The Problem of Caste by Satish Deshpande

Author:Satish Deshpande [Deshpande, Satish]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Orient BlackSwan Private Ltd.
Published: 2018-06-12T00:00:00+00:00

22

Khairlanji and Its Aftermath

Exploding Some Myths*

Anand Teltumbde

The cases of recent atrocities reflect a qualitative change in the mode of perpetration as well as their intensity—they tend to be committed by collectives in a grotesque celebratory mode. Take the case of Jhajjar in Haryana where five Dalits were lynched to death on 15 October 2002 by a crowd of caste Hindus in broad daylight and within the police premises, with police officials standing by as mute spectators to the ghastly act. There is a sense of defiance and self-assurance on the part of the perpetrators associated with recent crimes. The Jhajjar incident was publicly justified as a well-deserved punishment to the victims.1 So was the case in Bhutegaon in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra in May 2003,2 in which a youth was burnt alive by a crowd of caste Hindus; or of Sonnakhota in Beed district, around the same time, where again a crowd of caste Hindus chased a poor Dalit and stoned him to death.3 There is a discernible increase in the intensity of atrocities in recent years, which may be explained to some extent by their being committed by a collective. The cruelty displayed in certain recent caste atrocities defies human imagination. The details of the torture inflicted on the Bhotmange family in Khairlanji cannot be believed to be an act of human beings—mother and daughter being paraded naked to the village centre, the genitals of the boys being crushed with stones, the two women being gangraped to death, the corpses callously thrown into a canal.

The dispute over the passage through Bhotmange land provided a backdrop to the incident, no doubt, but this does not explain the atrocity, particularly the ferocity of it. The land dispute goes back 17 years in time, when Bhaiyalal Bhotmange had moved with his family to Khairlanji to cultivate five acres of land that he bought near the village of his in-laws.4 The land, which was used as a common passage by the villagers as long as it was uncultivated, became unavailable to villagers thereafter. The matter had gone to revenue court, but eventually Bhaiyalal Bhotmange emerged unscathed with the support of Siddharth Gajbhiye, a well-to-do cousin of Surekha, Bhaiyalal’s wife, who was also a police patil5 of his village. The injury to the caste pride of the caste Hindus simmered and grew with the increasing assertiveness of Bhotmanges, which was perceived to be partly due to their upward economic mobility and cultural progress, the latter in terms of the educational achievements of the Bhotmange children, and partly to the support of Gajbhiye. The villagers grudged Gajbhiye’s visits to Khairlanji, alleging an illicit relation between him and Surekha Bhotmange, and thrashed him on 3 September. In the case filed by him, where Surekha and her daughter stood witness, 12 local persons were arrested. On obtaining bail, on 29 September last year they carried out the attack on the Bhotmanges with the support of entire caste Hindu population. While the origin of dispute thus appears

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