Kherlanji's many truths<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/message/8569;_ylc=X3oDMTJycDl2cmVyBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE1BGdycElkAzEzMzU5MzQ3BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2NDMwOQRtc2dJZAM4NTY5BHNlYwNkbXNnBHNsawN2bXNnBHN0aW1lAzExODk5NDQzNjc-><http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/message/8569;_ylc=X3oDMTJycDl2cmVyBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE1BGdycElkAzEzMzU5MzQ3BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2NDMwOQRtc2dJZAM4NTY5BHNlYwNkbXNnBHNsawN2bXNnBHN0aW1lAzExODk5NDQzNjc-> http://www.tehelka.com/story_main34.asp?filename=Ne220907THISUNENDING.asp
CURRENT AFFAIRS beyond the headlines This Unending Disgrace Four members of a Dalit family were lynched in Kherlanji last year. Shivam Vij revisits their story. On the morning we reach the Bhandara police station, the personnel there are surprisingly helpful, but also nervously reluctant. "Nothing is in our hands now," says one. "The case is between the CBI and the Bhandara court." Having drawn so much criticism for their complacency, if not complicity, in the lynching of four members of a Dalit family in Kherlanji village on September 29 last year, the Bhandara police feel awkward the moment you say "Kherlanji". Bhandara is one of those districts that hardly have a town. It is wholly dependent upon neighbouring Nagpur, potentially the capital of Vidarbha, if the state is carved out of Maharashtra. So where can we meet Bhaiyyalal, the only surviving member of the Bhotmange family?Does he still live in Kherlanji? "No, he lives in Warthi near Andhalgaon, Kherlanji is 10km or so further on." Then, after a pause: "No use going there. Bhaiyyalal will come to town anyway in a couple of hours, he works at an adivasi boys' hostel here. " But we want to go to Kherlanji. "We wouldn't advise you to." Why? "There's no point. What will you do there?" We lose our way, going to Kherlanji, but we try finding our bearings at the Andhalgaon police station. This is where phone calls about the lynching were ignored on September 29, where the Bhotmanges were denied justice before and after September 29. "Where would Kherlanji be?" A barrage of questions follows before they tell us the way. Every possible detail they can note down about us, they do. "We have to keep a record of everyone who goes to Kherlanji." Kherlanji is just another village. A poster for the sarpanch is pasted at the main square in Nationalist Congress Party colours. School children swelter in the village school, waiting for the gong that will let them out. The only difference between this and other villages are the 16 policemen permanently stationed here; one of them tells us we are not allowed to proceed. "We cannot allow any outsider here unless they have written permission from the Bhandara Superintendent of Police," he says. Twenty minutes of negotiations and wireless messaging later and we are permitted to walk around Kherlanji, but only under police escort. Ruins Bhaiyyala checks out the damage to his abandoned home We meet Suresh Khandate, who belongs to a Scheduled Tribe and is a witness in the case, along with another ST, Mukesh Pusham. Two of the village's 16 policemen have been tasked with guarding his life. Khandate takes us to Bhaiyyalal's locked house; apart from the Bhotmanges, there were only two other Dalit families in the village. Both are Buddhist Mahars: one is at work in the fields and the other, the household of one Meshram, the police does not let us meet. "They live in the middle of the Kunbi houses," we are told. "Your going there might create tensions." Meshram is summoned to the main square instead. Virtually the entire village is said to have witnessed the Bhotmanges' lynching, but the Kunbis are unwilling to speak. They are OBCs; it was a Kunbi dispute with the Bhotmanges that led to the lynching. Nobody appears, however, to know anything about it. It could well have happened in another village. If you talk to Meshram, it would seem to have been in another country: there is no untouchability here, I live in peace with the Kunbis, he says. Khandate takes us to Bhaiyyalal's five-acre field. It was seven acres to begin with, but two acres were taken away by neighbouring farmers for an "easement area" to build a road. That wasn't enough: they wanted two more for a water pathway. The Bhotmanges sought police help; it was refused. A cousin of Bhaiyyalal's wife Surekha, Siddharth Gajbhiye, often intervened. Bhaiyyalal says the reason the Kunbis were harassing them was not land but jealousy. Surekha and Bhaiyyalal had worked hard on their otherwise barren field, and their per-acre yield was among the highest in the village. Bhaiyyalal was earning around Rs 60,000 a year -- now that he no longer lives in Kherlanji, he has rented out the land at a mere Rs 12,000 a year. We leave for Warthi to meet Bhaiyyalal, who now lives at the house of one Dilip Ukey. The Ambedkar and Buddha portraits in the house speak of Ukey's caste but not his politics. He is a local block panchayat member from the NCP. So how is case number 1/07 progressing in the Bhandara lower court? "Very slowly," says Ukey, "The government did not set up a designated court for the case, and the hearings take place for not more than four or five days a month. The defence counsel deliberately wastes time and sometimes," after a pause, "sometimes even Nikam saab is absent." That refers to public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, who has handled such cases as the 1993 Bombay blasts and the Pramod Mahajan murder. That Nikam take the case was one of the demands of some Dalit activists during the protests that followed the lynching. "The government said we'll give you whatever you want," continues Ukey, "but they haven't given us the Nagpur-based lawyer we wanted. The CBI filed its chargesheet in end-December and only five or six witnesses have been examined so far." There are six eyewitnesses in the case, and 65-odd "technical" witnesses. "I go for all the key hearings and leave the rest for the CBI lawyer," Nikam defends himself over the phone from Mumbai. "I also have other cases to attend to but I remember my reputation is at stake." CBI lawyer Ijaz Khan said the CBI was in favour of expediting the case. The truth is, the case is moving at a much better pace than most cases filed under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. The CBI, though, has filed chargesheets against only 11 of the 47 accused -- the others have been let off for want of evidence. Rape is not one of the charges as the private parts of the bodies of Surekha and her daughter Priyanka had been badly damaged in the lynching, and evidence for rape had not been gathered during the post-mortem. Bhaiyyalal has been with us since December," says Ukey. "I took him to Delhi where he met Soniaji and Ram Vilas Paswan." What did they say to him? "They expressed their sympathy and promised help," he replies. "Sonia Gandhi said her daughter is also called Priyanka." So where did Bhaiyyalal live until he came here in late December? "He lived with a relative named Rashtrapal Narvane." "Where can we meet him?" "Difficult to find him. Somewhere in Nehru ward." Why did he leave his relative and come to live with Ukey, a total stranger? "Narvane's eyes were on Bhaiyyalal's compensation money. These are family matters. What do I say? Even his brothers don't come to meet him because he refused them money." Where can we meet Siddharth Gajbhiye? "Oh, he is the real culprit!" Ukey becomes a little agitated, "It was his dispute after all that Surekha got involved in and then look how the family paid." Gajbhiye was a police patil in a village near Kherlanji, and would often help fellow- Dalits in the area with their disputes. Unlike the police, he had often helped the Bhotmanges thwart the Kunbis' attempts to take away their land. Finally he came under attack -- on September 3, 12 Kunbis beat him up and he sustained head injuries. Surekha and Priyanka promptly signed as eyewitnesses and the 12 had to go to jail. They were let off on the day of the lynching; when they came out, they wanted to kill Siddharth and his brother Rajendra. Unable to find them, they slew the Bhotmanges instead. The family -- Surekha, 45, Priyanka, 17, and Surekha's two sons, Roshan, 23, and Sudhir, 21 -- were stripped, paraded naked, beaten with bicycle chains, axes and bullock-cart pokers. Surekha and Priyanka were gangraped and killed. Roshan and Sudhir met the same fate. In his statement immediately after the incident, Bhaiyyalal claimed to have seen his family's end, but he now says he had run away. Some activists say this change of stance has hurt the case as Bhaiyyalal has technically become a hostile witness. But a survey of the spot makes it clear that had Bhaiyyalal been a witness, he would surely have been found out and killed. Dilip Ukey says Bhaiyyalal finds it difficult to live with the guilt of having run away when his family was being raped and murdered. "Bolta hai main bach gaya, abhi main kya karoon (he asks what he should do now that he has survived)." Ukey says the company of his two children has been a major distraction for Bhaiyyalal, as have the children at the hostel where he works. "Yet he suffers from insomnia. Sleeps at 12, gets up at 5. Sometimes weeps," says Ukey. We go to the hostel. The administration is proud to have him rehabilitated there, the children know all about him, and he finds great company in his fellow workers. Are you happy with this job, we ask Bhaiyyalal. "Samajh lo man lag gaya (you can say it keeps me occupied)." How many, apart from the 11 chargesheeted, were involved in the murder? "Ten or twelve." He names Sarpanch Upasrao Khandate, an ST, and his deputy, Urpade Khurpe, an OBC. Would he want to live in Kherlanji again? "What will I do there? There are no jat bhai (caste brothers) there." But two other Dalit families live in Kherlanji. "They are with the Kunbis, they have to live with them. One of them even eats with them. They live like their subjects. My family never accepted that." Did they practice untouchability with the Bhotmanges? "Obviously." Did any politician get involved? "Yes, Madhukar Kukure of the BJP tried to save his kin who were part of the lynchings. " What does Bhaiyyalal want by way of punishment? "They should all be hanged." What does he think of the Kunbis? "They are animals." It is 4pm and Bhaiyyalal says he will not go with us to Kherlanji at this late hour. Se we go next morning, his guard changing into police uniform rather than the usual plainclothes. On the way, Bhaiyyalal opens up a bit. The compensation he got under the Atrocities Act, Rs 4.5 lakh, he wants to use to raze his house and build a memorial to his children. Once in the village, he is hesitant to go through the village square and makes us take a detour to his home; the Kunbis pretend not to see him. Posters of Sanjay Dutt, Aishwarya Rai and the Buddha adorn the front door. A wall has collapsed in this year's rain and Bhaiyyalal alleges theft as he rummages through what was once home. Bhaiyyalal comes across as a man who asks for no sympathy, but who wants to move on in life and be respected for who he is rather than be forever known as the head of a family he could not save from a lynch mob. Above all, Bhaiyyalal wants to be happy. On our way back to Warthi, the cab driver plays old Hindi film songs. Bhaiyyalal hums along. Like this one from Guide: Aaj phir jeene ki tamanna hai . Aaj phir marne ka irada hai. "I would never allow my children to listen to music and study at the same time," Bhaiyyalal says. "Go listen to a song to freshen your mind, and then return to your books, I'd tell them." Wise to his children's ways, he would take the family transistor with him when he went to the fields. He pauses. "I love old songs. Nowadays they produce rubbish." We meet Milind Pakhale in Nagpur. He owns a small-time photo studio and calls himself a Buddhist rather than Dalit. He calls us in and sits us down; in a hushed voice, he tells us that TEHELKA should do an undercover investigation to expose the truth about Kherlanji. It takes him some time to explain his desire for a sensational exposé. The Kherlanji lynchings, he says, were pre-planned, and senior politicians had their relatives among the murderers. These relatives have been let off due to political pressure, as happened with H. Dhande and his wife Kamal Dhande, who were released after local MLA Nana Panchbudhe managed to get Deputy Chief Minister RR Patil to pressure the CBI to do so. Rajendra Gajbhiye, Siddharth Gajbhiye's brother, has said as much in court. In January, he told the court that he had been threatened and his kerosene licence cancelled. Similarly, Siddharth Gajbhiye's police patil job was terminated on the pretext of an old case against him. The Bhotmange lynchings received no media attention for over a month last year, despite the fact that word of the slaughter had travelled through word of mouth. Protests engulfed Maharashtra after the news broke in the first week of November, and the state government came under great pressure to be seen doing something. Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh came to Kherlanji to meet Bhaiyyalal on November 10, the day Bhaiyyalal returned from a meeting with CPM Politburo member Brinda Karat. Pakhale says Dilip Ukey was part of an NCP crowd that tried to prevent this from happening. When the CM finally met Bhaiyyalal, he had refused to accept the compensation cheque or a job. All I want is justice, he had said; taking money and a job will make me seem greedy. He had already named the politicians involved in the case in a press conference in Nagpur on November 8; among them were some from the BJP but also Nana Panchbudhe of the NCP. Later, however, Bhaiyyalal accepted the cheque and the job, and stopped naming Nana Panchbudhe. "The NCP won," says Pakhale, "they managed to shut him up. He now lives with Dilip Ukey, who is a block-level panchayat member on an NCP ticket. Bhaiyyalal is now a brainwashed hostage." "I named Panchbudhe by mistake," is all Bhaiyyalal has to say. "Pakhale and his gang are politicking for their own advancement," says Dilip Ukey. Ukey, however, does not appear very convincing, particularly after it turns out that he had given us an incorrect date for the next court hearing, and one when we would be far away from Bhandara or Kherlanji. Instead, it was Pakhale who took us to the hearing in the Bhandara lower court, and helped us meet Rashtrapal Narvane and Siddharth Gajbhiye there as well. A social justice department report has implicated top police officers, doctors and even a BJP MLA, Madhukar Kukade, in an alleged coverup and for hindering investigations. Kukade is also said to have relatives in Kherlanji, and he is the only politician whose involvement Bhaiyyalal remains ready to testify to. Deputy CM and state Home Minister RR Patil has admitted to initial lapses in the investigation and said that five policemen suspended over the killings have been sacked. But, though it is often the practice in high-profile cases, the Bhandara SP, Suresh Sagar, was not transferred; activists allege he was part of the cover-up. Sudhakar Suradkar, a retired IPS officer, even filed a complaint against IGP Pankaj Gupta for suppressing the facts in the case. "Surekha was my mausi, my mother's sister," Narvane told us. "She telephoned me on September 29, and asked me to come to Kherlanji. She said that the 12 sent to jail for assaulting Siddharth Gajbhiye had been released on bail and were looking for the Gajbhiye brothers to kill them. She feared for her own life and wanted me to come over." Rashtrapal says he couldn't go as it was evening, and he told her to approach the Andhalgaon police station for help, and to then come to his home in Warthi. "Surekha replied that she couldn't go to the Andhalgaon police as they had already warned her against being a witness in the Gajbhiye case, and had told her that the accused had relatives among politicians of both the NCP and the BJP. If they decided to do something to the Bhotmanges, the police wouldn't be able to save them them, Surekha said." If this wasn't ominous enough, the Kunbis of the village had already made threats to Roshan Bhotmange: "Kha pi lo, din bhar gaye hain tumhare (eat and drink as much as you can, your days are numbered)." Narvane could tell the court none of this that day: Ujjwal Nikam was absent, as was main defence lawyer Sudeep Jaiswal, so Justice SS Das said a main witness like Narvane would be examined next time. Someone else was examined instead. After the massacre, Bhaiyyalal lived with Narvane, but one day last December, one his four brothers took him away, ostensibly to their village. A day after that, Bhaiyyalal was installed at Ukey's. Narvane says Ukey got Bhaiyyalal to falsely accuse him of withdrawing money from his account. But Bhaiyyalal himself made a police complaint saying it was Ukey who had tried to do so, but he withdrew it soon after. Lost between the versions and counter-versions of the two camps, one realises it is not really important whether Narvane tried to cheat Bhaiyyalal or not, or whether Ukey is saving the NCP's skin or not. For Bhaiyyalal, who both sides say is a simpleton, says he is happy with Ukey and trusts him. The Bhotmanges had intended to go to Dikshabhoomi in Nagpur on October 2, where lakhs congregated from around the world to commemorate 50 years of Ambedkar's conversion to Buddhism. The news of the lynching, it is claimed, was suppressed until then by Dalit activists lest such a large crowd turn violent. After the news began leaking out, thanks to a fact-finding report by the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, the papers started covering it. Among the first was TEHELKA, copies of which were circulated in rallies. A Bhandara studio photographer, who took pictures of the naked dead bodies, now denies having done so. The pictures were circulated on the Internet, widely published and, crucially, printed on posters put up across Vidarbha. Who printed them is not clear but they are credited with bringing people out on to the streets. Many of the protests were staged by women's organisations, it is said that there is not a single Dalit woman in the area who did not participate. The reason is the picture of Priyanka Bhotmange, a cloth barely covering her genitals. RR Patil and the state police had blamed Naxalites for the violence that ensued, angering Dalits even more. Patil had to withdraw his statement. The police came down heavily on the protestors, booking them under non-bailable offences and keeping them in jail for months. There are reports of police brutalities, but no enquiries were held. The first to protest was the Rashtriya Sambuddha Mahila Sangathan in Bhandara, which took out a massive rally on November 1. The agitation then spread district by district, gaining momentum when news of the burning of an Ambedkar statue in Kanpur reached Maharashtra, and culminated with the burning of the Deccan Queen train in Mumbai. It is difficult to believe all of these were spontaneous."But you have to read them in the context of the history of Dalit protests in Maharashtra," says Dalit Studies scholar Gail Omvedt. "These have always been spontaneous, with whatever leaders are found around them." Led by hundreds of small organisations, the protests are believed to have been organised by second-rung leaders of the various Republican Party of India factions. The main RPI leaders were left embarrassed about their inaction. Most Dalit votes here go to the Congress, with the NCP identified as a Maratha-Kunbi party. The result of the apolitical Kherlanji protests, observers believe, will be a consolidation of votes for the Bahujan Samaj Party, which is trying for a foothold in the state. On September 29, there will be at least two main memorial meetings in Bhandara. One will be led by Naravane, Gajbhiye and various RPI sympathisers. The other will be held by the NCP camp; Bhaiyyalal will be present. There will be promises and remembrances and much media coverage. After a long day, Bhaiyyalal will go home and settle down with his transistor and listen to old Hindi film songs. Amongst his favourites is this one from Dil Apna Aur Preet Parai: Ajeeb daastaan hai yeh, Kahaan shuru kahaan khatam. Yeh manzilein hain kaun si Na woh samajh sake na hum. Sep 22, 2007 Back to top <#1150e883da3510c4_toc> Reply to sender <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | Reply to group <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> | Reply via web post <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/post;_ylc=X3oDMTJybnQxcWx1BF9TAzk3MzU5NzE1BGdycElkAzEzMzU5MzQ3BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2NDMwOQRtc2dJZAM4NTY5BHNlYwNkbXNnBHNsawNycGx5BHN0aW1lAzExODk5NDQzNjc-?act=reply&messageNum=8569> Messages in this topic <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/message/8569;_ylc=X3oDMTM2djhwdTE0BF9TAzk3MzU5NzE1BGdycElkAzEzMzU5MzQ3BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2NDMwOQRtc2dJZAM4NTY5BHNlYwNkbXNnBHNsawN2dHBjBHN0aW1lAzExODk5NDQzNjcEdHBjSWQDODU2OQ-->(1) 4. Kadkol Dalits to launch fast (News) <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ZESTCaste/message/8570;_ylc=X3oDMTJydWo0NjhpBF9TAzk3MzU5NzE1BGdycElkAzEzMzU5MzQ3BGdycHNwSWQDMTcwNTA2NDMwOQRtc2dJZAM4NTcwBHNlYwNkbXNnBHNsawN2bXNnBHN0aW1lAzExODk5NDQzNjc-> Posted by: "Tarun Udwala" [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> tarunudgir <http://profiles.yahoo.com/tarunudgir> Sat Sep 15, 2007 6:03 am (PST) http://www.thehindu.com/2007/09/15/stories/2007091555281000.htm National Kadkol Dalits to launch fast Staff Correspondent BIJAPUR: The once ostracised Dalits from Kadkol village, about 60 km from here, have decided to launch an indefinite hunger strike at their taluk headquarters of Basavanabagewadi from Monday, to draw the attention of the Government to their plight. They are to carry out the agitation under the banner of Karnataka Moola Asprushyara Manava Hakkugala Rakshana Vedike, headed by Ramanna Chalwadhi, which has been fighting for their cause for over a year. The issue drew nationwide attention after The Hindu published a series of stories on their plight in October 2006. The Government announced a number of relief measures of temporary and permanent nature. However, according to the Dalits, most of the relief of the permanent nature remained unfulfilled. This had caused them to agitate once again. Letter In a letter to Basavanabagewadi tahasildar, copies of which were released to the press here on Friday, Raju Kale, the district convenor of the Vedike, drew the attention of the Government about the unfulfilled promisesit made last year. . . They sought the implementation of all relief measures, including distribution of residential sites, cultivable land to the affected Dalits, rehabilitation of bonded labourers and Devadasis, assistance to animal husbandry and self-employment schemes. The also sought the suspension of district manager of Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Corporation, who they alleged had indulged in irregularities. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Green Youth Movement" group. To post to this group, send email to greenyouth@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth?hl=en-GB -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
