It is difficult to write on something that I have deliberately avoided for many years now. Had very consciously chosen to be blind and deaf, in order to remain emotionally sane and completely focus on just one thing and keep doing it without thinking about anything else to be able to bring even a small change.
I did this because fighting cases of caste atrocities, caste discrimination, our students suicides, being witness to other Ambedkarite groups fighting for the same, being part of many national campaigns for justice from 2003 to 2013, I came to realisation that there is nothing called ‘Justice’ in this caste society.
During this period I had first hand experience of police, court, media and SC Commission, Human Rights Commissions and other govt institutions. In none of the cases that we fought we got justice. Instead we were demeaned, humiliated and treated like criminals for asking for justice for our brothers and sisters, often dead.
I also realized that these institutions did not fail us. These are not broken. These have been designed that ways. It is our fault that we cannot see or accept this fact and still pose such faith.
To stop these brutal atrocities on us, we have to devise strategies to make these atrocities costly for oppressors. It is a long battle. Won’t happen in a short time period. This will not happen through electoral politics, nor through ngo project..both having their own sets of limitations.
Making atrocities bit costly for perpetrators, I have couple of examples to share. One is Tsunduru in the then Andhra Pradesh and second in Khairlanji, Maharashtra.
Even though there was a long delay in the justice and many of the perpetrators got much lighter punishment and some got scot free due to the connivance of local police, lawyers and courts, yet you will find that the local Ambedkarites fought maginficiently in both the cases.
Local lawyers, journalists, activists and all shades of opinion makers from the community came together and fought the entire machinery for justice in both places. In both places these people created a strong movement out of particular case of atrocity.
In Tsunduru, our people even forced the court to have its proceedings inside the village to hear the testimonies of victims and their families. I had the fortune to be part of one such court hearing there. I went there to cover the case for our magazine Insight. Same I experienced in Nagpur first hand while covering Khairlanji.
What I am trying to say is even when we could not get full justice in both the cases, we atleast made many perpetrators to spent some years in jail, fighting court cases..some even died running around. In both cases, it was made clear that there was a cost to pay for caste atrocity. And I am pretty sure this would have stopped atleast some caste atrocities to happen in that area, if not all.
I may be completely wrong on impact. But I want to believe this to be true. This gives me some hope for future.
Similarly I can share plenty of examples where the victims and their families had to give up their fight for justice due to lack of community support. Many had to do compromise as they could not withstand the combined might and pressure of local police, local dominant castes and had to withdraw their cases even after brutal atrocities on them.
The way forward, in my opinion is, first of all we must stop looking for a leader to lead us. I tried looking for, very desperately, while working on discrimination against our students and their suicides. I could not find one.
Only way is our professionals like lawyers, engineers, journalists, doctors, teachers, activists etc have to come forward with all determination to sit together, keeping all our anger and emotions aside, and discuss strategies to fight caste atrocities with full attention. Let there be no other distraction. Only to find ways to fight caste atrocities on our most vulnerable sections. Just only on this. Nothing else.
Secondly identify and groom young lawyers to fight these cases as a group. Get our brightest and young legal minds together, provide them all resources and let them fight these cases with their full might.
Last but most important we need to create a ‘community defense fund’ to not only fight these cases legally but also to support and rehabilitate victims and their families. This is the most important aspect of our fight. Even if we are not able to provide them justice, we can make sure that the victims and their kith and kins are able to lead a well- dignified life. Let our community take the entire burden of schooling, education, employment of the young ones of the family. Just to make sure even when there is no justice in this country, but we are all together in this. They are not alone and never will again be.
I never thought that I will share these thoughts like this. I wanted to walk the talk first before telling others. But could not stop myself from sharing, watching the grief being shared by our brothers and sisters on the death of our sister in UP.
I have taken this liberty being a bit senior to them and with the hope that all of us will come together and stop these atrocities happening for once and all.
Jaibhim!
Anoop Kumar,Director,Nalanda Academy,Wardha (M.S.)
