DNA Edit: Targeting Dalits – Laws have failed to act as deterrents

In independent India, where the caste system is regarded as a curse and the practice of untouchability is deemed a punishable offence, violence against Dalits continue unabated. Upper-caste atrocities that were widely prevalent in medieval India have made a smooth transition to the 21st century. It has become a routine affair to kill or flog Dalits, parade them naked, and verbally attack them with choicest expletives when they try to assert their rights or inadvertently “defile” the ‘upper’ castes’ possessions.

Instead of emphasising on the need to give more teeth to the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, the Supreme Court seeks adequate safeguards to prevent misuse of the Act. A look at ground realities will reveal how systematic abuse and exploitation of Dalit men, women and children have become an accepted norm in society. In full public view, three Dalit boys can be mercilessly beaten up, stripped naked and paraded for their mistake of swimming in a drinking-water well owned by an ‘upper’ caste family in Jalgaon district in north Maharashtra.

In Gujarat, it is fair game to thrash a 15-year-old Dalit boy who dared to wear a particular type of shoe and identified himself as an upper caste. How difficult it must be for those who still can’t accept the fact that Dalits are not lesser mortals but equal to a Brahmin or any other privileged caste that had suppressed a section of people for millennia! If today, a man’s identity is still defined and hobbled by caste, we should give up the dream of having an egalitarian and just society. Many find it unnerving that Dalits have galvanised into a major political force to bring to an end the deeply embedded practice of discrimination. It is this fear that has found maximum articulation in violence in the last five years.