Training to Women Collective Leaders
Training on Special Laws and Personality Development was conducted by Dalit Sthree Sakthi for the Women Collective Leaders and Youth leaders on 14th September 2023 at St Anns Generalate, Tarnaka, Hyderabad. A total of 16 Women collective leaders participated in the training. Experts in the subject were invited to deliver lectures on Personality Development and Special Acts.
Personality Development
Dr. Siddoji Rao, Convener of IAS/IPS Officers Forum, Help Desk, inspired the participants on the topic of personality development. He stressed the need for positive thinking as part of one’s personality.
He analysed the personality of an individual as having two components of talent and intelligence. Of these two aspects, talent is genetic while intelligence can be acquired by anyone through hard work and study. He further explained that the people can be divided into two categories, namely, traditional and modern. The traditional category of people blindly follows the existing social patterns of living without questioning, while the modern category of people try to understand and analyse their way of life. It is this second category of people who contribute for the development of the society. He also mentioned that people who think about rights only and doesn’t contribute to responsibilities are unsuccessful people. Most of the people claim rights while forgetting responsibilities. But a balanced person first thinks of responsibilities and such people are willing to work hard, sacrifice and contribute. The most successful people are ones who contribute to responsibilities more than demanding for one’s own rights. For gaining knowledge and insights, it is necessary to understand and analyse an issue and study it deeply. He advocated that everyone should cultivate scientific spirit, democratic values and show empathy towards others, particularly the marginalized sections.
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989
Jhansi Geddam, National Convenor of Dalit Sthree Sakthi explained about the advantages of SC/ST (POA) Act and its privilege to Dalit community. It is the only Act which is used to protect Dalits from the atrocities committed by the dominant caste perpetrators. All the individual sections in the Act have been defined and she clearly explained to the trainees in the easiest way through a PPT.
Several examples have been taken, explaining each section using real time case scenarios with factual data and she pointed out the discrepancy in the implementation of the Act which is primarily due to lack of knowledge of police and judiciary. After 2018 amendments of SC/ST POA Act it is necessary to file the charge sheet within 60 days, but charge sheet is not filed even in a single case within 60 days. Further, as per the latest position, trial has to be completed within another 60 days after filing the charge sheet and she explained that even this is not even in a single case. She then, narrated how the Act clearly mentioned about victims and witnesses in separate chapters which are also flouted in all cases because no one understood these provisions. Only the first phase compensation is being paid to the victims and neither rehabilitation nor allowances are paid in actual practice and this is also a clear violation of the Rules.
She analysed, the punishment methodology and fine with respect to each crime in the SC/ST POA Act. She mentioned about the need for translating the laws into simple Telugu so that semi-literates and illiterates also can know the important laws. In this context she mentioned, how DSS has been consistently bringing out different laws in Telugu concerning the rights of Dalits.
She also explained about the law relating to prevention of domestic violence on women with illustrations and case studies. There are 37 sections in the Act dealing with rights and duties, various orders that can be given by the court, procedures for complaining, role of protections officers and counselling etc. The advantage of the Act is that a woman can get a residential order to continue to live in the house and claim maintenance. She explained about various remedies that a woman can seek including under Section 498A of IPC and Section 125 of Cr.P.C.
Interactive Session:
In the interactive session everyone shared and discussed various aspects of the organisation, the need to strengthen women collectives and future course of action. National Convener and National co-ordinator clarified the practical doubts raised by the participants about their individual village issues.
