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Social justice, a mirage

The plight of the Dalits or Harijans, whom Gandhi called God's people in appreciation of their services and long-term suffering, have not improved much.

Social justice, a mirage

Dalit Mahasammelan: A backlash against oppressive practices is inevitable. PTI



R.D. Sharma

The plight of the Dalits or Harijans, whom Gandhi called God's people in  appreciation of their services and long-term suffering, have not improved much.  Liberty, equality and fraternity, so richly enshrined in our secular Constitution, have still to acquire a meaning for them.  As a result, weaker sections remain as much vulnerable to attacks, indignities and discrimination as before.  Recent atrocities on them go to  prove this harsh reality on the ground beyond any doubt.

After the senseless incident in Una, Gujarat, a low-caste woman in Patna's Darbhanga district was assaulted and forced to drink urine on the suspicion of practising witchcraft.  In Utttar Pradesh, a Dalit youth was allegedly killed by Thakurs in a village of Meerut district for urinating in a plot belonging to them.  In Mainpuri, considered to be Samajwadi Party Chief Mulayam Singh Yadav's turf, an upper-caste  grocer hacked a Dalit couple to death for failing to pay back Rs15 they owed him. These are not stray incidents but occur with an alarming regularity across the country. 

This is further statistically borne out by the absence of a declining trend in the number of such crimes against them. The graph of rising crimes against the Dalits (from 2009 to 2014) as the figures given by the National Crime Records Bureau prove this. Of course, the figures showing a rise in the crimes committed against the Dalits relate only to registered cases, as a majority of such offences, especially in rural areas, go unreported.  

Unfortunately, we have become immune to the plight of others, unmindful both of the sufferings inflicted on them and  the shame that such incidents bring to our country as a whole. The reasons for caste atrocities are not far to seek.  The economic causes, identified by the Commission for Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in its report, are disputes over land (especially those arising from land reforms),  tensions created by alienation of tribal land, bonded labour, indebtness and wage disputes.  

The social causes for such crimes mainly arise from the practice of untouchability  and demands for customary services, duties in burial and cremation grounds and beating of drums at festivals.   In order to effectively prevent this outrage, the Commission suggested long back a package of legal and administrative measures, which include better implementation of existing laws and further changes in laws of criminal procedures, administrative and judicial set-ups.  It had also recommended  training and orientation of policemen  and prosecutors for dealing with atrocities largely stemming from the centuries of socio-economic exploitation.

Not that the government did nothing to check the recurrence of caste atrocities, but unfortunately, the preventive measures announced from time to time merely remained on paper. For instance, the Protection of the Civil Rights Act, 1956 and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 have been on the statute book and are to be rarely enforced against the offenders.  It is because the status quo, of which the oppression is a part, has been reinforced by honouring the most progressive laws in breach rather than in observance.  It is the failure to follow up and more important, to upset the present power structure on which so much of the present order rests that has prepared fertile soil in which violence can flourish.

 It is an open secret that law-enforcement agencies are insensitive to the injustice done to the weak. We have it on the authority of the National Commission for SC and ST that oppressed sections are extremely hesitant to file complaints with the police. The panel has gone on record to identify the reasons for this as reluctance on the part of the police to register even grave crimes, delayed visits by the investigating officers to the scene of crime, late filing of charge-sheets, lukewarm prosecution and protracted legal battles.

All this is bad enough but worse still is that the very authorities, who are supposed to protect the oppressed, turn into willing accomplices, and even active participants in brazen acts.  Sometimes, the victims of atrocities find themselves accused of several offences foisted by the police on them at the instance of the vested interests. Almost invariably, the vested interests enjoy the support of the right people in the corridors of power.

The judiciary, the last hope of justice for the week, is no different from the other institutions of the State. There is solidarity within the courtroom between the police officer, the public prosecutor and the honourable judge. Hardly is any offender punished.  The percentage of acquittals in atrocity-related cases is always abnormally high and conviction low. Neither the political executive nor the bureaucracy has been able to inspire confidence in the perpetually exploited sections that they are determined to change their attitudes. 

 As long as nothing tangible is done to remove this major lacuna, all the legislative and other moves initiated or envisaged  —  giving protection to land-reform laws under the Ninth Schedule of the Constitution, making punitive and stringent laws, setting up special courts for trying cases of atrocities expeditiously and so on  — will be of little use in practical terms. For the measures to mean anything, the government has to muster political will and courage to face the problem squarely. Merely good intentions and noble gestures will not help to realise the goal of a society free from oppression. 

The writer is an advocate in the  Supreme Court.

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