Tag: caste killings

Uttar Pradesh: Dalit Man Beaten up For Using Village Handpump

The 45-year-old man sustained injuries due to the attack and was hospitalised.

Banda (Uttar Pradesh): A 45-year-old Dalit man was beaten up in a village in Banda district of Uttar Pradesh on Friday allegedly by people who objected to his using a government-installed handpump, police said.

In an FIR lodged at the Bisanda police station, Ramchandra Raidas has alleged that family members of Ram Dayal Yadav attacked him with sticks when he went to take water from the handpump in Tendura village here in the morning, Station House Officer Narendra Pratap Singh said.

Raidas sustained injuries in the attack and was admitted to a primary health centre, Singh said.

The SHO said Raidas has also alleged that two months ago, the accused had banned them from taking water from the handpump installed in the locality of the Yadavs, but the matter was resolved following an intervention by the sub-divisional magistrate of Atarra.

An investigation in the case is underway, the police officer said.

Maharashtra: Two Dalit Men Killed in Separate Incidents, Police ‘Acted Late’

Activists say that there has been a dramatic rise in the cases of atrocities in the state in the past few months.

Mumbai: In two separate cases of caste violence, two Dalit young men were brutally attacked and murdered in Maharashtra.

In the first violent incident, that occurred on May 27, a 32-year-old anti-caste activist and an active member of the Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) was found dead under suspicious conditions minutes after he had confronted caste Hindu men, all belonging to the Other Backward Class (OBC) ‘Kunbi’ community. The men had allegedly bullied and beaten him and his friend up over a picture they took of the accused’s shop.

In another incident, a 20-year-old college student was targeted and killed by Maratha men on June 7 for being in a relationship with a woman from their community.

In both incidents, the victims’ families have accused the police of not being responsive and deliberately delaying police action in order to shield the accused.Only after anti-caste activists and political leaders exerted pressure were the police forced to look into the matter seriously.

Nagpur incident

On May 27, a 32-year-old anti-caste activist and an active member of the VBA in Maharashtra was found dead under suspicious circumstances in Nagpur. The victim, Arvind Bansod, had allegedly died by suicide minutes after he and his friend Gajanan Raut were brutally beaten up by OBC Kunbi caste men in Thadipawani town in Narkhed tehsil of Nagpur district.

The prime accused, Mithilesh alias Mayuresh Umarkar, is a local Nationalist Congress Party leader. State home minister and senior NCP leader Anil Deshmukh represents this taluka. Umarkar’s father, Bandopant Umarkar, is a district vice-president of the NCP.

Bansod and Raut, friends, had travelled from Pimpaldhara village in Narkhed to the nearby Thadipawani town. When Bansod went to an ATM to access money, Raut had visited a HP gas agency next door. “An old lady in the village had sought a favour and wanted us to get her gas cylinder refilled. Since there were a bunch of numbers mentioned on the board, I decided to click a picture of the shop’s board on my phone. The owners (also the accused) of the shop saw me click pictures, and immediately confiscated my phone,” Raut says.

Also read: Nepal: 4 Dalit Men Killed by Upper Caste Mob, Activists Point to History of Discrimination

By then Bansod had come back from the ATM and he intervened. Umarkar and his friends, angry that two Dalit men were confronting them, began to beat them up. “They used abusive slurs while thrashing the two of us,” Raut says.

Somehow the two had managed to get out of the shop and Raut asked Bansod to sit at the corner of the shop while he went to fetch some petrol for his bike. But when Raut returned in less than five minutes, he saw Bansod lying on the ground unconscious with a bottle of pesticide next to him.

Sumedh Gondane, a VBA activist from the area who has been closely following the case, says seeing Raut back at the spot, Umarkar and his friends put Bansod in their car and took him away to a hospital. “They did not let Raut enter the car,” Gondane says.

“Umarkar’s behaviour from the start to the end has been suspicious. Still, the police were prompt in declaring this as a suicide without investigating the clear allegations made by Gajanan,” Gondane adds.

In the beginning, the police had only filed a case of abetment to suicide against Umarkar and a few others. But Bansod’s death led to a public outcry, with VBA head Prakash Ambedkar and other party members seeking an impartial police investigation into the matter. Activists on the ground have alleged that the story of suicide was not plausible and there were chances of foul play here. Since the accused persons are active members of NCP, Ambedkar has also sought a CBI investigation into the matter.

As the police continued to stonewall the victim’s family members and activists, and refused to investigate the case seriously, Sandeep Tamgadge, a senior IPS officer from Nagaland cadre but originally a Nagpur resident, decided to intervene in the matter. A delegation of 15 persons, involving activists and representatives of different anti-caste political parties, was formed and a meeting was organised with the Inspector General (Nagpur Range) K.M. Mallikarjuna Prasanna on June 9. The delegation says the meeting allowed them to explain the ground situation to the officials and their demands were eventually accepted.

IG Prasanna confirmed the meeting and added: “We have now enhanced the sections in the FIR and have applied relevant sections of the atrocity Act. We have also decided to provide security to the victim’s family and his friend.”

Pune murder

In another incident, six Maratha men executed a well-planned attack on a 20-year-old undergraduate student, Viraj Jagtap, for being in love with a girl from their community. On June 7, around 9:30 pm at Pimple Saudagar village in Pimpri Chinchwad taluka of Pune, the men allegedly attacked Jagtap with a rod and boulders, and ran a tempo over him. Viraj, who suffered grave injuries in the attack, died a day later in a hospital. Viraj’s ‘crime’ was that he had been in love with a daughter of one of the prime accused, Jagdish Kate.

Four of the six accused – Hemant Kate, Sagar Kate, Kailash Kate and Jagdish – have been taken into police custody. As the remaining two are a few months short of 18, they have been sent to children’s home in Pune. Viraj and Jagdish Kate’s daughter had been in love over the past few months and the latter did not approve of their relationship. According to Viraj’s close friends who were privy to his relationship, the Kates had threatened him two months ago of dire consequences if he did not back off.

Also read: UP: Dalit Teen Killed by ‘Upper Caste’ Men After Entering a Temple

Viraj’s family says they were unaware of his relationship until the incident, and only after his death did his friends share the backstory with them. “The girl’s family knew about their relationship all along and they had been keeping a close eye on the couple. They had even threatened to kill Viraj a few months ago. We only wish he had shared this with us,” his uncle, Jitesh Jagtap, told The Wire.

Jitesh, who is a complainant in the case, also accused the police of not taking their complaint till the time the victim died. “Soon after the incident, we had approached Sangvi police station and asked them to intervene. My nephew was still alive then and recording his statement then was very crucial. But the police shooed us away and said this was some minor feud which did not need their intervention,” Jitesh alleged. Even though the incident occurred on June 7, the police registered an FIR only on June 8, hours after Viraj’s death.

The Sangvi police officials, however, said that they had followed the due process and had waited for the doctors to determine his condition before finalising the FIR. “The victim was in a critical condition and we waited for him to stabilise. Unfortunately, he died the next day. We immediately arrested all the accused and have secured their police custody until June 16,” police inspector Ajay Bhosale told The Wire. The case investigation has been handed over to the deputy superintendent of police, Sridhar Jadhav.

The crucial link witness, in this case, are Viraj’s college mates and his girlfriend. The police said they are still in the process of recording statements. The police are considering recording key witnesses statements before a magistrate as prescribed under section 164 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).

The rise in atrocity cases

Jitratn Patait, news editor of Prabuddha Bharat, a Marathi fortnightly newspaper, says just in the past two weeks he has documented over 8-9 cases of caste violence in the state. Of them, he says most incidents have been reported in Jalna, Hingoli and Parbani districts of Marathwada region.

These cases range between extreme brutalities to the use of casteist slurs and Patait says in almost all cases, the police have remained passive until the time anti-caste activists intervened. “Behind the fake notion of being a progressive state hides a sordid history of violence against the Dalits and Adivasis. And the cases only get more violent when a person resists or asserts,” Patait says.

Every day, the home department puts out figures of cases registered against those defying the lockdown orders issued in the state since March to curb the increase in the COVID-19 infections. Over 1.25 lakh cases have been registered just under Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code for ‘Disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant’.

“Since the onset of this pandemic, police resources have been diverted into other policing work like maintaining the lockdown and sealing district boundaries. Disproportionate attention is being paid towards policing the masses and very little attention is paid towards the security of the Dalit, Adivasi communities in the state,” Patait observes. The results of this, Patiat says, can be seen in the way cases of atrocities have been on the rise.

The Open is No Place for India’s Children to Go

When the social contract that says a state protects its citizens is violated – as it was with the killing of Avinash and Roshni – what options are open for those seeking justice?

So we sent a satellite to the moon, for the purpose of scientific discovery. And two children in Shivpuri to wherever the dead go, for the purpose of…what exactly? That we can build, at huge expense, satellites and not toilets, that we can send unmanned missions to the great outer and humans to the great unknown is a tragic paradox that marks 21st century India. No, we are not downplaying the achievement of the former – far from it, we, like everybody else, are proud that despite pronouncements about ancient science, ISRO and the rest keep pace with contemporary global scientific temper. But it is also not possible to frame this scientific project outside the primitive logic of witch-hunts, molestation and child-killings that haunts ‘modern’ India.

Anup Dutta termed it ‘horrific’ in an understatement, surely, and described it as an incident with no parallels, in these very pages. We have had reasons to think of the child victim before, again in these pages. What is it that makes the Shivpuri victims something more than victims of maniacal caste-obsessed men in a system that empowers the latter to an extent that they determine who can live and who can die?

There are, over and above Dutta’s fine piece, more things to be said.

Also Read: What the MP Children’s Murders Tell Us About Caste and Cleanliness

There is a clear moral discourse of suffering that we can bring to bear on Roshni and Avinash’s trauma and eventual death. Vulnerable people, such as children, have been rendered helpless. Too young to mobilise their vulnerability – of which the extreme example would be the child soldier – for political purposes, they fall prey to larger political purposes: the maintenance by some, of caste-determined social behaviour and practices.

Men prepare the structures to carry Avinash and Roshni’s bodies from their house. Photo: The Wire

A discourse of social justice

But more importantly, there has to be a political discourse of social justice here. Children are persons too, and as such, entitled to not only justice but also protection. Yes, this hinges on essentialising children as both vulnerable and innocent, but would we rather see them as intentionally, mischievously and consciously violating a social code in a condition where no facilities such as toilets exist? Are we making a case for deviant behaviour in a context where the children do not know any other practice except defecating in the open?

A discourse of social justice that engages with not just internal (‘national’) matters like caste but also global conventions about child security and welfare is indispensable. It is not sufficient to say it is an internal matter. At one point in history, ‘internal’ ideals and goals such as freedom, self-determination, democracy and equality adapted from global doctrines, the commonwealth of ideas and international movements – from the French Revolution to Abolitionism – drove our best intellectuals, freedom fighters and activists, as disparate as Gandhi, Nehru and Ambedkar. ‘Our’ social justice movements were always inspired by global initiatives as well: note that, for instance, Ambedkar in his works cites Marx, Dewey, Burke and the African American campaign for racial equality; Gandhi’s inspiration from Thoreau, Ruskin, etc, and Jotiba Phule links his Ghulamgiri to African American slavery.

Also Read: The Shared Legacies of Martin Luther King and Ambedkar

So what do the world’s conventions, rules and norms say about children’s safety and welfare? I turn to just two.

A key document, No Place for Children by Human Rights Watch (2012), examined the life of child soldiers in Somalia. Noting how boys and girls were forced into specific activities, from actual fighting to forced marriage, the document declared that “there remains no accountability in Somalia for violations of international human rights and humanitarian law”. It then states:

“There is no easy solution to the dire reality facing Somali children, many of whom have known nothing but war. But parties to the conflict and other key actors involved in Somalia should begin to prioritize the issue of children’s rights, child protection, and education on the political and security agenda. The risks of continuing to fail to protect and provide safe and accessible education to Somalia’s children will result in yet another generation lost to conflict, with few options for the future.”

A report said “there remains no accountability in Somalia for violations of international human rights and humanitarian law”. Representative image. Photo: REUTERS/JACKY NAEGELEN

If we substitute the names of places with Indian ones and ‘war’ with ‘want’, ‘conflict’ with ‘caste’ or ‘poverty’, that paragraph sums up Shivpuri.

The UN Conventions on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC, adopted by the UN in 1989) says:

“In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.”

It continues (under Article 3):

“States Parties undertake to ensure the child such protection and care as is necessary for his or her well-being, taking into account the rights and duties of his or her parents, legal guardians, or other individuals legally responsible for him or her, and, to this end, shall take all appropriate legislative and administrative measures.

States Parties shall ensure that the institutions, services and facilities responsible for the care or protection of children shall conform with the standards established by competent authorities, particularly in the areas of safety, health, in the number and suitability of their staff, as well as competent supervision.”

India ratified the UNCRC in 1992. If we take just the above directives from Article 3 of the UNCRC, we can see that not only have we been wilfully ignorant of these basic norms but have set out to develop a parallel set of norms where we take the battle to retain social (caste) privileges to the children.

Have we as a nation failed our children?

Now it is likely we stop UN intervention or reject international criticism about such incidents by claiming it is an ‘internal’ matter. But the larger question remains unanswered: when the social contract that says a state protects its citizens is violated, what options are open to them? Especially when these citizens are both vulnerable and helpless? So have we as a nation failed our Avinashes and Roshnis? Yes. Even if we, in a fit of absence of mind, ignore the ‘caste factor’, ‘Shivpuri’ connects to children in match-and-firecracker factories, trafficking and other forms of hazardous (and non-hazardous) labour, from domestic ‘helpers’ to ‘assistants’ at mechanics’ workshops.

Also Read: Nearly a Third of Human Trafficking Victims are Children: UN Report

We cannot, also, see the embodiment of the ‘modern’ (such as high-tech) as disjunct from the natural phenomena (such as drought) and the discourses around these (such as ‘progress’ or ‘development’).

The so-called distinction between ‘modern’ and ‘non-modern’ does not really exist because each draws upon the other. Our sense of ‘mission accomplished’ in terms of sanitation or hygiene is entangled with natural conditions such as the drying up of rivers, the social contexts of caste-based discrimination (manual scavenging is a ‘modern’ mode of sanitation, is it? Ha), and complete denial of conventions and discourses aimed at protecting the child. Nature (including biology) and society are co-produced (as Bruno Latour would argue in We Have Never Been Modern) and so advances in technology cannot be severed from either natural conditions or social contexts, including caste, gender and age.

The deaths/killings of children are not about the present alone. It is not about ‘a promising life cut short’, as the cliché goes. It is about an idea of India and its futures. Who lives if India’s children die like this?

Pramod K. Nayar teaches at the University of Hyderabad.

#Grit is an initiative of The Wire dedicated to the coverage of manual scavenging and sanitation and their linkages with caste, gender, policy and apathy. 

Madras High Court Asks TN Govt for Progress in Tackling Caste Killings

The court was of the opinion that it was the duty of both the Union and state governments to ensure that a suitable legislation is passed as expeditiously as possible.

Chennai: The Madras high court on Tuesday directed the Tamil Nadu government to explain within ten days the steps taken to implement a Supreme Court order that dealt with measures to prevent caste-based “honour” killings.

The court was acting on its own, based on various media reports of caste killings in Tamil Nadu.

A division bench, comprising Justices S. Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad referred to an apex court order of July 23, 2018 in which it had issued directions to states to take preventive steps, remedial measures and punitive action in respect of caste killings.

It noted that the Supreme Court had observed in that judgment that steps have to be taken within six weeks by the respondent states and reports of compliance filed within that period before the court registry.

The bench referred to recent reports published in English and Tamil dailies on caste killings in the state and also the Supreme Court order and noted that the judgement had been rendered as early as on July 23 last year.

“Though the apex court directed state governments to submit reports of compliance within six weeks and disposed of the writ petition, we are of the view that it is the duty of the high court to ensure enforcement of orders of the Supreme Court and in that context, we deem it fit to take up suo motu PIL.”

Also read: Father of Woman Confesses to Killing Inter-Caste Couple in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi

The bench was of the opinion that it was the duty of both the Union and state governments to ensure that a suitable legislation is passed as expeditiously as possible.

The judges observed that the home ministry must take the initiative and work in coordination with states to sensitise law enforcement agencies and by involving all stakeholders to identify steps to prevent such violence and implement the constitutional goal of social justice and rule of law.

Though the government pleader sought eight weeks time, the bench declined to grant it, “considering the seriousness involved in violation of fundamental rights of the persons”.

It directed the government to file its response within ten days and said no further time would be extended.

The bench then posted the matter for further hearing to July 22 and directed the home ministry to submit details of progress of a Bill on caste-based killing, which is pending in parliament.

(PTI)