Dalits and the state
The failure of the Indian state to implement land reforms and give land to the landless has ensured the continuation of Dalit slavery.
VASANTHI DEVI
THERE are numerous instances of the state machinery, mainly its law-enforcement wing, indulging in armed violence against Dalits. When culprits are identified they wield their institutional power to escape punishment. In a case relating to the murder of Lalji Choudhry in Lahra village in Uttar Pradesh's Ghazipur district, the principal accused was an Additional District and Sessions Judge. The U.P. Government, in cynical violation of an order from the Allahabad High Court that the case be transferred to the Crime Branch/Criminal Investigation Department (C.B./CID), has instead transferred it to the court at Varnasi, where the accused has the advantage of being a serving judge.
Very often the dominant castes have a reliable ally in the organs of the state. When Bhupinder Singh, belonging to the dominant Jat community in Babekar village in Rajasthan, forcefully took over the agricultural lands of the Dalits of the village, false charges were framed by the local police against the victims. When two Dalit girls were denied entry into the Kali temple at Survaniya village in Bihar in blatant violation of the Untouchability Act, the Additional Sub-Inspector booked the case as one of tension created by Dalits entering the temple with country-made pistols and sacrificing pigs. In case after case, the police and the revenue administration collude with the dominant castes, terrorise Dalits, raid their villages, beat them up, torture them in police stations, drag their women to police stations and violate their modesty, parade them naked, heap obscene abuses on them, and in many cases rape them....
Landlessness is at the core of Dalit dependence on caste Hindus. When Dalits seek protection of the law against caste Hindu atrocities, retaliation comes immediately in the form of denial of wage work on the lands of caste Hindus, the sole source of Dalits' livelihood. The usual taunt is "Do you want your case or wages?" It is control over land, and often over water too, that gives caste Hindus the audacity to defy legislation and court orders with impunity and continue their atrocities against Dalits. The denial of farm work is often coupled with ruthless social boycott, which includes the stoppage of water supply to Dalit lands, non-supply of necessities of life and so on. The failure of the Indian state to implement land reforms and give land to the landless has ensured the continuation of Dalit slavery. Two stories of such failures, one in Gujarat and the other in Andhra Pradesh, were presented at the Public Hearing. Although Gujarat had passed the Gujarat Agricultural Land Ceiling Act in 1960, as against an estimated five lakh hectares of surplus land available for distribution, merely 51,000 hectares has been distributed.
What is worse, a substantial proportion of even the land distributed to Dalits is not actually in their possession, owing to encroachment by non-Dalits. Land distribution is done only on paper. Actual possession of land, based on the measurement done at the site, is not given effect. The local government deliberately withholds the allotted land from Dalits by various means. This is the case whether the intended land is government wasteland (unused, uncultivated land) or "ceiling land" (private land rendered surplus over the ceiling fixed by the land ceiling Acts)....
In exceptional instances where Dalits do get to own land, they are dispossessed of it sooner or later. In Dohri Vakil in Nainital district in Uttar Pradesh, 254 Dalit families were given wasteland under agrarian reforms around 1980. Through hard work, the families transformed the land into fertile agricultural land. But 12 years later, they were violently evicted from the land by local landlords and land mafia with the connivance of the police and revenue officials. The Dalits were arrested and thrown into prison. Their houses were burnt and fields destroyed. The victim who deposed at the Public Hearing cried: "Are we not Bharatvasis?"
To ensure Dalit land rights, the jury has recommended that from the land declared surplus under the Land Ceiling Act, cultivable land of a viable size be distributed to each Dalit household within three to five years, ensuring that half the land so distributed is registered in the name of Dalit women. It has also been recommended that encroachments on Dalit lands be removed and protection he provided to Dalits to hold and cultivate the land.
DALIT women face the triple discrimination of caste, class and gender. Sexual violence and other forms of abuse against them are used by landlords and the police to teach "political lessons" to the Dalit community and crush dissent. A number of cases of sexual assault on Dalit women by landlords and the police came up before the jury. Lebra, an agricultural worker in Ram Nagar village in Pratapgarh district of Uttar Pradesh, complained that she and her daughter Kusuma (12) were taken to the Anatu police station on a false complaint from the landlord and raped by the Station House Officer. Lebra's desperate efforts to bring the culprit to justice through available channels have failed. She has petitioned the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) as the last resort.
Gangawati of Laluwa Nangal village in Badayun district of Uttar Pradesh was raped at gun point by a person of the same village. The Police Inspector refused to register a case as the culprit was "one of their own caste". The NHRC acted on Gangawati's petition and directed the Senior Superintendent of Police to conduct an inquiry. Although a First Information Report (FIR) has been registered, the culprit has not been arrested. He keeps threatening Gangawati and her husband.
Surya, a 10-year-old Dalit girl in Surnadu village in Kollam district of Kerala, was allegedly raped by 70-year-old Balakrishna Pillai, an ex-serviceman. A case has been filed by the police, but the accused has not yet been arrested....
The National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights is carrying the Dalit question, or India's "hidden apartheid", to the international arena. An International Dalit Solidarity Network has been formed. The Network has presented a preliminary Report of the National Public Hearing, along with the cases presented, to the world conference against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance in Geneva from May 1 to 5, 2000. Efforts are on to get "untouchability" included within the purview of "racial discrimination". The United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has clearly stated that the term "descent" contained in Article 1 of the Convention on Elimination of Racial Discrimination refers not just to race; it encompasses the situation of the Scheduled Castes and Tribes....
V. Vasanthi Devi, formerly Vice-Chancellor, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tamil Nadu, was a member of the jury at the National Public Hearing.
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