgeshave no familiarity with the second sentence of Section 2 that would penalize those states that abridge or deny the right to vote. It may well be the Constitutions most important lost provision.

The Radical Republicans who crafted the 14th Amendment thought Section 2s second sentence was quite importantcritical, in fact, to ensuring the rest of the amendments guarantee of equality would become a reality, especially in the face of states sure to resist implementation of its guarantees. The Amendments framers worried, in particular, that recalcitrant states would respond to the formal expansion of the vote by devising new ways to abridge that vote. Section 2s second sentence would be a powerful threat, saying that, should a state dare to try that, it would have to reduce its number of representatives in the House proportional to the vote infringement carried out by that state. Call it the Constitutions reduction clause, punishing infringement of voting rights with the stiff penalty of a reduction in representation.

Lets be clear: The reduction clause fell considerably short of what, today, wed consider appropriate and just, or even what should have been deemed appropriate and just in 1868, when the 14th Amendment was ratified. First, the reduction clauses insistence on voters being male inhabitants perpetuated the Constitutions original denial of the vote to women, an inequity partially corrected by the 19th Amendment and more fully addressed by the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Second, the clauses focus on voters twenty-one years of age and older became out of step after passage of the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age to 18. And, third, the clauses entrenchment of felon disenfranchisement looks increasingly anachronistic today, especially in light of Floridas landmark restoration of voting rights to felons by referendum in 2018.

All told, the reduction clause was far from a modern marvel. But it did add much-needed oomph to the dramatic, if incomplete, step forward that the 14th Amendment representedor at least thats what the clause was supposed to do. If the reduction clause were intended as a loaded gun to be wielded against those states that might infringe on voting rights, its never been firedor even pointed in their direction in earnest. Somewhere along the way, these 110 words of our Constitution got lost.

***

Its natural at this point to wonder why the American people havent heard of lawsuits seeking to enforce the reduction clause, given its potential. A key reason is that the clause doesnt make clear how it is to be enforcedincluding, critically, by whom. This ambiguity has left Congress, the executive branch and the courts all uncertain about what role they can and should play in enforcing the clause, and thus generally backing away from trying to do so.

Overall, it appears the reduction clauses framers expected Congress, rather than the judiciary, to be the primary enforcer of the rule. And that includes determining when voting infringement has occurred, responding by depriving disenfranchising states of the level of representation in Congress, and, finally, figuring out when that representation should be restored. According to legal scholars Richard Re and Christopher Re, that responsibility is reflected in the original congressional discussions and debates over the clause and, ultimately, in the fact that apportioning House representation overall is a responsibility assigned to Congress, leaving Congress the natural entity to adjust that apportionment as needed. So, where has Congress been for the past century and a half, and how did it let this potent threat dwindle and effectively disappear?

Scholars like Michael Kent Curtis have told the story of the basic historical trajectory, which saw the massive discriminatory voter suppression that occurred in the post-Civil War South overwhelm whatever potential the clause held and thus contribute to its retreatin other words, the problem became so vast, so fast that it wasnt clear how to assess it and then respond with this novel, uncertain tool.

Boiled down, the biggest flaw in the reduction clause might have been this one: The clause failed to specify how Congress was to obtain the data that could serve as a first step in pursuing a punitive reduction in representation.

This proved a serious obstacle when, in the 1870s, Congress made its one serious push to impose the penalty of diminished representation. That push was a response to widespread post-Civil War disenfranchisement, ranging from states imposition of poll taxes to their failure to address outright violence to deter black voters. A select committee of the House of Representatives focused on administering the countrys ninth census made a list of state laws that the committee regarded as infringing on voting. Then the committee decided to ask census respondents nationwide whether their right to vote had been denied or abridged on constitutionally impermissible grounds. So, the committee reported out a bill that would have the secretary of the Interiorthen responsible for administering the censusdetermine where and how much voting infringement was occurring and, in turn, proportionally reduce any offending states representation in the House.

This proposal elicited an objection that the Interior secretary was being made the final arbiter of a responsibility entrusted by the reduction clause to Congress itself. And the bills sponsor eventually backed down, hoping to address the matter in a separate bill and noting that the 15th Amendmentthen being ratified by the stateswould offer protection against voting infringement. An attempt in the Senate to pass a bill directing the Interior secretary to make good on the reduction clause also failed.

But the matter didnt end there. The Interior secretary directed those taking the census to list adult male citizens whose votes had been denied or abridged anyway. However, the numbers of such citizens provided to the House of Representatives by the secretary were so trifling, as one scholar put it, as to cast doubt on the accuracy and reliability of what he reported. With House members calling the reporting utterly inaccurate, the effort at proportional reduction stalled and eventually died, leaving as a trace only an unenforceable new statutory provision affirming that the reduction clause existed. No Congress has asked for a similar census report since.

The silence from Congress has led some to look to the courts to invoke the reduction clause.

Victor Sharrow was a criminal defendant accused of refusing to provide answers to the 1960 census. Creativelyperhaps too creativelyhe looked to the reduction clause as a defense. In particular, he argued that the Census Act under which hed been charged was unconstitutional because it failed to include a question about voting abridgments or denials as required (in Sharrows view) to fulfill the terms of the reduction clause. Without this question on the census, his argument went, there was no way to know if states should have their congressional representation reduced; and so, he continued, he shouldnt have to participate in a constitutionally deficient census.

Sharrow lost in the trial, and he lost again in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld his conviction. The court concluded that, whatever the reduction clause meant, it didnt require Congress to seek, as part of the constitutionally mandated decennial census, information relative to disenfranchisement. What the clause might, in fact, demand of Congress was a question left for another day.

Others who chose to go to court to invoke the reduction clause have also fared poorly. Almost 20 years before Sharrow invoked the clause in a failed attempt to stave off criminal prosecution, a Virginia citizen named Henry Saunders sued Virginias secretary of state, Ralph Wilkins. Saunders wanted to run for the U.S. House of Representatives as an at-large candidate, and Wilkins refused to certify his candidacy on the grounds that Virginia didnt have an at-large position in its congressional delegation. So Saunders sued Wilkins, arguing that, because Virginia had infringed its citizens right to vote, the reduction clause required that Virginias nine representatives be reduced to no more than four who, in turn, would have to be elected as at-large candidates. Both the trial court and the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Saunders challenge, with the latter deeming his grievance a political question unsuited for resolution in the courts.

Indeed, two legal scholars, Richard Re and Christopher Re, argue that, in the eyes of its framers, the reduction clauses apportionment penalty [was] not viewed as justiciable, meaning suitable for enforcement in court. That characterization of a wholly congressional responsibility devoid of any possible judicial involvement may overstate the views of key framers, however, especially as they continued to reflect on the matter.

In 1966, a different pair of federal courts provided a rather more nuanced take on the possibility of going to court to enforce the reduction clause. That year, the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed with a lower courts dismissal of a challenge brought by voters seeking a court order requiring the Census Bureau to count abridgments of the right to vote so as to enforce the reduction clause. The court ducked the question, indicating that the newly enacted Voting Rights Act should be given time to serve its intended function and perhaps render unnecessary this type of lawsuit. But, intriguingly, the court also threw a bone to the challengers, noting that, in telling appellants that events have made their complaint unsuitable for judicial disposition at this time, we think it also premature to conclude that Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment does not mean what it appears to say.

Perhaps encouraged by that language, Victor Sharrowyes, the same Sharrow whod tried to raise the reduction clause to fend off criminal prosecutiondecided to try again. This time, he initiated the litigation, suing the Census Bureaus director for failing to count the number of voters disenfranchised in states other than New York, on the theory that such a count would decrease the disenfranchising states representation in Congress and increase New Yorks, thus boosting his political influence as a New York voter. In 1971, the 2nd Circuit handed him another defeat, holding that he failed to show the particularized harm to his own voting rights to allow him to pursue his claim in court.

At the same time, the judges who dispensed of Sharrows 1971 challenge identified a difficult question even if they ducked in providing an answer: Even if the Census Bureau collected the disenfranchisement data what, precisely, would happen next?

The judges were right that figuring out how to realize the lost promise of the reduction clause, especially through litigation, implicates a host of complicated, interrelated questions. To begin with, what exactly qualifies as a disenfranchisement for these purposes, anywayfor example, does a voter ID law count? And how much disenfranchisement would have to be foundthat is, how many voting-eligible citizens would such a voter ID law need to affect? Measured how, exactly?

Then who would strip the disenfranchising states of the right number of representatives: Congress or a federal court? Would the states immediately need to redistrict to reflect their reduced number of representatives and vote for that number of House members in newly formed districts? Or would representatives in those states all become, at least temporarily, at-large members, as Saunders argued in his lawsuit?

And what would happen to the slots in the House of Representatives now taken from the disenfranchising states: Would they be allocated to other states so that the total number of House members would remain at 435, as most scholars agree would be required? If so, which onesby giving (loaning?) them to the states already closest, in population terms, to having additional House members anyway or through some other method (such as reallocating them to the states performing best in ensuring voting rights, perhaps)?

And how long would this punishment last? The clauses text gives no sense of how a disenfranchising state can make amends and earn back its lost representation. Does a disenfranchising state automatically get back, at the next set of federal elections, the full slate of House members it would otherwise have? Or must data collected from that state show that disenfranchisement has now ceased? And who makes that call: Congress, or a federal court?

Even to those passionate about resurrecting a portion of our Constitution intended to vindicate the full promise of the Reconstruction amendments, these are hard questions raised by any attempt to enforce the reduction clause. And the text of the clause itself doesnt provide the answers.

***

As creative litigants continue to rethink their strategies for judicial enforcement, we should also look to Congress, as the clauses framers anticipated, to make good on the clauses now-forgotten promise.

But what went wrong in the 1870sa failure to figure out what data to collect, how to collect it and how to analyze ithas remained a major obstacle to realizing the promise of the reduction clause. Recall that Congress has relatively limited practical ability to gather data on its own. Congress does, of course, hold hearings that can yield voluminous factual records that, in turn, can inform the laws that Congress proposes (and, once in a while, even enacts), as well as the oversight that Congress conducts. But thats indirect data-gathering: Congress is generally reliant on witnesses, apart from its exceedingly small staff of investigators who conduct their own analysis on particularly important (and often sensitive) issues.

So, utilizing the reduction clause demands data that Congress has a hard time obtaining on its own. But Congress can require the executive branch to go out and get that data. And thats the most immediate way to revitalize this lost provision of the Constitution.

In particular, Congress should require by federal law that the Census Bureau survey Americans regarding voting infringement. This would be the first word, not the last word: Self-reporting surely would demand follow-up investigation rather than serving, on its own, as the basis for calculating the proportion of a states citizensnow to include all of its voting-eligible citizenswhose right to vote has been infringed. But itd be a start, and an important one. And its probably what the clauses framers anticipated, given that, at the time, the decennial census asked about a wider range of information than it does today, likely leading the clauses framers to view it as natural for questions about voting infringement to be added.

Congress must make sure of something else, too: that the Census Bureau pursues this work not through the decennial census but through the American Communities Survey that the bureau conducts on an ongoing basis. The decennial census has a single goal assigned to it by the Constitution: to achieve an actual Enumeration of all of those present in the United States. Thats why Congress has required the Census Bureau to stick to that goal and demanded that it pursue other interesting, important data through other means, such as the ACS. This issue was at the heart of the recent fight over the Trump administrations effort to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census, with opponents emphasizing that any question that could detract from achieving an actual enumeration should not be added.

But the ACS serves broader goals by gathering information from 3.5 million households each year on an ongoing basis. And asking about voting infringement seems like an eminently sensible addition to the ACS. How, exactly, the ACS should ask about voter infringement in a way that elicits the most useful answers for further study is the type of challenge the Census Bureau tackles all of the time; and the bureaus experts would be well placed to engage in extensive testing and sampling to refine what series of questions, phrased in particular ways, would yield the information most helpful for reduction clause enforcement, including data on known forms of voter discrimination as well as the identification of new forms. (Theres also a lot to be learned here from the work of Yale Law Schools dean, Heather Gerken, in developing a democracy index.) All told, as a first step towardfinallyliving up to its reduction clause responsibilities, Congress should require that question be added to the ACS for analysis by the Census Bureau and Justice Department Voting Rights Section, including over a presidential veto if necessary.

Theres historical precedent that shows the executive branch to be more than capable of carrying out this type of work successfully. Investigating voter suppression and intimidation is precisely what a team at the Justice Departments Voting Rights Section did to important effect for decadesuntil the Supreme Court, in its 2013 Shelby County decision, gutted the law it was enforcing. Its work provides a road map for how reduction clause investigations could proceed. Those investigators often would begin with self-reported voter suppression, as well as with proactive efforts to scan for problems. They would then interview local election officials, key advocates and ordinary voters to determine whether voting was infringed by, for example, proposed changes to polling locations or proposed alterations to the hours such locations would be open on election day. And then the investigators would analyze what they heard to determine whether an intended change would rise to the level of an infringement on voting. Nothing this complex can ever be reduced to a formula of mathematical precision, of course, but that doesnt make it impossible to achieve through rigorous research and structured analysis. And, to maximize revitalization of the reduction clause, the Census Bureau and the Justice Departments Voting Rights Section should be ordered, by statute, to collaborate on this work.

***

Even as we wait for Congress to act, the reduction clause neednt remain totally fallow. Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a central provision of landmark anti-discrimination legislation. It prohibits discriminatory voting practices or procedures. And, when a legal challenge to Section 2 went all the way to the Supreme Court in 1980, the court upheld it on the grounds that Congress had authority to enact it under the 15th Amendmentthe Reconstruction amendment focused on protecting voting rights.

That was a narrow victory for voting rights, delivered by a four-justice plurality of the court bolstered by two justices who concurred in the result but declined to join the plurality opinion. With the court having subsequently gutted a different provision of the Voting Rights Act in 2013 and given the courts increasingly right-leaning composition, its not hard to imagine a legal challenge revisiting the 1980 decision making its way to the court.

This time, in defending Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, litigants shouldnt rely only on the 15th Amendmentthey should look to the reduction clause, as well. Properly understood, the clauses capacious language penalizing infringements that in any way abridged voting rights means that the subsequent Voting Rights Act should not be limited to banning only abridgment by intent. To the contrary, as Franita Tolson, a law professor at the University of Southern California, has explained, Section 2 of the Fourteenth Amendment justifies any law that prevent states from unduly circumscribing the electorate, regardless of intent, and it provides ample constitutional support for section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Thats true, as Tolson has further elaborated, even if the Congress that enacted the Voting Rights Act didnt explicitly invoke the reduction clause at the time as a constitutional basis for the law.

In the here and now, the reduction clause can and should be used in court to protect and defend a vital provision of the Voting Rights Acteven as the clause bides its time for full utilization in Congress.

Over 50 years ago, attorney Eugene Sidney Bayer called the reduction clause a neglected weapon for defense of the voting rights of southern negroes. So it remains today.

Its time to resurrect these 110 words of the most important amendment to the worlds most important constitution. The authors of those words looked to Congress to ensure that the most fundamental aspect of American democracythe right to votewould be upheld. Today, with the closure of polling locations, spread of voter identification laws, and purging of voter rolls, the right to vote is, yet again, under siege.

Perhaps, a skeptical reader might say, Congress will never actually strip a state of its representatives in the House, and perhaps a court will never actually order that penalty to be imposed. Perhaps. But that neither excuses nor counsels against the House from taking the first step by demanding, by law, the data on how much voting infringement is actually occurring around the country. We deserve to know that, as a nation. Whats more, taking the first step toward making good on the penalty authorized by the reduction clause can serve as at least something of the powerful deterrent the clauses framers anticipateda deterrent we so desperately need right now to vindicate, once again, the promise of the Reconstruction amendments: the promise of the right to vote.

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The Lost 110 Words of Our Constitution - POLITICO

One of the countrys leading newspaper columnists has laid into government plans to abolish Section 21 the means landlords have of claiming back properties without having to give a reason.

Charles Moore, writing in the Telegraph under the headline Why take a tenant if you cannot evict them, says that abolishing Section 21 will create sitting tenants.

He says that along with sitting tenants, rent controls will have to be created, while the property itself could halve in value.

Moore, a former editor of the Telegraph, says that landlords let houses not so much for rental income The profits are not large because the costs are high but because the property is a store of value and a hedge against inflation.

If the opportunity for profit disappears, they will stop offering homes for rent, and new landlords will not come forward to replace them.

Moore warns that if Section 21 is abolished, the landlord will be stuck with the tenant and the prospect of lower returns.

He also warns: If it is abolished, so that no notice to quit can ever be served, the incentive to let disappears.

The value of the property thus encumbered drops, sometimes halves.

Besides, sitting tenancies require rent controls to work.

He concludes: An unmovable tenant creates, over time, an unworkable business. And while ministers might see the abolition of Section 21 as a levelling up of rights, Moore concludes: Actually, it is more like closing down.

Read more from the original source:

Abolishing Section 21 'will create sitting tenancies and rent controls' warning - Property Industry Eye

Indias vast occupational diversity is framed around socio-historical categories and deeply embedded layers bounded by hierarchal social systems, such as skilled/unskilled, purity/pollution, stigmatised/dignified, touchable/untouchable that keep reproducing themselves in various socio-economic spheres to this very day. Humiliating occupation like manual scavenging are caste-based and religiously sanctioned either by tradition, birth or descent. Those who are boxed into these occupations are often brutally subjected to social exclusion whilst persistently having to bear the added burden and brunt of an all-pervasive socio-psychological humiliation.

Out of the multiple, often dehumanising caste occupations leaving people lingering half livinghalf dead in societys periphery and keeping them perennially dependent on dominant caste groups, the scavenging communities remain by any measure the most unfairly included and socially deprived. Occupying the lowest position in the caste hierarchy, they are, without any doubt, the most marginalised within the marginalised caste communities in Indian society.

Manual scavenging is caste-based hereditary occupation and predominantly linked with forced labour. It involves physical and manual removal of human excreta from dry latrines and sewers (using basic tools such as thin boards, buckets and baskets lined with sacking) and then having to carry the collected excreta on their heads for disposal.

In India and other caste-affected countries within South Asia, the term scavenger is being considered untouchable or polluting to other higher ups in the ascending order of castes. Such is the undignified nature and conditions of scavenging, that the United Nations Special Rapporteur was forced to note that

the degrading nature of this work is an extreme case and is very much tied up with the inequalities of a deeply ingrained caste system and the lack of choice in finding other types of work.1

Recent scholarly endeavours attempting to challenge this static nature of the notions of manual scavenging have begun to interrogate aspects such as human dignity or dignity oflabour and have raised fundamental questions. They opine that however much the struggle is against the caste-based occupation, the same seems not to be able to make any headway in the light of the complete absence of economic and social equality in India; these characteristics being the predominant nature of Indian society. Barbara Harriss-White (India Working: Essays on Society and Economy), Ashwini Deshpande (The Grammar of Caste: Economic Discrimination in Contemporary India) and S K Thorat (Blocked by Caste) have shown in their research as to how there is a high concentration of Dalits in menial, unclean and what is called in economic terminology as dead-end jobs, where 90% of such jobs are generally reserved for the Dalits.

Construction of Manual Scavenging Communities

Many theorists engaging with the subject of manual scavenging identify old sacred scriptures as the source of the practice. Bindeshwar Pathak (2000) and Gita Ramaswamy (2011) trace the origin of manual scavenging to the Narada Samhita, which mentions the disposal of human excreta as one of the 15 duties assigned to the slaves. Similarly, in Vajasaneyi Samhita, the authors state, Chandals and Paulkas have been referred to as slaves for the disposal of human excreta.

Scavengers, sweepers or safai karmacharis as an occupational category are historically known by different caste names in different parts of the country. However, the removers of night soil and the cleaner of latrines belong to well-defined social groups and have been included under the general nomenclature of Bhangi in India today (Shyamlal 1992: 11).

R E Enthovens (1920: 105) anthropological accounts of The Tribes and Castes of Bombay suggest that Bhangis were found almost in every district of the Bombay Presidency. However, many resided in Bombay (now Mumbai), Poona (now Pune), Ahmedabad, Surat and Kathiawar. He opines that theories concerning the origin of Bhangi points to broken or outcaste people and as a caste of scavengers and sweepers. They are conceived as the dregs of Hindu society and contain an admixture of outcastes who have fallen to this level, owing to offences against the social code of higher castes. While different Hindu texts identify them as the descendants of a Brahmin sage, the other reference is to them being offsprings of a Shudra father by a Brahmin widow.

It is posited that the term Bhangi is derived from the Sanskrit word Bhang, meaning hemp, and the habit of Bhangi to take Bhang (Stephen 1981; Shyamlal 1992; Srivastava 1997). Others trace its meaning to the word broken.

Another common name in usage throughout north India for night-soil removers is Mehta meaning prince or leader. The name, according to Shyamlal (1992: 11), is derived fromPersian Mehtarprincewhich may have been applied to ridicule them. Writing on the dynamics of caste among scavengers in Central Provinces, Russel and Lal (1916) note that the Mehtar were the sweeper caste in the Central Provinces that were made up of diverse elements. They pointed out that the Ghasia, Mahar and Dom castes who also engaged in sweepers work are amalgamated with the Mehtars.

Another name in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh is Valmiki. This designation was adopted to supposedly gain some respect as the followers of Valmiki Rishi, the author of the epic Ramayana. The religion is centred around the worship of two saints, Lalbeg or Bale Shah and Balmiki or Valmiki. Russel and Lal (1916: 22526) point out that

Balmiki was originally a low caste hunter called Ratnakar, however, he could not find any animals to hunt and started to rob and kill travelers. One day he met Brahma and wished to kill him but Brahma convinced him of his sins and directed him to repeat the name of Rama until he is purified of his sins. Ratnakar repeated the words Ram, Ram sixty thousand years at the same spot till Brahma returns. Brahma named him as Valmiki (from valmik, an ant-hill) and told him to compose Ramayana in seven parts, containing the deeds and exploits of Rama.

The saint Lalbeg is widely worshipped in Punjab by the sweepers. The religion of Lalbegis appear to resemble that of the Kabirpanthis and other reforming sects. The objective is toacquire a status that may elevate them from the utter degradation of their caste (Russel and Lal 1916: 22627).

Scavenging Communities during Mughal and Colonial Rule

In Punjab, the scavengers are known as Chuhra, derived from their work of chura jharna (to sweep scraps). The real construction of identity and its contestation began in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. For instance, Chuhra, the untouchable caste, used multiple strategies to seek freedom from subjugation. The Chuhras were reported as both the scavengers and agriculturists in British records (Prashad 2000: 28). Vijay Prashad further expounds that in the last decades of the 19th century, the Chamars and Chuhra had lost access to customary rights and could not be retained as village servants (Prashad 2000: 33). The Chuhra community, in particular, attempted two paths for their liberation: conversion to Christianity and migration to cities. Christians in Punjab, during this period, increased by 400%, mostly among the Chuhras who migrated to cities, such as Delhi, Shimla, Jalandhar, Amritsar, and Lahore. The statutory identification of Chuhra with sanitation as sweepers was evident during the colonial period. They migrated as workers, but remained sweepers through their services.

During the 1931 Census, J H Hutton clubbed the Bhangi, Chuhra, Halalkhors, Mehtars and Lalbegi under Scavengers. They inhabited different provinces and presidencies of British India. N R Malkani (1965) observes that urban scavenging has resulted in the creation of a Bhangi Caste which is untouchable, unseeable and unapproachable. Augmenting his argument, he states The Bhangi is essentially a recent product of urban life, first created as an occupation by Moslems and later in British rule made into a hereditary caste. Ramswamy (2011) also makes similar observation, emphasising that manual scavenging expanded phenomenally under the British rule, particularly in the mid-18th century that marked the beginning of industrialisation and urbanisation in the subcontinent. Enthoven (1920) affirmed the above arguments, noting that

Many Bhangis in the northern part of the Presidency appear to be immigrants from the United Provinces. It seems probable that in many cases Bhangis originally came to this Presidency as camp followers with the armies from the north.

Pertaining to the historical concretising of separate caste, Srivastava (1997: 1718) asserts that others feel that the practice of sweeping and scavenging disposal of human excreta byhumans entered India with the advent of Muslims (Mughals). It is stated that the system of bucket privies was designed and constructed during the Mughal era for their women in purdah (veil) as they were not allowed to go in the open for defecation, and thus, the war captives were forced to clean the bucket privies. These captives were not accepted into their own caste of origin and by the larger society and thus formed a separate caste.

Another dimension brought into the debates was posited by Russel and Lal (1916: 76) who state that

It can only be definitely shown in a few instances that the existing impure occupational castes were directly derived from the indigenous tribes. The Chamar and Kori, and the Chuhra and Bhangi, or sweepers and scavengers of the Punjab and United Provinces, are purely occupational castes and their original tribal affinities have entirely disappeared.

Conservative perspective: The whole attempt by the conservatives was to portray Muslims as villains and Hindus as saviours of the Dalits, while also avoiding subdivisions and disunity among Hindus.

The Arya Samaj founded by Dayanand Saraswati underlined the linguistic and racial purity of the Aryans and described the Samaj as a society of the Aryan race (upper castes). The Dalits were excluded from this, but were later offered to improve their caste status through shuddhi or purification (Thapar 2008: 4041). Similarly, different factions such as the All Indian Achutuddhar Committee, Shraddhananda Dalitudhar Sabha began working for spiritual well-being, religious protection and socio-economic upliftment of the depressed classes. Thus, the attempts by the Hindu organisations were fundamentally political, but under the guise of religion. By the 1920s, the movements claiming the status of aboriginal inhabitants of the land emerged among the Dalits. There were attempts to enumerate themselves in the 1931 Census as ad-dharmis, Adi-Hindu, Adi-Dravida, etc. They argued that the Dalits were the original inhabitants of this land and were conquered by the Aryans who enslaved the Dalits. The ad-dharmis in Punjab under the leadership of Mangoo Ram protested against the attempt of Arya Samajis to retain them as Hindus and asserted against them (Omvedt 1994; Mani 2005; Prashad 2000).

In the 1930s, B R Ambedkar clashed with M K Gandhi and his Congress over the separate electorate for Dalits. The ad-dharmi Mandal and Balmiki Sabha (Chuhras) of Jalandhar sent their signature in blood to London in support of Ambedkar as their leader and affirmed his statement that Dalits were a separate entity cast out by Hindu society (Prashad 2000: 87).

Reformist perspective: The Chuhras began to call themselves Valmikis and by the 1930s had conflicts with Chamars over the caste heritages. The Chamars were the followers of Ravidas, while the Chuhras claimed Valmiki as their guru. The clash was around the status and precedence of the guru (Prashad 2000: 90). These differences were cashed upon by the Arya Samajis to win over the Chuhras to Hinduism. Valmiki Prakash written by Ami Chand in 1936 became a staple track of the Balmiki community. The track highlighted conversation between Ram Sevak and Balmiki man and carried sustained attacks on the ad-dharmi movement and their leaders who were accused of separating the Dalits from the Hindus. It was enforced upon the Chuhras that Brahmins did not allow others to read the Vedas, whereas Ramayana was open for all, from Brahmins to Chandalas, and hence, Valmiki was chosen as a guru by the community. Even Thakkar and Harijan Sevak Sangh were involved in this politics (Prashad 2000: 9293). Thus, some Dalits succumbed to Arya Samajis and their political manipulation of the situation.

Prashad (2000: 8788) noted that in a meeting of Dalits and Arya Samaj, the Arya Samaj updeshak (missionary) sought pardon from Dalits and sought friendship with them. This meeting was presided over by Mangoo Ram at Shimla. In response, the Dalits asserted that they would not be swayed by hollow promises and occasional dramatics. In response,N L Varma, an Arya Samaj follower, said that he carried refuse from the latrines before the meeting, to which Chunni Lal, one of the ad-dharmi Dalit retorted, stating he cannot accomplish the work fully well unless he does it for at least 10 or 15 days.

The recent campaign on Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA) is the classic example for the reproduction of such an attitude within the reformist framework. While paying no heed to the rights of being of the traditional sanitation workers (safai karmacharis), technicalities of sanitation are instead given priority, plus the health of workers being noted as an important component within its framework. In the perspective of the SBA, more toilets equals cleanliness and more healthy workers equals clean India. Prashad, in as late as 1998, calls such approaches reformist, where a policy is posited in such strategic ways as to make the inhuman and poor working conditions of the scanvengers/safai karmacharis more tolerable rather than destroying the very system that generates it.

Abolitionist perspective: Ambedkar, however, has a different position pertaining to the same. His was a more fundamental argument that points out to the basis of social life itself, rather than drawing the same conclusions as the aforementioned authors. His arguments, often observed in tumultuous debates with Gandhi who he viewed as a mere reformist, asserted,

You (Gandhi) appeal to the scavengers pride and vanity in order to induce him and him only to keep on to scavenging by telling him that scavenging is a noble profession and that he need not be ashamed of it. (Ambedkar 1990a: 29293)

Yet, such glorification of manual scavenging was inhuman, unfounded and, not to say the least, laced with lethal repercussions. Reformism, in the perspective of Ambedkar, was nothing more than a sanitised conception of sanitation itself, strategically framed to obscure the controversial nature of manual scavenging and the very problematics of untouchability.

Bhagwan Das (1996: 10), in his seminal work Main Bhangi Hun reiterates this argument that

From the primitive time, I am the original inhabitant of Bharat land and did not accept the slavery and fought against the invaders. I did not bow down before the kings and Purohits nor did I worship their gods. I am part of the social group that safeguarded this freedom of the natives. My story starts from that day when the Aryan kings attacked the pious country like Bharat and made us slaves by removing crown from my head and forced upon my head the basket of refuse.

The abolitionist perspective challenges the confinement of scavengers in a system in which institutionalised inequality is legitimised by religious scriptures and whose fundamentalinforming principles are premised on the forms of reciprocal repulsion. The perspective instead presents struggle and resistance against manual scavenging as a means out of historical degradation and caste subjugation.

Profile of Castes Engaged in Manual Scavenging

The Government of Maharashtra in 2005 sanctioned a research project to study the prevalence, extent and nature of practice of manual scavenging in the state, under the Mahatma Phule Backward Class Development Corporation (MPBCDC). The data presented in this paper is based on a study carried out by the author under the aegis of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. The study covered all the districts and talukas, urban local bodies (ULBs) (municipal corporations, municipal councils) and places whose population is 10,000 and above. Aiming to ascertain the numbers of dry latrines and manual scavengers, the study covered 2,753 households identified as engaging in manual scavenging with 4,182 individuals who are directly involved in different forms of manual scavenging.

The scavengers in Maharashtra are known as the Mehtar, Bhangi, Balmiki, Rukhi, Lalbegi in local and regional languages and, as aswaccha (unclean) safai kamgars or manual scavengers into a bureaucratic parlance. Of the total 59 castes listed as Scheduled Castes (scs) by the Census of Maharashtra, Mahar (Neo-Buddhists), Mang/Matang, Bhambi (Chambhar/Chamar) and Bhangi, these four together constitute almost 92% of the total sc population in the state.2 Mahars are numerically the largest SC with 57.5%, followed by Mang/Matang 20.3% and Bhambi (Chambhar) 12.5% of the SC population of the state, whereas the Bhangis with nearly 2% (1,86,776) are the fourth largest SC population of the state. Under the entry Bhangi there are 10 subgroups. They are namelyBhangi, Mehtars, Olgana, Rukhi, Malkana, Halalkhor, Lalbegi, Balmiki, Korar and Zadmalli (the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Orders [Amendment] Act, 1976, provided by the Registrar General of India.) The population of Bhangi is highly urbanised, accounting for nearly 92.7% in the said area. They are employed by both public and private/informal sectors in the state, such as the cantonment boards, municipal corporations, municipal councils, railways, airports, government/private hospitals, private housing societies/chawls and commercial establishments. The members of these castes are traditionally known as untouchables or outcastes and form the lowest stratum of the society. Their traditional occupations revolves specifically around the removal of dead animals, handling dead bodies on funeral ground, drum beating, cleaning/sweeping road/lanes in villages/towns and the manual removal and cleaning of human excreta.

Unlike other scs, such as the Mahar (Neo-Buddhists), Mang/Matang and Chambhar, Bhangis, being a moving population were not the part of traditional Maharashtrian village structure. However, being migrants from various parts of India initially brought by the Britishers, they have settled down in relatively urban areas of the state in the first half of the 20th century.

Demographic Profile and Migration Patterns

In Maharashtra, the untouchable groups (Mahar, Matang, Chambhar, Dhor, etc) had never performed the task of manual removal of human excreta. However, it is believed that during the pre-independence period, the native MuslimMehtar or Bhangi was the only (religious) group engaged in manual scavenging. As the British laid the foundation of railways and developed certain areas as cantonment towns (Mumbai, Deolali-Nashik, Ahmadnagar, Pune, Aurangabad and Kamtee-Nagpur-cantonment towns having military bases), the Bhangi/Mehtar or Valmiki, especially from northern parts of India, migrated to Maharashtra and to other southern parts of the country and settled in urban and semi-urban trading centres, including these cantonment towns. The Bhangis, Rukhis, Vankars and Meghwals from Gujarat migrated to Mumbai, Pune and Nashik in Maharashtra. All these castes are the migrants from Rajasthan, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat.

According to field observations and data collected through focus group discussions (FGDs), the earliest migration into Maharashtra is that of Gujaratis (Meghwals and Vankars). This first wave of migration dates back to the mid-19th century (the famous Chappania Akal, the famine of 1856) and early 20th century. Meghwals are numerically strong untouchable caste spread all over Gujarat. They were also known as Dhed, Mayavanshi and Vankar. They were never traditional scavenging communities, but in the absence of other scavenging castes in some villages they were expected to perform this task also. During the same period, Bombay was rapidly becoming the centre of trading activities of British. With the establishment of Board of Conservancy in Bombay in 1845, a process of systematic solid Waste Management and recruitment of Scavengers/Halalkhors has begun. Due to close proximity to Bombay, the Meghwals, Vankars and Rukhis who migrated to the city were employed as conservancy workers. They also migrated to nearby cities, such as Nashik, Pune and Aurangabad. Since then, they have settled in the state and are engaged in various forms of scavenging.

Other scavenging communities migrated from North India, especially from Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Punjab, Delhi and Madhya Pradesh in large numbers. They have significant presence in various cities/towns of Maharashtra. Though they are known by different names in their respective states as Mehtar, Bhangi, Chuhra, however, they prefer toidentify themselves as Balmiki/Valmiki and have also been notified as such in states like Maharashtra.

The Valmiki, unlike other untouchable groups, occupied a very low place in a traditional caste hierarchy in their place of origin. They performed the most obnoxious traditional occupation in the historical-caste structure. They were mainly engaged in polluted, inhuman occupations at the landlords houses in the village. Being at the bottom of the hierarchy without any access to land, education or any other dignified occupation, they were made completely dependent on theirpatron-landlords for their livelihood. As a result, they were subjected to a greater degree of humiliation and subjugation by the caste Hindus. In this context, migration perhaps was apreferred option as a means to escape the caste-based exclusion. Nonetheless, manual scavenging remains largely a caste-based or descent-based occupation even in urban areas and while migration has freed them from the immediate clutches of the landlord, yet, it has not helped them much in ridding themselves of caste-based discrimination.

Zone-wise Concentration by Caste and Category

An important component of the study reveals an important facet of the dimensions of manual scavenging. It was found that not only SC, but other groups such as Scheduled Tribe (ST), Denotified Tribe (DNT)/Nomadic Tribe (NT), Other Backward Classes (OBC) and General are found engaged in manual scavenging, although their percentage is very low or negligible. Hoping to provide a deeper understanding into the said subject, I present below some data that unravels specific social categories that are engaged in this occupation.

Scheduled Castes: According to the study, of the total identified sample of 2,753, a total of 87.7% belong to SCs. Zone wise, the Konkan region accounts for more than one-fourth that is 29.6%, followed by Pune 17.2%, Aurangabad 16.1%, Amravati 13.8%, Nagpur 13.0%, and Nashik standing at 10.1%.

Scheduled Tribes, Denotified and Nomadic Tribes: Among the ST/DNT/NT data reveals that only 0.9% ST households are found engaged in scavenging. More than half (58.3%) of them are in the Konkan region followed by one-fourth (25.0%) in Amravati. This is perhaps because of their high population in these regions. To be more specific, they belong to theMahadev Koli, Gond, Kolam and Katakari tribes. Besides these communities, there are a few who may fall into the DNT, NT category such as Kunchi Karve, Bhoi, Kaikadi and Vanjari. The traditional occupation of these STs, denotified and NTs are not scavenging; however, the likelihood of their own socio-economic marginalisation (conceived as a possible push factor), and the easy access to urban settings and employment opportunities available (conceive as pull factor), can perhaps be accounted as reasons for these communities to join these occupations.

Other Backward Classes: Of the total identified sample, 1.8% of the OBCs were found engaged in this occupation. Their presence was more prominent in the Konkan zone (nearly three-fourths). Whereas, their percentage is negligible in other zones. It is important to note that the Konkan division includes Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) and has as many as six municipal corporations. The OBCs were mainly absorbed as employees in these ULBs, hospitals and the railways. They come from OBCs, such as Teli, Mali, Kunabi, Kumbhar, Sonar and Dhangar. While their traditional occupation was never scavenging, yet, according to the data collected, it was found that significant numbers of people from this category are getting into this occupation and their percentage is slightly high in urban settings, especially in MMR and other big cities. One reason for this could be the cut-throat competition for government jobs among the educated unemployed across the sections. As a result, many Shudra castes falling under the OBC category are attracted to such government jobs. Second, the relativeaccesses for this category into the administration of these institutions entering as a safai kamgar/sweeper could also be a means to finally get absorbed into other (dignified) departments and/or in due course be promoted as supervisor through their political connections and influence.

General category: Of the total identified sample, 9.6% of the aswachha safai kamgars/scavengers fall under general category. Within them, 81.5% are Muslims, 0.4% are Christians and 18.1% are Hindus other than SC, ST and OBC. The important point here is that even the Muslims have been included in the list of general category, which is a controversial issue. As per the Constitution, only Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist religions qualify to be included into the SC list, whereas, Muslim and Christian are not. However, field observations suggest that the Muslims have been performing this occupation since time immemorial, and a majority of them are even more backward than their Hindu counterparts. Another important aspect is that within MuslimMehtars, Lalbegi and Sheik are two distinct endogamous groups and intermarriages between these two are not allowed. Among Lalbegi, some are still Hindu and others have embraced Islam. Although they form a most significant part of the underprivileged section of our society, they are still deprived of many government programmes meant for the upliftment of the scavengers.

Among the Hindu general category, people use their political influence at the local level to grab a few posts of safai kamgar generally meant for the communities traditionally performing these occupations. It is observed that the general category persons entering this profession never perform these filthy tasks. They rather prefer to work as supervisors or sanitary inspectors and then try to become clerks or simply sub-contract out their task to somebody else from the scavenging castes. Advancement in technology and government measures to completely abolish the dry latrines (at least from urban and semi-urban areas) has brought some positive changes in the nature of this occupation. As a result, persons from general category seem not to mind joining as a safai karmachari and, thus, sweep roads for a few days and then switch over to some other tasks within the same department in due course of time.

Dimensions of Scavenging: Nature, Extent and Form

Manual scavengers in Maharashtra are engaged in five major activities of manual scavenging. Water-based latrine from amongst other scavenging activities in Maharashtra is the largest practice of manual scavenging where 43.4% (1,800) of the scavengers are manually cleaning excreta. Open defecation (as a part of community toilet block or roadside) is prevalent in 29.80% (1,239) cases. Open gutters/drains account for 24.7% (1,025). Manholes, which account for 1.5% (63) cases, are prevalent mainly in cities such as Mumbai and Pune. Only in a very few instances of 0.9% (55) dry latrines/Topli Sandas are in practice. Incidentally, large share of this belongs to the Aurangabad zone or region, especially the Cantonment area, with 89.09% (49) of the cases.

The nature of manual scavenging has changed over the years. In Maharashtra, the existence of dry latrine/dabba latrine is found only in a few areas of Marathwada region, namely Aurangabad, Jalna and Beed. However, the community/public toilet blocks or the water-based/latrines provided by ULBs in certain localities in semi-urban and urban areas are not adequate and not properly maintained. The practice of defecating in the open, alongside roads, open gutters, drainages, in the open space, and around toilet blocks has been found prevalent. This requires the manual scavenger as an employee of the ULBs or any other government organisation to manually remove/clean and dispose of human excreta and other waste.

The practice of scavenging and employment of manual scavengers by the local government authorities and private households has been banned under the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993. This act was enacted in Maharashtra from 26 January 1997. The act declared the employment of manual scavengers engaged in manually removing human excreta an offence, and thus, banned the construction of dry latrines, advocating in the process the conversion of existing dry latrines into water-seal latrines. The study revealed that only 36% of the respondents are aware about this act. Not a single case is registered under the act till the government brought in a new legislation Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act in 2013. This clearly reflects the apathy of the state in the implementation of this act.

Further, as a strategy to eradicate this practice, it is identified as important to liberate and rehabilitate the manual scavengers into other dignified occupations. This resulted in the government launching the National Scheme of Liberation and Rehabilitation of Scavengers and their Dependents in March 1992. However, the lukewarm implementation and the complete lack of coordination between the training and the financial organisation under the scheme hardly bore any fruit; instead, it rendered the scavengers unemployed and marginalised them even further. According to the data from the study, only 28% of the respondents are aware, and only 8% have benefited from this scheme in Maharashtra.

The Indian Scenario: Current Status

Around 60% of all open defecation in the world takes place in India (News 18 2012). To address this problem, the government of India had launched a programme called the Total Sanitation Campaign in 1999. The campaign became only partially successful and was restructured to make it more people-centric and was renamed Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA) with a goal of eradicating the practice of open defecation itself by 2022. Maharashtra, along with Kerala, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana, is on its way to achieve the goal of open defecation free state in the next two years. However, all such programmes seem to have been unable to effectively tackle the problem of providing adequate sanitation to the masses at large, which is directly responsible for the prevalence of the practice of manual scavenging in the country. The Census of India 2011 data on the type of latrine facility within households reveals that there are over 7.4 lakh households across the country where night soil is removed by humans. This does not include the households where night soil is disposed into open drain (over 12.33 lakh households) and night soil is serviced by animals (over 4.93 lakh) that are most likely to engage manual scavenging services subsequently. About 25 lakh households are still using dry (non-flush) latrines, employing manual scavengers directly or indirectly. Chandigarh, Sikkim, Goa and Lakshadweep are the only regions in the country that do not have a single instance of manual scavenging.

The census figures only throw light on various types of latrines and the modes in which human excreta is removed (by human) or serviced (by animal); however, it does not give the exact numbers of manual scavengers in each state. For the population of manual scavengers, we have to rely on Census 2011 and the data given by various ministries of the central government. According to Annual Report 200910, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India, the population of manual scavengers in Maharashtra is 64,785. Of these, 19,086 are rehabilitated and about 45,699 scavengers are yet to be rehabilitated.

The Census of India 2011 data with regard to sanitation facility in Maharashtra is equally important and relevant in this context. Although it does not give exact population of manual scavengers in Maharashtra, however, it does provide the magnitude of the problem of sanitation facility and manual scavenging in the state. Table 1 reveals the condition of sanitation in both rural and urban areas in the state with types of latrines. If viewed carefully, except the latrines connected to piped water system, all other types of latrines invariably need to be cleaned/removed and disposed off by humans. In the light of this, the problem of manual scavenging therefore persists.

The population of the set of castes engaged in manual scavenging profession in Maharashtra is highly urbanised (92.7%). With the process of rapid urbanisation in the state, the problem of manual scavenging seems to be more aggravated in urban and semi-urban areas rather than in rural areas where villagers prefer open fields for defecation. The circular issued by the Social Justice and Special Assistance Department, Government of Maharashtra on 4 March 2013 with regard to survey of insanitary latrines reveals that there are 1,71,688 households spread out in 256 towns/cities. The data is based on Census 2011 and mainly includes the statutory towns in Maharashtra.

However, the Census 2011 data on sanitation reveals the challenges that rural Maharashtra has to face. It indicates that only 38% of households in rural Maharashtra have latrinefacility within the premises. The remaining 62% households have no latrine facility and, therefore, have to resort to alternative sources, namely using public latrine accounting for 10% and open field accounting for 90%. The most striking fact that has emerged from this data is that there are 4,291 households where night soil is removed by a human. In addition to this, there are 12,528 households where night soil is serviced by animals. The presence of both these categories, in other words, also suggests an engagement of manual scavengers for cleaning/removing and disposing off human excreta.

Conclusions

Seeking as I do to uncover the prevalence, nature and extent of manual scavenging in Maharashtra, and in the process, complicate and destabilise a historically embedded social notion formulated around an occupation, I consider it imperative to assert that time is ripe for theorising fundamental questions pertaining to the said subject. The urgency felt is much propounded in the light of a series of promulgation of acts and policies by the state to confront and rid caste-based manual scavenging from India. Having stated the above thought, it is also important to note that however noteworthy the states acts and policies, much remains desired in the implementation of the said policies that would directly affect peoples lives. Beginning with the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act, 1993 and the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 and schemes such as the National Scheme for Liberation and Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers and their Dependents (NSLRM), Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC), National Safai Karmachari Finance and Development Corporation, Nirmal Gram Puraskar Yojana, Self-employment Scheme for Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers and SBA, etc, the acts and programmes of the Government of India, in general, and of different states, in particular, remain nondescript. In many ways, they seem to have miserably failed to eradicate the inhuman practice of cleaning toilets and lifting human excreta by hand assigned mostly to some caste groups.

On this front, one of the arguments which I want to propose is that these occupations have always been caste/descent-based and are performed predominantly by members of Dalitcommunities. While government officials, politicians and judiciary (predominantly upper caste) have rarely shown any genuine commitment to its eradication beyond loud policy pronouncement when cornered by facts and figures, there is however a perennial denial of its social existence among those who wish to free themselves from the responsibility of their daily excreta produce. Several studies and reports emerging from civil society organisations and institutions have pointed to one single factthat the governments (central and states) have been the largest employer of manual scavengers and thus remain the biggest perpetrators of this crime. This is often viewed as fundamentally violating basic human rights of these voiceless citizens of the country. In an interesting report by Malakani Committee (1969) in the wake of Gandhi Centenary Year, the Bhangi Kashtha Mukti programme was launched by providing scavengers with wheelbarrows, subsidy to households to convert dry latrines into flush-out latrines, etc. The policy that informed the programme purported to address the issue of indignity, stigma associated with scavenging, and the consequent practice of untouchability against manual scavengers by eradicating unsanitary conditions around them. Most of such welfare policies/programmes of the state are informed by a belief that the inhuman state of manual scavengers and safai karmacharis are likely due to physical and unhygienic conditions, rather than sociocultural or ritual impurity imposed on their lives by the caste system.

Slavoj iek in his book The Plague of Fantasies, argues that In everyday life, ideology is at work especially in the apparently innocent reference to pure utility. He substantiates this by giving the example of toilet construction in three nations, namely United Kingdom, France and Germany and how it reflects the ideology of the nation. Similarly, the toilet system in india is of dry and open toilets. There is no concept of the flush in the Indian system. The inherent ideology of the system is that someone will clean the excreta. The Indian toilet ideology is rooted in the notion of the caste system. This, in turn, informs caste-based occupation and vice versa. Thus, manual scavenging becomes an essential element of the Indian toilet system as it provides labour to clean the excreta and creates a system of social obligation on the person doing the job of manual scavenging.

The state and central governments for a long time were even reluctant to redefine the term manual scavengers. This was because they feared the fact that they would have to bring these workers into the ambit of similar forms/practices of work, such as sewerage workers, sanitation workers in railways and hospitals, morgue workers and garbage loaders, who work in most hazardous and inhuman conditions. Manual scavengers, who risk their life to keep towns and cities clean, are, thus, in turn, constantly denied their fundamental entitlements such as housing, healthcare, education, social and economic security by the state. In fact, in India, even for the larger civilised society, such practices are considered as normal occupations and as the Dalits social obligations and contribution to the larger society.

Although many leaders have called it a national shame and demand for its immediate eradication, unfortunate as it may sound, political parties and civil society alike have rarely shown or considered the issue serious enough to warrant drastic action on the matter. Imbued and deeply rooted in caste, manual scavenging keeps persisting. This is one of the main reasons for the inability to secure any theoretical advancement that can provide superior insights and stimulate change in the said reality. Nonetheless, this should not be the reason for not attempting to raise the debate about manual scavenging to a valid place in both the moral and political discourse.

To finally conclude, the production of factual numbers that unravels the prevalence and extent of manual scavenging is imperative. However, in our context, when we transcend numbers and enter the more complex realm of lived experience, we are confronted in every sphere either by state lethargy, caste arrogance or even peoples wilful acceptance of the said occupation.

We live in a society soaked in caste, where societal solidarity is predicated and structured around forms of coercive equilibrium rather than consensual equilibrium. The social attitude that stems from such surreptitious premises often suffers from an epistemic blindness that binds caste groups into rigid silos. In such realities, whilst one has a clear view and perception of oneself, yet, one is blind to the realities of others. The interplay of such conjunctions often manifests more starkly in the public realm of social duties and political responsibilities as citizens. While those higher up in the caste hierarchy consider the production of waste their natural right and privilege, yet, the same caste feels no need to take the responsibility for the waste generated once the same is conceptually transformed into dirt. So pervasive is this cocooned attitude among the privileged caste that ones generated waste is often conceived not as ones own, but as the responsibility of other castes. The repercussions of such an attitude have been at the heart of the production and reproduction of the practice of untouchability, the essence of which can be articulated as, Whereas it is my God designed natural duty to produce waste, it is however the religiously ordained responsibility of the untouchable to clean the dirt. In this context, I opine that unless we address the fundamental mechanics of this basic conception, no policy nor campaign, however liberatory it may purport to seem, can fundamentally alter the lives and livelihoods of manual scavengers.

Notes

1 The Good Practice Book On the Right Track released by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Water and Sanitation (Lisbon, February 2012).

2 http://censusindia.gov.in/Tables_Published/SCST/dh_sc_maha.pdf.

References

Ambedkar, B R (1987): The Triumph of Brahmanism, BAWS, published by Government of Maharashtra, Vol 3, pp 26669.

(1990): What Congress and Gandhi Have Done to Untouchables, BAWS, published by Government of Maharashtra, Vol 9, pp 29293.

Das, Bhagwan (1996): Main Bhangi Hun, New Delhi: Gautam Book Center.

Enthoven, E R (1920): The Tribes and Castes of Bombay, Delhi: Cosmo Publications, Vol I.

Malkani, N R (1965): Clean People Unclean Country, Harijan Sevak Sangh, New Delhi.

Mani, Braj Ranjan (2005): Debrahmanising History: Dominance and Resistance in Indian History, New Delhi: Manohar.

News 18 (2012): India Is Worlds Capital for Open Defecation: Ramesh, 12 July.

Omvedt, Gail (1994): Dalits and the Democratic Revolution: Dr Ambedkar and the Dalit Movement in Colonial India, Sage Publications, New Delhi.

Pathak, Bindeshwar (2000): Road to Freedom: A Sociological Study on the Abolition of Scavenging in India, Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, (new edition).

Prashad, Vijay (2000): Untouchable Freedom: A Social History of Dalit Community, New Delhi: OUP.

Ramaswamy, Gita (2011): India Stinking: Manual Scavengers in Andhra Pradesh and Their Work, Navayana Publisher.

Russel, R V and Hira Lal (1916): Tribes and Castes of Central Provinces of India, Delhi: Publications, Vol IV.

Shyamlal (1992): The Bhangi: A Sweeper Caste, Its Socio-economic Portraits, Sangam Books.

Srivastava, B N (1997): Manual Scavenging in India: A Disgrace to the Country, Concept Publishing Company, New Delhi.

Stephen, Fuchs (1981): At the Bottom of Indian Society: The Harijan and Other Low Castes, Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi

Thapar, Romila (2008): The Aryan: Recasting Constructs, New Delhi: Three Essays Collective.

Continued here:

The Complexities of Liberation from Caste : Manual Scavenging in Maharashtra - Economic and Political Weekly

President Donald Trump has returned after completing his 36-hour visit to India. There was too much hype about Trumps visit to India for the last almost a month. In todays world, diplomatic, strategic and economic relations with different countries have a special significance. In such a situation, the visit of the president of the worlds most powerful country is considered to be an important event. The significance of this visit grew even more as the Parliament recently passed an important resolution and abolished Article 370, the root of a major dispute, going on since independence.

Pakistan has been making incessant efforts of encouraging separatism and terrorism in Kashmir and elsewhere, raising the boggy of Kashmir dispute. With the abolition of Article 370 and thereby, special status to Kashmir, the path of peace has become clear in Kashmir. However, to give rest to all controversies, it was necessary to create an atmosphere in favour of stability in Kashmir, at the international level too. By saying that whatever India does for Kashmir, will be good, all controversies have been put to rest by President Trump.

Donald Trump also repeatedly cited his friendship with Prime Minister Narendra Modi before and during his visit to India. It is understandable that this kind of harmony between the heads of government of the two great nations is a good sign. Trade wars between US, China and India have been going on for a long time. President Trump has a consistent complaint with China that it is destroying employment opportunities for Americans by dumping its cheap goods in the US. So he is determined to take every step to save his countrys employment and economy.

At the same time, the United States holds a grudge against India that India sells all kinds of goods to America without tariff hindrances; however, very high import duties are imposed. For a long time, the US has been continuously raising import duties on goods coming from China and India. A few months ago, the US removed GSP, a provision granting trade concessions to India, affecting exports of nearly $ 5.6 billion from India. Just a few days before Trumps visit to India, the US removed India from the category of developing countries and placed it in the category of developed countries. The effect will be that the trade concessions India receives from US, as a developing country will end.

The United States also complains that India has banned the import of milk products from America. At the same time, US companies have been complaining that India has imposed price controls on health devices, including cardiac stunts, knee implants etc., due to which their business interests are hurt. On the other hand, India has imposed various types of curbs on American e-commerce companies for some time. The US also complains that Indias patent law is contrary to the interests of their companies.

India has clearly explained to the US that we cannot accept their demands because as far as dairy is concerned, the US milk supplies come from non-vegetarian cows, which cannot be allowed due to religious and cultural reasons. Moreover, dairy provides livelihood to nearly 10 crore subsistence farmers. On the other hand, due to the discounting of e-commerce by American e-commerce companies, small shopkeepers in India are fast losing their employment. So it is necessary to impose curbs on these companies. As far as our intellectual property law, including patents, is concerned, it is very important for our public health and the protection of farmers; and therefore, it cannot be changed under any circumstances. Not only this, control over the prices of essential medical devices is absolutely necessary to provide affordable medical facilities to the poor in the country.

Amidst the plethora of grievances, the US has always been under the impression that they can get any agreement inked in their favour, by way of arm twisting and threats of sanctions, they have been practising in the past. There is no dearth of experts who would legitimise any agreement with US in the name of diplomacy. However, experience during Modis regime has been different. This time too, a few days before Trumps visit, it became clear that even a limited trade agreement between India and the United States would not become a reality. Before coming to India, Trump had also announced that India was not agreeing on trade deal and it would not be possible.

He said, despite that he would come to India because he likes Modi. At the end of Trumps visit, it is clear that India will not compromise its interests under any circumstances. As Trumps visit drew to a close, New York Times ran a headline, As Trump Visits India, a Trade Deal Remains Elusive. President Trump and Prime Minister Modi have plenty in common, but that doesnt include a desire to quickly lower trade barriers between the two countries.

America should not forget that India is also an important market for it. Indias ever-growing civil aviation sector has proved to be a boon for the United States, and, in the next few years, India is going to buy 300 Boeing aircraft worth $40 billion from USA. Today America has become a very important oil exporting country to India. In such a situation, the trade deficit that America is complaining about is going to end soon.

Washington has to understand that good relations with India and America are absolutely necessary to create international balance. That is why it is becoming clear in the Indo-US joint press release that the two countries will work together in the field of defence. Increasing strategic co-operation between India and the United States will improve the balance of power in the continent; and China, which is constantly increasing its strategic presence in the region, will also get appropriate response.

It is worth noting that for some time, under the Belt and Road Project, China has been pushing the developing countries into a debt trap in the name of infrastructure. Through this, it is becoming a threat to the peace of the region by capturing assets of strategic importance in those countries. A strategic partnership between India and the United States can be considered an appropriate response to China. Strongly rejecting the unfair trade and economic demands of the US and not signing trade agreements without causing any rift in Indo-US relations, Modi has written a new chapter in Indo-US relation, based on equality and mutual benefit and not on coercion and arm twisting.

(Dr. Ashwani Mahajan is anAssociate Professor, Department of Economics, P.G.D.A.V. College, University of Delhi)

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Good Indo-US ties necessary for international balance - The New Indian Express

There was a time when police and their advocates had relentless resistance from anti-cop social justice warriors that have a significantly various, in fact ridiculous, sight of police and the criminal justice system much of which does not entail applying the legislation. In reality, it commonly particularly implies not applying the legislation.

Their sight of just how policing must be done exists just in their rose-colored minds where every police telephone call, regardless of just how vibrant, unsafe, or terrible, constantly exercises completely according to their distorted criteria. And they appear to think there is a slick, serene remedy to every surly suspect. In various other words, a romantic.

But as poor and anti-cop as these individuals are, at the very least they recognize the police exist so for them to despise. Now, there is a recently invigorated political press afoot to eliminate the police Recently, an university professor, George Ciccariello-Maher, required the abolition of police.

Before wishing to eliminate the police, this professor came to be well known after tweeting on Christmas Eve 2016, All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide. I understand what youre assuming What a captivating person. I desire him educating my children

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Ironically, after allowing the globe understand he would certainly such as Santa to bring him sack lots of Caucasian remains, he surrendered his setting at Drexel University as a result of await it fatality risks. I do not want the asshole academician any kind of damage, however what did he anticipate?

Hes just one amongst numerous extreme leftist academicians that are so damned clever, they constantly outmaneuver themselves. There was a time we might reject his rubbish. But with todays ideologically secured and intolerant academic community, a professor discharging this type of twaddle, abolishing the police officers, obtains a significant hearing. It likewise brings in followers in Democrat and socialist national politics, conventional information media, and popular culture.

It all audios so excellent theoretically not!

Thus, abolishing the police has actually been obtaining grip as an extreme leftist suggestion, and currently its acquiring despite some in the UNITED STATECongress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez just recently supported doing away with jails. How a lot of a stretch to think she would certainly sustain the exact same for police? After all, that places crooks in the jails she desires eliminated?

Everyone recognizes just how tough it gets on todays law enforcement agent to respond to anti-cop pressures, which multiply like vermin. Politicians, area teams, academic community, and the media are all amongst the police officers long-lasting doubters. They hold police officers to difficult criteria while establishing their very own honesty bars quite damned reduced.

The require abolishing the police has an expanding listing of advocates. Former Black Panther partner and Marxist Professor Angela Davis has actually required abolishing the police (and jails). She did so while speaking with a team started by Black Lives Matter (BLM) founder PatrisseCullors As an intro, Cullors really feels the First Amendment does not secure hate speech.

Cullors likewise claimed President Trumps base is, David Duke and the white supremacists, entirely overlooking the head of state has actually repudiated David Duke and white supremacists. According to Real Clear Politics, President Trump claimed unquestionably, Im not talking about the neo-Nazis and white nationalists because they should be condemned totally.

BLM, unsurprisingly, which has actually made its reject for police popular, is likewise asking for abolishing the police. With fizzled clichs and drooping chatting factors, advocates use absolutely nothing in the means of concrete suggestions that would in fact boost culture.

Ciccariello-Maher recommends family, friends, and neighbors change the police. What a charming concept. It may collaborate with uniform, indigenous cultures, however not with numerous individuals, particularly in melting-pot countries like the UNITED STATE Shouldn t this be user-friendly also to the dimmest light bulb?

Using family members, buddies, and next-door neighbors, the abolish-the-police motion wishes to concentrate extra on conflict resolution. Really? Maybe in civil legislation, labor relationships, or summertime day camp. But just how does that search in the real life where some individuals do not wish to fix dispute civilly? In reality, dispute is what these individuals do best.

As with advertising socialism, the profoundly stopped working financial system (I understand, AOC, you and your ilk would certainly do it right this time around), these anti-cop enthusiasts suggest ridiculous sights such as the police offer just the abundant Well, talking for myself, I invested little time in rich areas and a great deal of time in poor areas.

How can anti-police individuals implicate the police officers of all at once policing largely for the abundant while over-policing the bad? They claim the bad are regularly sufferers of the police officers instead of the recipients of their solutions. Give me a break. Anyone that claims that betrays their cop-hating program. They never ever indicate unbiased realities to support those ridiculous insurance claims. Thats due to the fact that there arent any kind of. But thats what occurs with unpredictable ideologues.

Abolishing the police is an extreme suggestion held by leftist malcontents that present these antisocial suggestions to assist in falling down the society. They wish to, as President Obama notoriously claimed, essentially change the United States of America.

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We have actually currently experienced where the leftist push has actually obtained us. An open boundary, offering unlawful aliens privileges, and the spreading of no-bail launch of terrible crooks would certainly not have actually been taken seriously also a years back. Now, mainstream Democrats are making use of these sorts of problems as a base test for their political prospects.

Another push towards civil discontent has actually been the considerable damages done to the police line of work by also conventional Democrat political leaders. Constantly promoting supposed police reform. What takes place when you attempt to take care of something that isnt damaged? You break it. This is taking place in numerous territories in our country. Society does not require to eliminate the police; culture requires to sustain the police. Nothing works in a serene culture without durable police.

And even if I claim the police are not damaged and do not require the reform the left claims it does, does not imply I think the police must not take care of troubles as they take place and can not boost. They should, and they can. But to recommend police stores must shut is past unreasonable. Unfortunately, nowadays, with the anxious engineering of academic community and the media, absurd is no obstacle for the extreme left.

This item initially showed up in LifeZette and is utilized by consent.

Read extra at LifeZette: Trump and Barr draw a timeless disadvantage on DemocratsCher comes unglued insurance claims Trump is mosting likely to fire somebody in New York CitySomali area leader validates Ilhan Omar wed her very own sibling

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Professor Advocates For Abolishing The Police, And He's Not Alone - The Union Journal

The word 'aqua' seems to take on a new meaning as I walk down one of the many broad avenues of Mauritius enjoying splendid views of the placid Indian Ocean. Synonymous with pictureperfect powdery beaches, lagoons, rugged reefs and tropical greenery, this archipelago has for long been looked at mainly as a great destination for a romantic sojourn. And rightly so! But it packs in quite a few other punches as I discovered during my sojourn to this beautiful island nation.

While theres a lot more that the guide promises, I want to tick off an experience thats for long been on my bucket list - a view of the world under water. Soon I am at the Blue Safari office where, after signing the necessary documents, I am led towards a ferry that takes our group of travellers a few kilometers towards the deep sea.

What appears to be a small raft is really the roof of the submarine, and soon I climb down a manhole-like opening and take my seat. And within minutes, we take off, 35 metres beneath to experience some of the mysterious depths of the Indian Ocean. It's fascinating to watch more than 50 shades of blue opening up. "The change of colour is often dictated by the hues of the sky and clouds above," says the submarine pilotcum-commentator. As several schools of fish glide by, he adds that the size of everything outside is actually about 30 per cent more than what it appears due to the thickness of the window glass.

Theres a real shipwreck too - of the Star Hope that sank in 1988. "It split into two after a cyclone hit the area," he adds as I watch colourful corals adding a picturesque touch to the ocean depths. "Youll always find fish hovering around corals because these are not just food but also a good hide-out for them."

ADVENTURE, AHOY!

Back on surface, Im ready for "a Superman-like flight", at the La Valle des Couleurs Nature Park famous not just for its stunning nature reserves but also for its zipline activities. Having opted for the 1.5 km long zipline the third longest in the world I am soon gliding over valleys, thick forests, winding roads and waterfalls. That the exhilarating ride lasted just 52 seconds, is my only regret as I take off my harness. But the memory of this experience, I'm certain, will remain etched in my mind for a long time to come.

But the adrenaline junkie in me isnt done yet - as I decide on a quad-bike experience that also promises an on-ground discovery of nature as one drives through muddy banks, crossing rivulets, rocky terrain, driving up and down thrilling steep trails.

But, of course, all this is not before the instructors here explain the functioning of the bike and ensure that you do a trial run to get the required confidence to manoeuvre and run it. Setting off, I sure take my time, stopping on the way to appreciate and applaud the beautiful rugged landscape and yes, the 23-hues of Mother Earth all a result of volcanic eruptions millions of years ago.

ON THE WILD SIDE

Mauritius has an enviable mix of wildlife too but what sounds like music to my ears no snakes! "Theres not a single one here for whatever reason," says our friend Ankit. "So, one can walk around even in the dark here without a fear in the world." Visibly happy with this piece of information, I am ready for an encounter with the other species that the island opens up at the Casela World of Adventures.

With a big stick in hand, I stand facing Mambo when suddenly his handler Jean-Bruno asks whether Id like to sit next to him. Who wouldnt? Quiet as a mouse ("hes had a full meal so is content with the world), the beast sat as I petted him -- no, not the way you'd pet a dog but doing so with a firm hand (after all, I was being up close and personal with a lion. no less).

And it's not just a world of lions, cheetahs and caracals that this 250-acre park that seems straight out of the Jurassic Age offers. Casela is also home to over 1,050 species of birds and more than 200 animals "with most of them from South Africa," informs Jennifer Berthelot, a representative of the park, pointing towards a herd of big antelopes as we drive along its winding unmetalled roads.

Up ahead are the two white rhinos Ella and Benji oblivious to our presence quietly grazing on the long grass, a dazzle of zebras and even some ostrich eggs lying in the open. "The mom migh tbe around, keeping watch from a distance," says Berthelot as she takes us towards a tall wooden machaan-like platform for an eyeball-to-eyeball contact with giraffes who seem to be eagerly awaiting the goodies oats cereal pellets were carrying for them. And as they greedily eat ("after all, they have four stomachs and hence are forever hungry") straight out of my hand, I can't help but smile admiring their graceful spotted coats and lovely long lashes.

WORLD OF CROCS

Next we set out for a date with some aquatic predators at the La Vanille Crocodile Park where you even get the opportunity to hold a live one-year-old baby crocodile called Mika with its mouth tied up of course -- "just for safetys sake", its handlers tells me.

Created more than 30 years ago, La Vanille has been designed to look the way Mauritius must have been hundreds of years ago. As I stop to take in the rugged beauty of the Park, our guide says, "It's feeding time for the crocodiles." A spectacle worth watching for thats when the Nile crocodiles spring into action keenly watching the pieces of meat that, hung to the end of a rope, are dangled over their heads. While the smarter ones seem to make a grab for it, caregivers ensure that each one of the crocs is reasonably fed. Of course, while no ones allowed to venture anywhere close to these predators, whats allowed is feeding the resident Aldabra and Radiata giant tortoises. The words 'slow and steady' could hardly be used for these shelled creatures who, with their necks outstretched, take no time in gobbling up the leaves offered to them.

Innumerable pictures later, with the 100-year-old Domino who weighs 275 kg I also check out the insectarium set up by the Frenchman Jacques Siedlecki. It houses one of the largest collections of insects in the world.

A SLICE OF HISTORY

Your Mauritian vacation isnt complete without a visit to the Apravasi Ghat. Having been witness to an integral slice of the islands history, it is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The 16 steps at the entrance hark back to the years between 1834 and 1910 when half a million indentured labourers from India, East Africa and Mozambique were brought in to work in sugar plantations after the abolition of slavery.

A hushed silence prevails recalling the anguish of the people who came here with dreams of a better life but were forced to live as labourers, all for a salary of Rs 5 for men and Rs 4 for women.

Their story continues at LAventure du Sucre museum earlier a sugar factory. It highlights the conditions of immigrants many of whom spent all their lives here. The final stop at this museum offers a taste of the local rum made of molasses and yes, the different kinds of unrefined sugar.

We raise a toast to the memory of those intrepid souls who went on to make Mauritius their home!

MUST VISIT IN MAURITIUS

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A voyage of discovery - India Today

Chris JacksonGetty Images

It's widely known by this point that several members of the royal family reportedly watch The Crown, although most haven't admitted to it publicly. But there's another current royal TV series which is reportedly very popular at the palaceand it's a lot cheekier than anything Peter Morgan has written.

The Windsors, which began airing on the UK's Channel 4 in 2016, reimagines the lives of the royals as a satirical soap opera. Critics have called the show "a riotous parody," and according to the Daily Mail's royal correspondent Rebecca English, the Windsors themselves (or at least the people who work for them) agree.

"I cant tell you how funny this programme is," English tweeted alongside an announcement for the show's season three premiere. "Very sharp and well-researched. All of the depictions are side-splittingly funny (Princess Anne is a hoot). Well worth a watch and a giggle. Its very popular at the palace too."

Given how irreverent the show is, its popularity at the palace is something of a surprise, but demonstrates that (some of) the royals really aren't afraid to laugh at themselves. Storylines on the show range from gleefully absurdPrince Charles's identical twin brother, Chuck, is discovered in an atticto soapya jealous Pippa Middleton tries to poison Meghan Markle ahead of her wedding to Harryto somewhat pointed satirea disillusioned William calls for a referendum on the abolition of the monarchy.

Significantly, the Queen and Prince Philip do not appear at all in the show, although they're mentioned often.

If all this sounds intriguing to you, the good news is that the first two seasons of The Windsors are available to stream Stateside courtesy of Netflix.

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The Windsors TV Show on Netflix is "Very Popular" At Buckingham Palace - TownandCountrymag.com