By Amit Kumar for Twocircles.net
This is the first in a four-part series on cases of Dalit atrocities in India which were brought up during a tribunal held by the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights in collaboration with other other liked-minded associations.
New Delhi : On Thursday, the Constitution Club of India played host to the Regional People’s Tribunal on atrocities against Dalits in South Asia. The event, organised by Swadhikar–National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (India), Samata Foundation (Nepal), Nagorik Udyog (Bangladesh) Asia and Dalit Rights Forum (ADRF), saw cases of Dalit atrocities from India, Nepal and Bangladesh, narrated and explained to an audience, including a jury of eminent human rights and Dalit activists, and legal scholars.
Most of the cases presented here had escaped national media, except one: the burning of Dalit children by upper-caste men in the Sunped village of Ballabhgarh, Faridabad, Haryana.
The incident had ‘shocked’ most in India, and on days following the incident on October 20, the national media had incessantly covered the news, all the angles and had spend much time on ‘understanding’ the deep, caste-based issues in a district that had been recently in the news for the launch of Delhi Metro.
Five months on, the victims wish they had someone to tell their story to.
Jitender Kumar and his wife, Rekha, had watched their children—Vaibhav, 2, and Divya, 9 months old—burn alive as they tried to save their children from the fire. The gruesome incident, which brought the age-old caste issues of the village into the forefront, has since become just another chapter in the list of atrocities against Dalits.
On Thursday, as Jitender stepped onto the podium to accompany a legal activist who spoke about all that led to the incident, and what has happened since, emotions got the better of him. Before long, he was crying insolently at the mention of his children. His wife, Rekha tried to console him, but she too could barely control her tears. A room packed with people, along with the jury, waited and watched in silence. Accompanying the couple were members of his family, and activists from NCDHR.
The Sunped incident might have grabbed headlines in October 2015, but if truth be told, this case goes back to 2010, when Jitender’s first cousin, Jagmal, was elected as a Sarpanch. His electoral win had, for the first time, challenged the upper-caste hegemony in the village, and this did not go well with the Rajputs in the village. Jagmal went on to win an award from the then President of India Pratibha Patil for his work in the village, which included providing piped water facility in the village, electricity and construction of concrete roads. In October 2014, angered by the power in the hands of the Dalits, some Rajput men decided to take matters in their own hands. They captured images of women from Jitender’s family, when they were in the field. The subsequent scuffle between the two parties saw the death of three Rajput men.
The Police took swift action and ensured that 11 people, including members of Jitender’s family, were arrested. This included Jagmal, despite he not being present at the site of the incident: his absence from the spot was vouched by ex-MLA Tek Chand Sharma, who even signed an affidavit in this regard. The police even arrested two aunts of Jitender, who are in their 60s, and booked them under various sections of the IPC, including Section 302. The two women recently came out on bail, and had accompanied the couple to the Tribunal. Ever since this incident, Jitender and his family have been living the pariah’s life in their own village: after they approached the National Commission for Schedule Castes, they were given police protection: but this was mere eyewash. The cops supposed to be protecting Jitender’s family worked as informants for the Rajput families instead.
Speaking to Twocircles.net, Jitender had a lot of questions, as well as complaints. “When the incident happened in 2014, the Police was so swift on arresting anyone they seemed fit: what went wrong in October 2015 then? My children died in front of me while cops remained silent,” says Jitender.
Rekha, who was hospitalised for about 40 days with 35% burns in her body, says after the initial uproar, no one came to check on them. Rekha has had two operations since the incident and is waiting for a third one in June or July. “The pain I suffer every day is little compared to the pain of seeing my children die,” she says, barely able to stop her tears. “The 11 people who were arrested in this case have all been given bail. The local Police do not have anything to do with this case after it was handed over to the CBI. When all accused get bail, while our relatives rot in jails for crimes they did not commit, what hope do we have?”, she said.
Jitender also questioned the role of the media in the incident. “All they wanted to know was how fire killed my children. How did I survive while others suffered so much? The media was there not because Dalits died; it was because the Rajputs were accused of the act,” he says. Days after the incident, Haryana CM met the family and promised them compensation, a CBI inquiry and a government job for Jitender along with police protection for the family. However, Jitender says that the protection is more like a burden for them. “We can barely move around without them, and we have to take care of their food also. I have been without a job for months now, half the compensation money (Rs 10 lakh) has been spent on legal actions, medications and other expenses. In the initial days, we could not even get a lawyer for our case. Almost 80% of the lawyers in Faridabad court are Rajputs, so of course they wouldn’t fight my case or even let others fight it,” he says.
“When I go to my village, I cannot move out of the house, unless I am leaving the village,” he adds. He said after the accused were given bail, he had called up a CBI officer and in a fit of anger; he accused the officer of conniving with the accused. “The officer threw the choicest abuses at me for saying that, saying that he would “take care” of me too if I said such a thing again,” says Jitender, while playing the recording of the call.
Jitender and his family were heading back ‘home’ after we spoke to them. Before leaving, when asked if he wants to continue living in the village, he said, “No. I will never be happy again in that place…it will always remind us of the atrocities that we have suffered. I want to live anywhere but Sunped,” he said. For the time being, his bigger worry is finding a job, and paying medical bills. “We honestly do not know what will happen in the case…I am not sure if justice will be delivered, but all we can do is hope,” he said.