Cultural practices of caste-Hindus obstructing justice for Dalits’

• KumKum Dasgupta
• H T Jul 21, 2016
  

Last week, four Dailt men were stripped, tied and beaten up in Gujarat for skinning a dead cow. On Wednesday, a top BJP leader in Uttar Pradesh, Dayashankar Singh, compared BSP chief Mayawati to a prostitute. These are two more additions to a long list of incidents that prove biases run deep in this country.

YS Alone, professor at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and a strong voice on Dalit issues spoke to Hindustan Times on the reasons behind increasing caste violence and why political leaders only pay lip service to the Dalit cause.
KD: Rajnath Singh condemned the Gujarat incident. Is that enough?
YSA: As a minister of home affairs, he will do so. But will he do anything to change ground realities? For example, the protesters, mainly the Ambedkarites, are always booked under the National Security Act (NSA). Can the minister change such a scenario? Will he provide caste figures of the NSA arrests or publish the caste census? Will he allow changes in the police practices? Will he ask caste-Hindu politicians to be democratic and follow the Constitution and not the irrational belief and sacred practices? Politics is confined to power and not to bring any social change, that’s the irony of this nation.
KD: Is the Una violence against Dalits and protests in Gujarat surprising?
YSA: The Una violence has got coverage because of media; it is not new, many such incidents have happened in other states. It is not an isolated incident; the public beating is a reminder to the Dalits that they have to live under fear and are secondary citizens of the Republic, even though equality as is a fundamental right of all citizens. But caste-Hindu citizens don’t think about equality, their ingrained hierarchy and hate generate two equalities, one for themselves, and another for their caste-duties.
KD: Could this round of protests flag off a new phase of caste struggle in Gujarat?
YSA: This round of protests is a sign of unrest that is exists in Gujarat and other parts of India. The Dalits demand constitutional justice. India is in a perpetual and constant denial of constitutional justice. Khaps exist in rural Gujarat the way they exist elsewhere. The Gandhian syndrome of the state has produced constant denials when it comes to atrocities and inhuman nature of behaviour of the so-called spiritual caste-Hindus. The atrocity data is a testimony to this fact of life of this democratic nation.
KD: There is a view that Patidars’ protests for quota benefits and OBC status is spurring caste clashes. Would you agree?
YSA: The Patidars have been frontrunners in all anti-reservation agitation in Gujarat. Though there is a constant re-configuration of the caste pattern within the larger caste-Hindu society, but their attitude towards Dalits remain the same. Ambedkar does not figure in their ideological change. The Patidars have been the most influential community in Gujarat. There is one fundamental question which one has to address at the moment, why there is a consistent demand for job reservation from many social groups? It means that reservation becomes constitutional guaranteed means of representation. Why Patidars do not question the wisdom of their claimed leaders of so-called national struggle? Social suffocation is just an upper layer that does not become a weapon to change internally. The roughness’ that exists with many caste-Hindu caste groups including the Shudra caste-Hindu is so enormous that they deem violence is their right. The religious ethos of spirituality is just another paradigm of ignorance and their reality is that of psychotic behavior because caste is a psychotic perversion. Dr Ambedkar has stated that caste is a perversion of Varna. Caste is a psychotic perversion. Perversions have been legitimised as sacred.
KD: National crime statistics show that violence against Dalits is on the rise in India. Is this an administrative/political failure or cultural/social failure? How can this state of play change?
YSA: It is indeed true that statistics has shown increased violence against Dalits. However, it is not increase but increase in reporting and complaints lodged by the Dalits. Earlier, many complaints even would not be registered against violence, but today, because of spread of consciousness, administration is forced to record complaints against Dalits. Police and general administration has always been very insensitive when it comes to issues of atrocities against the Dalits.

Failures have to be blamed to cultural and religious belief systems. The caste-Hindus think that they have every right to perpetuate violence on the scheduled caste community. As long as the scheduled caste community remains subjugated, live under fear and does not demand equal right, the caste-Hindus find it alright but the moment Scheduled caste demand rights, equality and constitutional justice, he/she is punished, all kinds of means are used to inflict violence, to an extent of public elimination/termination of life. Such is the nature of society.
Often many Indians claim to be a nationalist and show patriotic gestures towards country, however, same set of people do not show any kind of action or be part of transformative politics.
The one who claims to be nationalist should care for each and every citizen of this nation, but the Dalits and tribals are always treated as that of ‘others’.
Things can change if people mainly the caste-Hindus including the Shudra caste-Hindus realise how their claimed cultural practices are hindrances to equality and constitutional justice. Ambedkarian ideas and principle is the only solution to end such menaces. Ambedkarisation of Indian society is the only solution.
KD: Is the ban on cow slaughter pushing Dalits to the brink?
YSA: Anti-cow slaughter laws have been enacted in many states; it shows the mindset of the state legislator as to how their ideas have been controlled by religiosity of sacredness. I wonder why the same State and its followers do not do anything to prevent atrocities against the Dalits and tribals. Killing of human being becomes secondary in such legislations whereas a particular animal becomes primary concern, it’s an irony.
Those who wish to prevent cows should do without legislation and government funds; let the government money be used for the education and other purposes.
KD: Some Dalit commentators believe that economic growth/development can erase caste discrimination to a great extent..
YSA: This is a recent idea that has been advocated by few individuals who are not voice of the society. It is their prerogative and democratic right to think on those lines. I do not think that mere economic empowerment will end caste as well as hate. As I said, caste is a ‘psychotic perversion’, will economic well being stop such perversions? Solution lies in Ambedkar’s ‘Annihilation of Caste’, which should be the agenda. No non-Ambedkarite political party has courage to take this agenda. It requires courage and for that, the age-old practice of hate, anger and violence will have to be put in the dustbin.
Larger cultural change is required. Belief systems will have to be discarded totally. Caste discrimination operates on ideological level. So far economic growth has not brought any ideological and cultural change. The only change it has brought in India is ‘Sanskritisation/Brahmanisation’ of society. Such a change is harmful to make society to believe in constitutional ethos and make nation a proud place to live or even to have ‘shared aspirations’.
@kumkumdasgupta

Gujarat police chose not to stop assault of Dalit tanners, alleges independent fact-finding report

Authorities could have halted attackers even before they reached Una town, claims an investigation by a team of activists.

 

 Since Monday, Gujarat has seen state-wide protests against the brutal assault of four Dalit leather tanners by self-styled cow protection vigilantes in Gir Somnath district’s Una taluka on July 11. After beginning to beat up the tanners in their village, the assailants continued to thrash them right by a police station in Una town, and four police officers have been suspended for allowing the attack to go on.

But according to a fact-finding report on the incident, the police could have halted the assault even before the attackers dragged the tanners to Una town. After the self-proclaimed cow protectors forced the four Dalit men into a car in their village and were driving them to Una, they were stopped by a police vehicle on their way to the town. But instead of intervening, the police simply spoke to the assailants for a few minutes and then allowed them to continue on their way, the report says.
The report also raises a few more questions about the role of the police in the horrific events. Why, for instance, did the Una police take six hours to lodge a basic FIR about an atrocity perpetrated outside its premises? And why did the police ensure that the injured parents of the Dalit youth could not travel to hospital in Una on the night of July 11?
The sequence of events
The three-page report was compiled by a team of eight independent Dalit rights activists who formed a temporary forum called the Dalit Adhikar Manch and visited Una on July 17. The fact-finding team included Subodh Parmar, a law student from Mehsana, and activists Kirit Rathod, Kantibhai Parmar and Kaushik Parmar.
According to the report, shared with Scroll.in, the attack began in the village of Mota Samadhiyala on the morning of July 11.
Balubhai Sarvaiya, a Dalit leather tanner whose family had been in the profession of skinning dead animals for several generations, had just received two dead cows from people in neighbouring villages. Balubhai’s sons Veshram and Ramesh, along with his nephews Bechar and Ashok, began to skin the carcasses in an open spot in the village. At around 10 am, a car drove by, saw them, and drove away, only to return a few minutes later with two more cars and around 35 men armed with sticks and iron pipes.
The mob accused the four Dalit men of killing cows. Even as the tanners tried to explain that they were merely skinning animals that were already dead, the gau rakshaks (cow protectors) began to rain blows and verbal abuse on them.
By this time, a villager made a phone call to Balubhai to inform him of the developments. “We rushed to the spot and pleaded with folded hands to those men, asking them to stop beating our sons,” said Kuvarben Sarvaiya, Balubhai’s wife.
Instead, the mob continued to beat the four men for more than an hour, stripped off their shirts and forced them into one of their SUVs. “We didn’t know where they were going to take them so my husband also tried to sit in the car,” said Kuvarben. "But they hit him hard on the head and hit me on my shoulder."
Police complicity alleged
According to the fact-finding report, while driving from the village towards Una town 20 km away, the assailants’ cars were stopped by a police vehicle. A conversation ensued, in which the attackers reportedly told the police that they were taking the Dalit men to Una. “The police told the attackers that they were going to the place of the incident,” said the report. “This shows that the police was involved in this atrocity.”
In Una, the four leather tanners were tied to the back of a car that bore a sticker reading “President – Shiv Sena, District – Gir Somnath”. They were then beaten again for an hour, with the attackers recording videos of the assault. The tanners were finally left at Una police station. Once again, instead of detaining the perpetrators of the assault, the police kept the victims of the crime at the station for the next few hours. A First Information Report was not lodged until six hours after the thrashing ended, and only six men were named as the accused despite a much larger mob participating in the assault.
Back in Mota Samadhiyala, villagers had called for an ambulance to take the injured Balubhai and Kuvarben to the civic hospital in Una town. According to the report, the police interfered yet again. “The police told the ambulance driver to take them to Gir Gadhda [taluka] instead of Una town,” said the report. When the couple protested, the police “threatened them and misbehaved with them”.
Technically, says Balubhai, their village is in Una taluka and Gir Gadhda is in the opposite direction. “The police was clearly taking the side of those attackers – they stopped us from going to Una because they wanted to keep us away from what was being done to our boys,” said Balubhai.
Not a lone incident
Subodh Parmar, one of the members of the fact-finding team, claims that the Una incident is not the only atrocity against Dalits by people linked to cow protection.
“This particular incident came to light because the attackers were brazen enough to put up videos of it,” said Parmar. “But so many crimes against Dalits go unreported in Gujarat, and from what we have seen over the past few months, there have been other incidents of Dalits being attacked by people claiming to be gau rakshaks.”

The video of protest
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT5-eY8BJbg
Another video they were beaten by the Lathis of Police
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i60kmtEB39c