October 19 2020.Pdf

OC COVID-19: THE NEW HEALTHGIRI AWARDS MAMATA’S WAR DRUGS ON THE BLOCK FRONTLINE COVID WARRIORS AGAINST THE BJP www.indiatoday.in OCTOBER 19, 2020 `75 REGISTERED NO. DL(ND)-11/6068/2018-20; U(C)-88/2018-20; LICENSED TO FARIDABAD/05/2020-22 POST WITHOUT PREPAYMENT REGISTERED NO. RISING CRIMES RNI NO. 28587/75 RNI NO. AGAINST DALIT WOMEN P S I TOUGH ACTION NEEDED TO PREVENT THEM Relatives mourn the death of a 19-year-old Dalit woman in Hathras, UP, who was allegedly gang-raped and brutally assaulted FROM THE EDITOR-IN-CHIEF t has been seven decades since Independence, yet India But they lack proportionate representation in the administra- has been unable to purge the curse of caste from its tion, particularly in the police force. This makes them vulnerable society. It permeates our electoral politics, our social to abuse, despite being a large section of the population. lives, our jobs and even marriages. The ones who suffer Our cover story, ‘Rising Crimes Against Dalit Women’, put I most are those at the bottom of the caste ladder. These together by Deputy Editor Kaushik Deka with inputs from are the Dalits, who comprise 17 per cent of our population. bureaus across the country, looks at India’s continuing legacy This means the same medieval beast of casteism stalks 200 of shame, the state’s inability to protect our weakest and most million of our countrymen despite many laws vulnerable citizens. Sadly, as you can see from being passed to protect them and raise their our past covers, the story isn’t new. Our first cover status. This was highlighted recently when on story on the issue was in 1978. This situation still September 14, four upper-caste men allegedly prevails despite recent modifications to the law, gang-raped and brutally assaulted a 19-year- like designating as crimes acts such as preventing old Dalit girl in a village in Uttar Pradesh. Her a Dalit from riding a horse at a wedding proces- tongue was cut and her spine broken. She died sion or tonsuring their heads to humiliate them, after a fortnight of unbearable pain and a life and restoring the mandatory arrest under the SC/ lived at the intersection of three burdens: of ST Act. Political parties of all hues court Dalits for caste, gender and economic status, a poor Dalit electoral gain. woman. The Hathras rape and murder, as the case is now being called, is not an isolated inci- Our October 15, 1978 cover he political landscape for Dalits has also dent, nor are such horrors restricted to any par- T changed. While, on the one hand, the electoral ticular state. An estimated 3,500 Dalit women fortunes of Dalit leader Mayawati and her party, the were raped in 2019, which means 10 Dalit Bahujan Samaj Party, have declined; on the other, women are raped in India every day. A third of younger and more militant leaders like Chan- the cases are from Rajasthan and UP. drashekhar Azad of the Bhim Army are filling the The National Crime Records Bureau’s vacuum left by the BSP. He is making Dalits more latest report records an alarming 159 per cent aware of their rights and fighting for them. The increase in the number of reported rapes of growing statutory concessions to the lower castes Dalit women in the country between 2009 only heighten the hostility of the upper castes. and 2019—from 1,346 cases to 3,486 cases. However, the problem goes beyond conscience- These numbers, as sociologists caution us, do Our August 8, 2016 cover salving legislation that doesn’t get correctly not reveal the true extent of the horror. The implemented. It is also about their economic reality is that men of the dominant castes see status. Based on the country’s consumption expen- Dalit women as fair game. It is not only sexual diture, more than 50 per cent of the SC population violence, but an instrument of humiliation and belongs to the poorest two quintiles, as revealed domination. A sense of impunity also drives by the NSSO data from the Indian Labour and them because, most often, the police tend to be Employment Report, 2014. The corresponding manned by those belonging to the same caste figure is 20 per cent for upper-caste Hindus. The groups that dominate the ruling party of the latter own 41 per cent of the country’s total wealth state and are inclined to turn a blind eye to the as against 7.6 per cent owned by SC Hindus, ac- atrocities against Dalits. cording to a joint study conducted by the Savitribai A closer look at what unfolded in Hathras Phule Pune University, the Jawaharlal Nehru Uni- Our April 16, 2018 cover is a test case for what Dalit women endure. versity and the Indian Institute of Dalit Studies, The UP police tossed aside the rule book on Delhi, from 2015 to 2017. how a rape complaint must be handled. They were reluctant Increasing urbanisation would greatly reduce the stigma to register an FIR even though failing to do so is a punish- of caste as people are forced to live and work together. This able offence. Medical attention to the victim was delayed. leads us to another gigantic problem: the pathetic state of the Forensic evidence was collected 11 days later, rather than infrastructure in our towns and cities. Seven decades ago, the within four days as mandated by government guidelines. Dalit icon B.R. Ambedkar called the Indian village a ‘sink of When the young woman eventually succumbed to her inju- localism, a den of ignorance, narrow-mindedness and com- ries on September 29, her body was not handed over to the munalism’. Not much has changed since then, except that our family but instead cremated by police in the middle of the population has quadrupled. Dalits, and especially Dalit women, night, without their consent. are the worst sufferers of our unjust society. When law enforcement officials look away, harsh leg- islations like the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, meant to protect Dalits, become toothless. At nearly 42 million, Dalits make up 21 per cent of the population in UP, more than in any other state. (Aroon Purie) OCTOBER 19, 2020 INDIA TODAY 9 UPFRONT LEISURE BIHAR ELECTION: ONCE UPON BJP’S PLAN B PG 12 A CRIME PG 59 www.indiatoday.in IAF’S FALLING Q&A WITH SQUADRON NAWAZUDDIN CHAIRMAN AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Aroon Purie VICE CHAIRPERSON: Kalli Purie NUMBERS PG 18 SIDDIQUI PG 66 GROUP EDITORIAL DIRECTOR: Raj Chengappa INSIDE GROUP CREATIVE EDITOR: Nilanjan Das; GROUP PHOTO EDITOR: Bandeep Singh MANAGING EDITORS: Kai Jabir Friese, Rajesh Jha EXECUTIVE EDITORS: S. Sahaya Ranjit, Sandeep Unnithan, Manisha Saroop; Mumbai: M.G. Arun SENIOR DEPUTY EDITORS: Uday Mahurkar, Hyderabad: Amarnath K. Menon DEPUTY EDITORS: Kaushik Deka, Shwweta Punj 24 SENIOR EDITORS: Sasi Nair, Anilesh S. 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