DALITS IN AN OPPRESSIVE INDIAN SOCIETY [ section 1 ]

            For ours is a battle of not for wealth or for power.
                         It is a battle for freedom.
            It is a battle for the reclamation of human personality.
                                                                                                   Dr. B.R.Ambedkar :1942.

Dalit means " untouchable or outcaste " of  society. Dalits have been deprived of their civil, political, economic , social and cultural rights by the hegemonic order controlled by the dominant caste groups and the authoritarian social structure over centuries in India. Mahatma Gandhi gave them an identity by referring to the Dalits as Harijans or People of Vishnu (God ) hoping for their respectability in  the society. But , Harijan soon became more derogatory than the original term. Dalits bear the brunt of class and gender discrimination , and are subject to oppression, poverty, deprivation and atrocities. They are the victims of a vicious casteist- racist social order.

Atrocities on Dalits are often perpetrated for asserting their basic rights as human beings "TO TEACH THE DALITS A LESSON ".The atrocities inflicted on the Dalits across the length and breadth of India are legion. These include :
          Caste-linked slur , public humiliation and abuse, denial of drinking water,
          denial of the right to use footwear, beating, tonsuring, looting and burning
          homes, destruction of property , rape of women and girls, stripping and
          parading naked, lynching, burning humans alive, preventing from contesting
          and voting in elections, refusal to worship in temples , forcing to drink urine
         and to eat excreta, and implicating in false cases
          [according to media reports
         and the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights].
The more atrocious than the  atrocities against the Dalits is the indifference of  the Police in all States in registering  cases and investigating seriously. Often the victims are made offenders by the  Police. The judiciary also does not fare better in rendering justice to the victims  as is seen from inordinate delay and low conviction rate.

Jyoti Lanjewar, a Dalit woman poet, wrote in a poem titled "Caves"  :
 
        Their inhuman atrocities have carved caves in the rock of my heart,
        I have been silent all the years listening to the voice of right and wrong,
        But now I will fan the flames of human rights.

INDIA'S DAUGHTERS

One rape every twenty minutes somewhere in India. Age no bar to the depraved male :from the tender age of 3 to 80 . Among the rapists are judges,teachers,police officials, political leaders,spiritual guides,and close relatives including even own fathers. Law sleeps and the ruling classes are apathetic. Justice is often denied to the helpless victims by inordinate delay :more than one lakh rape cases are pending in the country from the trial courts to the Supreme Court. A very frustrating scenario.

Nirbhaya's gruesome rape and murder in Delhi shocked the nation.Her memory is again brought back to the public domain when the BBC documentary India's Daughter was telecast in UK and was made available through the internet. Indian politicians shouted in different platforms as they saw some political advantage. The government of India banned the documentary in India, blocked websites,and initiated legal action against the documentary maker.The views of the rapist and his lawyers are despicable and cause utmost revulsion. But by banning the documentary the state has kept the real problem under the carpet rather than facing it by making people watch the documentary and debate.

Rape is a psychosocial legal phenomenon which has been increasing in an alarming manner in India.It cannot be dealt with unless the rapists' mindset is understood. Also the attitude of those who are opinionmakers and who wield power. Let us have a glimpse of some views:
●Boys are boys (former UP CM and Union Minister, whose view was criticized even by the UN Secretary General)
●By wearing jeans women provoke men to rape as they think beyond the jeans (celebrated iconic singer Padma Bhushan K.J.Yesudas)
●Don't you have any other news?(Karnataka CM Siddaramaiah when the media asked him questions on the rape of a 7 year old in her school).


Women are objects of pleasure to the males in a society where commodification of the female is taken for granted. Law enforcement agencies are often indifferent even in filing FIR and the police officials are accomplices of the rapists in many instances.When a 16 year old speech and hearing impaired girl was raped in Tamilnadu, police tried to establish it as "masturbation" with the support of a doctor,a woman.


What happened recently in Nagaland when the people broke the jail and lynched the rapist should be a warning to our governments and the insensitive officials. Let not the Indian masses take the law into their hands for inaction of the power structure.