Special: Gujarat’s Dalits Juggle New Patterns of Hate, Violence and Police Apathy

Idar (Gujarat): Shaileshbhai Chenwa covers his face with a white handkerchief, even when he sits within the confines of his home in Vadol village near north Gujarat’s Idar town. Chenwa, a 32-year-old Dalit daily wage worker, limps when he walks and has blue and black patches all over his body.

Chenwa is not ill. He is ashamed of what happened to him on March 11.

Weeks ago, Chenwa left home to work at a cold storage unit in Idar. Chenwa made it to work and worked through the day, but when the day ended, he was abducted by a group of Thakurs. Beaten and bruised, Chenwa could not fathom what may have angered the Thakurs. Later, the Thakurs who abducted him stripped him naked and paraded him in front of the entire village of Nani Vadol.

While naked, they also made him write an apology letter, wherein he promised to never speak to a Thakur woman again.

Today, Chenwa does not step out without covering his face.

“Everyone saw me naked; it was as if I was an animal, no one came to save me,” he told The Wire.

‘Who cares?’

Kishenbhai Senma still remembers the day in 2022 when he got married. It’s not heartfelt memories of a joyful day that he has, though. Thinking about what happened still sends shivers down his spine.

In August 2022, laden with blessings and flowers, Senma sat atop a horse, all ready to reach his to-be bride’s house for the wedding rituals. Soon, Thakurs arrived and dragged him down the horse, using provocative casteist slurs against Senma and his entire family. Senma, a resident of Vansol village in north Gujarat’s Mehsana, was stopped from taking his procession on the horse forward, simply because he is a Dalit.

“These believers of Manusmriti think of us as if we’re pests, insects, parasites. They have always treated us like this. But we won’t tolerate it any more,” Senma told The Wire.

Kishenbhai Senma’s village Vansol in Kadi block, Mehsana. Photo: Tarushi Aswani

At first when the incident happened, their first thought was to avoid any action which would anger their oppressors more. But after a month, Senma filed a case against the Thakurs who harassed him.

“When we tried to file an FIR, the police suggested that this matter could be solved without investigation. Then we realised we must go to the courts to claim our rights,” Senma said.

Sukhabhai, 60, is a village elder who has been witnessing anti-Dalit oppression for years now. “Our lives are only worsening, but no one cares about us. We are only an uneducated clan of people who aren’t even appeased as a vote-bank anymore. Who cares if some of us live with trauma, who cares if an upper-caste kills us tomorrow?” he asks.

Kishenbhai discusses his case with NGO workers from Navsarjan. Photo: Tarushi Aswani

Though Gujarat is very often advertised as a model, developed state, according to data tabled in Rajya Sabha, the conviction rate in cases of atrocities against Scheduled Castes between 2018 and 2021 was a mere 3.065 %, much lower than the national average. According to data acquired under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, acts of discrimination in urban Gujarat are extremely high as well. Ahmedabad city reported 189 cases – the highest number in the state – of atrocities against SC people in 2022. The state recorded a total of 1,425 such cases.

From 2018 to 2021, only 32 cases out of the 5,369 registered cases were proved against the accused. In at least 1,012 registered cases, the accused were acquitted, even when the charges were as serious as murder and rape.

Adopted by Amit Shah

Bileshwar village in Gandhinagar’s Kalol is usually quiet and slow moving. The village doesn’t particularly stand out, except for the fact that it is outlined with factories and industrial buildings.

January 29, 2024 was just another ordinary day in Bileshwar. Geetaben was milking her cow when teenage Thakur boys were playing near her. Geetaben asked them to play elsewhere as they would scare her cow. The teenagers began abusing Geetaben, triggering her son get involved in the scuffle too. This was sorted out by the police and everyone went their separate ways.

The next day, in the evening, at least 200 Thakur men allegedly arrived on trucks in Rohitvas colony, where Geetaben and other Dalits live, and began barging into homes with sticks, stones and rods. Creating a ruckus, they pelted stones at houses and severely wounded Geetaben and her family, and anyone who came in between to try to stop the Thakurs from rioting. “The police discouraged us from filing an FIR, it was as if they would never catch the culprits,” Geetaben explained.

But once Geetaben filed an FIR, the police allowed Thakurs to file a counter FIR too.

“This village was adopted by home minister Amit Shah, yet we face this. Has he forgotten us?” asked Baldevbhai, a village elder. “Things are only getting worse; we are going back to the olden times. Thakurs enjoy unbridled power over us. The MLA from Kalol is also a Thakur, he is from BJP, that is why their community has a freehand here,” he told The Wire. The MLA is Thakor Laxmanbhai Punjaji (Bakaji) from Kalol-Gandhinagar

While Geetaben’s case is being pursued in the District Court Kalol, fear grips her every now and then. She shivers while following her routine. “It has been a year, but I still feel very disturbed when I step out even in my own area. I am always worried for my family,” she said.

Nuances of hate

The Wire also met with other victims of caste-based atrocities, and in Idar’s Chitrodi village, the victim shared an unusual case of harassment. Sombhai Chenwa, a cotton farmer, is scared of cows and bulls – an ironic predicament in his profession. Chenwa has developed a fear of unknown cattle ever since people from the Rabari community purposely let loose their animals in his field. Six months ago, Chenwa called out a man from the Rabari community for this. He was harassed, beaten and subjected to caste-based slurs. Chenwa bled from his head for questioning the Rabari community for their newest pattern of harassment.

In January 2019, Dahyben Vankar was attacked by a group of Thakurs who were angered because Vankar’s grandson defeated the Thakurs in a kite-flying competition. Vankar, 65, was beaten and her home vandalised. With the guidance of Jan Vikas, an NGO, Vankar filed a case under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. Six years later, her case is still being heard at the District Court Idar. The last hearing scheduled on December 17, 2024 could not happen due to the absence of the accused party in court.

Sombhai near his farm in Chitrodi village. Photo: Tarushi Aswani

Every victim The Wire met with sketched out a scheme of harassment being used to target them. There was a common theme – the deployment of the OBC persons to make their lives miserable.

For instance, all the victims shared how the Thakurs, the Rabaris or the those from the Suthar community were the main and major attackers of Dalits. All the accused in the above-mentioned cases belong to OBC groups. Dalits said that mundane, day-to-day occurrences were being made into issues against them, to provoke them and then finally get them entangled in a web of worries, police cases and courts.

Patterns of ignorance, normalisation

“The BJP believes in the ethos of the Manusmriti – which talks about treating Dalits in a humiliating manner and talks about unleashing violence on the Shudras. That is the reason why there is little to no conviction against our oppressors,” Jignesh Mevani, MLA from Gujarat’s Vadgam Constituency, Gujarat and convener of the Rashtriya Dalit Adhikar Manch, told The Wire.

Mevani also explained how Dalits have never mattered to the BJP, since they are only 7% of the population of the state and do not comprise a lucrative vote bank. The low conviction rate, according to him, “shows how the government of Gujarat and police are at best indifferent and apathetic to the Dalit community”.

In 2023, Mevani launched the ‘Swabhiman Helpline’ (9724344061) to help people from marginalised sections of society with legal proceedings. This, he had announced, would aid people from various communities including the Dalits, tribals, Muslims, women and denotified tribes, who face atrocities and discrimination. “Our helpline has received 113 calls and has managed to get 150 culprits arrested, but this also shows that the people already exhibit a lack of faith in the justice dispensation institutions in the country,” he said.

According to the 2011 Census, the population of the Scheduled Castes in Gujarat stood at 40.74 lakh, which constituted 6.74% of the total population of the state of 6.04 crore. This approximate 7% population, Mevani explained, was the last of the concerns of the Gujarat government, since the last two decades had seen no government-led campaign to tackle atrocities in the state.

The situation of Dalits is only worsening since 2010, according to the data from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Cell. The National Crimes Bureau’s 2020 report put the number of crimes against Dalits in Gujarat at 1,313. In March 2019, Gujarat’s minister of social justice and empowerment Ishwar Parmar told the state assembly that the crimes against Dalits in the state had risen by 32% between 2013 and 2018. In 2018, 49 cases of atrocity were registered in the Ahmedabad district, 23 in the Banaskantha district, 34 cases in Junagadh, and 24 in the Surendranagar district.

On this consistent rise of violence against Dalits, Martin Macwan, a veteran activist from Gujarat, and the founder of Navsarjan Trust, Dalit Shakti Kendra and Dalit Foundation, told The Wire, “The striking difference so far as the state response is concerned in relation to the atrocities on Dalits today is not even a tehsildar cares to visit the victims today, compared to earlier times when at least a minister would visit. While the atrocities are rising, the state administration as well as even judiciary are airing their prejudices in open that the atrocity act is misused” – though there is no factual evidence on such misuse. Macwan also added that tragically, in Gujarat even the SC and ST MLAs from the BJP have failed to compel the state to respond to such violations.

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