Marathas, Dalits fight over atrocities act, but cases filed on decline

MUMBAI: The Maratha community and the state’s Dalits stand divided over the Atrocities Act, but official statistics tell a story of how fewer cases are being registered

MUMBAI: The Maratha community and the state’s Dalits stand divided over the Atrocities Act, but official statistics tell a story of how fewer cases are being registered under the 25-year-old legislation that was introduced to redress caste-related exploitation.

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National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data show the number of cases registered under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act in Maharashtra has plummeted to 2,206 cases in 2014 from 4,756 recorded in 2010.

Sheer numbers indicate a simple drop in incidents, but Dalit activists see them with a subscript. They say the decline is because a majority of cases are going unrecorded, given the muscle power of the accused, their pull in the administrative system and fear of social boycott.

“In a hundred incidents of atrocities, barely five or six get registered as cases,” said advocate Keval Uke, the general secretary of the National Dalit Movement for Justice. The act is in the news as its review and amendment is one of the main demands made by the Maratha community in its ongoing silent protest marches across the state. Their contention is the legislation is often misused.

Uke questions this agenda. “The act is currently barely being used. How will it be misused? We understand there is an unwritten missive to the police to minimise the number of crimes registered, and refrain from recording cases under the atrocities act.”

The act was not applied even for the heinous Khailanji massacre of September 2006, when women belonging to the Bhotmange family of Dalits were paraded naked and eventually killed with two boys by members of a politically dominant community in Bhandara district yelling caste slurs.

This is also why the BJP-led government cannot consider a review of this legislation. Standing on thin ground vis-a-vis statistics and facts, any such move will alienate Dalits, not only in the state, but across India.

Ashok Tangade, a social activist from Beed, said, “Atrocities are never against a rich, educated Dalit. It is the weak, poor and uneducated who is oppressed by people getting to demonstrate their power and political might through such acts. They have influence over the investigating officers to give a favourable report. The victim is easily swayed.”

Tangade victims have to run from pillar to post to simply give a complaint, and those who ultimately record a complaint are often distressed with social boycott within the small village.

Tangade recalled a recent case of Asha Kamble, a middle-aged widow from Khadaki village in the Wadwani taluka of Beed, belonging to a scheduled caste. “After harassing her, a few men tried to drive her out of the village. They threw all her belongings out of her house where they lay for nearly three days. With the help of our foundation, she registered a complaint, which the police after its investigation declared as false.”

Socially shunned by her village after the incident, Kamble had to ultimately relocate to Beed city, Tangade said.

At the other end, Rajendra Kondhare, general secretary of the Akhil Bharatiya Maratha Mahasangh, gives the same argument as the Dalit activists for the drop in the number of cases - most cases go unrecorded.

“It is true that only 10 to 15 percent cases come on record under the atrocities act, but that is because members involved from the Dalit community know their cases will fall flat if they go to the police with them,” Kondhare said. He added, “Just yesterday he was apprised of a case where a Dalit school teacher who went on maternity leave came back four-and-a-half years later and threatened the local legislator that she will use the atrocities act if she is not given her job back. There are many cases like these.”

Pradeep Salunkhe, one of the leaders of the Maratha Seva Sangh, a hardline Maratha organisation that is seen guiding the protests, said, “The number of cases may have come down due to an overall awakening within the two communities with time. But, even today the atrocities act is misused to threaten people from our community and blackmail them to get work done.”

The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities Act) specifies strict penalties in case of atrocities or offences, provides for externment of those likely to commit offences, and calls for special courts for speedy trials.