According to report, the existing evidence has revealed that the constable and the young Dalit woman had a shared history of having known each other for the past five years. The two had met each other while undergoing nursing training in Jhansi where they decided that they had wanted to marry each other. PTI has reported that the girl had visited the constable’s room a day prior to her death. 

The Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP), RK Singh, has stated that Raghvendra Singh is originally from Jhansi and was residing in rented accommodation in Belanganj, Agra. The victim was employed at a Kidney Centre in Gurugram and had come to the constable’s room a day before she had died.

The victim’s brother has stated that her family was open and had discussed the option of marriage with the constable Singh’s family, however, his family had declined the proposal. However, this did not deter the constable who continued to be in communication with the woman. 

Reports suggest that on the day of the incident, Raghvendra Singh had made a brief appearance at his office but had reportedly left early. A police official has told the Indian Express, that after Singh left early from office he found the woman dead by hanging herself at his room. Following these events, the family filed a complaint and he was taken into custody. The father of the victim filed legal action against the constable, and the police have pressed charges under sections 306, 376, and the SC/ST Act of the Indian Penal Code. Furthermore, invoking the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against the accused reflects the gravity of the situation.

The accused was initially absconding, however the police have reportedly arrested him as of now. The ACP, Rakesh Kumar Singh has further stated that the accused constable had transported the dead body to the hospital before running away. 

Sitamarhi, Bihar 

In Bihar’s Sitamarhi, Inspector Rajkishore Singh, the in-charge of Surasand police station, is under intense spotlight after a video has surfaced in which he has been caught assaulting a Dalit woman in public. The footage captures Singh wielding a stick and repeatedly beating the woman in the Surasand market. Marketgoers and onlookers continue to look at the woman being beaten by the inspector in the video. 

The incident featured Singh in his official uniform beating the woman and has now, since then gone viral and garnered widespread condemnation from the public. The hashtag #SitamarhiPolice has also been reportedly trending on social media platforms. However, the police reportedly have not independently verified the video. However, the Sitamarhi Police released a statement acknowledging the incident and announced a thorough investigation into the matter. 

According to Vinod Kumar, the Sub-divisional Police Officer (SDPO), have stated the woman was being beaten because there as an alleged kidnapping case of a girl. Kumar has clarified in a video statement that a girl had been rescued. According to NDTV, the police has stated that, “The girl was rescued, but the two sides visited the police station and engaged in a fight among themselves outside. This led to a traffic jam on the road and the cop used his baton to disperse the crowd.”

Violence against Dalit women remains a distressing and pervasive issue and shows the continued persistence of deep-rooted social inequalities and discrimination. The intersectionality of caste and gender further worsens marginalisation, rendering Dalit women more susceptible to systemic discrimination. The violence is not only interpersonal but also institutional, with reports of Dalit women being disproportionately affected by atrocities, including rape and domestic violence. 

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The post Uttar Pradesh, Bihar: Outrage erupts as policemen commit heinous crimes against Dalits appeared first on SabrangIndia.

What had happened?

According to the report, the victim was reportedly subjected to a horrifying gang rape after which she was beheaded at a flour mill reportedly owned by a higher caste, Shukla family who are noted to hold influence in the area. The victim and her husband were both employed by the family.

The body of the woman was discovered when her daughter arrived at the mill after hearing her screams from the closed door of the mill. However, she wasn’t let in initially, but after some time she was let in only to see the body of her mother lying in three pieces. A complaint was registered after this against the mill owners, Rajkumar, his brother Bauwa Shukla and Ramakrishna Shukla.

The accused individuals have in turn stated that the deceased died due to an accident at their flour mill. Furthermore, the police investigation appears to have thus far corroborated this explanation without conducting a thorough and impartial inquiry, according to the report. The report also states that an accident at the flour mill does not seem to be corroborated by the evidence from the photographs of the crime scene, which does not show a lot of blood spatter in the vicinity of the flour mill itself. 

Accused being shielded

Furthermore, the report detailed that immediately after the incident as the family struggled to garner support and file an FIR at the Police Station, the DSP Nitin Kumar, DSP arrived at the village and tried to persuade the villagers that the incident was an accident at the flour mill. He furthermore briefed the media similarly about the nature of the incident being an accident even before an examination of the witness took place, the report details. Going further, just a few days after the incident, on November 2, 2023, Superintendent of Police Ankur Agrawal took to X and stated that after a preliminary investigation, it is understood that the incident occurred accidentally due to the victim getting stuck in the flour mill.

#bandapolice
थाना गिरवां क्षेत्र अंतर्गत चक्की में फंसकर महिला की मृत्यु हो जाने के संबंध में विस्तृत वीडियो बाइट पुलिस अधीक्षक बांदा #अंकुर_अग्रवाल। pic.twitter.com/dR5T29XoeH

— Banda Police (@bandapolice) November 2, 2023

The fact-finding report points to major gaps in the investigation process and concerns about deliberate negligence by law enforcement agencies. The news that the accused Shukla family, known for their social and political influence, particularly ties to the ruling political party, further makes the situation look grim. There have been glaring mishaps of justice, according to the report. One of them being that the post mortem report too was only able to be done after the villager’s exerted pressure. It is reported that the authorities initially sought to dispose of the body without conducting a post-mortem. 

Suspected collusion between police and accused

Complicating matters further, two out of the three named accused individuals remain at large and appear to wield influence over the ongoing investigation. There are even reports that the crime scene, which is part of the property owned by the accused, was not sufficiently sealed. Similarly, the arrest of the third accused under lesser charges seems to be an attempt at quelling public anger, according to the report.

Moreover, the FIR does not charge the accused on serious offences and has charged three people under Sections 302 and 376 of the Indian Penal Code and Section 3 of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The fact-finding report details that despite the serious nature of the charges outlined in the FIR, the authorities did not take any measures to apprehend the accused individuals and instead, the alleged perpetrators were seen freely moving about and, furthermore, actively influencing and diverting the direction of the investigation. Rajkumar Shukla, who is one of the accused, was even seen present at the post-mortem facility giving a statement to a media reporter.

It was only after witnessing complete inaction, that the villagers collectively called for a protest on November 16, after which Rajkumar was arrested. However, he was arrested under charges such as death to negligence, under sections 304A, 287, 201 and Section 3(2)(v) of the SC/ST Act.

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The post Fact-finding report alleges UP police protecting men suspected of beheading Dalit woman appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Rajasthan’s special court on October 6, 2020 awarded life imprisonment to four of the five men who sexually assaulted a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Rajasthan’s Alwar in 2019, said a Hindustan Times report. The fifth man, who faced trial for circulating a video of the incident on social media was sentenced to five years in jail, said the special court for hearing cases under the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

The four men Chhote Lal, Hansraj Gurjar, Ashok Kumar Gurjar and Indraj Singh Gurjar were booked for gang-rape, extortion, criminal intimidation, kidnapping and various other sections of the Indian Penal Code along with sections from the SC /ST Act and the IT Act. The fifth accused, Mukesh Gurjar, was charged under different sections of the IT Act for circulating the video. A sixth accused, who is a juvenile, faces trial in the district and sessions court.

According to the FIR lodged on May 2, 2019, a 19-year-old Dalit woman was sexually-assaulted by five men and a juvenile in front of her beaten husband on April 26, 2019 in Thanagazi village. The couple registered an FIR against the men after the video of the incident became viral on social media. The accused allegedly demanded Rs 10,000 from the woman to keep the video from circulating on social media.

Rajasthan government removed the then Superintendent of Police (SP) Rajeev Pachar and suspended the Thanagazi Station House Office (SHO) Sardar Singh on June 7 for failing to record information given to him in relation to a cognisable offence. Similarly, Circle officer Jagmohan Sharma was transferred out of the district while other staff was sent out of Jaipur police range.

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The post Rajasthan court convicts 5 in Thanagazi gang rape case appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Nearly one in three transactions fail.

Sixty kilometres from Ahmedabad in Gujarat, in a village called Hebatpur in Dholera, 78-year-old Gaguben Zala made five unsuccessful attempts to enrol in Aadhaar, the biometrics-based database that assigns a unique 12-digit number to every resident of India.
“Each time I tried, the machine would fail to capture my fingerprints and the staff sent me back home,” recalled the gaunt and feisty Dalit woman, with deep wrinkles running through the dry skin of her hands that had hardened from years of farm work.

The sixth time, one of the boys working at the enrolment camp came to her help.

“He rubbed my dry fingertips against the hair-oil on his scalp for a few minutes,” she said. “After this, the scanner captured my fingerprints.”

India is introducing Aadhaar in ration shops. The fingerprints of people like Zala will be matched against their biometric data stored in the Aadhaar database before they are given subsidised foodgrains. This process is called ‘authentication’.

The public distribution system, which provides subsidised wheat and rice to 67% of India’s population, is one of the first social welfare delivery systems to use Aadhaar-based authentication. The Centre has asked states to move to the new system by March 2017.
In the government’s view, this will ensure only real beneficiaries are able to access the foodgrains, bringing an end to theft and pilferage in the system.

But evidence from an earlier experiment in Gujarat shows fingerprint authentication does not work for lakhs of people, particularly manual workers and the elderly like Zala.

Gaguben Zala enrolled in Aadhaar with difficulty because of fingerprint problems. Image credit: Anumeha Yadav

One in three transactions fails

Well before the Aadhaar database was created, in 2010, Gujarat introduced fingerprint authentication in the public distribution system. For this, the demographic details and biometrics of existing ration card-holders were collected and each was allotted a unique number.

Since then, anyone wanting to pick up monthly food rations must submit this unique number and provide her fingerprints at the village computer services centre called ‘e-gram’, which is connected through a statewide area network.

Once the fingerprints match, an “e-coupon” or a slip of paper bearing the person’s name and quantity of ration is issued. Beneficiaries can use the coupon to get their quota of foodgrains at the fair price shop.

In places with sufficient network connectivity, the beneficiary can provide their fingerprints directly at the ration shop, receive a coupon with details of their entitlements, and collect the foodgrains.

But Gujarat government data shows the system is not functioning smoothly.

Of the 1.2 crore ration cards linked with the state biometrics database, only 83.7 lakh cards recorded transactions in October 2016. Of these 83.7 lakh cards, fingerprint authentication failed for 24.6 lakh cards – nearly one in three families.

In the villages of Koli Adivasis in Panchmahal district, 125 kms east from Ahmedabad, such failures are common. Nearly 85% of the district’s population is rural. Infrastructure is weak in the area.

“On Tuesdays, there is a full-day power cut, and electricity is irregular on other days as well,” said Gangaben Fatesi, a Koli Adivasi. “When the power goes, the computer too stops working.” The residents had to make repeated trips to get their rations, she said.
Data shows that fingerprint authentication in Panchmahal did not work for 74,131 of the 234,702 ration beneficiaries who attempted it – a failure rate of nearly 32%.

In the state capital of Gandhinagar, officials gave two reasons for the failures. “One, there are network connectivity issues,” said Ronak Mehta, deputy secretary in the state department of food, civil supplies and consumer affairs. “Two, fingerprint authentication often does not work for those who do hard work with their hands, like farm workers, construction workers.”

Sumi Kapadia, an official in the project management unit of the department, said nearly 15%- 20% of all transactions failed solely because fingerprints did not match on account of skin abrasions, and in the case of the elderly, because of unclear fingerprints.
“The fingerprint problems magnify in winter months as the skin becomes rough and dry,” she said. “But the villagers are impatient. They are not willing to wait even an hour to get their fingerprints authenticated.”

For those whose fingerprints do not match, the state has asked ration shop owners to dispense foodgrains by noting down their details in a register. Called “open” transactions, such cases amount to more than 40% in some districts, showing the new biometrics-based system is not working.

District-wise data for October 2016.

Mehta, deputy secretary in the food and civil supplies department said they provide an additional check through a one-time password sent on mobile phones of beneficiaries, so that they know if their transaction went through or not, and do not depend on this for the ration dealer’s whims. He said the department has tried to reduce the fingerprint failures to “5 to 10%.” But as shown above, government data show in October, more than 29% of the fingerprint transactions failed. No transactions were recorded under the “with mobile” category in October.
 

An old experiment

Despite its problems with the use of fingerprints, Gujarat’s food department is introducing Aadhaar-based authentication in all ration shops, with just a few exceptions. “At 200 spots in Dangs, Panchmahal and forest villages where there is no connectivity at all at the ration shops, we will use an alternative method of authenticating,” said Kapadia.

Reetika Khera, a professor of economics at IIT-Delhi who has researched social schemes such as the public distribution system, questioned the use of fingerprint authentication despite such high rates of failure.

“There has been no rigorous study of Aadhaar’s feasibility and suitability before its use in welfare systems,” she said. “The Gujarat biometrics schemes in food rations could have shown crucial evidence on the use of biometrics authentication in welfare schemes. Then why did the government not study this or take it into account?”

After the introduction of Aadhaar in the public distribution system, similar figures of failure in fingerprint authentication have been recorded in states such as Rajasthan and Jharkhand, she pointed out.

In Rajasthan, which is the second state to adopt Aadhaar in ration shops, only about 63.5 lakh of 99.7 lakh people were able to get their foodgrains in August through the use of biometrics.

The state food department records show Aadhaar authentication does not work for 20%-30% beneficiaries in most districts, even 11 months after Rajasthan government introduced the new system.

Said Nikhil Dey of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, a grassroots campaign in Rajasthan, “Despite such a high failure rate, the Government of Rajasthan continues to deny the extraordinary rates of exclusion by stating that this was “weeding out” of bogus beneficiaries from the system.”
 

Frequent data entry errors

In Dholera’s Hebatpura, for Gaguben Zala, the prospect of using her fingerprints to collect food rations remains a distant one. “The dealer said I do not have clear fingerprints, so my name cannot be linked for grains,” she said, as she sat in the courtyard examining her chapped thumbs.

The state food department needs to link people’s Aadhaar data to the ration database – a process called “seeding” – before fingerprint authentication can take place.

In Zala’s family of seven, only the Aadhaar data of her son, Gobarbhai Zala, has been linked or “seeded” to the ration database. The family gets 25 kg of wheat and 10 kg of rice every month under the Antodyaya category for the poorest of poor families. Earlier, anyone from the family could pick up the monthly rations. Now, only Gobarbhai can.

In Panchmahal, several families are worse off – their details were incorrectly entered in the ration database which has now been linked to the Aadhaar database.

Jayniben who lives in Sanyal village, Ghoghamba block, is wrongly recorded as a resident of “Ranipada, Ghoghamba village”. Madhu Bhopat, another resident, is wrongly recorded as Madhu “Dalphat.” Balliben, a local worker complained that her daughter in law’s name is recorded as “Labita”, when actually it is Lalita.

Fair price shop owner Ashwinbhai Patel said though he appreciated the computerisation of records, but in the biometrics-based ration system, there were frequent data errors. “Of over 800 ration cards, there is hardly one card which does not contain errors,” he said for the neighbouring villages of Shaniada and Vangarva, that are registered at his ration shop.
 

Ganpatbhai Narsi, whose wife Madhu Bhopat’s name had been entered incorrectly as Madhu “Dalphat”, travelled four times to the block office in Ghoghamba, 40 km away. Each trip costs Rs 100 and led to the loss of a day’s wages.

Officials in Ghoghamba said the block had just two data-entry operators and nearly 100 to 150 people came to the office for data entry corrections every day. “At first, we had designated Wednesday as the day for corrections,” said KP Parmar, a block official. “But the numbers were so high, we had to open it on all days of the week.”

A similar rush prevailed in Godhra district. At the office of the mamltadar, Navinbhai Marwari stood waiting to get the names of four of his family members corrected in the records. He was weighed down with anxiety and a thick application containing the photocopies of each family member’s Aadhaar card, the family’s new ration card, a copy of the bank account passbook of the head of the household, and an attested proof of their address from the patwari, a local revenue official.

After putting in all the effort – first to get an Aadhaar card made, then to link it with the ration card, and finally, to get the database errors corrected – a villager still had no guarantee of fingerprints matching at the ration shop.

But Gujarat officials emphasised that the system had benefits.

“Most people are able to get corrections done in two visits,” said a block official in Godhra. “But the main thing is that we are very strict on corruption in the ration system.”

Has fingerprint authentication in Gujarat reduced leakages in the public distribution system, as officials claim?

The next story in this series finds out.

Courtesy: Scroll.in

The post Gujarat matches the fingerprints of the poor before giving them food. Does the system work? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

इन मुद्दों को ध्यान में रखते हुए 'आल इंडिया दलित महिला अधिकार मंच, दिल्ली' पिछले कई सालों से महिला सशक्तिकरण हेतु राष्ट्रीय स्तर पर 7 राज्यों में दलित महिलाओं के संरक्षण और संवर्धन हेतु काम कर रहा है, जो दलित महिलाओं को जाति, वर्ग और लिंग आधारित भेदभाव और अत्याचारों के खिलाफ़ संघर्ष कर उन्हें समाज में समान अवसर, गरिमा और न्याय दिलाने के लिए प्रयासरत है। इसी कड़ी में 'दलित महिला स्वाभिमान यात्रा' भी एक ऐसा प्रयास है जो इन सच्चाइयों को लोगों के सामने लाना चाहती है। और यह इंसाफ के लिए प्रतिबद्ध है। साथ ही यह यात्रा दलित महिलाओं को निडर, सुरक्षित और गरिमामय जीवन के लिए प्रेरित करेगी। इस यात्रा के माध्यम से बड़े स्तर पर सरकार, पुलिस, प्रशासन, आयोग आदि में दलित महिलाओं के खिलाफ हो रहे जातिगत आधार पर अत्याचारों और यौन उत्पीड़नों से निजात पाने के लिए राज्य के हर कोने से आवाज़ बुलंद की जायेगी।

'दलित महिला स्वाभिमान यात्रा' का पहला चरण फ़रवरी 2014 में आयोजित किया गया था। यह हरियाणा, बिहार, मध्यप्रदेश, बुंदेलखंड उत्तरप्रदेश और उड़ीसा में हुआ जिसमें देखा गया कि दलित महिलाओं को अपनी ज़िन्दगी में बलात्कार, नंगा घुमाने, जान से मारने और कई तरह की धमकियों आदि से गुजरना पड़ता है, इन्हें अवसरों के वंचित रखा जाता है और राज्य तंत्र तक पहुँच नहीं होने दी जाती, साथ ही राज्य संसाधनों का लाभ लेने से भी वंचित कर दिया जाता है।

'दलित महिला स्वाभिमान यात्रा' के दूसरे चरण में नेतृत्व देने वाले लोगों की पहचान और जमीनी स्तर से राष्ट्रीय स्तर तक लीडरशिप बनाने पर जोर दिया जायेगा। इनमें विभिन्न स्टेकहोल्डर को शामिल किया जायेगा जो जातिमुक्ति और लैंगिक समानता के लिए काम करते हैं, जो दलित महिलाओं के प्रति की जा रही क्रूरता के खिलाफ़ हों। इसमें स्थानीय स्तर के दलित समुदायों के मुद्दों को उठाया जाएगा और राज्य की दंड के अभाव की संस्कृति के मुद्दे पर बात की जायेगी।

इन्हीं सब हालात और परिस्थितियों को ध्यान में रखते हुए 'आल इंडिया दलित महिला अधिकार मंच' राजस्थान में दलित महिलाओं के संरक्षण, अधिकारों के प्रति जागरूकता और उनके सशक्तिकरण के लिए दिनांक 18 सितंबर 2016 से डेल्टा मेघवाल के गाँव त्रिमोही, गडरारोड से एक राज्य स्तरीय रैली 'दलित महिला स्वाभिमान यात्रा' का आयोजन करने जा रहा है। यह रैली बाड़मेर जिले के त्रिमोही गाँव से सुबह 9 बजे शुरू होकर जैसलमेर, जोधपुर, बीकानेर, श्रीगंगानगर, हनुमानगढ़, चुरू, नागौर, सीकर, झुंझनु होते हुए 28 सितंबर को जयपुर पहुंचेगी। इस यात्रा के दौरान राजस्थान के सुदूर क्षेत्रों, खासतौर से गांवों में जागरूकता बैठकों का आयोजन किया जायेगा। इसी के साथ यात्रा के दौरान दलित समुदाय के नेताओं के दृष्टिकोण को जिसमें डॉ. बी. आर. अम्बेडकर भी शामिल है, सबके सामने रखा जायेगा। इसके साथ-साथ जातिवादी हिंसा और भेदभाव के खिलाफ़ दलित समुदाय को संगठित और अपराधियों के बहिष्करण के लिए प्रेरित किया जायेगा।

इस यात्रा का संयोजन 'आल इंडिया दलित महिला अधिकार मंच' की राज्य समन्वयक सुमन देवठिया कर रही है और इनके अलावा इस यात्रा में इसकी राष्ट्रीय समन्वयक अंजू सिंह भी शामिल रहेंगी। इस यात्रा में 'आल इंडिया दलित महिला अधिकार मंच' से जुड़े सात राज्यों के लोग शामिल होंगे जिनमें संगठन की दिल्ली इकाई समन्वयक गंगामाई, शोभना स्मृति, उत्तरप्रदेश समन्वयक, शशिमानसी उड़ीसा समन्वयक, गायत्री सोनकर, मध्यप्रदेश समन्वयक, माया अहिरवार MP, राजेश्वर पासवान, बिहार समन्वयक, एडवोकेट गौरी कुमारी बिहार समन्वयक, लक्ष्मी MP, अनीता बाकोलिया राजस्थान सहित 20 लोगों की टीम पूरी यात्रा में शामिल रहेंगी। इस यात्रा में बाड़मेर से 'दलित अधिकार अभियान' से जुड़े तोलाराम चौहान, 'दलित अत्याचार निवारण समिति' के जिला संयोजक उदाराम मेघवाल, युवा सामाजिक कार्यकर्ता जोगराज सिंह आदि लोग शामिल होंगे।

#DalitWomenFight #DalitMahilaSwabhimanYatra
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यात्रा से जुड़ी अन्य जानकारी के लिए यहाँ विजिट कर सकते हैं: https://www.facebook.com/events/1076441669104519/?ti=cl

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Dear Jisha, I never knew you, nor did you know me.

You were probably a “usual” student, pursuing your studies, dreaming of a better future for yourself and your country. You were probably someone like Rohith Vemula, who dreamed of stars and skies. I learnt that you were a law student, but I regret to tell you that the Law of this country fails us miserably.

It is because a Bhanwari Devi does not get justice that Bhagana happens. It’s because no one in Bhagana gets justice that a Delta Meghwal happens. It is because a Delta Meghwal does not get justice that a Jisha happens. And most painfully, I can predict that you may not get justice either.

This is because the law that you studied is not the law that actually runs this country – this country runs according to a parallel Law which is called Manusmriti. It is routinely quoted by judges in their judgments, but perhaps you wouldn’t have studied that in law school. It is the law of Manusmriti that prescribes limits for women and limits for Dalits.

That women should not go out after a certain time, that women should not study and become independent, that Dalits should not study or acquire skills, is embedded in the law that actually runs this country.

You probably loved this country, but I regret to tell you that this is no country for women. On the contrary, if you had ever questioned patriarchy or caste or class, they would have shoved a slogan or two down your throat. “Bolo Bharat Mata ki Jai”, “Bolo Vande Mataram” are the two favorite responses of our government to anyone who complains of injustice.

I am guessing you were a patriot and loved your country, but alas, declaration of Bharat Mata ki Jai wouldn’t come to your help when you were being murdered and raped. I shudder to think about the brutal details of your rape that have emerged. They make me wonder if all the people who kill their daughters in infancy do the correct thing. Such a desperate thought to occur to someone like me, who is supposed to be strong and calm! But it could have been me, it could have been anyone. I didn’t know you, but I can think about the terror that you must have felt.

Whatever has been done with you has been said to me in threats by BJP supporters on Twitter. Where does this thinking come from? How is there such a tremendous uniformity in the actions of your rapists and the words of the Sanghi trolls? It is the ideology of Manu, the ideology of hatred and caste patriarchy that drives both sets of criminals to do and say such things.
 

 

  ‘Justice for Jisha’ Protest at Kozhikode, Kerala. Photographs by Biju Ibrahim

You will not get justice because we are quick to blame the rape on everything, but its real cause. We are ready to blame the rape on the dress and choices of women, on poverty, on alcohol, on chowmein, on mobile phone and other absurd things, but not on patriarchy, feudalism, commodification of women by capitalism, on caste, on our society.

We are told not to do politics and focus on studies, when we raise issues of justice for women like you, women like survivors of Bhagana mass rapes, the women getting raped at gun point in Kashmir and Northeast and for women like Soni Sori, whose rapist is given the gallantry award because she is labelled as a Maoist for opposing corporate onslaught on the tribals of this country.

You were probably one such student, among millions of others, who was studying and not doing politics. But the brutality of this society did not spare you. The brutality that you’ve faced did not result from a personal hatred against you, I believe, but from deep-seated biases against women, from rampant misogyny, from the treatment of women as commodities, as things to be used and discarded.

The violence that you’ve faced is only a manifestation of the hatred that prevails against all women, against me, against my friends, against all thinking, speaking, working, studying, questioning, politically active women, especially since we are not the traditional social elites. How dare they trespass their gender? How dare they trespass their second class minority status? How dare they trespass their lower caste status?

We are told not to “divide” people when we raise issues of caste, class, gender, race, disability and so on. We are told that, since it has been written down in Law, equality has been achieved!

But the ugly realities of caste will dawn upon us pretty soon, when we demand justice for you, when despite your case being as brutal as that of the young woman everyone called Nirbhaya, it will not shake the national conscience, when, perhaps, no one in your case will be punished hard enough, except if they are poor.

How I wish, as a fellow woman, I could say to you, Rest in Peace, sister. But the times we are living in, do not allow me to say that.

I am forced to say, DO NOT REST IN PEACE, JISHA. And don’t let anyone in this country rest in peace.

Enrage this country, this world. Awaken it from complacency.

Yours,

Shehla

(Shehla Rashid is a student at the Centre for Studies in Law & Governance, JNU, an activist with the All India Students Association (AISA), and Vice President of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union.
Biju Abraham is a photographer and filmmaker based in Kozhikode, Kerala).

This article was first published on Kafila.org.
 

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Organised and systematic rape as reprisal for her community’s cries for justice or simply as an expression of caste arrogance and custom; sexual humiliation and molestation at the workplace, be it on the agricultural fields of a landlord or the construction site by the contractor and his middlemen; less than equal wages for her work that includes dehumanised jobs like manual scavenging and garbage picking; severe controls and violence in the domestic and social sphere inflicted by the men folk of family and community; the ultimate annapurna for her children, a role that conditions her into under-nourishing herself and her girl child; and, finally, what compels her, in the face of clawing hunger and thirst into lifelong indebtedness — even prostitution.

The Dalit woman.

She constitutes 49.96 per cent of the total 200 million Indian Dalit population, 16.3 per cent of the total Indian female population, 18 per cent of the Indian rural female population and 12 per cent of the urban female population. (1)

Living as she does at the beginning of the twenty–first century, she experiences a relentless cycle of oppression often made worse by the reluctance of the male Dalit leadership to frontally tackle these issues.

For non–Dalit India, the genteel and sophisticated discourse that deliberates on India’s deepening poverty line, shameful and increasing levels of malnutrition and illiteracy (370 million illiterates, say UNESCO figures of three years ago), continued denial of adequate and safe drinking water (2), there is a discreet but distinct reluctance to link this socio-economic and political reality, starkly, with the continued existence in a rigid and stratified form of caste. The perpetuation of class inequalities and indignities through caste, and therefore the connections between caste and class, the triple oppression experienced by the woman among Dalits, therefore the links between caste and gender and between class and gender are similarly denied.

Sensational accounts of gruesome violence (a Dalit woman being gang raped inside the precincts of a temple; another victim–survivor stripped, paraded and humiliated through village streets; Dhamma a Dalit girl blinded in Karnataka for daring to defy the untouchability system; Sanjay, a Dalit boy in Gujarat also losing an eye for similar reasons) are increasingly making it to the newspapers and television channels.

But few accounts link these incidents to the chilling cycle of want, hunger, deprivation, segregation, humiliation and violence, bondage and slavery that a particular section of our people and within that section, their women, suffer for generation after generation, without justice and reparation.

Globalisation and structural adjustment — especially the privatisation of natural resources — are also having an adverse impact on the rural poor in general, but on Dalit and adivasi women in particular, making their condition, unenviable as it is, worse under present economic conditions.

The very notion of sexual purity of the woman is intrinsic to understanding caste. Female sexuality presents a threat to caste hierarchy and stratification because of the male vision that views only the woman’s body as both property and carrier of caste lineage. Bodies of women of ‘lower’ castes may be abused because of the less than animal status accorded to a whole people but also the body and sexuality of women of their own, ‘upper’ castes are similarly subject to rigid control and abuse.

Patriarchal caste thinking (epitomised in Manu Smruti) emphasises that the danger of low quality blood exists only in the woman; raping a low caste woman by ‘upper’ caste man though committed regularly by men is condoned, arrogantly and hypocritically as his privilege. Public discourse sanctions this vile notion; but much worse, at times, even the Indian judiciary has condoned it.

Dubious decisions by the courts of this country reflect blatant and shabby ‘upper’ caste biases against Dalits and the oppressed castes in general but against women of the oppressed castes in particular.

In the mid–sixties, eminent constitutional expert, Nani Palkhiwala had made a staunch defence of caste Hindus, who were preventing entry of Dalits into the garbhagriha of temples in Tamil Nadu, saying that this was in keeping with their religious freedom (Article 25). It was an argument that the apex court in its ultimate wisdom had upheld.

On November 15, 1995, a district sessions judge in Rajasthan, while deliberating on the gang rape of a Dalit woman social worker, battling the evils of child marriage, ruled against the victim–survivor: "Since the offenders were ‘upper’ caste men and included a Brahmin, the rape could not have taken place because she (Bhanwari Devi) was from a ‘lower’ caste."

The judge in this case reflects the rank hypocrisy of the system of caste that perpetuates untouch-ability when it comes to access to water and sharing of food but violates it every time a landlord or a priest, a IAS officer or policeman, sexually abuses a Dalit woman. "We are untouch-able by day and touchable by night", a stark and challenging slogan of the Dalit woman’s movement of the nineties had declared.

Oppressed, abused and denied a voice, both within the caste–based Dalit movement and also by the wider, Indian women’s movement, the Dalit woman has begun to create her own space and dictate the discourse both within and outside her community. Ironically for the Dalit leadership, before and after Ambedkar, tackling the patriarchial base of caste by drawing women into active participation and leadership was critical (see page 14 ). For the present male-dominated Dalit political leadrership, this critical element of women’s empowerment and participation in the struggle, seems unimportant. Taking inspiration from Ambedkar and thousands of Dalit women who sacrificed much to make their articulations collectively, modern Dalit women have in recent decades been organising themselves into independent organisations.

The birth of the All India Progressive Women’s Organisation, Nagpur (1973), Women’s Voice, Bangalore (1987), Andhra Pradesh Vyavsaya Coolielu Samakhya, a federation of unions and organisations working with agricultural labourers, the Maharashtra Dalit Mahasang in Pune (1992) culminating in the birth of the National Federation for Dalit Women (NFDW) on August 11, 1995, reflected this articulation of Dalit women to command their own space and articulate their own issues within the wider Dalit movement and women’s movement, nationally.

"If the Dalit movement and women’s movement are ever to join hands, the Dalit movement needs to become more pro–women and the women’s movement more pro–Dalit", Dr Gabrielle Deitrich, president, Pennurimai Iyyakkam, Madurai has commented. In her analysis on the reasons behind the inability of Indian women’s groups to respond to Dalit women’s issues, Deitrich has pointed to the failure of ‘upper’ caste women to grapple with the system of caste itself, understand it, and thereafter admit how even they as women of the ‘‘upper’ castes’ are discriminated and subjugated by it.

Within the Dalit community, oppressed, segregated, ghettoised and subjected to a hidden apartheid (see CC, April 2001 and May 2000), it is the reluctance to tackle the issue of gender driven oppression directly, or to explain it away as simply an extension of the oppression that the Dalit man has been for centuries subjected to which is responsible for the sharpened and distinct Dalit women’s articulation that is increasingly responsible for these separate articulations.

Increasingly, Dalit women activists and groups are creating their own distinct spaces to identify and articulate the sources of what they see as distinct patriarchal biases within the men of their own community even while standing side by side with Dalit men when it comes to demanding that the world recognise caste crimes against Dalits as a crime against humanity and caste itself as an organised system of hidden apartheid.

"This Dalit man who has received education thanks to reservation and is conscious of his ‘Dalit’ and ‘untouchable’ identity and discriminations perpetuated because of it, follows Manuvad when it comes to women’s issues," says veteran Dalit woman leader, Kumudtai Pawde, who founded the All Indian Progressive Woman’s Organisation in 1973 in Nagpur. She has herself crossed the laxman rekha of caste by marrying, against stiff opposition, an ‘upper’ caste man, the only son of an influential family in the forties.

"There is a denial of basic autonomy and independence for Dalit girls by her father and brother and severe restrictions on her movement later by her husband; severe alcoholism leading to acute levels of domestic violence and battering are a common source of oppression and violence for our women," she adds. "I have to face criticism and abuse for saying what I am saying; I am even criticised for being influenced by Brahmanical notions for articulating gender issues and conducting shibirs (camps) among Dalit women in small hamlets where the pressures and taboos of caste are far more difficult to surmount."

Of late, the organisation has also been conducting camps and meetings with Dalit men. Young Dalits have shown an encouraging openness to discuss gender–related issues.

"Rape, violence, indignity and humiliation are being experienced by Dalit women every day. But forty years after the Dalit movement and three decades after the women’s movement took shape, hamari bhagyadari kya hai? (what’s our share?)," asks Vimal Thorat, an academic at Indira Gandhi Open University (IGNOU – see box).

While Valjibhai Patel of the Centre for Social Justice, Ahmedabad and Sumedh Jadhav, a young Dalit activist of the Manaviya Hakk Abhiyan, Mumbai, are in complete agreement with Kumudtai, Martin Macwan of Navsarjan in Gujarat has a slightly different view.

"As compared to the ‘higher’ castes and richer classes equality between men and women among Dalits is greater. There is much pain to share as also many responsibilities. So while I accept that there is a significant level of violence against women, women do not necessarily take the abuse in silence. They exercise greater freedom in giving it back (hurling verbal abuse back).

Dalits, both men and women suffer extreme violence, extreme abuse, and extreme poverty. Within this scenario, women do suffer more than men. However, this is not because of the man-woman equation or relationship alone but because of caste–driven oppression which is the primary cause."

"The first Dalit is a woman, Brahmin or Bhangi, as Babasaheb Ambedkar had said and she suffers the combined indignity of caste-based oppression outside and triple burdens of running the family and feeding children daily. Often her husband is irresponsible, and is also, sometimes an alcoholic," Valjibhai Patel told CC.

Despite the official prohibition policy, Dalit bastis are rife with the problem of alcoholism combined with extreme poverty. "The Dalit woman’s work, like garbage picking in the dark hours before dawn, make her vulnerable to physical violence, too."

In the first week of May (2001) alone, three seemingly isolated incidents of Dalit garbage picker women having their ears chopped off in Ahmedabad, because of the small amount of gold they wore as earrings, have added another kind of crime to the long list that Dalit women have especially to endure.

"It is Dalit men who conduct annual meetings to celebrate Ambedkar jayanti who are not serious about genuinely carrying the principles of empowerment in to their own homes and families," affirms Sumedh Jadhav. "It is patriarchy and patriarchy alone that is causing this. Look, in Maharashtra, what is our excuse? We have historically enjoyed the leadership given by Savitribai Phule, Ahilyabai Holkar, Jijabai. But centuries later we are still reluctant to accept that our sisters, our daughters, our wives make independent articulations in social and political life".

Jadhav adds: "There are so many issues that only Dalit women can take up because they live through the hardships. The issue of safe drinking water in rural areas (villages) and urban slums, the issue of ration cards and the two-child norm being imposed by present governments, health issues and the issue of shelter. But somehow the Dalit male is reluctant to abandon his patriarchal notions of control. I am convinced that these issues, deserving as they are, will only get raised if women, Dalit women, come and take command and leadership of the movement."

Congress MP from Gujarat, Praveen Rashtrapal quoted a saying in Gujarati that sums up the attitude towards women in general and which has been internalised by the Dalit community as well. ‘Jar, jameenne, jorhu, Prane kajyancha choru’ (‘Money, land and women are the root of all divisions.’) Gujarat has 23 sub-castes among the Dalits. Except for the lowest among these, the bhangis, the social system is heavily dominated and controlled by the male Dalit.

"Do you know that at most locations where the meetings of the panchayat take place, there will be a khatlo (cot) where only men sit and women will in most cases sit on the floor! Despite entry into the panchayati raj system nearly a decade ago, it is only one or two out of ten Dalit women who manage at the end of the day to articulate their issues, Dalit women’s concerns, at the level of the panchayat’s priorities. The others are simply representatives of their husbands. Among the 22 other sub-castes, it is the paragnawad, a men’s group from the sub–caste who decide every issue from marriage to divorce and other matters."

At a recent public hearing of Dalit women organised by Sahrwaru-Sanchetana, Ahmedabad, in April 2001, many of these issues received attention with a sharp gender focus for the first time in Gujarat.

Worse than any other, it is the focus on gender–related violence against Dalit women at the hands of caste Hindu males (a phenomenon that in the past few decades even Muslim women have had to endure) that is singularly absent among the articulations of the wider Dalit movement. Worse still, it has been virtually ignored by the rest of the Indian women’s movement.

The Dalit woman sarpanch of a village in Gurgaon, Sheeladidi, has had to bear the loss of two sons in their prime (one was picked up by the ‘upper’ castes last year and has ‘disappeared’ since, the other was burnt to death in early 2001) simply because she ‘dared’ to enter the political arena and contest panchayat elections. Gurgaon is an hour’s drive from Delhi but the incident has received no support or solidarity from either a woman’s organisation or political parties who articulate Dalit interests.

Other Dalit women sarpanchs who have battled the barriers of family, community and caste to contest elections on the 33 per cent constitutional reservation for Dalit women have to suffer humiliations by ‘upper’ caste men for daring to hoist the national flag!

The existence and perpetuation of the Devdasi system in different villages of Karnataka and Maharashtra is only a ritualistic stamp for sanctioned prostitution. Detailed documentation of their struggle, collected by the NFDW (to be published soon) records the human rights’ violations of Dalit women because of the perpetuation of this practice as also the widespread protests among Dalit women against the continuation of the practice.

"Thousands of Dalit women from poor and landless peasant families or Devdasis (female ‘servants of god’) have been traced in brothels of Mumbai. The Jogini system in Telangana areas, the Basivi system in Karnataka, the Moti system in Maharashtra are part of the Devdasi system where young girls are dedicated to a female deity like Yellamma," the NFDW manuscript documents.

"Dalit girls thus dedicated to the goddess are sexually abused by priests and visitors to the temples. While the dedication ceremony differs from place to place, often the ‘upper’ caste patron of the ceremony has the privilege of spending the first night with the girl. This system of patronage and sexual exploitation has given way to rank commercialised prostitution. Many Devdasis have been protesting against this system vociferously".

"Most of the Dalits from the village of Yellampura get full employment for only three months of the year (February to April) … Daughters and young women from such families are forced into prostitution. The traditional Devdasi system has given way to the commercialisation of the cult. Of the 84 Devdasis of Yellampura village, 34 were found in urban brothels. Dalit families choose to send the best looking daughter. A beautiful daughter was equivalent to three acres of land." (Jogan Shankar, Devdasi Cult, 1990).

Janki, an elderly Dalit woman forced into prostitution, who had deposed at the early public hearing of the NFDW had astutely remarked, "Nothing can stop prostitution, not police raids, no check-posts on borders, no protective homes like Nari Niketan, not even pensions for widows. Buy freedom for our men; give us land, only land. It is this land, these green fields, which will contain our girls. Nothing else can."

"Rape and molestation are new dimensions of a caste war, used as weapons of reprisal and to crush the morale of a section of the people," Justice PN Bhagwati, former chief justice of the Supreme Court, had stated while addressing the Maharashtra state women’s council. Recent rounds of communal violence in Surat (December 1992) and Bombay (1993), apart from historical accounts of Partition-related gender violence against women of different communities are indicators how gender driven violence has not stopped at Dalit women who alone have borne this humiliation in the past.

The past few years have seen communal violence join, if not replace in intensity, caste driven atrocities against Dalits, men women and children. It is not a coincidence that the Hindutva ideology that fuels communalism is rooted in a Brahmanical and ‘upper’ caste exclusion of India’s religious minorities. Muslim women especially in Surat and Bombay suffered similar kinds of gender violence when their communities were targeted.

This coupled with the designs of Hindutva forces to diffuse caste divisions by making assertions of an ‘all Hindu’ unity against the ‘enemy outsider’ (read Muslims and Christians) have also resulted in some sections of the Dalit community getting communalised.

Muslim women are also subjected to isolation by communal forces who have picked the issue of Muslim personal law reform — especially banning of triple talaaq and polygamy — as sticks to beat the Muslim leadership with.

On both issues of communalism and caste, the Indian women’s movement has revealed sharp schisms reflecting a diffidence to tackle the issues directly. It is within these developments that the growing articulations of Dalit women have found their roots.

Some have gone a step farther to forge an alliance between Dalit women and women of India’s minorities. This is following the realisation that under the specificities of violence and marginalisation of women, all these sections would be subjected to increasing levels of gender–driven violence, targeting and marginalisation. For example, Ruth Manorama who was pivotal in forming Women’s Voice, an organisation of slum dwellers and a domestic worker’s union apart from launching NFDW, has also played an important role in launching the National Alliance of Women (NAWO), an alliance between minority and Dalit women.

The story of Dalit women is the story of a longer history of starvation, of oppression, of gender violence from ‘upper’ caste men. Dalit women’s voices raise life and death concerns like water, food, wages, electricity, education and work. Of denials and continued segregation and oppression within the family by Dalit men. The socio-economic condition of a majority of Muslim women reflects varying but similar predicaments. Bread and butter issues, education for themselves and their girls, security to lives and persons.

Groaning under the burden of triple oppression, rooted in their caste and community realities, sustained articulations from the most marginalised among Indian women could well throw up more challenging issues and approaches for the Indian women’s movement as a whole.

(1) 1991 census data, taken from "Database on Scheduled Caste Literacy in India", Indian Social Institute, New Delhi, 1999.

(2) Fifty–three years after Independence, the deprivation of a long and healthy life (people not expected to survive beyond 40), high levels of adult illiteracy, deprivation in economic provisioning by the percentage of people lacking access to health services and safe water, and social inclusion (employment is one indicator) has put India at a low rank (128 out of 174) in the United Nations Human Development Report, 2000.

Archived from Communalism Combat, May 2001 Year 8  No. 69, Cover Story 1

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