No dignity even in death Ajoy Boss http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnist1.asp?main_variable=Columnist&file_name=bose%2Fbose107%2Etxt&writer=BOSE
Statistics about the implementation of a plethora of laws to combat atrocities and discrimination against Dalits are chilling. Even if a case goes to court, witnesses do not turn up for fear of being attacked. Or documents are conveniently 'weeded out' The recent exoneration by the Uttarkhand High Court of a group of upper caste villagers 22 years after they disrupted a Dalit cremation and desecrated the hapless corpse proves once again how far the oppressed castes and classes are from justice. What makes the acquittal particularly bizarre is the reason cited by the honourable court - that the records of the case had been weeded out in 1999 and could not be reconstructed under the law. This not only raises serious questions about the judicial process but also about the Constitution's guarantee of equal rights for all as the nation prepares to celebrate 60 years of Independence. It is worthwhile to recount the horrific details of the case. Before he died on February 19, 1985, Bachchu, a Dalit resident of Dugadda village in Tehri Garhwal, had expressed his desire to be cremated at the local cremation ground. The next day, his son Barfu, after taking due permission from the village pradhan, Murli, proceeded with a group of 40 mourners to perform his father's final rites. But much to his horror, Barfu and the mourners found their way to the cremation ground blocked by an axe-wielding mob of upper caste men and women from the village who said that there was no question of allowing 'untouchables' to cremate their dead in the local cremation ground. The mob then proceeded to beat the mourners black and blue till they fled the spot. The body of Barfu's father's body was pried out from the traditional cot 'khatola', upper caste women eagerly slashing the ropes, and then thrown into a roadside ditch. It took four days for Barfu to register a case since neither the district magistrate nor the tehsildar was available. After great difficulty he managed to get the sub-divisional magistrate and the naib tehsildar to accompany him on 24 February 1985 to the spot where his father's body had been snatched away. They found the decomposed corpse where it had been dumped. After cremating his father, Barfu filed a formal complaint in March 1985 in the court of the Chief Judicial Magistrate, Tehri Garhwal, against the upper caste villagers who had beaten up the mourners and desecrated his father's body. In August 1986, 20 of the accused were convicted by the Chief Judicial Magistrate under Sections 147 and 297 of the Indian Penal Code and also Sections 4 and 7 of the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 that carried fines and prison terms. The Sessions Judge, Tehri Garhwal, on appeal by the convicted, upheld this order in March 1988. Of course, none of those convicted spent time in jail, taking recourse to bail while on appeal. The case then went on appeal to the High Court where it surfaced in May 2002 after an inexplicable delay of 14 years. The judge in the High Court asked for the records of the case and it took more than four years for the officer in charge of the record room to inform the court in July 2006 that all the records of the case had been "weeded out" on January 15, 1999. After gravely considering all the details of the matter, the judge, citing an Allahabad High Court precedent, decided that since all records were lost it was not possible to reconstruct the case or order a retrial since such a long time had elapsed since the commission of the offence. So all those convicted, three of who had meanwhile died natural deaths, were acquitted and their bail sureties returned. Just last December, all the accused in the Kambalapalli massacre were acquitted by a Karnataka court because all the witnesses had turned hostile. The massacre in Kambalapalli village of Kolar district in Karnataka created national and international headlines because of the brutal manner in which local upper caste landlords had burnt alive seven Dalits in March 2000. Unfortunately, six years later the killers went scot-free because none of the eyewitnesses, most of them Dalit villagers, had failed to give evidence out of fear. As a matter of fact, there are doubts about whether punishment would be meted out to even the monsters that perpetrated the atrocities in Khairlanji village in Maharashtra last September when a Dalit family was butchered after extensive torture by local upper caste goons. Two brothers were hacked to death, and the mother and sister killed after being gang raped and their genitals mutilated. There have already been attempts to tamper with the evidence after the local police tried to pretend that there was no rape despite the horrendous sexual atrocities suffered by the two women. Statistics about the implementation of a plethora of laws that are supposed to combat atrocities and discrimination against Dalits are chilling. After the acquittal of the those accused in the Kambalapalli massacre, an investigation by the Karnataka State Commission for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes found that the accused in 98 per cent of cases of atrocities against Dalits went free for the same reason: Witnesses do not turn up for fear of being attacked. In a damning reflection of the non-implementation of the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, the National Human Rights Commission in its Report on the Prevention of Atrocities on Scheduled Castes released in 2002, had said there was "virtually no monitoring of the implementation of the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act at any level." It pointed out that vigilance, monitoring committees, as prescribed under the Act, had not been constituted, and where such Committees existed they hardly functioned. A couple of years ago, Social Justice Minister Meira Kumar had admitted at a conference that the number of cases registered under the Protection of Civil Rights is a mere 3.75 per cent and that more than three-fourths of the cases relating to crimes against Dalits remain pending despite the setting up of special courts. Last year Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, addressing a conference, made similar confessions of the tardy implementation of the law to protect Dalits, describing the delay as a "national disgrace to civilised society". ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Ours is a battle not for wealth or for power. It is a battle for freedom. It is a battle for the reclamation of human personality." - Dr BR Ambedkar ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ greenyouth mailinglist is the activist support mailinglist for kerala To post to this group, send email to [email protected] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
