<![CDATA[A 36-year-old Urmila Devi whose husband died a few years ago had lost her job too after she was dismissed from her job as a government school cook in Bihar’s Aurangabad district. Kanwal Tanuj, District Magistrate, listened to Ms. Devi’s story recently and said she had been dismissed from her job by the principal ‘for being a Dalit widow.’ Shiv Govind Prasad the principal of the school had given her job to Ramkeval Yadav. The officer verified the incident the very next day and made the 45-km trip to Batura Middle School in Rafiganj block. During the visit, he found many discrepancies in the registers. The principal, who could not answer his queries, was suspended. The officer ordered Education Department officials to reinstate Ms. Devi and told Urmila Devi to cook food in the school kitchen as she used to. After this the magistrate sat cross-legged on the floor and had meal with students, even as awestruck villagers watched. The IAS officer said, “It was a natural reaction from a human being and not an IAS officer to act upon the complaint of a Dalit widow. I did what my conscience told me to”. The principal of the school said that he was being falsely implicated in a two-year-old case due to a “conspiracy.”]]>
