[Reader-list] dalit massacres in bihar anand teltumde

[Asit Das]

*Dalit massacres in Bihar and acquittals: An ominous pattern***

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Written by: Dr Anand Teltumbde

Published: Thursday, October 17, 2013, 12:26 [IST]




The recent Patna High Court judgment on the infamous Laxmanpur-Bathe
massacre in 1997 acquitting all the 26 accused, who were convicted by the
sessions court in April, 2010 has stunned all right-minded people.


The incident in which 58 Dalits, including 27 women and 16 children were
brutally killed by the Ranvir Sena, a private militia of the upper caste
landlords was the biggest and goriest one of the 23 major incidents of
Dalit killings in Bihar in 1990s.


While they are ignored by the media, the outrage over this blatant
miscarriage of justice is refusing to die. The only result it produced is
the declaration of the Bihar government that it would go to the Supreme
Court in appeal.


 While it is a positive sign that such outrageous injustices to Dalits
evoke condemnation from a section of public, howsoever small, each time it
occurs, it gives an impression as though the instance is isolated one-off
occurrence. It is forgotten that it is but a part of the pattern formed
over the decades which reveals far more worrisome injustice embedded in the
system.


This is the fourth time in quick succession that all accused have been
acquitted

As for Bihar, it is an open secret that these killings were executed by the
most notorious of such landlord Senas, the Ranvir Sena led by Brahmeshwar
Mukhia, who was gunned down by an unidentified gunman last year.


The Ranvir Sena, as the aborted enquiry of Justice Amir Das Commission
reveled was supported by cross section of political bigwigs from Bihar and
outside. It had named as many as 37 politicians, who would have been in
trouble if the report was published. Nitish Kumar, the chief minister
abruptly disbanded the commission with an alibi that it had not submitted
the report for nine years. One can assess the political clout this criminal
outfit commanded.


But it is not only with Bihar or Ranvir Sena. This essential feature of the
anti-Dalit formation pervades the entire country with some variation. The
perpetrators of atrocities on Dalits have backing of political bigwigs who
manage the entire justice delivery system right from the local police
station to the highest courts. And this has manifested right from
Kilvenmani in Tamil Nadu in 1969, the veritable marker of the new genre of
atrocity stemming from caste-class contradictions of the new political
economy of the post-colonial India.


 In the Kilvenmani incident, 44 Dalit labourers mainly comprising women and
children were herded into a hut and burnt alive by the landlords. After the
incident, the district court had acquitted 15 out of 23 landlords arrested
by the police and awarded liberal imprisonment ranging from one to ten
years to the balance eight.


On appeal, the Madras High Court acquitted all of them, saying that it was
improbable that the accused who were rich landowning gentlemen could commit
such a crime. Interestingly, 22 Dalits were jailed for 2 months without
trial. Eight Dalits, who lost close relatives in the fire, received jail
sentences for the murder of a hit-man of the landlord that took place prior
to the incident, ranging from one year to life imprisonment. The details
will certainly vary from case to case but all later atrocity-aftermaths
confirm to the pattern created in Kilvenmani.


Major incidents of caste atrocities present a pattern that the lower courts
after years convict some of the accused and the High Courts acquit them all
for want of evidence.

In Bihar this is the fourth time in quick succession that all the accused
in massacre cases have been acquitted by the high court for "lack of
evidence". Earlier in July this year, nine of the 10 persons convicted by a
special district court for killing 34 Dalits at Miyanpur village in
Aurangabad district were acquitted by the Patna High Court.


In March this year, all the 11 accused convicted by a lower court for the
massacre of 10 CPI-ML sympathisers at Nagari village in Bhojpur district in
November 1998 were acquitted by the High Court. It was a similar verdict in
case of the infamous Bathani Tola massacre in which all the 23 convicts
declared guilty by a lower court for the cold-blooded killing of 21 dalits
were acquitted by the high court last year. And now follows the
Laxmanpur-Bathe!


While lamenting the laxmanpur-Bathe aftermath let us not forget this
ominous pattern.



[Dr Anand Teltumbde is a management professional, writer, civil rights
activist, and political analyst. He can be contacted at tanandraj at gmail.com]