While police have taken three suspects into custody, authorities are yet to disclose their identities or motive. A post-mortem has been conducted, and forensic analysis is underway to determine whether the victim was sexually assaulted. Despite the police’s insistence that they are actively investigating, the family remains critical, alleging that the officers failed to search for the woman properly until her body was discovered by her brother-in-law.

Family’s allegations and harrowing discovery

The victim’s family had reported her missing on Friday, yet the police allegedly failed to launch an immediate search operation. It was her brother-in-law who ultimately found the mutilated body near a canal, just 500 metres from their village. The corpse was found bound with ropes, with multiple deep wounds, a fractured leg, and signs of extreme brutality. The horrific condition of the body left family members and locals in shock, with some fainting at the sight. Despite these gruesome details, local police officials initially remained non-committal, stating that further action would only follow after receiving the post-mortem report. The family and villagers, however, have squarely blamed the authorities for their negligence, stating that a proactive approach could have saved the victim’s life.

Political leaders condemn law enforcement and state government

The case has ignited a political storm, with prominent leaders condemning the state government’s failure to protect Dalits and other marginalised communities. Chandrashekhar Azad, MP from Nagina and president of Azad Samaj Party, staged a protest in front of the BR Ambedkar statue in Parliament, slamming the Uttar Pradesh police for their delayed response. “For three days, there was no action until the family found the body themselves. This shows the utter failure of the system,” he said, adding that under the current government, atrocities against Dalits have become rampant.

Faizabad MP Awadhesh Prasad broke down in tears while addressing the media, expressing his anguish over the brutal crime. In a highly emotional moment, he questioned, “Where are Lord Ram and Mother Sita? How did this happen to a daughter in Ayodhya?” He vowed to resign from his post if justice was not delivered, though his colleagues urged him to fight from within the system.

Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav described the incident as “inhuman,” blaming the ruling BJP for rising atrocities against Dalits, minorities, and backward communities. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi also criticised the government’s inaction, asserting that had the administration responded to the family’s cries for help, the victim’s life might have been saved.

अयोध्या में दलित बेटी के साथ हुई अमानवता और उसकी नृशंस हत्या हृदयविदारक और बहुत शर्मनाक है।

तीन दिनों से गूंजती बच्ची के परिवार के मदद की पुकार पर अगर प्रशासन ने ध्यान दिया होता तो शायद उसके जीवन की रक्षा हो सकती थी। एक और बेटी के जीवन का इस घिनौने अपराध से अंत हो गया। आखिर कब… pic.twitter.com/25SRfkA3a2

— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) February 2, 2025

Priyanka Gandhi echoed similar sentiments, condemning the police for their indifference and calling the UP government synonymous with Dalit oppression.

अयोध्या में भागवत कथा सुनने गई एक दलित बच्ची के साथ जिस तरह की बर्बरता हुई, उसे सुनकर किसी भी इंसान की रूह कांप जाए। ऐसी क्रूर घटनाएं समूची मानवता को शर्मसार करती हैं। बच्ची तीन दिन से गायब थी लेकिन पुलिस ने कुछ नहीं किया। भाजपा के जंगलराज में दलितों, आदिवासियों, पिछड़ों और…

— Priyanka Gandhi Vadra (@priyankagandhi) February 2, 2025

Police response and conflicting claims

As the outrage mounted, the Ayodhya police attempted to push back against the allegations. Senior Superintendent of Police (Ayodhya) Raj Karan Nayyer stated that the post-mortem indicated that the cause of death was “shock and haemorrhage due to ante-mortem injuries.” He denied claims that the woman’s eyes had been gouged out, attributing the post-mortem injuries to the body being dumped elsewhere before being discovered near the canal. While he acknowledged that “strong clues” had been found and “key suspects” detained, the police’s initial inaction remains a glaring issue.

Despite these claims, the family maintains that the police failed to search for the victim and only responded after public pressure mounted. The administration’s handling of the case has reinforced the perception that crimes against Dalits are often met with indifference, exacerbating fears of systemic caste-based violence.

A pattern of impunity and injustice

This incident is yet another addition to a long list of brutal crimes against Dalit women in Uttar Pradesh, where justice is often delayed or denied. The state government’s failure to ensure safety, combined with police apathy, has further eroded trust in law enforcement. The outpouring of grief and anger from citizens and political leaders highlights the deep-rooted caste-based discrimination that continues to enable such crimes.

As the investigation continues, the crucial question remains—will this be yet another case where perpetrators walk free due to political and institutional protection, or will the state finally act decisively to bring justice to the victim and her family? The people of Uttar Pradesh, particularly its Dalit community, are watching closely.

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The post Ayodhya’s shocking crime: Dalit woman found dead, allegations of sexual violence, police accused of delay appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Baghpat, Uttar Pradesh

In UP’s Baghpat area, an 18-year-old Dalit woman was subjected to a horrifying act of violence, according to the Indian Express. According to the Indian Express, the woman had been protesting sexual harassment that she had faced. However, after she did this the owner of the oil mill where she would work came to her, along with two other people, and pushed her into a cauldron of scalding hot oil earlier this month. As her injuries were too severe, she had to be transferred immediately to a hospital in New Delhi. The police has thus far arrested three suspects and have invoked charges under the Indian Penal Code section 307 (attempt to murder) and other sections of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The case was filed in response to a formal complaint filed by the woman’s brother, according to a report by the Indian Express.

Chennai, Tamil Nadu

In Chennali, Tamil Nadu, an 18-year-old Dalit domestic worker has come forward with allegations of abuse, assault, and torture at the hands of a man named Antho Mathivanan, who is the son of DMK MLA I Karunanithi. The victim has submitted a complaint to the Tamil Nadu Director General of Police detailing the torture and abuse she has reportedly undergone. In response, Chennai police have taken action by invoking the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against the son and daughter-in-law of the DMK MLA.  The survivor also revealed that, despite the promise of a monthly salary of ₹16,000, she was only provided with ₹5000.  She was a NEET aspirant but due to her financial constraints, she was forced to work as a domestic worker.

Patna, Bihar

According to India Today, in the Hinduni Badhar region of Patna, Bihar, two Mahadalit minor girls kidnapped and brutally raped. One of the victims succumbed to her severe injuries, while the other is currently fighting for her life at AIIMS in Patna.

According to the families, both girls had gone out together one day as usual to collect cow dung cakes for fuel but as time went on, they failed to return home. A relative of one of the victims reported that locals discovered the lifeless body of one of the two missing children the following day after which the Phulwari Sharif police was informed.

According to the report, the sub-divisional police officer Vikram Sihag has stated, “Two minors went missing on Monday. Early on Tuesday morning, Phulwari Sharif police station received information on the missing girls, of which, one was found dead.” 

Bettiyah, Bihar

According to The Mooknayak, in Bihar’s Gopalganj area two Dalit women were reportedly assaulted for trying to get drinking water from a hand pump situated within the premises of a local temple. Following this, they were subjected to an assault and were subjected to humiliating caste slurs. The incident was brought to light by The Mooknayak, occurred in Dukhi Chhapar village on January 2nd. The report details that one morning, one Kishanavati Devi along with Sugandhi Devi, was going to a relative’s house when the need for water arose. The two women then went into the Bhaisahwa temple to find water. However, they were prevented by the temple’s caretaker Kariman Yadav, who hurled insults at the two of them.  In response to this act, both victims have filed a complaint under the SC/ST Act at the local police station.

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The post January 2024: Alarming surge in attacks targeting Dalit women appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Her family has refused to accept her body from Rajaji Hospital on Sunday. There was a dispute between the couple and they were living separately. “When she returned to the house on Saturday, another quarrel broke out following which Sathishkumar attacked his wife with a wooden log. Ramya died on the spot and the body was shifted to Government Rajaji Hospital for postmortem,” the police told TNIE.

A complaint has been filed by the victim’s father and alleged that Sathishkumar had asked their daughter to abort the baby due to her caste. The parents of the accused were also arrested and booked for murder and under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

A senior police officer told TNIE that the accused is not mentally stable and that murder was a result of marital dispute.

Related:

UP: Five days after attack on father of Dalit gang rape survivor, two infants and survivor set on fire at home by gang-rape suspects

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Anti-Dalit violence all pervasive even in April 2023, #DalitHistory month

The post Dalit woman allegedly murdered by Hindu husband in Madurai appeared first on SabrangIndia.

— Dr. B. R. Ambedkar

In a harrowing incident, two infants suffered serious burn injuries after two gang-rape accused out on bail set fire to the 11-year-old Dalit rape survivor’s house in Uttar Pradesh’s Unnao district. The incident happened on February 13, 2022, when the men gang-raped the minor girl. One of the infants who was injured was the victim’s six-month-old son, who was conceived during the assault, and the other was her two-month-old sister.

According to PTI, a group of men led by the two rape suspects burned down the survivor’s home and beat up her mother after she refused to withdraw her complaint against them. Said chief medical superintendent Sushil Srivastava, the rape survivor’s infant son received 35% burns on his body while her sister received 45% burns in the incident. The two injured infants are fighting for their lives in Kanpur hospital.

Other media reports detailed how a “thorough investigation”  into the incident is underway, and the Uttar Pradesh Police is looking into others named in the FIR.

It is crucial to note here that this is not the first attack on the victim’s family as a result of their refusal to drop the rape case. On April 13, five days before setting fire to the house, the survivor’s father was attacked with an axe by her grandfather and uncle, who had sided with the accused, along with four other people. The police allegedly took no action despite the father’s identification of the men involved in the attack on him. In a video of her father, he can be heard saying that he complained to the police, but they did nothing. The family has accused the local police of protecting the accused. The mother of the survivor has also claimed that their home was purposefully set on fire in order to kill her daughter’s infant son.

The post regarding the news can be read here:

This incident comes just a day after the Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath had boasted of the law and order situation in the state, saying, “UP guarantees you (businessmen) the best law and order situation.” But, not all is okay in Uttar Pradesh, and has never been for the Dalit community, especially for the Dalit women. Prior to this, in the year 2017, Adityanath had also claimed that Dalits, farmers and the poor are the government’s priority. 

The situation of caste and gender-based atrocities against Dalit women in India

For most Dalit women, the reality of caste-based gender violence is perpetual, persistent and constant. In the year 2020, the chief minister had launched ‘Mission Shakti’ campaign which promised ‘zero tolerance’ towards crimes against women. However, during the same year of 2020, 604 cases of rape of Dalit women were registered in Uttar Pradesh. Of them, 122 victims were minors, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau. It is also to be noted that in 2019, there were 545 cases of rape in UP in which victims were Dalit women, and 526 in 2018, which means, that as the years have progressed, gender and caste based atrocities faced by Dalit women have only increased. And yet, according to the Chief Minister of the state, all remains well.

But, these atrocities and discrimination faced by the Dalit survivors and families do not end at the commission of the crime. India is failing to fulfill its legal and moral responsibilities to protect Dalit women and girls from sexual violence. Survivors and their families frequently face multiple obstacles to justice, and these common impediments highlight the systemic nature of discrimination faced by Dalit communities in India’s criminal justice system and wider society. The condition has become so dire that instead of fearing the consequences of committing a crime against human body, perpetrators are well aware that if they commit crimes against Dalit community members, they will face far less punishment because crimes are rarely investigated or prosecuted. And in cases where the perpetrators belong to the dominant class, the chances of the authorities siding with the accused are higher than the case ever reaching a conviction.

It is to be noted that the conviction rates remain abysmally low for the small proportion of sexual violence assaults that India’s criminal court system does prosecute. According to the National Crime Records Bureau’s latest data, there was a 45 percent increase in reported rapes of Dalit women between 2015 and 2020. The data said 10 rapes of Dalit women and girls were reported every day in India, on average. According to the National Family Health Survey 2015-2016, sexual violence rates were highest among women from Scheduled Tribes (Adivasi or Indigenous Indians) at 7.8 percent, followed by Scheduled Castes (Dalit) at 7.3 percent, and Otherwise Backward Castes (OBCs) at 5.4 percent. For the sake of comparison, as per the data, the rate for women who were not marginalised by caste or tribe was 4.5 percent.

According to studies, the vast majority of rapes against Dalit women go unreported. Common barriers include a lack of family support and police reluctance to register complaints against upper caste men. The legal and judicial systems are inaccessible to many Dalit women. Furthermore, those Dalit women who want to file police complaints frequently face difficulties. Collecting evidence and witness testimony is even more difficult. Police are slow to register complaints, investigations into Dalit women are frequently delayed, and officials frequently deny that a rape had even occurred.

According to a Human Rights Watch report, if a case is filed, the woman will face new challenges before a judge “whose gender biases and caste affiliations can greatly influence the judgment in the case.” Additionally, fearing the retaliation from perpetrators, who are frequently in positions of relative power in the community and belong to the dominant caste, witnesses rarely agree to come forward to testify or corroborate the victim’s statement. In rare cases that they do, incidents similar to the aforementioned happen.

On March 15, 2021, a parliamentary standing committee on Home Affairs report on ‘Atrocities and Crimes against Women and Children’ was presented in the Rajya Sabha. According to the report, it was held that Dalit women faced difficulties in filing atrocity cases against them due to “poor implementation of existing laws and the apathetic attitude of law enforcement agencies.”

According to the National Council for Women Leaders, who published a report titled ‘Caste-based Sexual Violence and State Impunity,’ caste becomes a critical factor in how sexual violence survivors access justice. According to the report, even if a FIR is filed, the accused or his family threatens the woman or her family with further violence if they refuse to drop the case. Many survivors and their families also struggled to keep track of lengthy investigations and trials. Furthermore, institutions dealing with the cases, such as hospitals, frequently violated established investigation protocols.

According to the NCWL report, caste-based attitudes and discrimination pervade the entire law enforcement and criminal justice system, including the police, medical officials, prosecutors, and judges, and these attitudes impede Dalit women and girls’ access to justice. It is important to note that under the  Scheduled Caste & Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (PoA Act), the Indian legal system has special provisions for crimes committed against people marginalised by caste and tribe, including state support and special courts to streamline cases filed under the law. However, in order for cases to be tried under the law, survivors must first report the crimes to the police, after which an investigation takes place, and only then is the case brought to trial. As per the NCWL report, access to justice is limited for women from less privileged castes, particularly in rural areas, at each stage.

The authorities’ reluctance to include appropriate provisions under the Scheduled Caste & Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act weakens the survivor’s case. It should be noted that there is no provision for anticipatory bail under the POA Act, and the quantum of punishment in the event of conviction is higher. In 15 percent of the cases where survivors or families of victims were able to get an FIR registered, justice was stalled due to the police not including applicable provisions of the PoA Act. It is crucial to highlight here that in the aforementioned case, the rape accused hate gotten bail even after having raped a minor Dalit girl. Since the PoA act does not allow for bails to be granted the accused, it can fairly be deduced that the perpetrators had not be booked under the PoA act.

This case highlights the terrifying impunity that dominant caste rapists enjoy in India, as well as the criminal justice system’s failure to provide justice to marginalised community survivors. It is a major betrayal of the justice system’s promise to hold criminals accountable and to provide a safe haven for women in the country. This tragic Unnao case reaffirms Dalit women’s complete powerlessness in the criminal justice system and serves as yet another cautionary tale for women considering approaching the police or the courts for redress against violence. Despite the hashtags and outrage surrounding the Hathras case, sexual violence against Dalit women is not a new phenomenon.

Provisions under PoA Act for providing protection to the kins of the survivor

It is essential to highlight here that in addition to the above-mentioned protections provided to the victims of caste-based crimes under the PoA Act, the act also provides for granting protection to the family of the survivor. These provisions guaranteeing protection to the families of the survivor are owning to the atrocities, hatred and oppression faced by the marginalised communities at the hands of the dominant communities for having had the audacity to rise against them. The provisions are as follows:

Section 15A. Rights of victims and witnesses—

(1) It shall be the duty and responsibility of the State to make arrangements for the protection of victims, their dependents, and witnesses against any kind of intimidation or coercion or inducement or violence or threats of violence

(3) A victim or his dependent shall have the right to reasonable, accurate, and timely notice of any Court proceeding including any bail proceeding and the Special Public Prosecutor or the State Government shall inform the victim about any proceedings under this Act.

(4) A victim or his dependent shall have the right to apply to the Special Court or the Exclusive Special Court, as the case may be, to summon parties for production of any documents or material, witnesses or examine the persons present.

(5) A victim or his dependent shall be entitled to be heard at any proceeding under this Act in respect of bail, discharge, release, parole, conviction or sentence of an accused or any connected proceedings or arguments and file written submission on conviction, acquittal or sentencing.

(6) Notwithstanding anything contained in the Code of Criminal Procedure,1973 (2 of 1974), the Special Court or the Exclusive Special Court trying a case under this Act shall provide to a victim, his dependent, informant or witnesses–

(a) the complete protection to secure the ends of justice;

(b) the travelling and maintenance expenses during investigation, inquiry and trial;

(c) the social-economic rehabilitation during investigation, inquiry and trial; and

(d) relocation

(7) The State shall inform the concerned Special Court or the Exclusive Special Court about the protection provided to any victim or his dependent, informant or witnesses and such Court shall periodically review the protection being offered and pass appropriate orders.

(8) Without prejudice to the generality of the provisions of sub-section (6), the concerned Special Court or the Exclusive Special Court may, on an application made by a victim or his dependent, informant or witness in any proceedings before it or by the Special Public Prosecutor in relation to such victim, informant or witness or on its own motion, take such measures including–

(a) concealing the names and addresses of the witnesses in its orders or judgments or in any records of the case accessible to the public;

(b) issuing directions for non-disclosure of the identity and addresses of the witnesses;

(c) take immediate action in respect of any complaint relating to harassment of a victim, informant or witness and on the same day, if necessary, pass appropriate orders for protection:

Provided that inquiry or investigation into the complaint received under clause (c) shall be tried separately from the main case by such Court and concluded within a period of two months from the date of receipt of the complaint:

Provided further that where the complaint under clause (c) is against any public servant, the Court shall restrain such public servant from interfering with the victim, informant or witness, as the case may be, in any matter related or unrelated to the pending case, except with the permission of the Court.

(9) It shall be the duty of the Investigating Officer and the Station House Officer to record the complaint of victim, informant or witnesses against any kind of intimidation, coercion or inducement or violence or threats of violence, whether given orally or in writing, and a photocopy of the First Information Report shall be immediately given to them at free of cost.

(10) All proceedings relating to offences under this Act shall be video recorded.

(11) It shall be the duty of the concerned State to specify an appropriate scheme to ensure implementation of the following rights and entitlements of victims and witnesses in accessing justice so as–

(a) to provide a copy of the recorded First Information Report at free of cost;

(b) to provide immediate relief in cash or in kind to atrocity victims or their dependents;

(c) to provide necessary protection to the atrocity victims or their dependents, and witnesses;

(d) to provide relief in respect of death or injury or damage to property;

(e) to arrange food or water or clothing or shelter or medical aid or transport facilities or daily allowances to victims;

(f) to provide the maintenance expenses to the atrocity victims and their dependents;

(g) to provide the information about the rights of atrocity victims at the time of making complaints and registering the First Information Report;

(h) to provide the protection to atrocity victims or their dependents and witnesses from intimidation and harassment;

(i) to provide the information to atrocity victims or their dependents or associated organisations or individuals, on the status of investigation and charge sheet and to provide copy of the charge sheet at free of cost;

(j) to take necessary precautions at the time of medical examination;

(k) to provide information to atrocity victims or their dependents or associated organisations or individuals, regarding the relief amount;

(l) to provide information to atrocity victims or their dependents or associated organisations or individuals, in advance about the dates and place of investigation and trial;

(m) to give adequate briefing on the case and preparation for trial to atrocity victims or their dependents or associated organisations or individuals and to provide the legal aid for the said purpose;

(n) to execute the rights of atrocity victims or their dependents or associated organisations or individuals at every stage of the proceedings under this Act and to provide the necessary assistance for the execution of the rights.

(12) It shall be the right of the atrocity victims or their dependents, to take assistance from the Non-Government Organisations, social workers or advocates.]

Section 21. Duty of Government to ensure effective implementation of the Act.

(1) Subject to such rules as the Central Government may make in this behalf, the State Government shall take such measures as may be necessary for the effective implementation of this Act.

(2) In particular, and without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing provisions, such measures may include,–

(i) the provision for adequate facilities, including legal aid, to the persons subjected to atrocities to enable them to avail themselves of justice;

(ii) the provision for travelling and maintenance expenses to witnesses, including the victims of atrocities, during investigation and trial of offences under this Act;

(iii) the provision for the economic and social rehabilitation of the victims of the atrocities;

(iv) the appointment of officers for initiating or exercising supervision over prosecutions for the contravention of the provisions of this Act;

(v) the setting up of committees at such appropriate levels as the State Government may think fit to assist that Government in formulation or implementation of such measures;

(vi) provision for a periodic survey of the working of the provisions of this Act with a view to suggesting measures for the better implementation of the provision of this Act;

(vii) the identification of the areas where the members of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes are likely to be subjected to atrocities and adoption of such measures so as to ensure safety for such members.

(3) The Central Government shall take such steps as may be necessary to co-ordinate the measures taken by the State Governments under sub-section (1).

(4) The Central Government shall, every year, place on the table of each House of Parliament a report on the measures taken by itself and by the State Governments in pursuance of the provisions of this section.

These provisions are not talked about, and the marginalised community often remain unaware about them. The most recent instance where the family of the Dalit victim was provided police protect was that of the Hathras Rape Case. In the case of the alleged gang-rape and murder of a 20-year-old woman in Hathras in Uttar Pradesh, the Supreme Court bench comprising the then Chief Justice of India S A Bobde and Justices A S Bopanna and V Ramasubramanian had asked the UP state government if witnesses in the case had been provided protection and if the family of the victim had a lawyer. In a compliance affidavit filed in the top court, the Yogi Adityanath-led government said “in order to ensure the security of victim’s family/witnesses, three-fold protection mechanism has been devised” — armed constabulary component, civil police component comprising of guard, gunners and shadows and installation of CCTV cameras and lights.

It is unfortunate that, despite laws aimed at protecting the rights of individuals from the marginalised community, the situation continues to deteriorate and is becoming worse. These laws, designed to protect human rights, remain out of reach, continuing to be on paper while the perpetrators escape. Even after these crimes are committed openly and visibly, the state and parts of society in India conspire to downplay or erase the links between sexual violence and caste hierarchies. Today, as more Dalit women dare to stand up to caste oppression, the backlash appears to be more brutal than ever. It is the responsibility of the state and its agencies, as well as the citizens, to ensure that the perpetrators of these crimes are brought to justice. It is critical that, in the face of a consistent pattern of families of Dalit victims and rape survivors facing backlash, human rights and Dalit rights defenders hold consistent protests so that the state is held accountable to providing the police protection guaranteed under laws to the families of the victims, in addition to the other legal provisions available for safeguarding the Dalit community’s rights.

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The post UP: Five days after attack on father of Dalit gang rape survivor, two infants and survivor set on fire at home by gang-rape suspects appeared first on SabrangIndia.

On February 13, a mother and her daughter were burnt alive during an encroachment clearing drive in Dehat village of Kanpur; the incident that killed a 44-year-old mother and her 21-year-old daughter had triggered massive tension between police and the villagers. A few days earlier, on February 7, in Karnataka’s Koppal district, a Dalit woman was beaten with slippers and abused by an upper-caste man when she entered his property to get her cow back. The animal had apparently strayed inside the man’s land. Early in January, a thirty-year-old Adivasi woman belonging to the Oraon tribe was allegedly raped and killed by forest department officials in Bihar’s Rohtas district while she was gathering firewood in a forested area near Rohtasgarh Fort. Not long ago, the photos of over one hundred Muslim women, including journalists and activists, were displayed on an app saying they were for sale, to humiliate and intimidate them. In September 2020, the gang-rape of a 19-year-old Dalit girl in Hathras UP tore at the conscience of the nation. Sadly, a few days ago on March 2, a court in UP acquitted three of the four accused men; the fourth was found guilty only of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and under sections of the SC/ST Act but not of rape!

All these heinous crimes against women were reported by some media, in a matter-of-fact way, as though such violations are expected. The tragedy is that these incidents are not one-offs; they are representative of a systemic wrong that exists in a highly patriarchal society, structured on caste, which thrives on a chauvinistic mind-set. According to a 2018 survey by the prestigious Thomson Reuters Foundation, India is the most dangerous country for sexual violence against women. The status of women in India is abysmal: the World Economic Forum (WEF) ranked India at 135 out of 146 countries in its Global Gender Gap (GGG) Index for 2022. India’s National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB)  in its latest report shows that, crime against women rose by 15.3 per cent in 2021 from the previous year, with 4,28,278 cases registered last year following 3,71,503 cases in 2020. The NCRB report also shows that the rate of crime against women (number of incidents per 1 lakh population) increased from 56.5 per cent in 2020 to 64.5 per cent in 2021. All this is certainly a crying shame for a country, which today holds the Presidency of the G-20, and is also desperately trying to propel itself to be the world leader- with plenty of cover-ups and cosmetics!

As another International Women’s Day (IWD) dawns, there will be the usual round of cosmetic programmes, the plethora of speeches reeking in tokenism; male speaker after speaker will wax eloquent with that typically patronising attitude towards women. The sad and cruel reality is that precious little seems to change. In India, most women continue to be condemned to live as second-class citizens in patriarchal and male-dominated societies. Male domination continues in all the major religions!

Interestingly the campaign theme for IWD 2023 and beyond is to #EmbraceEquity. The concept notes states that, “Equity isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have. A focus on gender equity needs to be part of every society’s DNA…Equity means creating an inclusive world…Each one of us can actively support and embrace equity within our own sphere of influence…. We can all challenge gender stereotypes, call out discrimination, draw attention to bias, and seek out inclusion. Collective activism is what drives change. From grassroots action to wide-scale momentum, we can all embrace equity. Forging gender equity isn’t limited to women solely fighting the good fight. Allies are incredibly important for the social, economic, cultural, and political advancement of women…. Everyone everywhere can play a part”.

Significantly, February 14 was also the anniversary of the ‘One Billion Rising’ movement. It is the biggest mass action to end violence against women (cisgender, transgender, and those who hold fluid identities that are subject to gender-based violence) in human history. The campaign, which launched on Valentine’s Day 2012, began as a call to action based on the staggering statistic that 1 in 3 women on the planet will be beaten or raped during her lifetime. With the world population at 7 billion, this adds up to more than one billion women and girls. The Theme of the campaign for 2023 is ‘Rise for Freedom’. The campaign states that, “this year we call on the world to rise for freedom. freedom from patriarchy and from all its progeny…. capitalism, impunity, poverty, oppression, division, exploitation, shame, control, individualism, greed, violence…and in this rising…create the new culture.”

True there have been (and are) several women who have had the courage to embrace equity and to create this new culture. The list is endless but includes the likes of Savitribai Phule, widely regarded as the country’s first woman teacher. She died on March 10, 1897.She is credited with laying the foundation of education opportunities for women in India and played a major role in the struggle for women’s rights in the country during the British rule. She was a poet too; her poems were against discrimination and of the need for education. For most of her life, she campaigned vigorously against untouchability, the tradition of sati, child marriage and other social evils, which affect women. In one of her poems she writes, “end misery of the oppressed and forsaken…break the chains of caste.” Along with her was Fatima Sheikh who was India’s first female Muslim teacher Together Savitribai and Fatima spearheaded an educational revolution in the 1800s. Fatima Sheikh played an essential role in starting the country’s first girls’ school. In 1848, Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule were asked to leave their home due to their anti-Brahmanical views. At that time, educating women and the lower caste was considered a sin. Along with her brother, Usman Sheikh, Fatima Sheikh gave refuge to them and started the school from the same building. Sheikh even undertook a teacher’s training course along with Phule to assist her in managing the educational institution.

In our midst today, we have Justice B V Nagarathna who is making waves in the Supreme Court!  Recently, she pronounced two dissenting judgements; both were verdicts of 4:1. The other four who opined were all male judges! Justice Nagarathna has however been unflinching and undeterred: her views have certainly not gone unnoticed Both the print and the electronic media (including the majority pro- establishment ones ) have provided the space and given the necessary coverage to her views There are several editorials and op-eds singing paeans to her judgements – with legal luminaries, academics and other intellectuals vying with each other to critique her judgements and at the same time provide grist to the mill. The Supreme Court is still a male bastion. Being a lone woman on a bench with four other men, is perhaps not very easy. It requires grit and determination to think differently!  Justice BV Nagarathna has undoubtedly proved that her ability to stand up to men who call the shots, is no flash- in- the- pan! She already seems to have broken the glass ceiling!

Then we have the horrendous tragedy of twenty-one years ago, which engulfed Gujarat.  Bilkis Bano experienced it all. Following the burning of the S-6 compartment and tragic death of 59 persons (mainly ‘kar sevaks’) on February 27, 2002, all hell broke loose, the next day, in several parts of Gujarat. Sensing trouble, a group of seventeen persons fled their native village of Radhikpur in Dahod district. The group comprised Bilkis, her three-year-old daughter Saleha, her mother and fourteen others. They took refuge in another village Chhaparvad hoping they would be safe there. On March 3, however, they were attacked by about 20-30 people armed with sickles, swords, and sticks. Among the attackers were the eleven accused men, just set free. Bilkis, her mother, and three other women were raped and brutally assaulted. Of the seventeen Muslims, eight were found dead, six were missing. Only Bilkis, a man, and a three-year-old child survived the attack. Bilkis was unconscious for at least three hours; after she regained consciousness, she borrowed clothes from an Adivasi woman made her way to the Limkheda police station to register a complaint. The Head Constable there, according to the CBI, “suppressed material facts and wrote a distorted and truncated version of Bilkis’ complaint”.

Bilkis has relived the horror of that tragedy several times over as she unwaveringly narrates the brutality, she was subject too. In great pain she says, “All the 4 men of my family were killed brutally. The women were stripped naked and raped by many men. They caught me top. My 3-year-old daughter, Saleha, was in my arms. They snatched her and threw her into the air with all their might. My heart broke as her little head shattered on the rocks. Four men caught me by the arms and legs and many others entered me one by one. When satisfying their lust, they kicked me and beat my head with a rod. Assuming that I was dead they threw me into the bushes. Four or five hours later I regained my consciousness. I searched for some rags to cover my body, but couldn’t find any. I spent a day and a half on a hilltop without food or water. I longed for death. Finally, I managed to find a tribal colony. Declaring myself as a Hindu I sought shelter there. The men who attacked us used foul language; I can’t repeat it ever. In front of me they killed my mother, sister and 12 other relatives. While raping and killing us, they were shouting sexual abuses. I could not even tell them that I was five months pregnant because their feet were on my mouth and neck. I have known the men who raped me for many years. We sold them milk. They were our customers. If they had any shame, they would not have done this to me. How can I forgive them?”

Her dogged and relentless pursuit for justice ensured that eleven of the perpetrators of this dastardly crime were sentenced to life imprisonment. In a clear travesty of justice on August 15, 2022, they were all given remission to their sentence and set free! Bilkis’ struggle still continues: as she fights so that these criminals are sent back to jail. In a public statement on August 17, 2022, she said “Two days ago on August 15, 2022 the trauma of the past 20 years washed over me again. When I heard that the 11 convicted men who devastated my family and my life, and took from me my 3-year-old daughter, had walked free, I was bereft of words. I am still numb. Today I can only say this- how can justice for any woman end like this? I trusted the highest courts in our land. I trusted the system, and I was learning slowly to live with my trauma. The release of these convicts has taken from me my peace and shaken my faith in justice. My sorrow and my wavering faith is not for myself alone but for every woman who is struggling for justice in courts. No one enquired about my safety and well-being, before taking such a big and unjust decision. I appeal to the Gujarat Government, please undo this harm. Give me back my right to live without fear and in peace. Please ensure that my family and I are kept safe”. Blikis continues to wait for justice!

It has not been easy for Savitribai and Fatima, for Nagarathna and Bilkis and for several other women who have dared the system and worked towards change! These are women who have risen against all odds, ploughed the lonely path and courageously decided to embrace equity. These epitomise the immortal words of Maya Angelou, the American civil rights activist and poet:

Out of the huts of history’s sham, I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain, I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear, I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear, I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave, I rise!

Yes, Women and Men too, must Arise Now and Embrace Equity!

(Authored on March 6, 2023 by the writer, a a human rights, reconciliation and peace activist/writer)

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Thrice Oppressed, is a reasoned term for Dalit and Muslim women, burdened as they are with caste oppression, economic hurdles and the overarching burden of patriarchy.

With all the accused in the Hathras gang rape case were acquitted on charges of rape, (only one convicted for culpable homicide not amounting to murder) the discourse on sexual violence and caste discrimination especially faced by Dalit women is both germane and timely. An apt focus for International Women’s Day?

While women’s day brings out the happy emogis and businesses capitalise on the day as a celebration offering “women’s special” offers, little does one talk about the harsh realities that plague everyday lives of the thrice oppressed Dalit women. What a Dalit woman needs is justice, dignity at par with any other woman, equal opportunities, safeguarding of her rights by not just the courts but law enforcement agencies as well. This, with dignified social status that actually treats her as equal.

2023 and the life and struggles of the Dalit woman deserves special scrutiny. Intrepid articulations and struggles have brought issues to the fore but how have institutions of Indian democracy deepened their understanding of this triple oppression and responded? We are in the 75^th year of independence; yet every day reports of Dalit women being assaulted, raped, killed, ostracised dot the socio-political landscape; basically, stripped off her dignity, not just by virtue of being a woman but by virtue of being a Dalit too.

The particular brand of targeted indignity and oppression faced by a Dalit woman is a show of casteist power directed not just against her gender but also her caste. Privileged castes, both men and women are often the agents of such oppression and whoever views this only from the lens of gender power struggle remains limited (even ignorant) of the visible pattern of systemic caste oppression that Dalits face in their daily lives. This is reflected in not just incidents where the privileged caste to establish their hegemony rape a Dalit woman and maim her but also when a Dalit woman is beaten up for demanding entry into workspaces, a field, leave alone a temple.

The figures revealed by the National Crime Records Bureau’s (NCRB) annual reports on Crimes in India are stark. There has been a 45% increase in reported rapes on Dalit women between 2015 and 2020. On an average 10 rapes of Dalit women are reported daily. According to the National Family Health Survey 2015-2016, sexual violence rates were highest among women from Scheduled Tribes (Adivasi or Indigenous Indians) at 7.8 percent, followed by Scheduled Castes (Dalits) at 7.3 percent, and Otherwise Backward Castes (OBCs) at 5.4 percent. For comparison’s sake, the rate was 4.5 percent for women who were not marginalised by caste or tribe (reported by Al Jazeera).

Is justice then easier for a woman from a more dominant caste in the case of brute gendered assault and violence? The recent acquittals in the 2020 Hathras case, that had then generated outrage are latest example of this hierarchal impunity. The refusal and failure of the authorities at every stage, be it police (law enforcement) or the courts to acknowledge that a crime such as the Hathras gang rape against a Dalit woman are endemic to prevalent caste attitudes and structural oppression; or that Dalit women are fair game for men from the dominant castes exacerbates the problem.   Here, four men from dominant castes gang raped a 19-year-old girl in the fields and despite, her dying testimony to the magistrate, naming the accused and asserting that she was raped by them, the court has acquitted all four accused of rape charges, while only convicting one man for culpable homicide not amounting to murder. This, despite the strangulation marks around her neck that were mentioned in the forensics report. Rape of the young girl was not the only issue in this case. It was also the lack of dignity given to the victim and her family in her hasty and dubious cremation, delay of over a week in collecting swab samples that could have medically proved rape, delay in taking her to the hospital after the incident was discovered and now ultimately in the court finding the perpetrators not guilty of rape. After the verdict, the victim’s brother told The Print, “This is all politics. Had this happened if we weren’t Dalits and they weren’t Thakurs? We have spent our lives in a cage since then. Our women, daughters had to be always guarded. Now what will they do? If anything happens, then who is responsible.”

While the Hathras case received much attention from the media there are several such cases where the criminal justice system right from the local police officer to the courts of law that have failed a Dalit woman facing oppression. In November 2022, while a Dalit woman (from Handia area of Prayagraj district, UP) had filed a case of rape against the Block Pramukh and his three friends in 2019, she claimed that she was receiving threats from the accused and was being pressured to withdraw the case.

Another report came in the same month whereby Dalit groups in Rajasthan alleged dereliction of duty by a Station House Officer (SHO) in Rajasthan. It was alleged that the SHO, Kitab Devi tried to protect the accused, Jai Singh Gujjar booked for rape of a minor Dalit girl and event tried to destroy evidence at the scene of the crime, reported The Hindu.

In May 2022, in Prayagraj’s Lalitpur in UP, an FIR was lodged against an SHO for allegedly raping a Dalit girl who had come to him to file a complaint against four youths who had allegedly kidnapped and gangraped her.

Dalit women face a lifelong chain of crimes

“Violence, including rape and gang rape, have been systematically utilised as weapons by dominant castes to oppress Dalit women and girls and reinforce structural gender and caste hierarchies,” states a new report by Equality Now, a global non-profit which promotes women’s rights, and Swabhiman Society, a Dalit-led grassroots organisation in India. “In the northern state of Haryana, where Dalit make up around one-fifth of the state’s population, a deeply-rooted caste-based and patriarchal society still flourishes. There are high rates of violence against women — data from the National Crime Records Bureau in 2018 indicates that nearly 4 women are raped every day in this state alone,” the report states.

“People think rape is a single crime. But for Dalit rape victims, it’s just the beginning of a lifelong chain of crimes and struggles: mental abuse, fear, intimidation, threats, denial of basic rights, denial of education and a decent livelihood — the list is very long. In fact, once you are raped, you stay a victim all through your life,” said Manisha Mashaal, founder of Swabhiman Society.

Raping Dalits is a tool to silence a community when they are trying to access other fundamental rights, said Beena Pallical from the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR)—a coalition of Dalit rights activists and academics. “It is a conscious decision to push Dalits further to the margins. Following a rape, a family is intimidated. In most cases, the girl loses access to education, and the family its livelihood opportunities,” she said while speaking to Article14.

The laws exist on paper

Despite a legal framework on paper, the on-ground reality ensures that justice eludes Dalit women. While the Constitution protects Dalits under Article 14 (right to equality before law), Article 15 (rights against discrimination on basis of caste etc), Article 17 (abolition of untouchability), there are also special laws that prescribe strict action if a crime is committed against Dalits. There are enhanced punishments under the SC/ST Act if sexual violence is committed against a Dalit woman and the Act also states that all cases need to investigated by a Deputy Superintendent of Police level officer at least.

A Dalit convert woman

A Dalit woman, if she is converted out of Hindu religion does not even get the benefit of the tag of being a Dalit in the eyes of the government and the law yet, continues to faces social oppression owing to her caste that she continues to carry on her shoulders as the society would always see her as a Dalit. This further intensifies her struggle to find agency to voice the oppression she must be facing. That not only makes her a religious minority, but also a Dalit and a woman. In the eyes of law, she is not a Dalit woman deserving protection under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

To chronicle sexual crimes against Dalit women is not the intention of this piece, but to bring to the reader’s attention that while women have it hard maneuvering through the criminal justice system in cases of sexual assault, in general, for Dalit women this is much worse. The instances mentioned here are just a tiny tip of the iceberg and such similar incidents are reported year on year, day to day. Structures of law enforcement have just not been not sensitised to law and the socio-political reality enough, they carry their caste prejudices with the badges of their uniform. Even courts are willfully ignorant of issues of institutionalised and structural caste oppression, largely because they are, even 75 years down, dominated by more privileged elites. Diversity within law enforcement and the echelons of the criminal justice system, ensured by creative affirmative action is the need of the hour to enable our system to respond to the real-life layered oppressions faced by all women, and especially Dalit women.

Related:

Dalit and Muslim women grapple with the triple burden of caste- community, class and gender

Dalits and Adivasis suffered violence and discrimination even in 2021

Internationalising Caste

Appeal verdict AIDWA demands of CBI

Dozens injured as Dalits denied entry into Shiv temple in MP

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Seema and her husband did quite well when they first opened a samosa stall in the local market of a town in Bihar state, northeastern India.

But then other vendors found out who Seema was.

They yelled at her customers for buying her samosas. They threatened her husband for “polluting” the market by selling food prepared by her. She put up with it for months before giving up.

What had Seema done wrong? She had been born a Dalit, a member of the “untouchables”, the lowest group in India’s ancient and now officially obsolete caste system.

Seema didn’t look, talk or behave any differently. But someone had found out her family name, which indicated she was descended from pig farmers, a job only done by Dalits. That was enough.

A rigid occupational hierarchy

While there is some debate about British colonialism amplifying it, the origins of India’s caste system go back thousands of years, and are deeply entwined in Hinduism, the religion followed by about 80% of India’s population.

Caste is essentially the stratification of people into a rigid occupational hierarchy.

According to the Manusmriti, considered one of Hinduism’s most important books of law, people are born into one of four castes, depending on their conduct in past lives.

The most virtuous come back as Brahmins, the caste of priests and scholars. Next are the Kshatriyas, who are ascribed to be rulers and warriors. Third are the Vaishya, the artists and traders. Fourth are the Shudras, only good enough to do manual labour.

Below all of them are the Dalits, the “untouchables”, excluded from all jobs except the worst-paid and most degrading – on the pretext of maintaining the spiritual purity of those in higher castes.

India officially outlawed caste-based discrimination in 1950. But it continues to be a fact of life for the estimated 200 million of India’s 1.4 billion population who are Dalits.

They are even discriminated against when applying for programs established to help them.

The plight of Dalit women

I met Seema in the summer of 2019, through a non-government organisation that provides vocational training to women.

It was about two years since she’d given up her stall. Now she was completing a cooking course. From the course she would gain a certificate she hoped would improve her chances of getting a microloan from a government bank, backed by the Reserve Bank of India and offered to people who lack the collateral that institutional lenders usually require.

A microloan might be enough to buy a sewing machine to start a clothes-mending business, or to buy cows to sell milk and cheese. Seema’s plan was to relocate to a bigger city and start a restaurant.

She had already applied for a microloan 18 months before, with no success.

When she enquired about her application’s status, she said, staff at the bank brushed her off with comments such as “we have to be extra careful with some applicants”, “I can tell just by looking at your name here on the first page that doing business will be tricky for you” and “I don’t think it’s in your blood”.
My research suggests this is a common experience for Dalit women.

The problem with microloans

Since being pioneered by economist Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh in the 1970s, microloan programs have been embraced as a poverty-reduction policy in many developing nations, including India.

Microloans are offered by for-profit, not-for-profit and government-owned banks. The Reserve Bank of India regulates the sector and acts as a guarantor of microloans given by banks under national government-sponsored poverty alleviation schemes.

For Dalit women, the Reserve Bank of India underwrites incentives including interest rates about half that offered to other women.

But there are increasing concerns about the poor implementation of microfinance programs. My research involves the lack of outcomes for Dalit women entrepreneurs in India.

In Bihar I interviewed almost 30 Dalit women completing vocational courses to improve their prospects for a microloan. I asked them the same question: why had they not succeeded?

The typical response was an uncomfortable silence, then tears, and then a story of being humiliated when applying for a microloan – of help being refused when filling in a form, of being told not to sit on the same chairs as other bank customers, and of their application being rejected for no good reason.

Research by myself and associates, analysing the microloan-lending decisions of 43 branches of a major bank with more than 2 million microloan customers, found 66% of rejected applications were from Dalit women.

All these rejections contravened the Reserve Bank of India’s guidance that Dalit application be decided at a higher level – presumably to avoid the discrimination at the branch level.

Caste certificates

Dalit women face a catch-22. To qualify for a program to assist Dalits, they had to prove they’re a Dalit by supplying a government-issued caste certificate.
But this certificate then became the means for them be identified as Dalits and discriminated against.

The women I interviewed told me how much attitudes changed when bank staff saw their caste certificates. They were called “freeloaders” and “privileged”.

Dalit women, being at the bottom end of the social and patriarchal hierarchy, will seldom request a reassessment. They have already been hit with a double whammy of caste and gender discrimination, and the instruments put in place to help them have become bureaucratic weapons to perpetuate this exploitation and ostracism.

There are no simple solutions, but the first step is to understand the extent of the problem. A full audit by the the Reserve Bank of India of microfinance programs and their treatment of Dalit women is the obvious place to start.

India’s history has its fair share of nice ideas failing in practice. The work to end discrimination against Dalits will take decades. Seema may never live to see the day when revealing her family name doesn’t risk disgust.

But there’s still a chance for Seema’s two young children to live in such a world.

*Lecturer in Marketing, The University of Melbourne. Source: The Conversation

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Muzaffarnagar: A 30-year-old Dalit woman was sexually harassed by seven men who forced her to remove her clothes at gunpoint and also made a video of the incident, police said on Sunday, adding all the accused have been arrested.

The incident took place in a village under the Kotwali police station limits of Muzaffarnagar district on Saturday evening, they said.

The video of the incident was later circulated on social media, police said.

According to a police complaint by the victim, she had gone to a field to cut grass where the seven accused sexually harassed her and made a video after forcing her to take off her clothes at gunpoint.

Kotwali police station SHO Anand Dev Mishra said police registered a case under sections 354b and 506 of IPC, section 3 of the SC/ST Act and Section 67 of the IT Act, and arrested seven people in the case on Sunday.

Police identified the accused as Anuj, Kuldeep, Ankit, Ravi, Rizwan, Chota, and Abdul.

Courtesy: The Siasat Daily

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Uttar Pradesh reported at least four incidents of crimes against women in a span of just over a week. The successive incidents are concerning given how in at least two of these cases the victims hailed from Dalit families, and another woman hailed from a backward caste family.

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Excerpted from

The Shudras Vision for a New Path Penguin will be launched on 22 Feb

Shudra, OBC and Bahujan are categories that are often used to talk about various communities clubbed within the Shudra varna in the four-varna hierarchy. But I am using ‘Bahujan’ here in the way that the general media uses it, to refer to Shudras/OBCs, not including SCs and STs.

This essay aims to engage with the women who belong to these various contested categories. Bahujan women, as I refer to them, have had a rich tradition of resistance against caste, patriarchy and Brahminism. Mainstream historical and even Dwija-led feminist narratives have expunged the revolutionary struggles of Bahujan women from the annals of social history.

However, their revolutionary struggles have been kept alive through oral traditions and local booklets and pamphlets produced and reproduced during anti-caste movements. These are being revived by Bahujan scholars. The Bahujan feminist standpoint locates itself differentially from the Dalit feminist and Dwija feminist discourses. Bahujan women are uniquely located within the caste–gender matrix.

Above the Dalits and below the savarna Dwijas, they are the middle castes. Thus, while they are unquestionably subordinate to men of their own caste and savarna men, they also share a differential power relationship with female members of both the Dalit and savarna castes. With the former, they share a dominant power relation while they have a subordinate position in the power matrix vis-à-vis the latter.

The English word ‘caste’ encompasses two levels of an integrated system: varna, the four main categories or endogamous groups called jatis, and the multitudinous subdivisions within each varna. Varna is broadly organized as a four-tiered socioeconomic system determined by the familial line, although not all four varnas are present in every region of India.

The caste system outlined in the ancient Hindu scripture, the Manusmriti, prescribed social status along with occupation. The highest varna (caste) is the Brahmins, who traditionally worked as Hindu temple priests, followed by the Kshatriyas (the warrior caste), the Vaishyas (the merchant/trader caste) and the Shudras (the servant caste).1 These castes are the main source constructing caste hierarchies and untouchability. The first three remain in the top order of society as it functions now. They impose restrictions on social intercourse with them. The Hindus believe that the Shudras were born out of the feet of Brahma, as is stated in the Apastamba Dharma Sutra.2 The popular understanding among scholars and academicians about the origin of the Shudras is that they were the indigenous people of India who were captured and co-opted by the Aryans into the fold of Hindu religion.

According to Ram Sharan Sharma, ‘large sections of people, Aryans and pre-Aryans, were reduced to that position, partly through external and partly through internal conflicts. Since the conflicts centred mainly around the possession of cattle, and perhaps latterly of land and its produce, those who were dispossessed of these and impoverished came to be reckoned as the fourth class in the new society’. Sharma claims that during Rig Vedic times there was no caste system, and the fourth varna, the Shudras, was not yet developed. He maintains that ‘the Rg Vedic society had no recognizable sudra order’.3 He further claims that the Shudras were a tribe. Sharma produces an account of the caste/varna system with agriculture as the mode of production where the Shudras were collectively forced into being the ‘servile class’ or the ‘labouring class’. Once the Rig Vedic pastoral society gave way to a Vedic agricultural and seminomadic society, the four varnas and the caste system stabilized. However, there are other theories of caste and varna as well.

Ambedkar on Shudras

In contrast to this view, Ambedkar provides a fresh perspective on the origin of the Shudras in his treatise ‘Who Were the Shudras?’4 According to him:

The Shudras were one of the Aryan communities of the Solar race . . . There was a continuous feud between the Shudra kings and the Brahmins in which the Brahmins were subjected to many tyrannies and indignities. As a result of the hatred towards the Shudras generated by tyrannies and oppressions, Brahmins refused to perform the upanayana (the sacred thread-wearing ceremony) for the Shudras. Owing to the denial of upanayana, the Shudras who were Kshatriyas became socially degraded, fell below the rank of the Vaishyas and thus came to form the fourth varna.5

He states that ‘under the system of Chaturvarnya, the Shudra is not only placed at the bottom of the gradation, but he is subjected to innumerable ignominies and disabilities so as to prevent him from rising above the condition fixed for him by law’.

Ambedkar notes that ‘the present-day Shudras are a collection of castes drawn from heterogeneous stocks and are racially different from the original Shudras of Indo-Aryan society’.7 He states that the original Shudras of the Indo-Aryan society were a particular community, which has ceased to be an identifiable, separate community in present times. They were subjected to a ‘legal system of pains and penalties’ devised by the Brahmins to control the Shudras. According to Ambedkar, the Shudras of the Indo-Aryan times were degraded to a great extent, consequently leading to a change in the connotation of the word ‘Shudra’. He claims that ‘the word Shudra lost its original meaning of being the name of a particular community and became a general name for low-class people without civilization, without culture, without respect and without a position’.8 Shudras are not a homogeneous category, but a conglomeration of various castes. A few of the dominant Shudra castes claim Kshatriya status, while various others are grouped as Other Backward Classes (OBC).9

The OBC is an administrative and constitutional category that came about as a result of the recommendations of the Mandal Commission, especially for the use of reservations in public services and education. The Bahujan identity is both a political category as well as a social one whereby Shudras could claim a homogeneous identity that is essentially anti-Brahmin and anti-caste, with a larger identity of its own to claim a larger share.

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