Opinion Atrocities on Dalits and a dead society
Suraj Yengde writes: More than a decade ago, Dalit scholars in the US intended to start a web portal to exclusively report atrocities. They enlisted me. However, I could not. I did not. I don’t know if the reason was my work pressure or unwillingness to undergo the trauma.
Suraj Yengde writes: Dealing with cases of Dalit atrocities is like working in a mortuary. You witness new bodies every day, and your job is to assess the cause of their death. (Express Photo) 
I do not like to write about this. It is one of the 50,000-plus acts committed last year. Caste atrocities committed against Dalits is a topic I avoid writing about. It is too much to take. To relive the atrocities and try to make sense of what happened is visceral, with fear and tremors pacing throughout the body. It sends shivers while reading the news and transcribing it. An atrocity committed against a person, more so a Dalit, feels like an organ has been mutilated in my body.
To investigate the case and fathom the pains of my fellow beings withdraws me from the world. Whether I am sitting at my desk in a foreign country or covering miles across India, the emotions travel faster than light to transmit the message of people’s agony.
Once it is committed, I create scenarios in my mind. Most of them are fatal. What if someone enters the house and does the same to me? Reasons may vary, but consequences of fear and alarm are constant, causing anxiety attacks. We’re constantly looking back as if a ghostly shadow is following us in the dark.
I have written in Caste Matters how the insulting behaviour met to the Dalit girl students in Gujarat tore me down. I kept walking in the cold, shivering rain in London, crying it out for the brutalities that have been normalised on my children.
More than a decade ago, Dalit scholars in the US intended to start a web portal to exclusively report atrocities. They enlisted me. However, I could not. I did not. I don’t know if the reason was my work pressure or unwillingness to undergo the trauma.
Dealing with cases of Dalit atrocities is like working in a mortuary. You witness new bodies every day, and your job is to assess the cause of their death. One cannot, in the right mind, accept this job without killing some nerves of emotions every day, drying out the liquid of tears and affection.
After the atrocities, people like me are invited to comment on it. It has become a ritual; a dead Dalit is a space of congregation for the media who want to sympathetically understand the nature of Dalit response. They’ve participated in this atrocity. By not making Dalit and Tribal issues of paramount concern, they have paralleled their existence to death and gory episodes of cruelty. Dalit and Tribal lives should be subjects of national importance, and a Dalit atrocity should be treated as treason against the state.
The media, state and society have partaken in the creation of these incidents. They should be made accountable for this continuous oversight. There certainly is a space for Dalit obituaries written as news, thought pieces, academic articles, or bestsellers.
Dalits are not your celebrity film stars, athletes or powerful business community who can force the might of the state to turn in their direction. Dalits are merely one of the constitutionally protected categories. “They have been provided with reservation. What else do they need now? Ungrateful people create problems even after taking away my seat. Dalits are lazy, and because of them, the country is not progressing.” Such foulest myths are compounded in society and hurled at Dalits without having any evidence to back their claims.
Various governments have been trying to tackle the plague of caste atrocities. They have strengthened the Prevention of Atrocities Act which ironically makes it difficult to get the cases registered. Due to the stringent law, the police administration mostly works in favour of the accused. In response to the atrocity case, a counter case of robbery and sexual harassment is filed against Dalits, making them two-pole victims—that of the caste atrocity and the victim of vengeance.
Just earlier this month, Akshay Bhalerao, a young man of 24 decided to organise Ambedkar’s Jayanti in Bondhara, near Nanded, my hometown. The landowning Maratha did not appreciate this assertion. As a result, Akshay was stabbed with such force that his intestines popped out. His mother rushed, trying to save his son, holding the blood-laden innards in her hands and pushing them back into his gut.
Is celebrating Ambedkar the reason for the atrocity? If this was the case, then the casteist goons would unleash similar assaults on the Prime Minister and Chief Ministers. Caste atrocity is not confined to self-assertion. Like many other atrocities in villages, it is related to land and the political economy of the state.
A few recommendations to prevent atrocities.
1. Having a special court and a parallel system to deal exclusively with cases of atrocities.
2. The highest offices of the government and its leaders should regularly advertise in newspapers and TV against caste-based atrocities.
3. Start an app that would live report the cases of atrocities to the local police and administration.
4. Whenever such incidents of atrocities happen, declare the constituency as inept and dry it with state funds.
5. Creating newer trained units of the Samata Sainik Dal to tackle such untoward incidents and administer values of the constitution in the society.
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