TCN News
India Civil Watch International has recently published an online series that was originally prepared by prominent African-American and Dalit activists as a protest against the gruesome Hathras rape case in Uttar Pradesh.
The online publication by India Civil Watch International consists of poems, articles and video messages culminating major powerful voices from the Black, Dalit and other marginalized communities working as activists, scholars and professionals across US universities. This group of US-based academics had initially launched a petition to condemn the horrific case of the rape and murder of a Dalit woman in Hathras, highlighting the dubious role of police in handling of the case. The petition received a huge response within a week and registered 1800 signatures from international human rights workers, academics and organizations to demand action against police brutality. International organizations like Dalit Solidarity Forum in the USA, National Women’s Studies Association, SEWA-AIFW (Asian Indian Family Wellness), CodePink, and Women’s Legal and Human Rights Bureau-Quezon City have endorsed the petition.
Individual signatories include Barbara Harris-White, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Arjun Appadurai, Shailaja Paik, Suraj Yengde, Rod Ferguson, Katherine McKittrick, Margo Okazawa-Rey, Laura Pulido, Huma Dar, Nida Kirmani, and Meena Dhanda.
As the petition is gaining more solidarity and support, the recent publication by Indian Civil Watch International has further strengthened the cause for justice concerning caste-based violence in India. The group has discussed how George Floyd’s brutal murder by a white police officer in Minneapolis “has reignited the Black Lives Matter Movement in the U.S. and across the globe” while “the rapes and murders of Dalit women in U.P. by dominant-caste men have galvanized tens of thousands of protestors across the world to rise up against the police state that operates in the service of violent Hindutva in India.”
“We have to accept and feel the extremely painful fact that Dalit women have been raped, mutilated, murdered, and burnt,” says Dr Roja Singh, Dalit and Indigenous scholar published on the website. She has further urged for “a global movement – a cry for restorative justice and human dignity justice for all.” The group has also resonated that as the bulk of resources have been made available online, people across the world must ponder over similar patterns and “draw important connections between movements for social justice that are raging in different parts of the world in this historic moment,” other than “generating important debates about what transnational solidarity can and must look like at this time.”
The publication has also shed light on state-sponsored brutality against Dalits and other vulnerable communities stating that they aim to bring attention to “state’s complicity in the continued inhuman violence towards and oppression of Dalits, not just in U.P. but across India.” Christopher Queen, a Religious Studies scholar who has written extensively on socially engaged Buddhism in Asia and the West, has also signed the petition and has spoken on parallels between racialized and caste-based violence. He has compared “the violent racism in the United States, which is allowed by corrupt officials and callous citizens” to “the escalating brutalization of Dalit citizens, particularly women and girls.” He further calls this “a growing plague at the heart of a nation claiming to uphold democratic institutions and humane values.”
As the petition continues receiving an overwhelming international response, the US-based group has highlighted that major international academic journals, academic departments and programs at top-tier public universities in the United States, and social justice organizations from around the world are also now endorsing the campaign.