Una flogging 10 years on: Fight for justice continues for Sarvaiya family

Every morning, the Sarvaiya household in Mota Samadhiyala village of Gir Somnath district begins the day tending to its two cows and two buffaloes before milk is supplied to a local dairy

Every morning, the Sarvaiya household in Mota Samadhiyala village of Gir Somnath district begins the day tending to its two cows and two buffaloes before milk is supplied to a local dairy. The modest income barely supports the family’s seven members. It is a livelihood they chose after giving up lifting and skinning dead cattle, work generations of Dalits were expected to perform because of caste.

On July 11, 2016, brothers Vashrambhai and Ramesh Sarvaiya, along with their cousins Ashok and Bechar Sarvaiya, were tied to a vehicle, stripped to the waist and flogged by self-styled cow vigilantes after they were accused of slaughtering a cow while skinning its carcass near their village. Videos of the assault spread across the country, triggering outrage, sparking one of Gujarat’s biggest Dalit movements and altering the conversation around caste discrimination and cow vigilantism.

Ten years later, the family’s struggle has shifted from the occupation it left behind to rebuilding its life. It continues to fight a legal battle despite a trial court verdict, waits for what it says were promises of rehabilitation made after the assault to be fulfilled and survives on a modest income from selling milk to a local dairy. “We understood Babasaheb Ambedkar only after Una,” said Vashrambhai, now 33. “We realised we should not continue such work imposed on us only because of our caste. We decided that no matter how difficult life became, we would never again lift or skin dead animals.”

The family’s resolve is reflected in another decision Vashrambhai took recently. He adopted a pony, saying it represents equality and self-respect. In several parts of Gujarat, Dalits have faced violence and social resistance for riding horses, particularly during wedding processions, an act traditionally associated with dominant castes.

“Keeping the pony is our way of saying we are equal,” he said.

On the afternoon of July 11, 2016, seven members of the Sarvaiya family, residents of Mota Samadhiyala village, were skinning the carcass of a dead cow, work their community had performed for generations. A group of men claiming to be cow protectors accused them of slaughtering the animal. The attackers tied four members of the family to a vehicle, beat them with sticks and iron rods, stripped them and paraded them through Una town. The assault ended only after police reached the spot. The victims were first taken to Una hospital before being shifted to Rajkot for treatment.

Within days, thousands of Dalits marched on the streets, blocked highways and declared they would no longer remove the carcasses of dead cattle. The protests culminated in the Dalit Asmita Yatra, led by activist Jignesh Mevani from Ahmedabad to Una. Its slogan became one of the defining messages of the movement: “Gai nu puchdu tame rakho, amne amari jameen aapo.” (Keep the cow’s tail, give us back our land). The slogan reflected a larger demand. If Dalits were expected to give up a hereditary occupation imposed by caste, they needed their land rights, employment and economic alternatives.

For Mevani, who later entered the Gujarat Assembly, the movement remains one of the defining moments in Gujarat’s Dalit politics. “The practice of lifting dead animals was deeply entrenched. It was never going to disappear in a few years,” Mevani said. “More than 15,000 Dalits gathered at Chandkheda in Ahmedabad during the movement and pledged they would never again lift dead animals. That pledge has discouraged the practice in many places, but rehabilitation should have followed.”

According to Mevani, sustained agitations that followed helped Dalit families secure possession of nearly 2,000 acres of land that had long remained under the control of dominant castes. “There is much more to be done. I can point out to at least 10,000 acres allotted to Dalits that are still not in their physical possession. If people are leaving a caste-assigned occupation, the government must provide alternatives through land and jobs.” Mevani said he has repeatedly raised the issue of the assurances made to the Una victims during successive Budget sessions of the Gujarat Assembly since becoming an MLA in 2017. “For the last eight years I have been raising this issue, but there is no answer,” he said.

Mevani drew a parallel between the Una agitation and the recent CJP protest at Jantar Mantar, saying both were powered by a younger generation unwilling to accept discrimination.

For the Sarvaiyas, however, politics has always come after survival. Today, the family depends on selling milk from the few cows and buffaloes it owns. The income barely sustains the household of seven. Vashrambhai said the burden has grown heavier as his eight-year-old daughter undergoes treatment for thalassaemia. “There was no alternative livelihood waiting for us. We simply decided we would rather struggle than go back.”

Some became masons, others turned to farming or different occupations. “More importantly, many began to understand that education was the key to breaking free from caste-assigned livelihoods. We learnt to question traditions through reason,” he said.

According to Vashrambhai, the state government led by the then chief minister Anandiben Patel had assured the victims of five acres of agricultural land, government jobs and 100-square-yard residential plots after the incident.

A Gujarat government official who spoke on condition of anonymity said there was no written record of those assurances, and that the government therefore cannot act on them.

The investigation was later transferred from the Una police to the CID (Crime), which filed a chargesheet against the accused under provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. One accused died during the course of the trial, while the remaining accused secured bail over the years. According to the prosecution, about 240 witnesses were examined. The 331-page order shows that 80 prosecution witnesses had turned hostile, including several eyewitnesses and witnesses connected to the identification of the accused, weakening the prosecution’s case against many of those charged.

On March 16 this year, the Special Atrocity Court in Veraval convicted five accused under provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and sentenced them to five years’ imprisonment. The remaining accused, including four police personnel, were acquitted after the court held that the prosecution had failed to prove the charges against them beyond reasonable doubt. The court also did not uphold the charge of attempt to murder. The victims have challenged the acquittals before the Gujarat High Court and sought enhancement of the sentence awarded to the five convicted men.

Unhappy with the verdict, the victims have challenged the acquittal of the remaining accused before the Gujarat High Court and have also sought enhancement of the sentence awarded to the five convicted men, said Vashrambhai.

The matter is now scheduled to come up for hearing on August 25.

“We have fought this case for ten years and we are nothing but disappointed. Only five people were convicted and they got just five years’ imprisonment. All of them are out on bail today…such crimes committed because of caste deserve much stricter punishment,” according to Vashrambhai.

Kantibhai Parmar, a Dalit leader associated with the movement, estimated that at least one lakh Dalits across Gujarat have given up the hereditary occupation of removing animal carcasses since the Una flogging. “The movement gave people confidence to refuse work that had been forced on them for generations,” he said. “In several villages, local agitations supported by leaders including Mevani helped Dalit families secure agricultural land. But many others are still waiting for meaningful rehabilitation.”

Martin Macwan, founder of Dalit Shakti Kendra, said the legacy of Una cannot be measured only through the outcome of the criminal trial. “It fundamentally changed awareness among Dalits. People started questioning practices they had accepted for generations,” he said.

Macwan further said that several incidents reported in the years after Una appeared, at first glance, to be about symbolic acts such as sporting moustaches or riding horses, but often reflected a deeper assertion of equality. He recalled investigating one case in which Dalit men were reportedly assaulted for keeping moustaches. “When I reached the village, I saw photographs of their ancestors, and they all had moustaches. That could not have been the real issue,” he said. “When I questioned them further, they admitted the dispute had actually started because they refused to follow the long-standing practice of carrying their own utensils to a community meal. They had decided after Una that they would no longer accept such discrimination. That refusal led to the confrontation.”

According to Macwan, similar tensions surfaced in villages where Dalits refused caste-assigned occupations or asserted their right to ride horses during wedding processions. While economic conditions for sections of the community have improved over the years, he said social discrimination continues in different forms. “The movement also lost some of its collective strength,” Macwan said. “Political affiliations and sub-caste divisions have weakened the unity that was visible after Una. There are 84 Dalit MPs in Parliament, but they belong to different political parties and rarely come together on issues affecting the community.”

The Sarvaiyas’ daily struggles have changed little over the past decade. The income from supplying milk makes it difficult to sustain the family, medical expenses for his daughter’s treatment continue to mount and the legal battle is still before the Gujarat High Court. Yet, they say, the movement changed one thing forever. The occupation that caste assigned to generations before them no longer defines who they are.