Upper caste students accept Dalit cook in K’taka school

Shubhadeep Choudhury

Tribune News Service

Bengaluru, December 5

The sustained pressure mounted by the state government over upper-caste students consuming food prepared by a Dalit cook at a rural neighbourhood in Mysore district met with success today.“We went door to door contacting the village elders and also the parents of upper-caste students. Our efforts have finally borne fruit as today, all categories of students and also the village elders shared a meal in the school prepared by the Dalit cook,” Shikha, deputy commissioner of Mysore, said over the phone. “The impasse over the Dalit cook is over,” she added.

Manjula, a Dalit woman, was appointed cook at the school in Kuppegala village (about 35 km from Mysuru city) in October. As a result, some upper-caste students stopped having the midday meal and some others began skipping classes.

The school falls in Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah’s Assembly constituency. Siddaramaiah, who belongs to the backward classes, had also attended the school as a child. During a recent visit to the area, Siddaramaiah also urged the local people to resolve the impasse amicably.

Minister?V?Sreenivas Prasad had on Thursday conducted separate meetings of the upper-class communities and the Dalits to put an end to the issue.

The boycott of classes by the upper-caste communities had continued yesterday also with mostly children belonging to the Dalit community attending classes. The small number of upper-caste students present in the school had brought food from home.

The National Commission of Scheduled Castes is also slated to visit the district on Monday. The incident is also expected to figure prominently in the Winter Session of the legislature starting from December 9.