The nation-wide bandh on Monday against the recent Supreme Court order allegedly diluting the provisions of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act has resulted in the death of nine persons and incidents of widespread violence, arson and looting of private and public property. The bandh call was given by various Dalit organisations. Its severity was felt the most in the northern States, with Madhya Pradesh accounting for six deaths, Uttar Pradesh two and Rajasthan one. In many places, violent mobs looted private property while government property was vandalised in several others. The bandh was triggered by the apex court order on March 20.
It sought to introduce safeguards against the abuse of the anti-atrocity law. Not unlike the anti-dowry law earlier, the objective was to ensure that the law did not become an instrument for harassment and intimidation of innocent people. Yet, the Dalit leadership chose to misread the well-intentioned order as a dilution, giving a call for a nation-wide protest. The vote-bank politics persuaded every political party to endorse the protest call, without realising that the continued abuse of the anti-atrocity law will eventually recoil on the intended beneficiaries. For, the more a law is abused, the more it antagonises the people, thus creating avoidable fissures in the society. No one denies that Dalits have been the victims of terrible discrimination in the caste-ridden society.
Nobody denies the need to end this age-old discrimination. In the egalitarian system that we have adopted upon Independence, such discriminations are banned by law. The anti-atrocity law was one more measure, prescribing harsh punishment for anyone humiliating them on account of their caste identity. Yet, as in the case of the anti-dowry law, there was widespread abuse of this law to harass innocent people. It was this abuse that the apex court sought to address by prescribing safeguards before the harsh provision of the anti-atrocity law could be invoked. But the entire political class succumbed under the pressure of the Dalit groups and sought the reversal of the court order. On Monday, the Centre appealed against the SC order. But the fact remains that without adequate precautions, the fear of abuse of the law to harass innocent people will persist. If the conviction rate under the law is lower than the average conviction rate in other cases, it too points to the flaws in the law as also its misuse. While ensuring that genuine cases of atrocities are duly reported and proceeded against under the law, Dalits have to be careful against the law’s abuse only because it would further aggravate the problem of caste-based divisions in the society.
Mainstreaming of Dalits has, in fact, proceeded apace with the economic development in the country. Though, in the rural areas Dalits continue to suffer, hardly any cases reported of discrimination from the urban and semi-urban areas. However, sporadic incidents of discrimination do take place, and which receive wide publicity, aggravating Dalit grievance further. The onus is on the society as a whole, and not just on the politicians, to tackle this problem of resentment among certain castes when Dalits assert their socio-economic rights. It is in such cases that the full force of anti-atrocity law must be brought to bear on the perpetrators. Unfortunately, the vote-bank politics has vitiated the atmosphere for a peaceful assimilation of the people traditionally considered lower castes into the mainstream, with politicians like Mayawati having a vested interest in fanning divisions for their own selfish interests. The fact that she could become the chief minister of the largest State three times underscores how far we have succeeded in breaking the caste barriers. No longer are Dalits engaged only in professions traditionally associated with them. A number of them are doing well in several other professions as well. The fact that the anti-atrocity law was abused widely under the Mayawati Government is undeniable. It is this abuse which eventually led to a backlash, forcing the apex court to prescribe safeguards. Unfortunately, the order was mistaken as a dilution. And now, following Monday’s bandh, at least a partial rollback of the court order cannot be ruled out. With time, however, Dalits will come to appreciate the reasoning that informed the apex court’s original order.
