To be young and Dalit in a Gujarat village

Seven years after the Una flogging incident – in 2016, cow vigilantes had flogged four Dalits for skinning a dead cow – attacks such as the one in Mota village have served to expose deep-seated biases while also pointing to a subtle resistance from members of the Dalit community in the state.

The Indian Express had earlier reported how Ramesh Sarvaiya, one of the victims of the Una flogging, has since the incident bought a mare and even sports a beard – both seemingly personal choices, yet in these parts seen as bold acts of defiance against upper-castes.

Lakshmanbhai Shekhaliya, 60, a member of the village panchayat, said, “Our generation was docile. We worked in the homes and fields of Thakors and Rajputs. It was common for them to bar us from entering their homes and to give us water in separate utensils. We would oblige quietly, without making it an issue. All this still happens, but what has changed is that we no longer rely on the Thakors and the Rajputs for our livelihoods. Especially the younger generation – they want to live a life of dignity and are clear about their rights.”

The “change” that Lakshmanbhai talks about has stemmed from better access to education and jobs.

‘They want us to stay beholden’

In Mota, a village of over 2,000 households – a 100 of these of Dalits, and the rest of Rajputs and the OBC Thakors – the houses are clustered on caste lines.

Almost every Dalit household in the village has a member either holding a government job or working as subedar or havaldar in the armed forces.

Yet, the atrocities continue. Over the past few years, many Dalits in the village have been at the receiving end of violence over alleged infractions like sporting a moustache, wearing sunglasses and bright clothes, owning or riding a horse, wearing a safa (headgear) at one’s own wedding, using a DJ during the wedding procession, etc.

Lakshmanbhai said, “Last year, when a Dalit groom wanted to ride a horse for his wedding, the villagers, including Rajputs and Thakors, said it couldn’t be allowed. To keep peace, we agreed to their demand. Still, on the day of the wedding, the Rajputs threw stones at the groom because he ‘dared’ to wear a safa. The Dalits in our village are expected to conduct celebratory events in a muted manner. A Dalit baaraat (wedding procession) still cannot go via the village square even today.”

Lakshmanbhai’s 30-year-old son Mahesh, who has moved out of the village and works in Ahmedabad, is in Mota briefly to help his father build their new house. Stating that he had studied only till Class 7, Mahesh said one of the reasons why he dropped out was because his teachers — mostly Rajputs and Thakors — would always send him on errands during school hours. “The teachers did not send other students in the class on errands, just me. It became quite obvious after a while,” he said.

Dressed in a crisp sky-blue shirt and jeans, his hair cut in a faded trim, 18-year-old Mayank Shekhaliya says he too aspires for a job in the government or armed forces.

A first-year student at a college in Chandisar, nearly an hour away, Mayank said he routinely faces small indignities but chooses to ignore them. “While on my way to college, if I’m confronted by Rajputs in the village square, they pass snide remarks on my clothes or family. I ignore these remarks. If I respond, it will lead to an altercation — something that no one wants,” he says.

Though the village has a government school and a school run by a Rajput trust, 15-year-old Krish Shekhaliya commutes for two hours each day to attend school in Chandisar. “The government school here is not great and the trust-run schools are too expensive for us to afford,” said the teenager, adding that he has friends from all castes.

Stating that the discrimination faced by the community was a lot more subtle, Bharat Shekhaliya, 30, said, “It irks the Rajputs that we are trying to get ourselves and our children educated, trying to lead a good life, spending on what we want or small luxuries like looking presentable or riding a motorcycle. They make sure they don’t waste an opportunity to remind us to stay within our limits and stay beholden to them. But now, people from our community are aiming for government or other jobs. Also, our livelihoods are no longer tied to theirs. Now we work in the cities, have other jobs.”

Khemiben Shekhaliya, 80, recalls how as a young Dalit woman her community was denied access to basic amenities such as water from the common taps. The Dalits bore the discrimination and the humiliation then, she added, because they were financially dependent on the Rajputs.

While National Crime Records Bureau data shows a marginal dip in year-on-year crimes/atrocities against Gujarat’s Scheduled Castes – from 1,426 incidents in 2018 to 1,201 in 2021 – conviction rates have gone up from 3.1% in 2018 to 5.8% in 2021.

Notably, between 2018 and 2019, in at least three separate judgments, a Special Judge in Banaskantha district had directed the state Social Welfare Department to recover the compensation paid to Dalit complainants in cases filed under provisions of the Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, while acquitting the accused, on the ground that the “menace” of registering “false complaints” of Dalit atrocities to get compensation from the government “cannot be overlooked”. The Gujarat government’s legal department had opined in the negative for filing appeals against these judgments.

Ahmedabad-based Dalit rights activist Kantilal Parmar says the numbers don’t reveal the full picture. “The FIRs are only the tip of the iceberg. Most cases of atrocities are not even reported. Many Dalits don’t go to police stations due to fear of repercussions, while some are held back by the villagers or pressured into compromising and settling the matter,” said Parmar.

Atulbhai Shekhaliya is among those who reached a compromise. His baaraat was allegedly pelted with stones in February 2022 because he was wearing a safa. Atulbhai’s father Virabhai had lodged an FIR for offences under various IPC Sections and the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, and 28 people were booked. Four months later, on June 23, 2022, the FIR was quashed by the Gujarat High Court after Virabhai submitted before the court that he did not want to pursue the matter anymore.

A family member said, “They settled the matter because it was becoming difficult for them to deal with the case and its cost. Then, there was ‘insistence’ from the accused to settle the matter. Since the family did not receive any support from other Dalits in the village, they thought it was better to end the matter and move on. To be honest, the Rajputs have not bothered us since the settlement.”

Atulbhai’s house, located away from the older colony of the community in the village, is among the few new Dalits houses in Mota.

Bhupatbhai, 31, who was attacked last month over his brother “wearing sunglasses and good clothes”, alleges he is being pressured to “settle the case” by village elders and the family of the accused. “For all the discrimination we face, no one files an FIR most of the time. Even if we arrive at a compromise with the accused, it is not like our situation changes. There has not been a single arrest. Instead, we have been accused in a counter FIR,” said Bhupatbhai.

“You settle once, and they understand that you are pliable. Our three-bigha field adjoins that of a Rajput and a Thakor. The borewell lies on their land and we usually take water from their borewell. They cut our water supply after Jigarbhai’s case was filed as a way to pressure us,” added Bharat.

Activist Parmar rues the lack of will to implement some of the mechanisms prescribed to check discrimination.

“At present, the state does not even have a vigilance and monitoring committee as is prescribed under sub-rule 16 of the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Rules, 1995. The committee, which has CM among its members, is supposed to meet twice a year but between 1995 and till date, only 14 such meetings have been convened,” he added.

Law being misused, say Rajputs

In the Rajput part of the village, Narendrasinh Parmar, 28, and Ranjitsinh Parmar, 30, allege that Dalits in the village had taken to misusing the “special law”.

“Most of our youths are in government jobs, even the army. In fact, most of the 28 who were accused of pelting stones at a Dalit groom last year were preparing for government exams. An FIR was lodged to deliberately ruin their future,” they claimed, as they sat at a provision store near the village square.

Narendrasinh, a lawyer, and Ranjitsinh, a farmer, claim that the local community hall was given free of cost for some Dalits weddings.

Both dismiss allegations of caste discrimination, saying they attend social functions organised by all castes. “It is only a few who are troublemakers. And they (the Dalits) make it seem like it is a caste issue,” said Ranjitsinh.