Kounsar Bashir / Vikram Raj
In the discussions related to caste and reservation among the elite people of metropolitan cities, it often comes out that casteism has ended in the twenty-first century, and now the time has come that the government should give reservation by looking at the economic status and not the caste. Is it true ?
After such discussions, we often ignore the caste discrimination of today’s India.
Whereas the truth is that even today caste discrimination is followed vigorously in many areas of our country.
Bathani Tola Massacre 1996
On July 11, 1996, not long after late morning, the Ranveer Sena, a private volunteer army of Bhumihar landowners, slaughtered 21 Dalits and Muslims, 20 of whom were women and kids, in Bathani Tola, a village in Bhojpur region, Bihar.
With Lathis, blades and guns, the aggressors proceeded with the surge for more than two hours. The assault was supposedly in counter for the prior killing of nine Bhumihars in Nandhi town.
The contention started when CPI(M-L) started arranging the horticultural workers to request the legal day by day the lowest pay permitted by law of Rs. 30.75. Landowners were able to pay just Rs. 20. CPI(M-L) individuals persuaded the workers to decline work at that compensation and required a monetary barricade against landowners.
The assault on Bathani Tola, was a push to debilitate the determination of CPI(M-L) frameworks sorting out in the town and to forestall a work blacklist on many sections of land. None of the Ranvir Sena leader were at any point punished for the Bathani Tola slaughter
The slaughter went on for hours, yet the police faculty posted a simple 100 meters from the site remained away.
In April 2012, the Patna High Court acquitted every one of the 23 people blamed for submitting the slaughter in Bathani Tola, however the trial court articulated them blameworthy. The next year, a similar court likewise acquitted those blamed for executing three different slaughters.
Not only Bathani Tola, but during that Contemporary period, there were many such massacres like Ekbari, and Laxmanpur Bathe, in Bihar in which the feudal lords destroyed many families only to show their upper caste arrogance.
Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar Massacre, 1997
On 11 July 1997, Special Reserve Police Force (SRPF) in early morning hours, led by Sub-Inspector Manohar Y Kadam, arrived in a van and opened fire indiscriminately, killing 10 Dalits in Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar.
The firing lasted for 10-15 minutes and most of the victims were shot above the waist.
Sub-Inspector Kadam and his SRPF constables left soon after the firing, only to be replaced by the city police and other SRPF members.
The killings were done not long after residents of Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar, a Dalit populated Urban colony in Ghatkopar, Mumbai, protested against the disrespect and desecration of Dr. Ambedkar’s statue with garland of sandals around his neck.
Soon after the killings, an angry crowd in Nalanda Nagar set fire to a luxury bus and 20-25 police officers entered Ramabai colony, who started spreading tear gas shells and began lathi-charging residents in their homes, leaving 26 persons seriously injured.
Protesters destroyed Local Beat No. 5 when they had earlier lodged complain against the desecration incident.
Sub-Inspector Kadam, who ordered the firing had a number of cases of atrocities against Dalits pending against him. He had been charged with being “anti-Dalit” by his former supervisor and SRPF commandant Vasant Ingle.
He had accused Kadam of mistreating a subordinate for “casteist reasons” and had ordered his suspension for violating the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. Ingle had also charged Kadam’s excessive use of force in dealing with Ramabai residents was a direct result of his caste prejudice. Kadam denied this charge.
The Ramabai incident led to remarkable unrest, including rioting and social boycotts against the protesting Dalits through-out the state of Maharashtra.
According to an article in the Times of India, the two-member team of the Indian People’s Human Rights Commission (IPHRC), a Mumbai based NGO, visited the districts of Nagpur, Amrawati, Yavatmal and Wardha in October 1997 to investigate violence against the Dalits for the disturbances related to protests against the Ramabai incident that concluded in various villages. “The police had abetted support of the ruling Shiv Sena- BJP alliance in committing atrocities on Dalits and terrorizing them” and that “the people owing allegiance to the ruling alliance parties had made determined efforts to terrorize and punish Buddhists (converted Dalits) for having dared to protest against the shameful act of desecration of Ambedkar statue”.
Soon after the firing, the Maharashtra state government appointed a commission of inquiry, headed by justice S D Gunderwar.
According to several eyewitness accounts and fact-finding reports, including that of the Indian Peoples’s Human Rights Commission the National Alliance of People’s Movements and the Air Corporation SC/ST Employees Association the firing went on intermittently for atleast 15 minutes.
“Before firing they did not lathi-charge, burst tear gas shells or fire a few rounds in the air or make any serious positive efforts to disperse people but instead, in a designed manner, deliberately intentionally opened fire on innocent masses,” an eyewitness described the manner in which the police firing began before Gunderwar Commission of Inquiry.
In February 1998 Human rights watch visited Ramabai colony and spoke to many of its residents.
Bhante Kashyap (a monk), an eyewitness, told Human Rights Watch on 2 February 1998 about the sequence of events in the early-morning firing:
“I heard screaming, I went out to see. It was early. I was standing outside about 30 meters away. They didn’t shoot me, because I was wearing my monk’s robe. They told me to leave. Everyone was sleeping. I saw 40 or 50 people saying, “Rasta roko” (block the road). Two police cars (city police) went straight through and did not stop. An SRPF van came. One or two protestors must have thrown stones at private cars. First they hit Kaushaliyabhai Patare, the bullet went through her and hit the medical dispensary 150 meters away. She was 45. She died on the spot. I kept watching. They said, ‘Sadhu (addressed as Hindu monk), get out of here.’ I came inside but kept looking though the window. Sukhdev Kapadne was there. They grabbed him and put him in the car. Then they asked him who he was. He said he was a social worker and they told him to go. Then they shot him in the back. The bullet came out of his chest, and he fell forward. He was 50 years old”
Bhante Kashyap also witnessed the shooting of Sukdve Kapadne, Kaushaliyabhai, Amar Dhanawade, Vilas Dodke and Anil Garud, all of whom “died on spot”. Bhante Kashyap narrated the story to Human Rights Watch that once they were fully inside the colony, the firing continued. Most residents were caught completely by surprise. Once of the bullets hit Bablu Verma and killed him: ”He trembeled like a fish and died. If someone tried to help they would shoot at him too. He was 26 years old.”
Shridevi Giri, another eye witness, narrated to Human Rights Watch that she was also injured by bullets. “I was hit in the arm twice,” she showed the scars. Another woman stepped into the alley and saw her husband shot. Babu Phulekar was also standing in the alley and was injured.
V S Khade, a prominent member of the Dalit Community in Ramabai Ambedkar Nagar Colony described to the Human Rights Watch how he lost his nephew’s son in the firing: “He used to stay with us more after his mother died in 1994. On that day he was going to work, he was not allowed to cross the highway by crowd . So he came back and told my wife and my daughter not to go outside. Then he went to inform his father, who was one kilometer away. Before he could get there he was shot and killed. His brother and uncle went to pick him up, but the police shouted, ‘Don’t touch him or we’ll shoot you too.’ I heard the shots. When I arrived he was already dead. He was only 17.”
“In response to everything as defense, an amateur video of events was submitted by the police to claim that the firing was necessary to control a move that was on its way to setting gas tankers on fire.”
The India People’s Human Rights Commission issued a scene-by-scene analysis of the two-minute video, exposing inconsistencies between shots and that the video was clearly doctored. Closer examination of the video, eyewitness reports and NGO fact-finding missions all confirm that the burning of public property that the police used as justification for their actions, took place much later in the day at Nalanda Nagar a site 300 meters away from the statue. Although, a luxury bus was set on fire, this occurred more than four hours after the Ramabai firing began.
Moreover, according to eyewitnesses, two seemingly empty tankers were brought in by the police themselves and placed behind the burning bus in order to hide their blunder and to fabricate a defense to the firing.”
In response to allegations received from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, the Government of India out forwards the same defense. “The gathering became violent and started damaging private and public property. It also tried to set fire to a LPG gas tanker. In order to discourage the mob from doing so and for self defense, the Police reported to a “Cane-Charge” and subsequently having failed to control the mob, opened fire. Unfortunately, 10 persons died and 24 persons were injured in the firing. 8 police personnel were also injured.”
The government also asserted that allegations such as those received pertaining to caste “do not fall within the mandate” of the special rapporteur.
On 7 August 1998 the Gundewar Commission report was presented to the Shiv Sena- Bhartiya Janata Party government.
In December 1998 the report was tabled in the state assembly. The commission held Sub-Inspector Kadam responsible for an “unjustified, unwarranted and indiscriminate firing which (took place) without warning.” It further recommended that the government terminate his services.
The Shiv Sena- BJP government accepted the report and declared that Kadam would be suspended. Many activists protested the suspension and demanded that Kadam be dismissed and charged with murder under Section 302 of Indian Penal Code.
The case was opened in 2001 and charges were filed by CID in 2006.
The High court, in May 2009, suspended the life sentence and left him on bail of Rs. 50,000.
On 8 August 2009, a Session Court awards life sentence to the Sub Inspector Kadam, convicted him for homicide amounting to murder and was fined Rs. 1000.
In realizing the State Forces action resulted in Massacre over protests, a Dalit-Marxist artist, Vilas Ghogre, felt there is no reason in advocating his revolutionary poems/songs and hence committed suicide on 17 July 1997.
A poster in Ramabai colony still reads – Fifty years of independence. The salute of fifty bullets. Ten Dalits murdered. This is our independence. The poster includes pictures and names of those killed during police firing.
How easy it is for our society to say that the caste system and discrimination on the basis is out of practice nowadays but deep down we all know that this caste hierarchy is transmigrated in our veins and it’ll take a long time to get rid of it.