From sitting on a chair to riding a bike, Dalits are attacked for the smallest of reasons

“If I had stood there ten minutes longer, I would be dead,” says Shivan Raja, a 38-year-old mill worker, who thinks he is lucky for having got away only with a head injury and a few stitches. His crime: Not standing up to acknowledge upper-caste boys as they drove past. Raja, a resident of Checkanurani village near Madurai, Tamil Nadu was resting at a bus shelter near a local market when a group of four upper-caste men passed by on motorcycles on May 27. Raja's cousin recognised them and hastily shuffled to his feet but Raja did not. The slight did not go unnoticed. The group circled back and demanded to know why they had not been ignored.A confused Raja sputtered an apology in response but that failed to appease them. As Raja ran for his life, the group followed hurling stones, casteist insults and abuses. They finally left him bleeding from his head and unconscious. medium nocaption78057172Raja's case is not an exception. Across the country, innocuous actions like brushing past a motorcycle, sitting on a chair in the presence of a dominant caste member or even sporting a upturned moustache or mojris (traditional footwear) have invited wrath on Dalits. Last month, 40 Dalit families in Kantio Kateni village of Odisha’s Dhenkanal district were socially boycotted when a 15-year-old girl plucked flowers from the backyard of an upper-caste family. medium nocaption78057489In July this year, a Dalit man was stripped and beaten up along with his family members in Karnataka’s Vijayapura district for allegedly touching the motorcycle of an upper-caste person. medium nocaption78057308Any marker of upward mobility or affluence can trigger an assault. Handicrafts trader Babulal Jogesh, who lives in Huron Ka Tala village in Rajasthan's Barmer district, was cornered by Rajputs who objected to him crossing their homes wearing sunglasses and riding his bike in November 2017. “Four of them cornered me, grabbed my hair, broke my bike and sunglasses,” he recalls. The material he was carrying was thrown and stamped on. “I was so scared that I did not use that route for a month,” he says. medium nocaption78057326In June 2018, a 13-year-old Dalit boy was beaten up in Becharaji town, 110 km from Ahmedabad, simply because he was wearing mojris (embroidered traditional shoes). medium nocaption78057348Dalit activist and academician Sujatha Surepally says that with education and migration the Dalit community is trying to challenge caste hierarchies but the dominant caste continues to hang on to their so-called superiority. “The dominant caste has a fixed image of who they see as a Dalit. When reality does not match their mental image of someone who is deferential, revenge is unleashed,” she says.Dalit activist and author Chandrabhan Prasad agrees that it’s a reaction against rising aspirations. “Young Dalit men and women are aspiring for more. Earlier we would see a bride come barefoot to her husband's home. Today Dalit families save enough to splurge on SUVs to bring the bride home with a sense of pride.” At a wedding in April last year a group of upper-caste men beat up a 21-year-old Dalit in Uttarakhand so badly that he died nine days later. All because he sat on a chair in their presence. medium nocaption78057352These reprisals, Prasad says, are often filmed to serve as a warning for others who might try and “overreach”. “There is a feeling that he is being shown his rightful place,” he adds.Incidents of violence have seen a sharp spike in some states in the last few months. NGO Evidence that tracks attacks on the Dalit community in Tamil Nadu usually records about 1,200 cases a year of which 10% or about 120 cases are brutal assault. Vincent Raj also called Kathir, who heads Evidence, says that the organisation has already recorded 150 cases of brutal atrocities in the last five months.boxcontentKarnataka leads in Dalit insult cases* 5,775 offences registered under the SC/ST Act in 2017 where Dalits were victims* 3,172 (55%) were related to “intentionally insult or intimidate with intent to humiliate”* 63 cases of social boycott* 12 cases where Dalits were prevented from using public spaces* Most insult cases were reported from Karnataka (1,175), UP (804), Bihar (338) (based on FIRs lodged in 2017)Source: NCRB, 2019Rahul Singh from the National Dalit Movement for Justice says that while the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has stringent provisions including a prison term, it is ineffectively implemented. “The law provides that each state should have a monitoring committee, but most state committees have not met, and in some states do not even exist. The police are also either reluctant or unwilling to use the right provisions,” he says.Dalit activist-lawyer Atul Chavda from Gujarat's Amreli was taunted and abused by a senior cop in April last year for wearing a gold chain and keeping an upturned moustache. He has since written to the police commissioner, the state human rights commission and the chief minister but there has been very little progress in the investigation. In fact, many efforts were made to urge him to take his complaint back. Rajasthan's Jogesh also came under tremendous pressure from the village panchayat to withdraw his police complaint but plans to pursue his case in court. “I might lose, but I will not withdraw,” he says. medium nocaption78060278boxcontentUpper case anger spills over to FacebookRajasthan-based Centre for Dalit Rights Satish Kumar says that offensive posts against Dalits are on the rise. For instance in May 2018, members of the Dalit and upper caste communities had a virtual showdown in Dholka town of Ahmedabad district of Gujarat after a Dalit man added the suffix ‘sinh’ – traditionally used by Kshatriyas – to his name on Facebook.Illustration: Arya Praharaj