Activists, survivors of caste crimes and intellectuals came out in support of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities Act) at an event in Mumbai on Saturday after the Supreme Court issued an order on March 20 banning automatic arrests under the legislation, citing its alleged misuse for blackmail.
Among those who expressed their support for the Act was former Rajya Sabha member Bhalchandra Mungekar. “If any Dalit files a false case, that person should be held responsible,” Mungekar said. “But the solution is not to destroy the Act in the name of bogus cases.”
Mungekar was speaking at the Atrocity Victims’ Council, an event organised in Mumbai five days after a Bharat Bandh held in large parts of northern India to protest the Supreme Court order. Seven of the nine people who died that day were Dalit. Events and press conferences similar to this one have been held across the country since the Supreme Court order.
Survivors of atrocities who had either suffered themselves or whose family members had been targeted highlighted the importance of the act in a country where caste discrimination is deeply rooted.
Among those who spoke was the father of Nitin Aage, a 17-year-old boy from Ahmednagar who was brutally attacked and then hung from a tree after he was spotted speaking to a 14-year-old Maratha girl in his village. A trial court in Ahmednagar acquitted all the accused in November 2017.
Asha Kamble, a resident of Beed district, spoke of the harassment she suffered when after she was widowed, she rejected the sexual advances of an upper-caste man. The police refused to file a complaint against him four separate times. Finally, the village committee accused her 13-year-old daughter of robbing a house. They asked Kamble to compensate the alleged victims of the robbery. When she refused, she was evicted her from her home.
A woman police officer from Beed described her experience after she was allegedly gang raped by fellow police officers. She has been suspended for four years. She joined the police force 12 years ago. Though the case continues, the two witnesses in are being harassed, she said.
Activists and survivors both emphasised how the Act was in fact not strong enough to protect them and that preventing the immediate arrest of those accused of atrocities would actually harm the victims.
“The problem is that the police do not help at all with cases that are real,” said Kabirdas Kamble, an activist from Beed district. “But the police help in cases that are false. Why? Because there are political brokers behind those cases and so there is pressure on the police to act on them.”
Though the Act was passed in 1989, the rules to enforce it were notified only six years later in 1995, Mungekar pointed out, and there have been lapses in its functioning ever since. But there is a deeper problem. Mungekar said: “It is not enough to abolish untouchability. We must also abolish caste. This is a national problem.”
The testimonies were offered against the backdrop of an exhibition by Sudharak Olwe, the Mumbai-based photographer who has been documenting cases of atrocities against Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes since 2016, as reported last year.