In Haryana, statistics show, more than three-forth of sexual crimes committed
are against the Dalit women. It is also important to note that majority
of them were gang-rape attacks committed by dominant caste-fury upper caste
gangs. FIRs are filed and accused are arrested in just in one or two of these
cases, that too only after unrelenting demonstrations and struggles by Dalit
people and democratic organisations.
Caste-based violence against the
Dalits, impudence of dominant castes, female foeticide and infanticide, Khap
panchayats with perverse pride and patriarchal arrogance and dominance which
are fully supported and backed by vote-bank political parties and government
machinery – this is the true face of Haryana and this has come to light several
times in the past. While there are more than 15 Dalit women were subjected to
gang-rape by the mobs of dominant Jat community in the month of September,
Sonia had chosen to visit the family of a girl who committed suicide after
being gang-raped by a Dalit mob. This cannot be brushed aside as just another
consolation drama; this is where the cruelty and cunningness of the ruling
class lies. By enacting a few minutes of consolation drama ruling class
succeeded in projecting those crimes against women are there in every
community; in one master stroke, she also acquitted Haryana government saying
that sexual offences are not specific to Haryana but something that is
prevalent all over the country.
Adding insult to the wound, the
local Congress leader Dharamveer Goyal said, “90 per cent of such incidents
were consensual”. After conveniently forgetting that many of those involved in
the crime are married men, the Khap Panchayat proposes the idea getting the
youth married at an early age to stop them from straying. Om Prakash Chautala,
the ex-Chief Minister of State, who endorsed this idea of the panchayat at
first, reverted back later after it caused a furore. The bourgeois
intellectuals project the lower sex ratio as one of the primary reasons for the
crime. Rapes are prevalent even in areas where the sex ratio is better; reason for poor sex ratio in
Haryana is because of the illegal female foeticide and infanticide by
patriarchal, feudalistic, regressive families – Are they aware of these facts or
just want to ignore them?
The ruling Congress government
has gone a step ahead and carrying out a deceitful propaganda by projecting
this is a “political conspiracy against the government”. The State DGP Ranjiv
Singh Dalal is throwing statistics on our face saying that the number of rape
cases this year in Haryana has reduced by 80, compared to 2011. The Inspector
of Hissar district argues that Dalit women being raped by the people of
dominant caste are a rare occurrence. The Sub-inspector of Police of Kohana
reinvents an age old patriarchal theory of “exposing costumes” as a cause for
increase in crime rate. By doing all this, the state government is trying to
project this, just as a law and order problem and not as an issue of casteism
and patriarchy.
But hundreds of evidence are
available to prove that the Khap panchayats have intervened in almost all cases
of rape crime committed by dominant caste and have acquitted or trying to
acquit the accused. In one of the cases in Hissar district- Dabra village,
where a 16-year old Dalit girl has been gang-raped, the Khap panchayat is
protecting one of accused Sunil, belonging to the dominant Jat community. When
police produced Sunil in front of the affected girl as part of the
identification parade, she, under the compulsion of Khap panchayat, even
refuses to identify him. Khap Panchayat also decided not to permit any
outsiders or press persons inside the village to witness the proceedings; it is
also said that the Inspector of Police was also present in that meeting.
“There is no fear of the
law in Haryana,” says Hisar-based advocate Rajat Kalsan, fighting the Dabra
case involving the rape of a 16-year-old Dalit girl. “That’s because most of
the administrative machinery, the state police and the judiciary are dominated
by people whose relatives have a major hold on panchayats in the state. The
Jats have terrorised the Dalits and backward castes and have become a law onto
them.” “Police always lodges the FIR. After that, when we arrest the
perpetrators, the panchayat intervenes and presses for an out-of-court settlement,”
says another Sub Inspector, Saurabh Singh, Jind disrict. “If the case somehow
reaches the courts, then witnesses from the village turn hostile. In some
cases, witnesses whose statements were recorded before the magistrate do not
even turn up for the first hearing under pressure from the panchayats,” he
adds. Accused are being punished in less than 13% of all the cases that reach
the court, shows statistics. This statistics and the statement by the Inspector
of police confirm the accusation of Rajat Kalsan.
In the Dabra gang-rape case which
happened on 9th of
September, the accused captured the incident in their mobile phone and also
shared it with others. Unable to bear this shame, father of the victim
committed suicide. Police filed FIR in this case only after the Dalit people
staged a protest saying that they would not be cremating the body unless the
criminals are arrested. Even here, the police tried to include some of the
Dalit youth into the list of accused by misrepresenting the statement given by
the victim – but their attempt was exposed. Just a day after Sonia’s visit and
consolation drama, a married Dalit woman was raped by two men from dominant
caste. Police subjected the girl’s character and conduct to question because of
the fact that the accused are known to the girl and they have also spoken to
her on her cell phone just before the incident; by doing so, their objective is
to protect the criminals. It is also important to understand that no police men
would be booked under criminal or Prevention of Atrocities Act, for their
action in favour of the dominant caste accused.
In every panchayat one hears an
axiom narrated with pride by the landlords: “If a Jat has not had sex with his
siri’s (farm labour’s) wife and daughter, then he is not worthy of calling
himself a Jat”, a very telling commentary on the prevailing mindset in the
state. They are not just feudal or land lords – using privatization, they have
also emerged as a new elite rich. It is this regressive, feudalistic mob that is
minting money by becoming real estate brokers and contractors who procure land
and supply manpower for the multinational corporations. Their perversion and
casteist arrogance against the Dalits is increasing in the same proportion to
the rise in circulation of money with them. Increase in the number of sexual
atrocities from 386 in 2004, to 733 in 2011 (nearly double) should be looked-at
in this backdrop.
In cases where the dominant caste
is involved in the rape of a Dalit woman, capturing the heinous incident on the
mobile phones and sharing it with others has become a trend and such a trend is
on the rise. They are neither ashamed, nor they are looking their behaviour as
a crime. They consider it as an act for establishing their masculinity and
dominance against Dalits. All these conclusively prove that these attacks on
the Dalits are not out of sexual provocation but are related to the casteist
arrogance. Khap panchayat is protecting not only the criminals who were
involved in sexual atrocities against the Dalits; they are also playing a vital
role in shielding those criminals who murder the newly wed couples in the name
of ‘honour killing’. The vote-bank political parties are on the forefront for
protecting such an illegal, anti-social and regressive khap panchayats.
In such a situation, can anyone
believe that there is even a remotest possibility for attaining justice in this
country? Some Dalit youth from Narvana Village has hunted down the criminals
themselves – is it more feasible way to attain justice? These incidents expose
the Capitalist and semi feudal features of Haryana.
