Thevars [caste Hindus] treat Sikkaliars [Dalits] as slaves so they can utilise them as they wish. They exploit them sexually and make them dig graveyards for high-caste people’s burials. They have to take the death message to Thevars. These are all unpaid services.
— Manibharati, social activist, Madurai district, Tamil Nadu

In the past, twenty to thirty years ago, [Dalits] enjoyed the practice of “untouchability.” In the past, women enjoyed being oppressed by men. They weren’t educated. They didn’t know the world… They enjoy Thevar community men having them as concubines… They cannot afford to react; they are dependent on us for jobs and protection… She wants it from him. He permits it. If he has power, then she has more affection for the landlord.
— A prominent Thevar political leader, Tamil Nadu^[1]

“Dalit” is a term first coined by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, one of the architects of the Indian constitution of 1950 and revered leader of the Dalit movement. It was taken up in the 1970s by the Dalit Panther Movement, which organized to claim rights for “untouchables,” and is now commonly used by rights activists.^[2] Violence against this section of the Indian people, Dalits, who constitute (2011 Census figures) 16.6 per cent of the population is both societal, systemic and instructional cutting through all intersectionality’s. This analysis and graphic visualisation looks at this phenomenon, not contain, today normalised, in 2025.

On June 24, 2025 — The Indian Express reported, “Nine people have been detained after a mob forcibly shaved the heads of two Dalit men and forced them to crawl over allegations of cow smuggling in Odisha’s Ganjam district. According to the police, the victims had bought a cow and two calves and were returning home when a mob accosted them in Kharigumma village under Dharakote police limits and demanded Rs 30,000. When the men expressed inability to pay, the mob allegedly beat them up, forcibly shaved their heads, made them crawl and had them drink sewage water. A video purportedly shows the two men crawling with grass clamped between their teeth as some men follow them. The group also took away cash of Rs 700 from them and their mobile phones, police said.” This is not, unsurprisingly, a stray or isolated event – with CJP recording 113 incidents of anti-Dalit atrocities from the month of January to June.

The all-pervasive caste system has long cemented itself as a fortifying structure of Indian society. With a state machinery that openly runs on a proto-fascist, pro-Hindutva model – the continued marginalisation of Indian minorities has become, in dystopian fashion, extremely normalized in the day-to-day news cycle. This report tries to trace this normalisation by forming understandings of the historical, typological and the systemic nature of the violence enacted upon Dalit and Adivasi/tribal individuals in India by considering data consolidated within the months of January-June.

Historical & Structural Context – Everydayness of Caste Atrocities

One must always remember that caste atrocities in India is not a regime-specific conundrum, and that while there is a strong relationship between the (present, ideologically driven) Hindutva state and the exacerbation of such atrocities — India has had a long, shameful history where the caste system has been entrenched into every facet of living. Ania Loomba, in The Everyday Violence of Caste, writes: “Caste violence in India is one of the most long-standing instances of the routinisation of violence, predating European colonialism although not unshaped by it, and now firmly enmeshed within the new global order. Despite untouchability being constitutionally abolished in 1950, caste oppression is pervasive today. Over 160 million Untouchables- or Dalits- are subject to different forms of discrimination: they are denied access to places of worship, clean water, housing, and land; their children are still kept out of, or ill-treated within, schools; they are forced into menial and degrading occupations, notably manual scavenging; and, despite a governmental policy of affirmative action, they remain largely excluded from the country’s businesses, educational establishments, judicial services, and bureaucracy.1 If violence against lower castes and outcastes is rendered banal by being woven into the fabric of everyday life, it is also conducted via spectacular acts. Dalits are raped and murdered for daring to aspire to land, electricity, drinking water, and to non-Dalit partners. Inter-caste marriages, especially those between lower caste men and women of higher castes, result in murders, kidnapping, and the public punishment of such men and (often) the women involved. Dalit women remain subject to constant sexual assault by upper caste men. In general, caste segregation shapes India’s rural landscape, as well as large parts of its urbanity.”

In Indian society, the entrenched hierarchy of caste is all-pervasive, affecting the lives of Dalit, Bahujan, and Adivasi individuals – through popular and institutional violence at different scales. This routinization, that Loomba writes about, is a process that has spanned centuries: almost from the birth of Hinduism, as a religion — and therefore, the committing of atrocities has been naturalized into social order. We could invoke Martin Macwan, who rightly wrote, in 2001, “The systematic elimination of six million Jews by Nazis hit us hard on the face because it took place in such a short span of time. In the case of Dalits, though the “genocide” has been systemic, it has taken place at a slow pace. The current government statistics of murder, rape, and assault that Dalits are subjected to paint a horrible picture if extended to a history of 3000 years. We have reason to believe that approximately 2,190,000 Dalits have been murdered, 3,285,000 raped and over 75,000,000 assaulted.”

Methodology and Data Sources

In this report, we use data from CJP’s own database, and from multiple reliable think-tanks, non-governmental organizations, news outlets, legal filings and academic publications. We also take into account cross-verified posts from social media accounts that specialise in hate-watching, reporting on Dalit and Adivasi issues, etc. The data from the National Crime Records Bureau’s own publications has also been used for contextualization.

We have attempted to classify this data on the basis of geography, types of violence, and looked into institutional response: from law enforcement and respective state governments’ attitudes to caste-based violence. The report endeavours to be grounded in intersectionality, taking into account the changing metrics of class and gender, which quite obviously come into play while discussing caste.

Typology of Violence: Key Patterns from 2025

• Violence Against Adivasis and Tribal Populations

Tribal and Adivasi lives have also been rife with violence within the country – being victimised by large scale unrest, institutional crackdowns, and targeted attacks in different parts of the country. While encounters have intensified in the BJP ruled state of Chhattisgarh, and CRPF camps being set-up in the “most vulnerable Maoist locations”, the CPI (Maoist) party has proposed peace talks with the government. This was followed by 200 civil rights groups and individuals urging for the government to show their intent at reaching a ceasefire and some form of agreement. The statement from the signatories of these organizations is as follows,

“It is now exactly 20 years since the state sponsored and now banned Salwa Judum began in Bastar, causing enormous misery in terms of people killed, villages burnt, rapes, starvation, mass displacement and other forms of violence. Since then, the villagers of Bastar have known little peace. They barely returned to their villages when they were faced with Operation Green Hunt and successive operations. Since 2024, under the name of Operation Kagaar, over 400 people have been killed (287 in 2024, 113 in 2025).i While the exact numbers of civilians killed is unknown, given that several of those claimed as Maoists have been identified by villagers as civilians, it is evident that civilians are being disproportionately affected ii. An Article 14 estimate between 2018 and 2022 counts more civilians (335) killed than security personnel (168) and Maoists (327). iii 2024 saw several incidents of children being killed. SATP gives the breakup for 2025 to 15 civilians, 14 security forces and 150 Maoists. The forces have got Rs. 8.24 crore as rewards for these killings.”

Parallely, the centre’s failure at dealing with ethnic clashes in Manipur has drawn widespread criticism from the states – according to Human Rights Watch – at least five people have died and scores injured, including security force members, in recent clashes, alone. On March 8, a man was killed and several were injured in Kangpokpi district when violence broke out after the authorities attempted to restore transportation connections across the state. On March 19, another man was killed following clashes between two tribal communities in the state’s Churachandpur district. The violence, so far, has killed more than 260 people and displaced over 60,000 since May 2023.

Land conflicts have also followed tribal populaces – according to Land Conflict Watch, there are 962 reported ongoing land conflicts in their Conflicts Database. Out of these 116 conflicts are in the Conservatory and Forestry sector, with 459,735 people currently affected. The following charts shows the shares of the kind and numbers of conflict going on in the country, in context of land area and people affected — based on data available from the Conflicts Database of the Land Conflict Watch website.

As mentioned before, while state actors do perpetrate a huge share of the violence borne by the tribal populations in India – this does not mean that they are spared from acts of targeted violence by upper-caste perpetrators.

CJP recorded 74 incidents of anti-Christian violence in India in 2025— out of which, 48 were cases of harassment, assault and violence under the pretext of allegations of conversion. While not all of these were mandated on Adivasi individuals, a bone of contention that the propagators of the formulation of the Hindutva state has with the so called “Christianisation of tribals/Adivasis” has been rooted in ideas of “foreignness”. It is also manifest in the Adivasi v/s Vanvasi formulation, with the RSS and it’s multiple outfits like the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram committed to an alteration/manipulation of the pre-Hindu, Adivasi identity, threatened as they are by the ‘original inhabitant’ argument, before the onset and domination of the “Vedic period” in early Indian history.

A recent book, among several earlier studies on the subject, Kamal Nayan Choubey’s Adivasi or Vanvasi-the politics of Hindutva, observes, “Akhil Bhartiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram, popularly known as Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram or VKA is the tribal wing of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). As the largest tribal organization in the country, it works in many areas of Kerala, Jharkhand and the North-east of India. Till the late 1970s, VKA’s work was limited to a few districts of Chhattisgarh (then Madhya Pradesh), Jharkhand (then Bihar), and Odisha but it has gradually and continuously expanded its footprint in different parts of the country…. It is noteworthy that from its inception VKA focused on spreading Hindu values by organizing religious rituals in tribal areas and working in the area of education and hostels.” Academic works and publications on the methods of RSS’ penetration among tribals stress on the Ekal School, an education model that not just imposes “caste Hindu practices” among Adivasis who’s traditional belief systems are animistic, but also instils an element of the “outsider other” when it comes to the Indian religious minority, the Christian or the Muslim.[3] Studies of the syllabus taught in these schools also reveals how the “project was intended to spread disharmony”. Subsequent incidents of targeted violence in several Adivasi-dominated areas of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh has empirically shown Adivasis adopting an assumed adversarial role against India’s religious minorities.[4][5]

The Washington Post reported in February 2025 about multiple grassroots evangelical pursuits of the grassroots organizations of the far Hindu right, under the pretext of developmental work – has been trying to induct millions of tribal people who have been outside mainstream religion, or are Christians. All of this is conducive to the central ahistorical one-dimensional belief that the converted Adivasi has been stolen away from the “homogenised Hindu original-state” — ignoring all dimensions of oppression, dynamics of caste and struggle, and presenting a dichotomy of the “homegrown” Hinduism and the “foreign” Christianity – ignoring the neo-colonial model that has been replicated by Hindutva outfits. Satianathan Clarke writes for the Harvard Theological Review, “First, Christians, through their sustained service among the Adivasis, “enjoy considerable appreciation of and support for their work from the local population.”37 This presents an obstacle for the Hindutva organizations to infiltrate the Adivasi areas. “The advance of the Parivar [Network of Hindutva organizations] in the tribal area is, therefore, possible only if the Christians are discredited and displaced.” Second, Christians are targeted because of the secular position they have increasingly taken over the last decade. In the context of Hindu communalism’s fascist potential, Christians present a counter model in their “reaching out to secular, liberal and Left formations for joint initiative.” Christianity, especially among Dalits and Adivasis, must be stopped at any cost from being presented as an alternative option to Hindutva. Panikkar’s discussion, I believe, is in line with my claim that Christians are being persecuted because their work among the Dalits and Adivasis is perceived as an effort to thwart the homogenizing aim of Hindutva.”

Besides these, there have been incidents of harassment, and torture, where tribal women have been gang raped, Adivasi people repeatedly subjected to humiliation and assault at the hands of upper caste individuals and community members.

Anti-Dalit Violence

Between the months of January and June, CJP recorded 113 incidents of caste atrocities on Dalit individuals across different states in India. A general categorisation of this violence can be seen as follows.

This chart tells us that out of the 113 cases, assaults had the highest rate of incidence – with a combined percentage of 25.9% [Assault and Assault with the intent of humiliation, combined], followed by high rates of harassment in the form of discrimination – and finally, more grievously, murder and sexual violence – at 20.5% and 18.8% respectively. What is essential for us to remember, is the fact that caste atrocities cannot be neatly separated in clinically placed boxes of violence. Each category is deeply inter-related with the others, and Dalit people, as individuals and as collectives, go through multiple enactments of violence.

Snigdha Adil writes, “The confluence of the material (the body) and the symbolic (language) suggests that the recurrent embodied experiences of exclusions manifest on the caste body and are consequently, articulated; these orations, then, reproduce marginalisation in the lived reality. Such rhetoric is internalised by the Dalit individual, and imposes a state of humiliation and self-loathing upon them. Chakrabarty asserts that the Dalit person’s sense of their body is refracted through a third-person consciousness; it is impossible for the Dalit individual to imagine a reprieve from the corporal schema of degradation that is imposed upon it by the ‘upper’-castes. The process of discrimination as it is enacted against the body and, thereby, shapes (or contorts) it entails the construction of the Dalit (non-)self. To comprehensively understand the agents and methodologies of discrimination within the context of modernity – which is characterised by social mobility through urbanisation, education, and employment opportunities beyond the caste-specific occupational fields – as opposed to the feudal past, one must adopt an archaeological approach towards an understanding of the practice of Untouchability. The camouflage of caste discrimination into innocuous practices to detect and distance the ‘lower’-caste individual despite the external performance of progressive beliefs unveils the “inalterability of the ‘Indian mind’” (Archaeology of Untouchability 219). As one is compelled to operate in ambiguous spaces of social exchange wherein the identity of those one engages with is unknown, exacerbated by the need to concomitantly maintain a façade of transcendence from outdated religious codes as well as the superiority of the self; one must evolve new codes and signifiers that accommodate plausible deniability. … In the same vein, it may be argued that the social, material, and personal deprivation of Dalits is not inherent but maintained through the performance of caste practices and symbols.”

Therefore, we can also make two conclusions from what Adil writes, and a historical study of Brahminical violence on Dalit communities: one, that the nature of attacks is aimed to be a debilitating force on the dignities and the abilities— because the intent behind these attacks is to impinge upon the Dalit sense of self and identity – both individual and communal. Two, the style and the formations of attacks have modified themselves over time while maintaining the same antediluvian spirit of oppression – manifesting through different forms of ostracisation, causation of humiliation, and outright physical and psychological violence.

Structural and systemic violence, cultural and symbolic assertion, physical and sexual violence, caste slurs and verbal abuse, exclusion and boycott are all different forms of atrocities affecting Dalit individuals in India. If we were to look at the data for just the month of June, we would see that all of them can be put into the aforementioned “categories”, or exist at the intersections between two or many of them.

1st June, 2025: A Dalit family was attacked by a group of men with sticks and rods during a wedding ceremony on Friday night, police said. The attackers reportedly shouted caste-based insults, angry that a Dalit family was using a marriage hall in Rasra, Uttar Pradesh. Raghvendra Gautam, the brother of one of the injured men, filed the police complaint. He said, “We were celebrating happily when suddenly a group of men stormed in and shouted, ‘How can Dalits hold a wedding in a hall?’ Then they started beating everyone.” The attack happened at the Swayamvar Marriage Hall around 10:30 p.m. Two people, Ajay Kumar and Manan Kant, were badly hurt and are now in the hospital.

June 1, 2025: A minor Dalit girl who was raped and found with nearly 20 knife wounds in Muzaffarpur died at the Patna Medical College and Hospital on Sunday, June 1, 2025. The 11-year-old was transferred to Patna on Saturday for better medical treatment, but was allegedly left in pain inside the ambulance outside the Patna hospital for about five hours, and was admitted after intervention by Bihar Congress president.

 June 4, 2025: A Tribal woman was gang-raped and then her intestines were pulled out by inserting hands in her rectum, incident happened in Khandwa city of Madhya Pradesh.

June 10, 2025: Dhanush, a Dalit youth employed in an IT firm in Coimbatore, was reportedly in a relationship with a woman from a different religion. He was found hanging at his lover’s residence.

June 18, 2025: Due to not being able to repay a loan of 80 thousand, a Dalit woman was tied to a tree, humiliated and beaten in front of her own child, the child will not be able to forget this shock for the rest of his life, the incident is from Kuppam in Andhra Pradesh. The woman’s husband has left her, she has the responsibility of two children, she earns her living by working as a daily wage labourer.

June 20, 2025: On Sunday, A Dalit teenager who dared to ask for ration was shot dead in broad daylight in Bilhari village in Chhatarpur district of Madhya Pradesh. His brother, Ashish, who had accompanied him, was also injured. 

June 22, 2025: The incident occurred in Dadrapur village, within the limits of Bakewar Police Station, where a group of Brahmin men attacked a Katha Vachak (religious preacher) and his aides for organising Baagavat Katha in the village after discovering that he belongs to a lower caste.”

June 22, 2025: A 13-year-old patient from Meerut admitted to the orthopaedics ward at a top hospital in the city, was allegedly sexually assaulted by a 20-year-old man inside the women’s washroom around 1 am on Sunday. The girl, a Dalit, was being treated for knock knees, and was accompanied by her mother at the facility’s general ward.

June 22, 2025: At a hospital in an Andhra Pradesh district, a 15-year-old girl, almost eight months pregnant, spends her days in a 150-bed ward, surrounded by expectant mothers and wailing infants. Authorities have deemed it dangerous to terminate her pregnancy at this stage, and say sending her home is not an option either – the teenager is the victim of sexual abuse over two years by 14 men, who are from an influential community in the village where the crimes took place.

June 22, 2025: “A shocking incident of caste-based violence has emerged from Etawah district in Uttar Pradesh on Sunday, where members belonging to the Bahujan community were severely assaulted by upper caste men, who brutalised them and forcefully tonsured their hair, urinated on them, for taking part in a religious event.

June 23, 2025: Two Dalit men were allegedly subjected to brutal physical and psychological abuse in Kharigumma village under Dharakote block in Ganjam district.

June 24, 2025: “Dalit assistant professor Dr Ravi has allegedly faced caste discrimination after the principal at SV Veterinary University’s Dairy Technology College in Andhra Pradesh removed the chair from his office, forcing him to work while sitting on the floor. He alleged that he was on leave on Thursday, and when he returned to the college on Friday and went to his room, he found that there was no chair. Associate Dean Ravindra Reddy, who had come to test the milk in the existing device, had removed the chair from his room.”

June 26, 2025: Nearly All Students Withdrawn from Karnataka School After Dalit Woman Appointed Head Cook. “In a shocking incident from Karnataka’s Uttara Kannada district, a 60-year-old differently abled Dalit woman was allegedly raped and robbed by a known history sheeter. The accused, identified as 23-year-old Fairoz Yasin Yaragatti, was later shot in the leg by police during an encounter”

June 27, 2025: On Friday, members of the family were sowing seeds in their land in Narayanapura village of Madhya Pradesh’s Lateri tehsil when some people, allegedly from the Gurjar community, attacked them. The men not only beat up members of the family, including two women, but also snatched their soybean seeds and sowed them in their own field.

Jyoti D. Bhosale, in The Intensification of the Caste Divide: Increasing Violence on the Dalits in Neoliberal India, [emphasis ours] writes, “The increased physical infliction of violence on the Dalits, apart from simply being the perception of threat, is a reactionary response to prevailing psyche steeped in prejudice and caste arrogance and are expressions of retention of privileged positions within the caste order, in spite of long drawn resistance and constitutional efforts against the same. In their study of Bhumihars (landowning caste) and caste violence in Bihar, Nandan and Santosh (2019) argue that in the context of the crumbling down of traditional mode of dominance through upper-caste identity and feudal agrarian structure, and also with the increased representation of OBCs and other lower castes, the goalpost of the Bhumihars has shifted. It has now become that of establishing themselves not as perpetrators of violence but as guardians of Hindutva which also protects their caste identity. They thus resort to ‘symbolic’ violence towards the lower castes, while on the ‘enemies’ of Hindu right-wing ideology, overt violence is inflicted. Can the quantitative reduction of incidents of bodily violence itself account for decreased brutality against the Dalits? Numerous incidents of violence such as Tsundur massacre (1991); Bara massacre (1992); Bathani Tola massacre (1996); Melavalavu violence (1997); Laxmanpur Bathe massacre (1997); Ramabai Killings(1997); Bhungar Khera incident (1999); Kambalapalli violence (2000); Khairlanji massacre (2006); gangrape of Sumanbalai (2009); Mirchpur killings (2010); Dharmapuri violence (2012); Marakkanam violence (2013); Dangawas violence (2015); Ariyalur gangrape (2016); Kanchanatham temple violence (2018); Hathras gangrape and murder (2020) are amongst the very many clear cases of explicit brutality. These challenge the underlying liberal presumption prevalent across social sciences that with progression in time, democratization etc, societies become more civil. There is evidence to say that with such progression, cruelty may not just continue but also sharpen (Rushe and Kirchheimer 2003).

Thus, it will not be erroneous to state that these enactments of violence are located at the juncture of asserting caste-pride, and the violent need to humiliate and assert dominance through forms that adapt and reinvent themselves with the passage of time.

Sexual Violence

Amidst the different forms of violence enacted upon Dalit and Adivasi people, sexual violence happens to be one of the foremost ones.

Sourik Biswas writes for the BBC, “These [Dalit] women, who comprise about 16% of India’s female population, face a “triple burden” of gender bias, caste discrimination and economic deprivation. “The Dalit female belongs to the most oppressed group in the world,” says Dr Suraj Yengde, author of Caste Matters. “She is a victim of the cultures, structures and institutions of oppression, both externally and internally. This manifests in perpetual violence against Dalit women.” Out of the 113 incidents recorded by CJP, 29 were acts of sexual violence. Approximately 10 rape cases are reported every day when it comes to Dalit women.

Manisha Mashaal, the founder of Swabhiman Society, told Equality Now that one of the biggest challenges in cases of sexual violence is that survivors or the families are pressured into compromises with the accused. Community and social pressure plays a major role in impeding access to justice in such cases. Another issue is the lack of quality and effective systems in place to provide the survivors of violence and their families with immediate social, legal, and mental health support along with proper and timely rehabilitation. This pattern of violence also translates to Adivasi women – even intensifying, with the stereotyping of these women as “promiscuous” and an allotted sexual availability – which ultimately reduces them to fetishized commodities. While Behanbox, upon perusal of a report ‘Beyond Rape: Examining The Systemic Oppression Leading To Sexual Violence Against Adivasi Women’ – found that while the two-finger test that checks the hymen and its rupturing has been outlawed by the Supreme Court, in almost 15 of the 32 cases studied had the victims go through them.

It found that according to the National Crime Bureau Report (2022), a total of 10,064 cases were registered for crimes against Scheduled Tribes (STs), an increase of 14.3 per cent over 2021 (8,802 cases). The crime rate increased from 8.4 per cent in 2021 to 9.6 per cent in 2022. The report reveals that 1,347 cases of rape and 1022 cases of assault on Adivasi/Tribal women were reported in 2022.

Mapping Caste Atrocities and Socio-Political Dynamics

The 113 cases that CJP documented were spread out all over the country– which you can see in this map– although some states emerged as hotspots.

As displayed above, the worst offending states were Uttar Pradesh (34 cases), Madhya Pradesh (15), and Tamil Nadu (8). This calculation tracks with NCRB data that the Deccan Herald reported, “About 97.7 per cent of all cases of atrocities against SCs in 2022 were reported from 13 states, with Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh recording the highest number of such crimes, according to a new government report … Of 51,656 cases registered under the law for Scheduled Castes (SCs) in 2022, Uttar Pradesh accounted for 23.78 per cent of the total cases with 12,287, followed by Rajasthan at 8,651 (16.75 per cent) and Madhya Pradesh at 7,732 (14.97 per cent).”

This intensity of caste-based violence in states is deeply reflective of the social structures present within these states and their respective hierarchies.

In Uttar Pradesh, the last caste census was conducted in 1931. According to the data from this census, it was found that only 9.2% of the population was composed of Brahmins, while 7.2% was made up of Rajputs (Thakurs). Sudhir Hindwan’s CASTE AND CLASS VIOLENCE IN THE INDIAN STATE OF UTTAR PRADESH – the intermediary (backward) castes made up about 42 per cent of the population, the scheduled castes 21 per cent and Muslims 15 per cent. While no caste census details are available after that, estimations based on the data from the 2011 census leads us to believe that the 20% of the “forward caste” demographic are composed by the 12% of the populace who are Brahmins, and the remaining 8 the Rajputs.

A report from the policy research lab of Jindal Global University found that out of the 80 constituencies in the state, 23 of the dominant general caste constituencies have representatives from the respective castes, thus indicating a 100% rate of correlation when it comes to caste identity and election of representation. The report states, “Whereas there were 15 constituencies who have OBC as their dominant caste and their MP too comes from the OBC. On the other hand, there are 3 constituencies where Muslims are dominant, and the winning candidate too comes from the same … Out of the 19 winning candidates who won the 2024 parliamentary elections and come from the scheduled caste background, 17 came from those seats which were reserved for the scheduled caste in the elections, thus out of 80 there were only 2 seats where the winning candidate was from the scheduled caste and the seat was not reserved. This highlights the social disparity that persists within the political and social realm of UP.” The maps pictured here represent this disparity when it comes to the distribution of political power among different caste compositions in Uttar Pradesh.

Madhya Pradesh reflects a similar vein of absences. For the 2023 state legislative elections, The Print found on a fieldwork based investigation that the now-ruling party of the state, BJP, had given 34% (79) of its tickets to upper caste candidates, followed by 30% to Backward Classes (69) — while only providing the Scheduled Tribe and the Scheduled Caste candidates 21% (47) and 15% (35) of its tickets — despite being the state with the largest number of tribes. It is also to be remembered that none of these tickets were given to candidates in unreserved constituencies.

This preference given to the provision of tickets to non-Dalit candidates translated in the poll results. The Hindu reported, “Despite its rhetoric over the question of caste census, Congress failed to make a dent in the OBC vote. Thus, BJP’s landslide victory was shaped by an accretion from most social sections, including the OBCs of Madhya Pradesh. Besides consolidating among its upper caste voter base, the BJP this time managed to attract more OBCs and Adivasis compared to 2018.

The Congress stayed significantly ahead of the BJP among SC communities, while other parties bagged 16%. The BSP polled 19% of the Jatav votes; with the Congress securing almost half the Jatav votes. Among the tribal voters, the Congress maintained an advantage over the BJP. The vote share was the closest among the Bhil community with a difference of only 4% between the Congress and BJP. The Congress secured half or more of the votes of other tribal communities; while the BJP managed more than a third of the votes. Congress did get overwhelming support among Muslims, though their population in the State is barely 7%—hardly enough to help the Congress make an impact. As mentioned above, with BJP gaining among Upper Castes, the Congress found very thin support among these sections, including the Rajputs, compared to 2018. In conclusion, it is clear that the BJP has consolidated its traditional upper caste vote bank, along with making significant inroads into the OBC communities in Madhya Pradesh. The Congress’s vote among the SC, ST and minority communities is not large enough to match the BJP’s social bloc.”

Tamil Nadu: Exceptional Violence

Tamil Nadu, on the other hand, has been known for fostering caste-consciousness from time immemorial. The private sphere is an example – where the National Family Health Survey data suggested that the state had one of the lowest rates of inter-caste marriages, only reaching a meagre 2.59%. The state also has the highest number of consanguineous marriages, with a whopping 28% share, as opposed to the national average of 11%. In a report on caste-based tensions in two villages in Tirunelveli, ThePrint reported, “Students wear coloured T-shirts inside their school uniform, which also refer to their caste identity. Sometimes, those T-shirts will also have the image of leaders of their communities,” said the headmaster of a government school in Madurai, who did not wish to be named … “In the village, we reside in Dalit colonies and they reside in the Upper Caste streets. So, once we get into the school, this segregation remains the same; they don’t sit next to us or mingle with us,” said a Class 10 student of a state-run school in Tirunelveli district.”

As the state gears up for the 2026 elections, one sees the carrying over of trends from 2024 Lok Sabha elections, as the BJP tries to shed its image as a Brahminical party in the state, and makes alliances and coalitions with smaller caste-based parties for greater parties. South First reports, “Tamil Nadu’s ruling DMK, despite its anti-caste image, continues to partner with the KMDK, a regional ally whose leaders have made inflammatory caste-based remarks. The DMK’s support for KMDK-led cultural events, such as Valli Kummi performances, is seen as a move to win over the influential Kongu Vellalar Gounder community. Critics say the alliance highlights a growing ideological dissonance, where electoral calculus increasingly trumps the party’s professed commitment to social justice.” Many political theorists, like TN Raghu, have pointed out that the DMK and the AIADMK are two sides of the same coin – where they have alienated their rooting in Periyar’s anti-caste politics for vote banking strategies. Raghu told SF, “Whether in power or not, DMK has never really raised its voice against the dominant castes. Take for instance the honour killing of Sankar and the struggles of Kausalya – DMK never staged major protests or spearheaded movements around such incidents. They fear that aggressively opposing caste oppression will alienate majority caste voters. Often this silence is justified as political strategy … In elections, it is almost like a competition between DMK and AIADMK – who can stay more silent about caste issues and thereby win more votes from caste-dominant Hindu communities.”

Law Enforcement Failures

While most of these cases have never had any political leadership comment anything reformist, or acknowledge the depth of the rot in each state – the police have been equally responsible in lackadaisical delivery of judgement, if not perpetrating the very same violence in themselves. Out of the 113 cases calibrated by CJP when it comes to anti-Dalit atrocities, 9 were cases where the police directly were violent towards the victims, 6 were cases where no action was undertaken, and 5 were cases where it was unclear if a report was filed. Out of the remaining 92 cases where action was undertaken – there were 4 cases where the action undertaken was merely conducive to procedure and not actual ensuring of justice.

This tracks with NCRB data, which states that 12,159 cases of atrocities against STs were pending investigation, and a total of 2,63,512 cases of atrocities against Scheduled Castes (SCs) while 42,512 cases of atrocities against STs went for trial. Conviction percentage under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 in conjunction with the Indian Penal Code (IPC) remained at 36 per cent for SCs and 28.1 per cent for STs. At the end of the year, 96 per cent of cases of atrocities against SCs were pending trial whereas, for STs, the percentage stood at 95.49.

GC Pal, in Caste and Consequences: Looking through the Lens of Violence, writes, “As caste relations are rooted in the social structure, caste traditions and the advent of modernity together produce a new ‘coalition’ between dominant caste perpetrators and the classes (powerful members from their caste groups in community and also from administration). The social status of the accused and its association with larger ‘social class’ plays a significant role in course of access to justice. Overwhelming caste loyalties and sentiments influence the decisions of the personnel in administration and judiciary. Moreover, the administration being represented majorly by the dominant caste members very often show apathy towards the complaints. In this regard, Ambedkar (1989) is of the view that: ‘When law enforcement agency- the police and the judiciary, does not seem to be free from caste prejudice- since they are very much part of the same caste ridden society- expecting law to ensure justice to victims of caste crimes is rather an impractical solution to this perennial social problem.’ That is why, he emphasises that the presence of elaborate legal provisions may not always guarantee rights to social justice, it necessarily depends upon the nature and character of the civil services who administer the principle…‘If the civil services, by reason of its class bias, is in favour of the established social order in which the principle of equality had no place, the new order in the form of equal justice can never come into being’ (ibid)”

Conclusion

This report details the deep rot within the Indian socio-polity, and its exacerbation by the current Hindutva machinery, ideologically driven with accompanying violence against targeted sections as a key tool for penetration. Dalits are one such target.

The way forward, would perhaps be rooting policy action in accountability and welfare, then just vote bank strategy. Over the years, multiple judicial decisions have weakened the PoA, with judgements refusing to grant caste slurs “prima facie value” – when not made in “public view”.

According to Equality Now, the NCWL’s recommendations to India’s Central Government and State Governments outline steps duty-bearers should take to protect Dalit women and girls from sexual violence, and ensure justice and protection:

• Incorporate and effectively implement the abolition of caste-based discrimination and patriarchy in national-level law and policy;
• Recognise Dalit women as a distinct social group; develop and implement policies specifically focused on advancing their rights, wellbeing, equal standing, and protection within the law;
• Produce and disseminate disaggregated data on the status of Dalit women, particularly in government plans and development programmes; address intersectional forms of discrimination throughout the criminal justice system;
• Ensure full and strict implementation of existing legal protections, particularly the Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, and the timely investigation and disposal of cases of violence against Dalit women and girls;
• Organise, support and fund community-based education, legal literacy and training programmes that improve understanding of intersectional discrimination and violence, including combating casteist and sexist stereotypes amongst criminal justice system officials; empower Dalit communities to better understand their legal and constitutional rights;
• Recognise that economic dependence is a significant reason behind Dalit women not filing police complaints; deliver a national plan with separate funding aimed at accelerating efforts to reduce the poverty gap between Dalit communities and the general population;
• Ensure Dalit survivors who report sexual violence are legally protected by the state from retaliation by the accused; prevent further violence targeting them, such as through social boycotts, and impose restrictions on these;
• Provide Dalit survivors and family members with immediate and longer-term assistance including medical aid, free legal aid, psycho-social support services and counselling, and quality, holistic rehabilitation.

Key to these systemic changes is acknowledgement of the deep-rootedness of the problem. Indian society and politics, resistant and rigid against such self-scrutiny when it comes to caste bias and communalism, has remained obdurate in its inability internalise this malaise. Until that happens, any measures taken to address the issue could remain palliative.

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this graphic visualisation report has been worked on by Saptaparma Samajdar)

Sources

1. https://indianexpress.com/article/india/dalit-men-tonsured-forced-crawl-cow-smuggling-allegations-odisha-10083930/
2. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/606848/pdf
3. http://www.india-seminar.c0m/2001/508/508%20martin%20macwan.htm.
4. https://thewire.in/rights/maoists-government-dialogue-plea-salwa-judum-chhattisgarh-adivasi
5. https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/03/27/india-ethnic-clashes-restart-manipur
6. https://www.landconflictwatch.org/all-conflicts
7. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/harvard-theological-review/article/abs/hindutva-religious-and-ethnocultural-minorities-and-indianchristian-theology/E61809FF5F9D5A78D9E9A6E817226B39
8. https://syahissc.wordpress.com/2023/12/10/the-banality-of-caste-recognising-caste-through-concealment-narratives/
9. https://revistascientificas.us.es/index.php/araucaria/article/view/27036/24166
10. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-54418513
11. https://equalitynow.org/press_release/india_caste_system_preventing_justice_nov2020/
12. https://www.ncwl.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/BEYOND-RAPEv1.0.pdf
13. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48504938
14. https://jgu.edu.in/jsgp/jindal-policy-research-lab/caste-and-victory-uttar-pradesh-analysis/
15. https://theprint.in/opinion/bjps-madhya-pradesh-candidate-list-lacks-obc-representation-congress-can-best-it/1837583/
16. https://www.thehindu.com/elections/madhya-pradesh-assembly/the-role-of-castes-and-communities-in-madhya-pradesh-vote-share/article67611007.ece
17. https://theprint.in/india/not-just-wristbands-life-in-tamil-nadu-schools-is-caste-coded-punishments-to-t-shirts/2160880
18. https://www.ncwl.org.in/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/BEYOND-RAPEv1.0.pdf
19. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48644566?searchText=&searchUri=&ab_segments=&searchKey=&refreqid=fastly-default%3A822b3e6ad5e2a5029ebffd9856f2a875&initiator=recommender&seq=7
20. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/not-every-insult-against-scst-persons-can-be-considered-as-offence-under-scst-protection-law-says-supreme-court/article68559244.ece
21. https://equalitynow.org/news/press-releases/indias_government_must_do_more_to_end_caste_based_sexual_violence_say_dalit_womens_rights_activists/
22. https://www.9dashline.com/article/narrating-violence-is-hindutva-responsible-for-violence-against-indias-christians
23. https://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/hindutva-groups-increase-attacks-on-india-s-christian-school/
24. https://theprint.in/india/adivasi-identity-st-status-politics-whats-fuelling-anti-christian-attacks-in-chhattisgarh/1305275/

[1] From Human Rights Watch’s pathbreaking 1999 Report, Broken People. These quotations are from: 1 Human Rights Watch interview, Ahmedabad district, Gujarat, July 23, 1998. See explanation of manual scavenging below in the Summary and in Chapter VII. 2 Human Rights Watch interview, Madurai district, Tamil Nadu, February 17, 1998. 3 Human Rights Watch interview, Madurai city, Tamil Nadu, February 18, 1998. https://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/india/India994-02.htm#P350_19723

[2] “Dalit” is a term first coined by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, one of the architects of the Indian constitution of 1950 and revered leader of the Dalit movement. It was taken up in the 1970s by the Dalit Panther Movement, which organized to claim rights for “untouchables,” and is now commonly used by rights activists.

[3] https://www.amazon.in/Adivasi-Vanvasi-Tribal-Politics-Hindutva/dp/0143470485 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09731849241260929;

[4] A Committee set up by the Ministry of Human Resource Development and headed by Avdhash Kaushal reported on Ekal Vidyalaya schools in the Singhbhum district in Jharkhand and in the Tinsukia and Dibrugarh districts in Assam. The Committee’s report, submitted to the MHRD in 2005, brings out the communalisation that is rampant in these schools and in their curriculum and textual materialsThe teacher at the Ekal Vidyalaya in Chirchi in Tantnagar block, Singhbhum district, proudly claimed that rather than imparting alphabetical knowledge, he was more intent on protecting “Hindu culture”. He also boasted of his role along with other colleagues in the illegal destruction of a half-built church in the village in 2002. The report states: “The training to the teachers of Ekal schools was mainly to spread communal disharmony in the communities and also to inculcate a fundamentalist political ideology… creating enmity amongst communities on the basis of religion.” The complete report, ‘Final Report on the field visit and observations of Mr Avdhash Kaushal for Singhbhum district in Jharkhand and Tinsukia and Dibrugarh districts in Assam’, can be accessed at: http://www.sabrang.com/khoj/ekal_report.pdf

[5] MS Golwalkar, the chief ideologue of the RSS had espoused in We or Our Nationhood Defined, “…only those movements are true ‘National’ that aims at re-building, re-vitalising and emancipating from its present stupor, the Hindu Nation. Those only are nationalist patriots, who, with the aspiration to glorify the Hindu race and Nation next to their heart, are prompted into activity and strive to achieve that goal. All others are eithertraitors and enemies to the National cause, or, to take a charitable view, idiots…outsiders, bound by all the codes and conventions of the Nation, at the sufferance of the Nation and deserving of no special protection, far less any privilege or rights. There are only two courses open to the foreign elements (Christians and Muslims), either to merge themselves in the national race and adopt its culture or to live at its mercy so long as the national race may allow them to do so and to quit the country at the sweet will of the national race. That is the only sound view on the minorities’ problem’; https://sabrangindia.in/document/we-or-our-nationhood-defined-1947-edition/

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Both cases have exposed the terrifying impunity with which caste- and tribe-based violence continues to unfold, and the utter failure of systems meant to protect vulnerable children. As outrage grows, questions are being raised not just about the perpetrators, but about a state structure that remains indifferent to the safety and dignity of its most marginalised.

10-year-old Adivasi girl stripped and burned

Even as outrage over the gang-rape case mounted, another incident emerged from a different part of Andhra Pradesh—this time allegedly involving a 10-year-old tribal girl from the Scheduled Tribe (ST) community. The child was falsely accused of stealing a mobile phone. In a disturbing act of mob violence and humiliation, she was allegedly stripped of her clothes and her body was burned with a hot stick, inflicting grievous injuries.

As per a report of NDTV, the child, Chenchamma, lived with her aunt, Sannari Manikyam, at the Scheduled Tribe Colony in Kuditepalem Kakarla Dibba of the district. Suspecting that Chenchamma stole a mobile phone from a nearby house, the neighbours allegedly burned her body with a hot iron rod and beat her. 

As per the report of the Indian Express, the police in Indukurupet Mandal in Nellore detained at least two people in connection with the alleged torture of the girl. Other neighbours heard the girl’s cries when she was allegedly being burnt with a hot iron rod on her cheeks. They rescued her and called the police before shifting her to a government hospital, where she was given treatment and discharged.

“The girl denied going to the neighbour’s house, let alone stealing a phone, and claimed innocence. We have registered an FIR and detained two people for questioning,’’ an officer from the Indukurupet police station said, as per the IE report.

Two years of silence: Minor Dalit girl raped for two years by 17 individuals

In a case that has exposed the horrific intersections of caste, gender, and institutional apathy, a 15-year-old Dalit girl from Sri Satya Sai district in Andhra Pradesh has been found eight months pregnant after allegedly being gang-raped by 17 individuals over a period of nearly two years. The abuse, police say, began when the girl was just 13 years old and continued in silence—unreported and unchecked—until earlier this month, when her mother finally approached the authorities.

Thirteen of the 17 accused have been arrested so far, including three minors. The main accused, who is believed to have initiated the cycle of abuse, remains absconding. All the adult accused have been remanded to judicial custody, while the minors are under the jurisdiction of the Juvenile Justice Board. A case has been registered under several stringent provisions of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), and the Information Technology Act, 2000.

A cycle of exploitation and silence: According to the police investigation, the abuse began when the girl was studying in Class 8. After her father’s death three years ago, she and her mother—belonging to the Madiga (Scheduled Caste) community—had moved to a small village near the Karnataka border. The family, impoverished and socially marginalised, was struggling to survive.

As per the report of India Today, one day, after school, the girl and her SC classmate were reportedly photographed by a member of the local Boya community. The Boyas are a dominant and politically influential caste in the region. The accused used these images to blackmail the girl, threatening to release them on social media. Two men then sexually assaulted her. The incident was filmed and circulated among their acquaintances, leading to a pattern of repeated rape by at least 14 men over two years.

The remand report and survivor’s statement reveal that the blackmail, coercion, and threats never stopped. As per a report of the Indian Express, “It was her age, her caste, and her social vulnerability that made her easy prey,” said District Superintendent of Police V Ratna. “The exploitation was systematic and prolonged. This was not just one incident, it was organised abuse that continued for two years.”

The men who allegedly assaulted her are aged between 18 and 51. Most of them belong to the Boya community, while three others, including her classmate, are from the SC community and are being investigated for failing to report the abuse.

Arrests and charges: On June 9, police arrested six individuals:

• Achampalli Vardhan (21)
• Talari Murali (25)
• Badagorla Nandavardhan Raj alias Nanda (23)
• Arencheru Nagaraju alias Haryana Cheruvu Nagaraju (51)
• Boya Sanjeev (40)
• Budida Rajanna (49)

Seven others were arrested the following day, including minors. The main accused remains at large. Police say several of those arrested already have criminal records. A special investigation team has been formed under Dharmavaram subdivision to trace the absconding accused, as per The Week.

The case has been registered under sections related to rape, gang-rape, criminal intimidation, and the use of technology for exploitation. The police have also sought permission for a DNA test on the unborn child, which will be critical for the prosecution.

Systemic failure at every level

This case has laid bare deep institutional failings. Despite being a government school student, the girl dropped out of Class 10—a critical academic year—without her teachers raising any concern or notifying authorities. “It is unimaginable that a child disappears from school and nobody asks why,” said SP Ratna, as reported by IE. “Even after she became visibly pregnant, nobody in the village reported it.”

Local welfare structures, too, failed to intervene. The Grama Mahila Samrakshana Karyadarsi, a village-level cadre of women volunteers who serve as ‘Mahila Police’, did not conduct any welfare checks. Neither did Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) workers, who are supposed to monitor maternal and child health at the community level.

“We are looking into these failures. These systems are in place specifically to protect vulnerable children. Their inaction has consequences,” Ratna added, according to the IE report.

Caste, power and pressure to stay silent: According to local officials, who spoke with the IE, the caste dynamics in the village were crucial in enabling the silence. The survivor’s family belongs to the Madiga community, a Scheduled Caste group with minimal presence in the village. Of the 17 accused, 14 belong to the powerful Boya community. Police say that when the case began to unravel, Boya community leaders attempted to suppress it by pressuring the girl to marry her SC classmate—one of the minors now under investigation—to give the appearance of consent and close the matter.

“Despite the survivor being visibly pregnant, no one reported the crime. The silence of the village was not accidental—it was imposed through caste hierarchies and social fear,” said a senior official involved in the investigation as per the IE report.

Ongoing care and state protection: As per the report of Deccan Herald, the survivor is now under medical care at the Government General Hospital in Anantapur. Doctors have confirmed that abortion is not an option due to the advanced stage of pregnancy. The girl, who is anaemic and struggling with depression, is receiving counselling, nutritional support, and round-the-clock care.

She will not be sent back to the village after delivery. Instead, both mother and newborn will be shifted to a state-run women’s shelter. “We fear coercion. Even from jail, these men could pressure the family to withdraw the case,” the SP said, as per IE report.

The state has also moved to obtain court permission for DNA testing of the unborn child. Police say this will strengthen the case and help establish individual responsibility among the accused.

Political fallout: The case has triggered political controversy and public outrage. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu expressed shock over the incident, calling for swift investigation, speedy trial, and strict punishment for the accused. “Strong evidence must be collected to ensure that the guilty do not escape justice,” he said in a statement.

Opposition leader and former Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy of the YSR Congress Party, however, accused the TDP government of shielding perpetrators with political links. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Reddy wrote: “As an indicator of Govt’s insensitivity, the state has witnessed 188 rapes and 15 rape-murders in one year. Even recently, an Intermediate tribal student from Anantapur was found murdered and dumped in the woods after a brutal attack.”

He further questioned the TDP’s commitment to women’s safety, calling the situation “disgraceful” and “preposterous”.

Systemic negligence and caste impunity

The intersection of caste, poverty, and gender has made SC/ST girls disproportionately vulnerable to abuse. Both these cases reveal not just individual acts of brutality, but a pattern of systemic neglect, caste dominance, and institutional collapse. In the Dalit girl’s case, school teachers failed to follow up on her sudden dropout in Class 10. ASHA workers, Mahila Police volunteers, and child protection officials did not intervene despite visible red flags. In the tribal child’s case, the violence remained hidden until the neighbours raised an alarm.

The lack of early intervention, social stigma, and fear of dominant caste groups contributed to the silence in both cases. In the gang-rape case, Boya community leaders reportedly tried to pressure the survivor into marriage to close the matter. In the tribal girl’s case, no community elder stepped in to stop the torture or report the crime.

Related:

Rajasthan’s rape crisis: a string of horrific crimes challenges the state’s record on women’s safety

Encroachment or erasure? India’s demolition wave and the law

Mapping Hate: The Pahalgam Attack and its ripple effects

A Pattern of Impunity? This report details horrific crimes against Dalits in UP, Rajasthan, MP and beyond

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While this has been well recognised for a long time, what is often not appreciated adequately is the extent to which the skills and wisdom of several traditional communities was advanced in matters relating to seeds conservation.

Dr. R.H.Richharia, former Director of the Central Rice Research Institute of India, was among those few senior scientists who understood this, lived closely and inter-acted with communities in very remote villages, Adivasi communities and it was this intimate engagement that enabled him to develop an understanding of seed conservation strengths of rural and tribal communities. It was this people-based and community-based work of this senior scientist and his colleagues which led him to prepare a great compilation of over 17,000 cultivars of rice grown in India.

As he once told me, he was particularly impressed by the ability of Adivasi (tribal, indigenous) communities to remember and pass from generation to generation knowledge concerning the characteristics of hundreds of rice varieties and cultivars, the suitability of different varieties for various kinds of land, their water requirements or drought resistance, their different cooking qualities, their different aromas and even medicinal properties etc. Most of this rich knowledge was gathered in the context of farmers of Chhattisgarh region including Bastar where the tendency of most other experts has been to dismiss tribal communities as being very backward. However Dr. Richharia on the basis of his own deeper understanding was able to better appreciate the richness of the knowledge of tribal communities and he also encouraged his co-workers to do so, as I could also understand when I met some members of his team later.

Dr. Richharia, who was one of the earliest and youngest scientists from India to get a doctorate in Botany from Cambridge while studying in the middle of great resource constraints in Britain, told me that some farmers including women farmers were particularly well-skilled in this and took a very keen interest too. However as not all farmers could be expected to have equal skills and ability regarding this, some of the learnings were sought to be captured in the form of some rituals which could be more easily observed as a part of daily life by most community members and farmers.

While traditional skills of farming communities for seed conservation needed to be valued greatly and constantly strengthened and encouraged, unfortunately exactly the reverse has happened due to a number of adverse factors.

From the mid-1960s onwards the strategy of farm development based on new exotic green revolution varieties and seeds was based largely on uprooting the greater diversity of existing crop-varieties grown in time honoured systems of mixed farming and rotations on the basis of the accumulated wisdom and experience of many generations of farmers relating to local agro-ecological conditions.

While this sudden change was inherently wrong and harmful, the situation worsened further as powerful corporate interests, including multinational companies and the research institutes allied to them,   made seeds the main source of trying to forever increase their profits as well as their control over farming and food. Towards this end, it was these corporate interests that exerted pressure to realize the monster objective of patents and IPRs over life forms and plant varieties, as well as to promote highly harmful technologies that could facilitate this.

Hence what then started happening was that as crop and seed diversity began vanishing (or was made to vanish) from the fields of farmers, this traditional knowledge was being concentrated in the labs and gene banks controlled or accessed more readily by the big corporates who then used and stole the accumulated work of generations of farmers to release ‘their’ patented varieties, sometimes after manipulating them genetically to increase their control and monopoly over them. All this was sought to be promoted under the name of ‘science’ and ‘development’, with accolades and awards being distributed for this.

It took some time for communities to recover from this deception and shock. Once, Adivasi’s and indigenous peoples realized the extent of the harm being caused, they started assuming the responsibility of again strengthening their seed conservation efforts.

As the displacement of farm and seed diversity was far from complete particularly in the more remote villages, several communities could still take up the task of conserving seeds. These communities noted that some disruption and harm had been caused, and legal changes had also created problems, but if the farmers and their communities acted with increasing unity and wisdom to protect their seeds diversity and sovereignty, the diversity of seeds could be saved and protected on the fields of farmers.

Traditional knowledge re-applied, re-born

Hence, in recent years, we have seen several communities taking up the task of protecting seeds diversity and sovereignty with a renewed and increasing sense of urgency, in India and in many other countries. I was myself present at a recent such effort in the form of a seed festival organized by a voluntary organization Vaagdhara in parts of three states in Central India. The mostly young men and women members of this organisation mobilized themselves very enthusiastically to organise nearly 90 gatherings of tribal communities, in turn reaching out to people of about a thousand villages and hamlets. At these gatherings people of various villages assembled with their collections of various seeds which have become more difficult to find in recent times, so that these and/or the knowledge relating to these cold be shared with farmers of other villages. Visiting such gatherings, I could see that the villagers assembled here were so happy and enthused by this entire effort that they wanted such seed festivals to be organized very regularly. Women in particular were very enthusiastic participants.

This could not have been such a big success if earlier efforts had not been made to prepare a strong base for seed conservation as an integral and important part of the many-sided development efforts initiated in this region by Vaagdhara in recent years. This has helped to strengthen the earlier inclinations of these tribal communities for seed conservation, although some disruption had appeared earlier to disturb the continuity of this effort.

Earlier in the course of my work in the Himalayan region, particularly in villages of Garhwal, I could learn much from the efforts of Beej Bachao Aandolan (Save the Seeds Movement). The efforts of this movement led to much better appreciation of seed diversity saved on the farms on the basis of traditional mixed farming systems like ‘barahanaja’ ( growing 12 or more crops together on a small plot of land to ensure balanced nutrition and self-reliance in food).

Before this effort too root, some locally posted officials and even ‘scientists’ were speaking in terms of uprooting such excellent traditional systems declared to be backward by them, much in tune with the terrible trends of the ‘green revolution’. The Save the Seeds Movement helped to confront and change this highly distorted thinking. The movement organised several foot marches in which marchers went from one village to another, carrying with them those seeds which had been getting rare to find. They provided some of these seeds to those farmers in the visited villages who wanted them. At the same time they collected information on the seeds which had been preserved and saved in this village. In very joyful ways, a lot of information on diversity of traditional seeds was collected and in addition farmers could also exchange seeds. The valuable contributions made by women farmers were also highlighted in the course of these important initiatives.

Clearly there is need for many more such efforts as well as for protecting the seeds sovereignty of farmers, their rights to conserve, protect, grow and exchange their seeds without any obstructions being placed in this.

(The writer is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include India’s Quest for Sustainable Farming and Healthy Food, Saving Earth for Children, Man over Machine and A Day in 2071)   

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These indigenous Adivasi communities have been known for long for their more self-reliant life patterns integrated closely with forests and their protection. However they suffered heavily during colonial rule in terms of introduction of new exploitative practices, assault on their life and livelihood patterns and the resource base which sustained it. Subsequently there were several revolts against colonial rule and its collaborators. Apart from some of the better-known struggles such as those led by the valiant BirsaMunda, there were several less known but also no less important struggles such as those led by Govind Guru among the Bhils and related tribal communities in Central India. The extent of repression by colonial forces and their close collaborators here was also very extreme, perhaps even more than some of the widely known events of extreme repression such as the Jalianwala Bagh massacre.

In the post-independence period it was a well-recognised aspect of government policy that Adivasi communities constitute a particularly vulnerable group and special efforts for ensuring a fair deal to them should be made. This led to several development initiatives aimed particularly at benefiting these communities, while of course there are other schemes and programs open to all sections which benefit these communities as well.

There are reservations for scheduled tribes in jobs as well as in other aspects. Above all, there is recognition of their more autonomous path of development in keeping with their traditions and life-patterns, and a special law PESA (Panchayati Raj Extension to Scheduled Areas) has been enacted in recognition of this, also protecting the rights of tribal communities over resource bases in several ways.

However at the implementation level, the admirable aims of protecting Adivasi communities and their rights and interests could not be achieved to any desirable extent. In several areas these indigenous communities have been displaced on a very large scale or their life has been significantly disrupted by ecologically destructive projects. It is clear by now that several such distortions and mistakes need to be corrected.

This is all the more important in view of several fast emerging new factors that are re-emphasising the importance of strengthening these tribal communities and preserving and promoting sustainable livelihoods of such communities by integrating this task more closely with protection of environment. In this emergent thinking based on relatively new understanding, the progress of tribal communities is seen not in terms of individual beneficiaries, but in terms of a more holistic strengthening of tribal communities and their sustainable livelihoods in ways that are at the same time very helpful in reducing very serious environmental problems.

In recent years there has been increasing evidence-based recognition that a number of environmental problems led by but not confined to climate change are becoming serious enough to emerge as a survival crisis. In fact in the context of several vulnerable communities this survival crisis can already be seen. Along with climate change, related local problems of deforestation, changing land-use and resource use patterns including emergence of highly destructive ones, increasing water scarcity and threatened water sources are seen as parts of this survival crisis.

As a part of the sincere efforts for mobilising an adequate, credible, hope-giving and sustainable response to this emerging crisis, among more enlightened sections there is a refreshing trend to question the dominant development paradigm which has resulted in this deeply worrying crisis. This enlightened viewpoint argues that there is increasing need to give more importance to the alternative patterns of thinking and living (on that basis) which can give much greater hope for protection of environment. In this context the commitment and capability of several tribal communities to have a life-pattern integrated closely with forests and protection of forests has attracted much attention. On a deeper inquiry, several of these communities are found to be making much more careful and sustainable use of resources to meet their needs in ways which minimise waste and are more self-reliant in terms of satisfying needs on the basis of well-informed utilisation of local resources, including sustainable , protection-based, careful use of forests and other bio-diversity.

Hence it is increasingly realised that these communities, their life-pattern, world-view and thinking can contribute a lot to protection of environment. Despite there being increasing evidence of this, the bigger conservation projects even in the areas inhabited by such communities are often based on the displacement of these communities or on disrupting their life-pattern based on close integration with forests.This comes on top of other kinds of displacements and disruptions caused by various ‘development’, mining and other projects supported by powerful interests.

There is thus a clear need to bring suitable changes in the existing policy framework togive the highest importance to strengthening tribal communities and their sustainable livelihoods and integrating this task with a wider vision of protecting environment. This would be a great way forward for taking forward the welfare of tribal communities and at the same time achieving significant success in environment protection on a firm base with community involvement, the kind of success that would be welcomed and admired all over the world.

(The author is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Protecting Earth for Children, Planet in Peril and A Day in 2071)  

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On the morning of April 11, a large posse of 10-13 officials from the ACB-EOW of the State Police in Raipur raided three premises connected with the veteran Adivasi leader and ex-MLA from Konta, Manish Kunjam, including his houses in the district headquarters of Sukma and in his native village of Ramaram. After rummaging through all these locations, and turning them inside out, the team did not find any incriminating material, it is reported. However, according to a statement issued by PUCL, Chhattisgarh states that the law enforcement authorities still confiscated two mobile phones and a daily diary of the former MLA. This was apparently part of an inquiry into the tendu patta scam and the premises of 7 managers of different primary minor forest produce (MFP) cooperative societies in Sukma were also raided.

Manish Kunjam, who was elected as member to the legislative assembly (MLA) from the Konta constituency from 1990 to 1998, is also seen to be s been a fearless and outspoken critic of the present and previous regimes, and has also led the movement against the government-sponsored militia Salwa Judum, which was eventually banned by the Supreme Court. Kunjam also led the movement against the proposed Tata Steel Plant in Lohandiguda, which forced the company to withdraw its plans; and has led many other popular movements for the right of Adivasis to their land and resources. After spending decades being associated with the CPI and leading the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Mahasabha, he left it last year and has founded a new party, the Bastariya Raj Morcha, which won two crucial district panchayat seats in the recent Panchayat elections in Chhattisgarh. The support of the Bastariya Raj Morcha to the Congress Party candidate for the post of the President of the Zila Panchayat ensured that Sukma became the only district in Chhattisgarh, where the BJP was unable to appoint its candidate as the District Panchayat President.

On January 8, 2025, Manish Kunjam had sought an investigation into the distribution of tendu patta bonus in Sukma district, alleging that at Rs. 3.6 crores of tendu patta bonus had been embezzled by officials of the forest department.

As is well known, tendu patta collection is a crucial source of income for the Adivasis of Bastar, and thousands of families are engaged in it during the summer months. It is often referred to as “green gold” in tribal areas. The individual collectors sell the tendu patta to the government primary forest produce cooperative societies, which are supervised by the local Forest Department. In 2021, 15 such societies and in 2022, 10 such societies in Sukma bought tendu patta from roughly 90,000 individual tendu patta collectors. Consequently, Rs 6.54 crores was to be distributed in April – May 2024 as bonus to these collectors for the two years 2021 and 2022. Since not all the individual collectors had bank accounts, special permission was taken for distribution of Rs. 3.62 crores of this bonus in cash.

In his letter to the Collector of Sukma on 08.01.2025, Manish Kunjam had alleged that the amount that was to be distributed cash, Rs. 3.62 crores, has in fact been embezzled by the forest department officials and none of the individual collectors have received this bonus payment. The Divisional Forest Officer of Sukma, Ashok Patel, has already been suspended as a result of this enquiry and it is learned that many of the managers of the co-operative societies have confessed to paying off the DFO with this money. Thus, it is all the more incomprehensible why the Chhattisgarh Police will now raid the complainant, who is seeking investigation into this scam. It certainly appears that the raid this morning has less to do with investigating the tendu patta bonus scam, and more to do with harassment and persecution of Mr. Kunjam, who is well-known as a fearless and outspoken leader.

The confiscation of the mobile phones of Manish Kunjam, states the PUCL statement, is also a matter of grave concern, and is part of this growing trend of the police and related agencies seizing electronic devices at the smallest pretext, illegally violating the privacy of individuals and prying into all their messages and communications, and sometimes even implicating them falsely by adding incriminating material on these devices. There is no cogent explanation why the phones of Mr. Kunjam are of interest in this investigation, and in fact, their seizure appears to be the sole motive for this raid in the first place. These seizures are completely illegal, as no hash values were provided to Manish Kunjam, and thus, it cannot be ensured that the phones will not be tampered with by the police authorities. These seizures also violate the CBI guidelines of seizure of electronic devices which are required to be followed by all investigating agencies, following the interim order of the Supreme Court dated 14.12.2023 in Ram Ramaswamy vs. Union of India (WPC 138/2021).

Related:

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The post Raid on Adivasi leader Manish Kunjam for ‘seeking investigation into the tendu patta bonu scam’, condemned by rights groups appeared first on SabrangIndia.

An example of this is seen from Maharashtra where Janjati Suraksha Manch, a group backed by the BJP’s ideological parents, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) raised alarm after it demanded delisting religious converts from being recognised as scheduled tribes. Even Adivasi leaders from within BJP were alarmed at the demand, according to the report by Hindustan Times, and expressed fear that such demands and assertions would make the BJP lose vote in the upcoming elections. Similarly, tribes across India have been resisting Sanskritisation (read Hinduisation).

Out of the 48 Lok Sabha seats in Maharashtra, four are reserved for tribal communities. These seats include Nandurbar, Dindori, Gadchiroli-Chimur, and Palghar. Maharashtra’s Ramtek, Nagpur, Bhandara-Gondiya, Gadchiroli-Chimur, Chandrapur go to poll this coming week. With the main national players’, BJP and Congress, manifesto yet to be released, both parties have made appeals to Adivasis in Maharashtra. The Indian National Congress (INC) has, however released the Adivasi Sankalp, a programme within the manifesto especially for forest dwellers and Adivasis, on March 13. On March 15, Congress; Rahul Gandhi visited Nandurbar, and accused the BJP-led government of stripping tribals of their rights to the water, forest, and land, ‘jal, jangal, zameen’, as reported widely in the media. He promised that under his government, any district in India with a tribal population exceeding 50% would be included into the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution and also vowed to conduct a caste census and an economic survey of the population.

The Video of his speech may be watched here:

Conversely in November, 2023, the Indian Express had reported that the BJP was ‘reaching out’ to the Vimukta Jati and Nomadic tribes through the festival of Diwali. Unlike the language of land and rights over forest produce (means of production), the Sangh and its parliamentary wings has always chosen the culturally assimilative route. State BJP president Chandrashekhar Bawankule had then stated, “We have an emotional connection with the VJNT communities. We want to associate with them and ensure their participation in the festival of lights. We endeavour to bring joy to their ghettos.”

Similarly, Chhattisgarh’s Bastar also goes to poll in the upcoming weeks. Bastar has seen constant attempts at polarisation in the recent times as attacks against Christians have increased. The region has a significant population of Christians, several of whom belong to Scheduled Tribes, who have been facing attacks by local Hindutva leaders of the past year and more. Bastar has seen the BJP win in 2014, but lost to the Congress in 2019 elections. In the recent state elections, however the region swung back to the BJP.

On the national level, PM Modi recently launched the Janjatiya Gaurav Divas in Jharkhand in November 2023. The scheme had been initially announced in the 2023-24 Budget and is a part of the government’s Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups Development. The programme aims to provide basic facilities like housing, clean water, education, healthcare, roads, and livelihood opportunities. The PM’s visit to Jharkhand in December 2023, saw protestors demanding the institution of the Sarna Dharma Code as a separate religion; many of these protestors were arrested. However, introduction of schemes for Adivasis does not always mean their implementation as another scheme introduced by the government in the 2022-23 budget called the Venture Capital Fund for Scheduled Tribes (VCF-ST) was reportedly not put into action even after two years since its announcement, according to The Print. Much of this puts the BJP’s hold on Adivasi trust in a sticklish position.

Conversely the opposition paints a different narrative. On March 13, senior Congress leader Kharge revealed the party’s Adivasi programme manifesto, called the Adivasi Sankalp which has laid out six guarantees for the community, one of which included doing away with the much criticised amendments made by the BJP government to Forest Conservation Amendment Act (2023). The plan by the party has emphasised on the protection of Adivasi sources of livelihood and access to their land, water, and forest.

Related:

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Supreme Court refuses to stay amendments to forest law

The post With less than two weeks for polling, how concerned are national parties on land and forest rights for Adivasis? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Addressing the state assembly’s concluding session, amidst the walk-out of BJP legislators, CM Soren emphasised the need to resist the BJP’s attempts to undermine tribal rights by amending existing laws. He highlighted the coalition government’s commitment to safeguarding tribal interests in the face of such challenges.

Particularly, CM Soren condemned the BJP’s amendments to laws protecting tribal rights, accusing the party of undermining the power of gram sabhas and seeking to alter legislation such as the Coal Bearing Areas (Acquisition and Development) Act and Chotanagpur Tenancy Act.

Expressing concern over the BJP’s purported agenda, CM Soren urged ruling alliance legislators to mobilize public awareness against the party’s intentions, highlighting the strategic implications of its policies for tribal communities.

Furthermore, he asserted that former Chief Minister Hemant Soren’s incarceration on land-related charges was a deliberate tactic employed by the BJP to suppress dissent, emphasizing the need to confront such tactics head-on. Underlining the coalition government’s commitment to socio-economic development, CM Soren reiterated the administration’s focus on ensuring food, clothing, and shelter for all citizens, as part of its efforts to strengthen the state’s education and welfare systems.

The Citizens for Justice and Peace and People’s Union for Civil Liberties has released a Human Rights Manifesto for all parties ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. In the section on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Adivasis/Forest Workers, the organisations have raised the following demand of the newly formed government:

[Articles 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 and 21 of the Chapter III of the Fundamental Rights & Article 48A of the Directive Principles of State Policy in Chapter IV of the Indian Constitution and Schedule V and VI of the Indian Constitution]

• Strengthen and implement the Forest Rights Act, 2006, The Panchayat (Extension of the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 and other provisions of land and environmental laws and the Indian Constitution, in letter and spirit, to ensure free prior informed consent, participation in decision making and recognition of rights of the local and indigenous communities over their lands, traditional livelihoods, culture and way of life, and to stop forced displacement.

• Hold a special session of Parliament to discuss the adequate implementation of the Forest Rights Act, 2006 (FRA) in all declared forests in India

• Repeal the Indian Forest Act (1927), Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 as well as Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023
• Appoint a Judicial Commission, first in Uttar Pradesh, then in other states to examine all the false and arbitrary cases against Adivasis and other forest dwelling communities as a first step towards quashing these malicious prosecutions
• Stop the oppression, harassment, torture of, and police brutality against Adivasis, Dalits Muslim and all other ethnicities among forest dwellers and workers, especially women. The targeting often takes the form of being evicted from their traditional padas with no legal or commensurate rehabilitation for their cultivated lands.
• Ensure that no tribal or forest dweller is evicted from protected areas and critical wildlife habitats without following the procedures established under Forest Rights Act, 2006 and initiate strict action against officials responsible for these acts
• Make transparent and expedite the process of approving community land claims by forest dwellers and forest workers under FRA 2006; Institute strict accountability measures for authorities, including those reviewing these claims and ensure that the statutorily required representative bodies and committees are in place
• Ensure fair prices for Minor Forest Produce (MFP)
• Effectively implement PESA [Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act, 1996] and regular monitoring and advisories by Union Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MOTA) should ensure that the recommendations by the Gram Sabha are scrupulously followed
• Dilution or distortion of PESA, for example in several states, including for example, in Maharashtra that allows the Collector to overrule the decision of the Gram Sabha, should be done away with.
• Repeal the 2015 amendments made to the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation Act), 1957 that now allows the union government to grant indiscriminate mining rights on forest land.
• Repeal the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Act, 2016 that promotes funds collection to replace forest land with agricultural land without the concurrence of the local people.
• Repeal the National Waterways Act, 2016 through which 111 waterways are included under this act. Infrastructure projects will be developed on these water bodies and complete commercialisation will take place leading to obstruction of life and livelihoods of people living along the banks.
• Withdraw the Draft EIA Notification (2020 Amendment to the Environmental Impact Assessment Act, 2006) – which sought to significantly dilute the existing provisions of law which itself were far from ideal; roll back the dilutions to the EIA Notification 2006 brought in by way of amendment notifications / office memorandums and circulars and put in place a strong law / Act mandating environment impact assessment for all impacting projects, without exemption.

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The post BJP a threat to tribal rights and land, Adivasis & Moolnivasis: Jharkhand Chief Minister Champai Soren appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Through the complaint, the complainant has highlighted the casteist statements made by host Sudhir Chaudhary in regards to the Tribal political leader and his family. The complaint has stated “Chaudhary targeted the tribal minister for his purported wealth, cars and lifestyle, and was seemingly less concerned with the charges of money laundering levied against him. Justifying the title of the show, which purported the examination of the Soren family, the host has put forth a distorted image of a Tribal family enjoying wealth by misusing the votes given to the tribal politician based on his identity.”

Emphasising that the host has unnecessarily dragged the most marginalised ethnic and minority communities into an issue that did not warrant any scrutiny of the caste of a respected and beloved politician, the complaint also highlighted that the host did not once attempt to impartially examine what the “charges” are against him given that in his defence, the former chief minister has stated – as have his Supreme Court counsel—that his name does not figure (not does his family member’s) in the alleged “land scam” which too sates back to 2008-2009.

In the complaint, it has been stated that “The host let loose his biases in a diatribe, using stigmatising language and imagery as also innate prejudices (among the caste privileged) against the Tribal community cloud the role he is supposed to play in a news show that have a big viewership and following.”

The channel now has 7 days to respond to the complaint raised by CJP, or else the complainant will be escalating the same with the News Broadcasting Digital and Standards Authority (NBDSA).

The complete complaint can be read here:

Related:

Sudhir Chaudhary’s castiest diatribe against Hemant Soren following his resignation causes uproar, complaint filed by Tribal body

CJP complaint to Aaj Tak for airing show using the term “Mazaar Jihad”

CJP has filed a complaint in the NBDSA urging action against the divisive narrative in Sudhir Chaudhary’s show on Aaj Tak

CJP’s NBDSA Complaints 2023: A look at the repeated violation of ethics and guidelines by Indian television channels

The post CJP sends complaint to Aaj Tak to remove contentious ‘Black and White Show’ on Hemant Soren from YouTube appeared first on SabrangIndia.

That the arrest was of an opposition leader, Chaudhary –and this anchor has acted as an arm of the present union government –he left no stone unturned to make accusatory comments against Soren, leader of the Jharkand Mukti Morcha (JMM). In his 50 minute ‘Black and White’ show on Aaj Tak, Chaudhary targeted the tribal minister for his purported wealth, cars and lifestyle, and was seemingly less concerned with the charges of money levied against him. Even the title of the show was “Soren परिवार का विश्लेषण (examining the Soren family)”. The show concentrated on “examining” the wealth of the Soren family. While criticising Soren, Chaudhary uses casteist language with regards to Soren based on his tribal (Adivasi) identity. For example, he says in one controversial remark that has generated a sharp response that the former Tribal minister will find it difficult in jail, as he is more used to live (just) 40 years back in the jungle (forest) as Adivasi, but now he is used to a luxurious life!

An uproar followed on social media as a clip from the said media show, wherein Chaudhary could be heard making the said statement, did the rounds. In the said clip, Chaudhary can be seen referring to his colleague and making the following statement: “Chitra aap hume ye bataiye ki Hemant Soren bahar aaye ya nahi aaye aur ab Aaj ki raat unki kaha betegi.. unhe toh shandar lifestyle ki aadat hai aur wo private planes me chalte Hain.. badi badi gadiyon me chalte Hain…Aaj unke liye ek tarike se waise hi hoga jaise woh bees tees chalis saal pehle wapis apne kisi Adivasi ke taur par kisi jungle mei chale jaye. Aaj ki raat kafi mushkil hone wali hai. (Chitra, tell us whether Hemant Soren will come out tonight, where will he be spending the night? He has become so accustomed to such a lavish lifestyle where he travels in private planes, he gets to travel in big cars. Tonight will be like one of those days from 20/30/40 years ago when he (and his tribe) lived in jungles as Adivasis. Tonight is going to be very difficult.)”

The video can be viewed here:

आदिवासी जल,ज़मीन,जंगल के रक्षक है जंगली नहीं। #ArrestSudhirChaudhary pic.twitter.com/CzWnUXITyo

— Tribal Army (@TribalArmy) February 2, 2024

These statements, which are both ethically problematic also attract criminal sections of the Indian Penal law as standalone statements too, especially when adjudged with the accompanying offensive words used by Chaudhary. The tone and tenor of these statements show that Chaudhary’s targeting on Soren was due to his enjoyment of wealth *despite* his marginalised identity. More details of the show are provided below. 

It is essential to note that a complaint has been filed against Chaudhary under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 for the indecent and derogatory comments made by him against Hemant Soren. The said complaint has been filed by the Aadivasi Sena in Ranchi. At the time of writing this report, the First Information Report (FIR) is yet to be registered.

What the show entails

The show begins with Sudhir Chaudhary commenting on the resignation of former CM and leader of Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) Hemant Soren by Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the nomination of party loyalist and state transport minister Champai Soren as his successor. It is essential to note that during the show, visuals of Hemant Soren being accompanied by the a few people in a car and entering the Raj Bhawan to submit his resignation keep playing on loop. At one point, Chaudhary points to the smile that can be seen on Soren’s face, referring to the same as a new scene that can be noticed now where leaders of the opposition who are accused of corruption seem proud of themselves and think of themselves as ‘sher (lion)’.

The discussion in the show then goes on to discussing the resignation move of Hemant Soren and the case of ED against Soren. A separate reporter, namely Satyajit, can be heard explaining the “water-tight” case that ED has against Soren, the proofs and evidence that have been accumulated by the state agency linking Soren with the scams and investigation by ED. As per the report, when Soren was asked by the crores worth benaami wealth he had, Soren was left with no answer. It was at this point that Chaudhary began targeting the now arrested leader for his lifestyle. He can be heard saying that “Soren is known for his lifestyles, big cars and private planes.” (Time stamp- 16:00) 

At the 29-minute mark of the video, Sudhir Chaudhary starts “dissecting the history of the corrupt Soren family”. The host starts detailing the “cash for vote” scam allegations that had been put against Hemant Soren’s father, claiming that this family has always been in news for their corrupt practices. It is essential to note that these allegations are yet to be proven, something which the host also mentions, however it did not stop Chaudhary for deeming the whole family corrupt. Pursuant to this, the host shows the family tree of the Soren family and the different allegations that have been put forth against each of them, claiming scams to be a “normal thing” for the family.

At 31:43 minutes in the video, Chaudhary trivialises the whole Adivasi movement led by the Soren family and the struggle behind the formation of the state of Jharkhand by saying, “It is important to note here that this family makes the issues of poor and Adivasis their politics. First, they started a movement for separate state and separate identity.  They say that they want to come into politics for the welfare of the Adivasi community, formed their stated and formed their party. But what they deem as ‘Bhalai’ is actually ‘malai. These politicians stay in big houses, travel in luxurious cars, travel in private planes and live a lavish life. But when they go out, they say that they are an Adivasi politician, they are fighting for the cause and for the upliftment of the Adivasi community.”

Continuing with his diatribe against the Soren family and his Adivasi identity, Chaudhary says “the Adivasis in Jharkhand vote for the Soren party so that Hemant Soren becomes their CM, and this is what they get. Just think, this family who calls themselves as Adivasi and have even filed a case against ED under the SC/ST Act, do you think they have the right to call themselves poor? Or do you think they should get the right to demand reservation for themselves? Do you think this family should get the benefit of reservation? Do you think that their power should be allowed to be increased under the SC/ST Act?” (Time stamp- 33:05- 33:48)

“These people are not Adivasi, these people are the residents of big bungalows. These people are not working for the benefits of Adivasis, they are just reaping the benefits.” (Time stamp- 33:54- 34:01)

Again, after a gap of three minutes, Chaudhary repeats his anti-caste slurs and stance and stereotypically targets the tribal identity of the Soren family by stating “In reality, the Soren family has nothing that can deem them to be an Adivasi (Soren family mei Adivasi jesa kuch bhi nahi hai)”

He further states “Soren family leads a luxurious life. If you look at the Soren family, especially Hemant Soren, you will not be able to see the Adivasi touch.” (Time stamp- 37:18-37:28)

After this, Chaudhary continues with his obsession with dissecting the salary of Hemant Soren and his lifestyle. At the 45-minute time stamp of this programme, Chaudhary utters the aforementioned offensive and derogatory statements, wherein he compares former CM Hemant Soren spending the night in jail to him staying in a “jungle” as an Adivasi. 

The complete video of the programme can be viewed here:
 

Stigmatising caste- the new “journalistic” duty?

While dragging minorities and marginalised communities is an everyday thing for “journalist” Sudhir Chaudhary, who enjoys support from the ruling party, this is a new low for even him. Not only has he trivialised a whole Adivasi movement and struggle for their identity and basic rights, he has declared a family to not have the “Adivasi touch” owing to the wealth they enjoy and the cars they travel in. In a country where caste plays a major role in the position you acquire, Chaudhary has declared an Adivasi family of not be “Adivasi” enough to demand reservation and own their tribal identity in view of the power they hold and the private plane rides they apparently. The question that these statements leave us with are- would the same line of questioning of identity would have taken place had the accused not been from a marginalised community? 

The true image that Chaudhary holds of the Adivasi community comes out towards the end as he states that Soren will be “going back by 20/30/40 years, by spending the night in jail, when an Adivasi used to live in the jungle.” The obsession with the wealth acquired by the Soren family since the beginning of the show depicts the “shock” that Chaudhary feels at an Adivasi family enjoying some luxury. To him, these luxuries require for the Soren family to “shed” their caste. 

Many politicians, eminent leaders, powerful businessmen and others have allegations of corruption against them in India- this is not a new phenomenon. According to the recent Transparency International report, India ranked 93 on the global corruption perceptions index for 2023 out of a total of 180 nations. It is also not a new pattern for India to see opposition political leaders being targeted by the ruling political parties by state agencies, more so in the recent ten years. But, does the arrest of a political leader based on certain allegations, the constitutionality of which has already been challenged in the court, gives the right to a journalist to target the caste and identity of the accused? Has Sudhir Chaudhary totally forgotten his journalistic duties, in his journey of being a Bharatiya Janata Party mouthpiece?

Sudhir Chaudhary and the contentious Black and White Show

In 2023, two favourable orders of the NBDSA had been delivered on complaint made by CJP against Sudhir Chaudhary and his show. In both of these complaints, Sudhir had indulged in communal diatribe. In one instance, on one of his ‘Black and White’ shows that aired in October 2022 he had raised the issue of “Muslim participation in Garba festivals”. The show contained projections of prejudice against Islam, manipulated facts of the matter and was presented by a host with a distinctly communal slur and an anti-Muslim bias. On the other show, Sudhir had made unfounded claims about illegal mazaars being found on government land in Uttarakhand, especially on forest land, and had thereby stigmatised the whole Muslim community. 

CJP had complained against both of these shows for spreading communal discourse, stigmatising a minority community and spreading bias. Based on the complaints raised, the NBDSA reprimanded the channel for using the term ‘Mazhaar Jihaad’ unnecessarily and loosely in the latter complaint and ordered the channel to remove the video of the show in former case. 

Details on CJP’s complaints to NBDSA against partisan media coverage can be found here.

Related:

CJP Impact! NBDSA orders AAJ TAK’s Sudhir Chaudhary show to be pulled down, censors second

Another Sudhir Chaudhary show under the scanner for using the term ‘Mazaar Jihad’

CJP has filed a complaint in the NBDSA urging action against the divisive narrative in Sudhir Chaudhary’s show on Aaj Tak

CJP files complaint against Sudhir Chaudhary’s show on Aaj Tak for its communal narrative

CJP files complaint against Sudhir Chaudhary’s show on Aaj Tak for its communal narrative

The post Sudhir Chaudhary’s castiest diatribe against Hemant Soren following his resignation causes uproar, complaint filed by Tribal body appeared first on SabrangIndia.

On the one hand. while the local Adivasi community-led protests are being suppressed by the state government, the establishment –regardless of which party is in power, Indian National Congress (INC) or the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) –is adamant on continuing the coal mining project.

Adivasi activists have alleged that the newly elected BJP government in the state has handed over thousands of hectares of forest lands to big corporate players. It is feared that these state-imposed policies may lead to further displacement of the indigenous community in the state. 

While axes fell the trees in Surguja districts in Chhattisgarh, it is police batons that are raining violence on the protesting Adivasis. News of large numbers of recent arrests of Adivasi activists by the police has also been documented. 

Given the huge protests, the state government has also arranged for a large deployment of security forces in the areas. Instead of initiating a dialogue and addressing the growing discontent of the people, the BJP government has approached the issue by intensifying armed security. 

According to the indigenous activists, both the police and the local administration are threatening the local Adivasi community against raising their voices against the ongoing deforestation projects. They have alleged that the local administration has been instructed by the state government to deal firmly with the protestors. –

The state government’s repressive policy is a tool to generate fear among the protestors, who are waging a life and death battle les against the greed-propelled and ecologically unfriendly models of development.

But Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai has, so far, appeared to be in denial mode by saying that so far no arrest had been made. He is unwilling to engage with the allegations that his government has failed to involve the indigenous community in the developmental process.  Even the Constitutionally-mandated laws giving special protection to the Adivasi community and the resources in their areas have been bypassed to facilitate the plunder of the natural resources. 

For example, a news story by the news agency PTI revealed that the state government has handed over a thousand hectares of forest lands for mining in the Surguja district to corporate players, triggering wide-scale protests. The Hasdeo Arand Bachao Sangharsh Smiti, which is led by the Adivasi community, has been raising voices against the handing over of the forest lands to corporate players. 

The voices of protests against the deforestation of the Hasdeo forest are also being echoed in different places in the country. 

A public meeting was held in New Delhi’s Press Club of India on January 2 during which a large number of activists, civil society members and intellectuals, united under the banner of Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan (CBA), expressed their deep concern about “corporate takeover” of the natural resources.

Prominent among those who attended this press conference were Alok Shukla (Chhattisgarh Bachao Andolan), Thawar Chand Meena (MLA from Dhariawad, Rajasthan), Umeshwar Singh Armo (Hasdeo Aranya Bachao Sangharsh Samiti), Prashant Bhushan (Supreme court advocate), Prafulla Samantray (activist), Sudiep Shrivastava (Chhattisgarh High Court advocate) Paranjoy Guha Thakurta ( author and journalist) and Professor Nandini Sundar (University of Delhi).

At the Press Club of India, the activists and the civil society members rightly linked the fight to save Hasdeo Aranya forest to other struggles to save nature and the life of the Adivasi community across the country. According to them, the corporate loot of minerals including coal and bauxite is happening at various places in India, particularly in the Adivasi regions.  

History is witness to the fact that since the colonial era, the vicious cycle of the exploitation of natural resources from the Adivasi areas and the displacement of the indigenous population has not stopped. 

The rise of the modern state and the profit-based economic model are some of the major factors for the destruction of the environment and the attacks on the indigenous community. With the introduction of the institution of private property during colonial time, the landlords, moneylenders and colonial administrators penetrated the Adivasi region to inflict ruins on them. 

Such exploitative colonial policies supported by the native landlords and money lenders were vigorously opposed by a series of revolts by the Adivasi community. One of them was led by Birsa Munda in the last phase of the nineteenth century. Birsa’s struggles were aimed at achieving self-rule for the Adivasi community and autonomy in their regions. 

After Independence, the promises made to the Adivasi community were largely forgotten. It was the Adivasi region which was chosen for the construction of the large-scale dams and the mining projects. This led to the destruction of the environment, loss of biodiversity and the displacement of the Adivasi community on a large scale. 

While the migration of non-Adivasi outsiders to the Adivasi areas has been substantial, leading to ae change in the demography, the ongoing policies of deforestation, mining and industrialization have also rendered Adivasis homeless, forcing them to migrate to urban areas where they have no social security. Nor are they often recognized as the Scheduled Tribes (ST) by the state.

Undoubtedly, the Adivasi community has been the worst sufferers of the developmental projects. The Constitution’s provisions for the protection of the Adivasi community continued to be violated to facilitate the corporate plunder of the resources. Worse still, the consent of the Adivasi community for the developmental project is either bypassed or obtained through coercive methods. Sadly, regions in central India, dominated by the indigenous Adivasi population are also among the most heavily militarised by the state. Yet, on the human development index, the same regions fall behind, are the most backward regions.  

What is happening with the Hasdeo Aranya forests is the cruel continuation of the process of colonisation in the Adivasi areas. But sooner or later such anti-Adivasi policy must stop to ensure the will of the people, and the future of Indian democracy. 

(Dr Abhay Kumar is a Delhi-based journalist. He has taught political sciences at NCWEB Centres of Delhi University.)

Disclaimer: Views and opinions expressed in this article is solely that of the author and does not necessarily reflect the views or position of Sabrang India and this site.

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