Atrocities that no longer shock
While
the Delhi rape incident saw mass protests for justice, crimes against Dalits
hardly evoke such outrage, which is why the killers in the Laxmanpur-Bathe
massacre have got away
The response by the
state to the 2012 Delhi gang rape case was immediate and effective — a
commission to review legislative protections and recommend amendments, and a
new enactment. The judiciary responded similarly — death penalty for the
accused and although there was indignation about the “leniency” towards the
juvenile involved in the crime, there was overall a sense of satisfaction that
the ends of justice had indeed been met. But all through this saga, a persistent
voice from Dalit intellectuals and activists kept asking whyKhairlanji did not provoke this kind of national
outrage and why India is unmoved by the most gruesome massacres of Dalits.
The
October 9 verdict of the Patna High Court in the Laxmanpur-Bathe
massacrebrings this question up yet again: a painful reminder of the
continuing legitimacy of the caste system and aggravated assault, making a
mockery of the rule of law.
On
a plain reading of this judgment, it is not disputed that 58 persons — men,
women and children, all Dalits — were killed after being shot by a mob of over
a hundred men armed with guns, in a concerted attack on the intervening night
of December 1-2, 1997. It is also not disputed that survivors in this village
were eyewitnesses who had lost entire families in the massacre, and had
narrowly escaped murder themselves. There was a delay by the police in
recording the statements; persons identified by the eyewitnesses were not named
in the statements in the first instance; there was a delay of three days in
reaching the FIRs to the Chief Judicial Magistrate; there was blood in the
homes of the victims and survivors; “copious blood” on the banks of the river
Sone; and blood smeared on a boat on the riverbank; the murderous mob shouted
slogans in praise of Ranvir baba and dispersed on the sound of a whistle;
footprints of 100-150 persons on both banks of the river suggested to the
investigating officer that the mob had crossed the river towards Sahar but he
did not cross the river in his investigation. The investigating officers
recorded statements by the survivors that several of the men named as
perpetrators were members of the Ranvir
Sena who had criminal
antecedents.
DELAY
The
case was committed to the court of sessions in 1999, but typically as with many
atrocity cases, the trial did not begin for 11 years till the High Court issued
fresh instructions in November and December 2008. By this time, of 91
witnesses, 38 had turned hostile. Of the 50 accused sent up for trial in 1999,
44 finally faced trial, some having died in the interim. The Sessions Court
sentenced 26 persons to death in 2010 after convicting them of murder, criminal
conspiracy and atrocity — 13 years after the massacre.
The
witnesses cited dispute over wages and standing crop as the reason for the
attack — a demand for an increase in wages from one-and-a-half kilos of food
grain to three kilos. The perpetrators were not an unknown mob from a strange
and distant land. They were landlords in the same and neighbouring villages,
who the victims and their families knew well and worked for. They were all from
the dominant, landowning castes.
They
attacked in the dead of night, flashing torches to search for the victims, and
the witness-survivors were hiding from attack — yet they recognised the men and
named them. But they had also witnessed unimaginable violence and had lost
several members of their families in the attack. Their testimonies through the
investigation speak of their hurtling from one house to another discovering
more bodies than survivors, and the sound of wailing that rent through the
night.
LOOPHOLES
The
High Court of Patna speaks of loopholes in the evidence on record: the delay in
reaching the FIRs to the Chief Judicial Magistrate; the fact that names were
not recorded on the first visit the day after the massacre by witnesses who had
lost all their family members in the attack; the impossibility of recognising
perpetrators from places of hiding; the impossibility of risking lives to go
onto the terrace to identify people from the mob; the impossibility of fixing
the identity of individuals in a mob from a distance; inaccuracies in recording
the exact location of hiding during the massacre; absence of evidence on any
dispute between the dominant landowners and the Dalit wage workers.
Where
do these refutations leave us?
Fifty-eight
people in a small Dalit hamlet were massacred. There is no denying that. The
attackers, says the High Court, were unknown men from Sahar across the river
Sone in Bhojpur district, who have not been apprehended. Instead the wrong
people who bear no responsibility for the crime have been convicted, says the
court. How can we be sure?
This
is the trouble with caste atrocity. The fact that perpetrators are in an
immediate relation of dominance with victims and survivors and are easily
recognised counts for nothing. Can we even begin to understand the courage and
determination of poor and traumatised Dalits? The outcome of this case
demonstrates yet again how difficult it is to keep a case alive, to keep
memories raw and open in the face of an almost certain betrayal by the state,
and how tough it is to keep fighting against the conspiracy — between upper
caste perpetrators, their collaborators in the establishment and their
apologists in a caste-ridden society.
Why
not Khairlanji? Why not Karamchedu?
Why not Laxmanpur-Bathe? Why does this country not come to a grinding halt in
the face of atrocity of the worst kind? Justice can only be said to be done
when those that are most vulnerable are able to access it without difficulty.
It is our collective failure and a national shame that we allow the space for
this travesty again and yet again.
Source: The
Hindu dt 15.10.2013
(Kalpana Kannabiran is professor and director,
Council for Social Development.)
