Dearer Caste and Cheaper Lives: The SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and the Double Violence of Law in India

Introduction

Caste remains one of the key contested issues in contemporary India. News reports of gory caste violence that defies fundamentals of human decency are published across newspapers every day. For example, at the time of writing this article, a 21-year-old man Vinod Bamnia was killed by men belonging to the OBC community in Kikraliya village of Rajasthan’s Hanumangarh district. ¹ One of the reasons for the murder is the issue of caste pride. While Vinod Bamnia asserted his right to equality and dignity against caste oppression, men belonging to OBC saw it as a challenge to their pride and honour. It is pertinent to state that Bamnia was an active member of the Bhim Army, a recently floated militant Dalit organisation working towards the upliftment and liberation of Dalits. The murder of Bamnia is one among hundreds of cases of caste violence that occur every day. The recent case of brutal rape and murder of a Scheduled Caste (SC) girl in Hathras in the state of Uttar Pradesh is another story of brutality in this chain of atrocities against Dalits in India.^{2, 3} Some events of violence make it to the newspapers and become known, others are made invisible and relegated to oblivion.

To investigate the challenges and issues of caste atrocities, this article offers a micro-study of a caste atrocity case that occurred in a remote village of Bura Bartara in Firozabad District of Uttar Pradesh, where a young SC boy named Pramod (name changed) was brutally murdered by a group of upper-caste men on 12 June 2006. ⁴ The incident came to light while the authors did a fieldwork for a broader project on caste violence. The narrative of this article developed during interviews with many respondents who were directly or indirectly impacted by the conflict. A national daily carried this news buried under other news items. As far as the frequency of caste violence in India is concerned, this news was very ‘ordinary’. There are almost 40,000 cases of violence against the erstwhile outcastes reported each year. Despite strict legal mechanisms working at different levels, the rise in violence against these ‘exceptional legal subjects’ requires an examination of the socio-political structure that operates at the village level. ⁵ Pramod’s brutal killing, the article will reveal, points toward an endemic problem in cases of caste atrocities, that is, acquittal of perpetrators with the help of the administration mostly in the light of ‘lack of evidence.’ The acquittal of perpetrators is not unique to Pramod’s ‘very ordinary’ and ‘individual’ case. Such acquittals have been widely contested by scholars concerning other instances of caste violence. Major organised massacres against Dalits such as the Bathani Tola massacre (1996) in Bihar, the Tsundur massacre (1991) in the Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh and the Khairlanji massacre (2006) in the Bhandara district of Maharashtra are only a few examples where despite the display of spectacular violence, the perpetrators walked free after protracted legal battles. In the Bathani Tola massacre case, the sessions court initially convicted all 23 of the 68 accused, sentencing three to death and 20 to life imprisonment, but the decision was later reversed by the High Court acquitting all the accused.^6–8 In Tsundur, 21 Dalits were massacred in a brutal manner by upper caste Reddy’s with the alleged connivance of the police, and the SCs were wilfully harassed by the police administration and denied justice.^{9, 10} In Khairlanji, the exhibition of brutal attacks intending exemplary caste punishment and the alleged compliance of the local administration and sections of the media is thoroughly recorded too.^11–14

Through Pramod’s story, the key questions that this article aims to investigate are as follows: Is caste atrocity distinct from other forms of violence? Is caste motive so hard to recognise in such acts/cases? What enables toleration of such acts? What is the role of primary investigating authorities in documenting the act(s) of violence? By highlighting that the victim and the perpetrator interact in an intimate environment of the village, supplementary questions that the article aims to engage with are as follows: Does caste violence impact the lives of SCs after an atrocity has occurred? Does merely the recognition of violence and attempts at rehabilitation solve the issue of caste violence without addressing the issue of justice to the SCs? Thus, addressing aspects of self, society and culture, including legal culture.

Though Pramod’s case is from 2006, its narrative bears an uncanny resemblance to many contemporary cases. Despite an amendment to the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act (hereon SC/ST (POA) Act) in 2015, other than a minor addition to the list of crimes and the provision of ‘compensation’ to the victim or victim’s family, everything else remains the same. Data show that even after the recent amendment, atrocities continue. A look at the statistics concerning such atrocities will make the picture clearer. To curb the growing acts of violence against SC and Scheduled Tribes (ST) in India, a specific law, the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act (here on SC/ST POA Act), was introduced in 1989. Subsequently, its rules were framed and implemented in 1995. Yet, over the years, frequent incidents of violence against the SC continue and raise questions over the effectiveness of the law and create doubts over its implementation on the ground. The annual reports on Crime in India released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reveal that there is no end to the misery of the SC. Each year over 40,000 cases of atrocities against SC were registered under various laws such as the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Protection of Civil Rights (PCR) Act 1977, and SC/ST (POA) Act 1989. After the recent amendment to the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act in 2015, more than 100,000 cases were reported between the years 2016 and 2019. For example, the annual rate of crime against SC in 2019 was 22.8%. This is an increase from 20.3% in 2016. Of late, it has also been observed that the percentage of crimes registered under the SC/ST (POA) Act has gone down from 2.9% in 2017 to 2.1% in 2019. This decrease concerns two significant points. First, the unwillingness of police officers to register the case under the SC/ST (POA) Act, and second, the omission of caste angle from the investigation of a case, thus highlighting the significance of unbiased police investigation in cases of caste atrocities. The NCRB data shows that around 54,166 cases registered under SC/ST (POA) Act are pending investigation from the previous years between 2016 to 2019. According to the SC/ST (POA) Act clause 7 (2), the investigation report must be submitted within 30 days. However, in most cases, the investigation runs for many months. Each year around 10% of the total cases registered under the SC/ST (POA) Act are closed as ‘false cases’ and 4% of the cases are dismissed under ‘insufficient evidence’ or ‘untraced’. Due to the rising demand to restrict the delay in filing of a charge sheet, the SC/ST (POA) Amendment Act 2015 under section 4, 2 (e) made it mandatory to prepare the charge sheet within 60 days. It was found that on average only in 80% of the cases a charge sheet was filed. On average, in 28% of cases, the charge sheet is not prepared or remains pending. Despite the creation of Special Courts and Designated Special Courts under section 14 of the SC/ST (POA) Act, 1989 section, each year, over 100,000 cases were pending for trial from the previous year. NCRB data highlight that around 93% of cases were pending in court. The conviction rate, where a verdict is pronounced, is between 25% and 30%. Thus, high acquittal rate raises further questions over the substantive implementation of the act. In the light of the more recent Subhash Kashinath Mahajan v. State of Maharashtra, ¹⁵ commentators have expressed fear that it might become a license for perpetrators to violate law with impunity and noted that the Supreme Court of India has ‘toned down’ section 18 of the SC/ST (POA) Act 1989, provided no remedy to the SC/ST victims and made the filing of FIR and the arrest of accused (public servants and others) almost impossible in cases of caste atrocities. ¹⁶ As per the verdict, the Supreme Court accused the complainant of misusing the act and perpetrating casteism threatening the integration of the society and constitutional values. ¹⁷ This verdict further supported the High Court judgements of Dhiren Prafulbhai Shah v State of Gujarat (2016) ¹⁸ and Sharad v State of Maharashtra (2015). Both verdicts mentioned the misuse of the act by the members of SC community. Similarly, the recent verdict by a three-judge bench led by Justice L. Nageswara Rao of the Supreme Court in the case Hitesh Verma v State of Uttarakhand stated that the insult and intimidation of a person belonging to SC/ST will not be persecuted under SC/ST (POA) Act until or unless it is proved that those abuses are hurled based on the victim’s identity (Criminal Appeal No. 707 of 2020). ¹⁹ The courts remarked that the humiliation should occur in public view to be reported under the SC/ST (POA) Act and thus undermines thousands of incidents of abuse and intimidation in private spaces, defeating the purpose of the act. The unleashing of caste violence and the gaps in the implementation of the law are not divorced from the context of politics.

The growth of political consciousness among the lower castes has resulted in social contradictions leading to social tensions between the upper castes, dominant castes and SCs. For James Manor, ²⁰ jati is still crucial as a material reality of caste enhancing or undermining people’s opportunities and capacities. For him, the ritual reality of caste has declined but material reality persists. Moreover, exploitation of one caste group by another in the name of caste rituality has led to caste tensions, caste conflicts and atrocities by the upper castes and dominant castes against the SCs. There is no denying that the repeated violence against SCs is deeply rooted in the traditional caste system apart from the emerging economic and political differences. It is not incorrect to say that the violence perpetrated by the OBCs or upper castes is violence caused by caste structure. Christophe Jaffrelot ²¹ has observed that the OBCs traditionally have been the henchmen of the upper castes. While discussing instances of caste violence of 1968 against Dalits in Tamil Nadu, Christophe Jaffrelot ²² used the term ‘upper caste’ to describe the OBC violence against Dalits. He showed that caste practices of upper castes are often adopted, followed and maintained by the OBC communities. The usage of the term upper caste(s) in such contexts refers to the mentality of the upper castes actively adopted and followed by the OBCs.

Apart from the introduction of politicised values, changes have taken place in society through the impact of education, technology and urbanisation. Amid the process of modernisation and economic development, a large section of the population has witnessed multiple types of social inequality, unrest, discontent, resulting in a growing degree of agitation, movements, tensions, conflicts and atrocities. Scholars have argued that the ‘increased visibility’ of Dalits in the socio-political arena due to the creation of a political party for themselves in Uttar Pradesh, in return provided heavy cost in the form of a rise in atrocities against Dalits. ²³

Contextualisation of Caste Violence

B. R. Ambedkar traced the roots of anti-caste violence to Hindu philosophy. He noted that it is because of ‘the sanctity and infallibility of the Vedas, the Smritis and the Shastras, the iron law of the caste, the heartless law of karma and the senseless law of status by birth’ that Dalits are rendered available to varied instruments of torture ‘which Hinduism forged against the Untouchables’. ²⁴ He emphasised that such a philosophy remained unchallenged by popular figures like Gandhi. For example, by delineating the reformism of Gandhi, Ambedkar exposed the overlap between a Hindu ‘humanism’ and Hindu orthodoxy and argued that it must not be seen as some archaic ritual practice but central to an exploitative order that Gandhi wanted to maintain. ²⁵ In the early twentieth century, Ambedkar’s interventions highlighted the blind side of colonial laws and consistently challenged Brahmanical patriarchs bringing ‘hope’ to the depressed classes. As the Chairman of the drafting committee, Ambedkar overcame the challenges to caste reforms posed by the liberals. Abolition of Untouchability under Article 15 of the Indian constitution did attempt to challenge the violation of civil rights. However, due to the absence of ‘caste’ abolition norms in the constitution—caste continued to operate in social, cultural and secular spaces in the society.

To address the rising caste conflicts and violation of the dignity of SCs, the state had introduced special laws such as The Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955, The PCR Act, 1977. ²⁶ These laws did not have a clear mechanism to provide justice to the victims of atrocities. Parthasarthi Muthukkaruppan ²⁷ has suggested that ‘caste is an ensemble of relationships determined and constantly reproduced through’ ‘explicitly visible and large-scale mass killings and mundane forms of corporeal violence’, ‘symbolic’ and ‘structural’ violence. Continuous humiliation and physical violence on Dalits necessitated a law that enabled punitive measures against the perpetrators. Instances of lynching of Dalits, parading them naked, sexual brutalities, amputation of legs and arms, burning them alive are the everyday episodes of caste violence in India.^{28, 29} These acts of violence not only defy order and calmness in the society but also challenge the promise of law which aimed to safeguard the lives of SC. It is in response to such challenges that SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities), 1989, was legislated in 1989 and amended in 2015. Thirty years have passed since the enactment of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, but the quotidian narrative of caste violence against the SCs has hindered their access to the promise of justice that the law had made. In contrast, the upper castes, including the OBCs, have prioritised the law of caste over the laws of the modern nation-state and repeatedly violated the life, liberty and property of the SCs in all possible ways.

Despite the existence of strong legislations such as the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989/2015, there is barely any improvement in the situation. In fact, as the discussion in the following sections will show, the situation has gone from bad to worse. The story of Pramod’s murder, like countless other stories of atrocities, are relegated to the margins of the history of caste violence in India. This article aims to recover the story to render it visible and to highlight the complex matrix of caste violence that persists even after the death of the victim. To understand the dual victimisation of Dalits, by the legal regime of the state and the samaaj (society), a close investigation of such issues is urgently required. The article argues that Dalits suffer the double violence of law, where both the state and society prove inefficient to control the phenomena. The state and society produce social alienation and alienation by law. By discussing Pramod’s murder, the article will highlight that in addition to the perpetrators, the police and the judiciary are equally implicated in the matrix of caste violence.

The Story of Pramod’s Lynching

On 12 June 2006, a young boy Pramod (name changed) from the SC community was lynched by men from the dominant caste in Bura Bartara village in Firozabad district of Uttar Pradesh (FIR No. 149/2006). He was brutally killed for touching the prayer equipment at a Kirtan (Hindu religious prayer). The incident is placed between three villages namely Bura Bartara, Nagla Madari and Sarai Sheikh. The caste composition of these three villages varies exposing the functioning of caste, respectively. Bura Bartara, a small village in Firozabad District, otherwise famous for its glassworks comprises around 500 households with a population of more than 5,000 people. Nearly 60% of the Bura Bartara population belong to the Lodhi community (OBC) and the rest belong to SC community such as Jatav, Dhobi, Teli, Valmiki, Chamar, Nai, Dhanak and Diwakar. Nagla Madari village comprises 137 households and had a population of 1,020, all of them belonging to the Jatav community (SC). However, the third village Sarai Sheikh has 78% Muslim population and 21% OBC and the remaining 1% were SCs.

On the day of the occurrence of the murder, Beni Ram, the former Gram Pradhan (village head) of the Nagla Madari village filed a complaint at Sirsa Ganj police station in regard to the murder of Pramod. The police station is located around 3 miles from the Bura Bartara village. But it was only after three days of constant pressure from the media and Dalit civil society organisations that the police registered the First Information Report (FIR No. 149/2006) under section 147 (Guilty of rioting), section 302 (Murder) and section 201 (Causing disappearance of evidence of the offence or giving false information to screen offender) and section 120 B (1) of the IPC (implicating accomplices to the act to the effect as if they had abetted the offence) and the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 3 (2) V.

Pramod was a daily wage earner at a brick kiln factory. After work, he went to the village Bura Bartara in the evening. He saw a Kirtan organised by the Lodhi community and participated. He took a Chimta (a long thin iron musical instrument) to play for the Bhajan (devotional song), but he was resisted by the members of the Lodhi community. They challenged his presence in the Kirtan and brutally assaulted him causing his death. His death was not instant. The brutality continued till midnight. He lay unconscious with no help or rescue. When a few men from the victim’s community attempted to rescue him, they could not stand the brute force of the violent men around him. During the early hours of the next day, on finding him alive, the men from the dominant community tied his hands, loaded him on a cycle and took him to the main entrance of the village. The display of brutality did not stop there. He was tied to an electric pole and was administered electric shocks leading to his death. Once the complaint was filed by the Gram Pradhan, police were deployed in Bura Bartara and Nagla Madari village for almost five days after the incident to avoid the escalation of the conflict.

An otherwise ordinary act of participating in the Kirtan and touching the musical instrument was perceived as disobeying caste norms by the OBC men. The notion of purity and pollution—the base of a caste structure—is the worst form of oppression that often results in such disagreements or contestations causing violence. There is a multiplicity of meanings of ‘violence’ that ranges from understanding it as an expression or action or behaviour, abusive or unjust exercise of power, use of physical force to hurt, damage or kill, and unjust, unjustifiable or illegitimate display of force to repress.^30–32 The rituality of caste might have decreased over a period but has not ended. Subordination is a root of rituality that was challenged by Pramod in this ³³ An attempt to access the ritual domain of higher castes caused a rupture of the normal prescribed in caste norms ³⁴ However, the investigation report prepared by the police contained a different narrative. In the case of the Bura Bartara incident, all factors of caste discrimination such as perpetual and behavioural casteism, oral casteism, and social segregation and continuity of untouchability can be observed ³⁵ The former Superintendent of Police had deputed the Circle Officer as the primary investigating officer in the case. The police report noted that the victim was a person of questionable character and was frequently caught stealing other’s properties. It was recorded that a few days before the incident, the victim had stolen a buffalo calf of an upper caste from Bura Bartara village and sold it to a Muslim man from Sarai Sheikh village. The next day, when the news of stealing the calf came to light, members of the dominant Lodhi community reached Sarai Sheikh to claim the calf. The mob got violent and targeted the victim with rods and sticks. Later the victim died due to multiple injuries. Members of the victim’s family later stated that when they found the body of Pramod, his arms and legs were broken.

The narrative provided by the investigation report matched the narration of the incident by the accused. During the investigation, the police arrested 34 men from the Lodhi community. All the accused were sent to 20–28 days of police custody. This study interviewed some of the accused related to the case. According to them, the victim ‘Was a drug addict who was involved in multiple stealing in the nearby villages. His involvement in stealing the calf agitated a few of us causing his death. We intended to teach him a lesson and not to kill him.’

Both the investigation report of the police and interview of the accused did not refer to the ritual cause of violence that occurred due to Pramod’s caste. The absence of a caste angle from both narrations points towards a curious nexus between the police and the accused. Dalits are often isolated from the larger narrative of caste violence. The representation of facts based on caste identities is eliminated from the official version of the incident to protect the accused.

When this study further explored the details of violence, the inhabitants of Sarai Sheikh village outlined a different version of the victim. According to an eyewitness to the case, who is a resident and brother of Gram Pradhan (village headman), praised the victim for being honest and hardworking. In his interview, he hinted at the involvement of a few higher caste men from Sarai Sheikh village along with men from Bura Bartara and pointed out that the FIR and the statements of the accused portrayed the issue to be one between Dalits and Muslims. He further stated that the police deliberately failed to conduct a thorough probe to unearth the fact in the case and were investigating the case from the accused perspective only. The witness raised questions about the investigation which did not enquire as to ‘Who provided rope to tie the victim?’, ‘How is the Muslim man’s involvement associated with the case?’ ‘Why the kirtan version is jettisoned from the probe?’ Ironically, such questions were reduced to a matter of insignificance. Police were found aiding the higher caste men. The omission of the victim’s participation in the religious ceremony diluted the case. Caste prejudice as a reason for the violence was replaced by a case of theft in the charge sheet filed by the police after the completion of the investigation. Later, all the 34 men accused of Pramod’s murder were released on bail due to the absence/omission of the caste angle.

Caste Atrocities and Court Proceedings: The Social After an Atrocity

According to Chapter IV, clause 14 of the SC/ST (POA) Act, 1989, every district must have a designated special court to provide speedy trial to the victims in caste atrocity cases. Notably, Firozabad district did not have a special court prescribed by the SC/ST (POA) Act, 1989. However, the district court is designated to conduct the cases under the special act in such circumstances. The case of Pramod’s lynching was trialled in court no. 5 and court no. 2 of the district court. A public prosecutor was assigned to the victim’s family as per clause 15 of the SC/ST (POA) Act, 1989. Due to fear of losing the legal battle, the family members of the deceased authorised a private prosecutor too. As the trial progressed, the family members of Pramod were subjected to frequent threats from the accused. Intimidation for mutual compromise, pressure to withdraw the case, sometimes display of violence, were common tactics in such threats. The judiciary is not aware of this background dynamic and wholly relies on the charge sheet to make an initial sense of the case. The issue of caste violence was negated from the judicial hearing. All attempts to highlight the caste prejudice were ignored and new pieces of evidence that could lead to a further probe of the murder were undermined. The case went on for two years and 15 days with routine hearings. The lengthy trial that lasted for more than 30 hearings failed to include the victim’s family’s version of the incident. During the trial, many witnesses turned hostile due to either intimidation or their inability to commute for the hearing and making themselves available for cross-examination by the lawyer of the accused. On 5 October 2008, due to lack of evidence, all the accused were acquitted. The jury did not find ‘caste’ as a motive behind the killing, nor was there a conspiracy against the young boy who belonged to a SC. Due to the deliberately negligent behaviour of the police during the investigation and filing of the charge sheet, the motive of caste atrocity could not be established during the trial. Moreover, the constant challenge to secure their lives compelled Pramod’s family members to receive the distorted judgement.

Caste villages in Indian society are ridden with disharmony. Constant social friction evaporates harmony from the social and psychological imagery of the SCs. Structural oppression is a permanent feature of caste society. Discrimination, untouchability, denial of choice, or access to spaces remain despite the adoption and implementation of special legislation. Rejection of classified caste norms, in this case, Pramod’s attempt to enter the ritual domain of higher caste Hindus, the OBCs, brought the blatant reality of caste violence to the surface. In the Hindu social system organised around caste, Danda (punishment) in the form of caste atrocity is often employed to discipline the already marginalised SCs. Even after instances of atrocities have occurred, the upper castes continue to violently threaten, intimidate and force SCs to live in constant fear. This incident of Bura Bartara has created a social and psychological impact among the SC community. The story of Pramod’s lynching appears marginal but is highly revealing of the unfolding of caste violence on the ground. Such conflicts are often instigated with specific motives which are either socially, economically or politically oriented. This case demonstrates that the everyday struggle of SC lives in a social system is utterly precarious despite the instituting of legal mechanisms for their protection.

Witnessing not only physical but structural and procedural violence seems a quotidian experience for the SCs. Through violence, there is persistent enforcement of caste power by the dominant communities. In this case, in the form of organised mob violence against a non-compliant SC boy. Incidents such as these question MN Srinivas’s Obituary of Caste thesis ³⁶ Salient features of caste such as touch, purity, endogamy, superiority continue to thrive in a caste society like India as markers of caste pride. In this light, violence in the form of caste atrocities is employed to hold and strengthen the traditional power of upper castes in society. In the case of the Bura Bartara incident, the upper-caste Lodhi community desired to dominate not only their village but also the adjacent villages. Nagla Madari is populated by the SC who are economically and politically marginalised. Caste dominance anyway is a paradigm of social disharmony, but Pramod’s murder by upper caste men for a rather ordinary transgression highlights the precarity of Dalit lives in India. The persistent rift between caste communities challenges the promise of security provided by special acts such as the ST/SC (POA) Act, 1989.

The SC/ST (POA) Act, 1989, was implemented to prevent and punish the violators of social harmony. However, as Pramod’s case reveals, the law failed to deliver justice to the victim’s family. It causes a deeper psychological trauma and fear among the SC population in the village which bore the brunt of caste atrocity. For example, the acquittal of all the 34 accused in Pramod’s murder not only hampered the morale of the victim’s family but also the entire SC population of the village. Due to a lack of support from the police and the court, the SCs felt hopeless. The relationship between the dominant caste and SCs appears to have further estranged. To add insult to injury, the higher caste men, particularly the accused released after the trial, walk with no remorse defying all parameters of moral conduct. Does the moral category of ‘evil’ then help us make sense of caste atrocities?

Cluadia Card ³⁷ has argued that ‘evils’ have two fundamental elements. One is ‘reasonably foreseeable intolerable harm’ that makes a life or even death indecent, and the other is culpable wrongdoing. Her ‘secular theory of evil’ has something significant to offer here. Atrocities are distinguished from wrongdoings not by the psychological state of the perpetrators but by the seriousness of the harm done. Card argues that ‘evildoers’ need not be sadistic; they may simply be negligent or unscrupulous in pursuing their goals. To strike a compromise between the classic utilitarian position that tends to reduce evils to their harms, and stoics who tend to reduce evils to the wickedness of perpetrators, Card argues that evils are more important than merely unjust inequalities. Her work is in a way in contrast and conversation with, among others, Nietzsche ³⁸ and Primo Levi, ³⁹ who have questioned the worth of the concept of evil or identified an analytical ‘grey zone’ where victims are dehumanised and become complicit in perpetrating evils on others that threaten them too. Card argues that the investigation of an atrocity from a victim’s position is necessary to make sense of the grey zone and devise a framework as a response to it ⁴⁰ However, in caste atrocities, this is not the case. The perpetrators are neither negligent nor unscrupulous. They are clear about the objective of the violence, that is, the maintenance of caste dominance over the SCs, although Card’s argument about the primacy of ‘evils’ over mere unjust inequalities has some currency in the context of caste. The SCs, in addition to being socially and politically excluded and marginalised, face consistent physical violence in one form or another. Caste violence, thus, may qualify as ‘evil’ in that it is a ‘reasonably foreseeable intolerable harm’ and culpable wrongdoing at once.

Some pertinent observations made by Bernard Cohn ⁴¹ might put the discussion in perspective. Cohn ⁴² aptly captures the significance of socially recognised privilege and terms the analytical distinction between social norms as ‘lawyers law’ and ‘local law-ways.’ While the former concerns itself with statute books and law reports, the latter is impressed by social and cultural factors where local factors such as the constitution of the village council, caste of village headman, presence of dominant caste and the norms they enforce. These are key to understanding the functioning of the (state) law. ‘Lawyer’s law’ does not absolve itself of its partisan engagement with Dharmashastra as the rules governing behaviour embodied in Sanskrit and texts and commentaries. Cohn ⁴³ argues that the local notions of Biradri (community) and Jati (subcaste), imbue social authority (individuals or groups) with a recognition that allows it to use socially sanctioned physical force to enforce village-wide norms. June Star and Jane Collier’s ⁴⁴ observations enrich such a perspective and contend that there are ‘continuities between legal orders and wider cultural systems.’ It can be difficult to sometimes differentiate between law and custom or morality. This points out the fact that legal systems are to quite some extent cultural systems, especially in caste-based societies such as India. Star and Collier ⁴⁵ bring to our attention the possibility where ‘people treat legal orders as appropriate vehicles for asserting, creating and contesting national identities’ (caste identities). Thus, such legal rules and procedures exist only as they are invoked by people. The policemen and judges, who are ideally required to sustain an impartial investigation and conduct a fair trial are implicated in the larger structure of caste violence. The assumption of a rational trial sustained by facts cannot happen because the legality is contaminated by caste. On one level, the policemen due to various reasons, are either inept when it comes to legal knowledge or deliberately subdue information to weaken the case against the accused, as highlighted by the case above. The judge, who is hypothetically placed outside the caste matrix, is bound by the case-making according to the charge sheet filed by the police. In this light, bureaucratic rationality short-circuits the substantive dimension of cases of caste atrocities. The definition of the ‘perpetrator’ permeates to institutions such as the police and judiciary ⁴⁶ In a different context, scholars have noted that policemen who acted as perpetrators of torture during a regime can be seen as ‘violence workers’ who served as ‘atrocity facilitators’ who thought that they did not participate directly in the violence ⁴⁷ Caste violence operates in a complex web of relations where moral boundaries are destroyed, transforming individuals into evil-doers whose sense of duty and cruelty is blurred.

In the case of the Bura Bartara incident, violence occurred at two levels, one, on the body of Pramod, and second, on the psyche of the SC community. It can be argued that the convergence of both the violence accompanied by the apathy of bureaucratic rationality sustains the cycle of caste atrocities in India and grants impunity to perpetrators. The problem with international grand typologies of atrocities ⁴⁸ is that they exclude and ignore the historical and routine atrocities that occur in the form of caste violence in domestic scenarios. Caste atrocities evade the existing frameworks. Such atrocities are not necessarily mass perpetration always, but are consistent, sometimes as ideological assertions of the caste system and others as spectacular violence.

Caste atrocities cases such as that of Pramod highlight that the marginalised and routine violence against Dalits needs further engagement. Dalit bodies bear the signature of caste violence in one form or another. Such a signature is a recognisable trace of caste identity. Caste atrocity on the body of a Dalit is socially significant in the sense that the signature of violence is repeatable and is equal despite the varied context. It has both the metonymical and metaphorical aspects of a signature. Caste atrocity recognises the Dalit body as its object which is readily available for marking. The signature of violence replenishes the spirit of the caste system that thrives on reducing the Dalit bodies to mere biological existence. It empties them of any rights that liberal, constitutionalism had bestowed upon them. In this sense, caste atrocity is an excess. However, each caste atrocity is a signature of the caste order and is authentic, genuine, original and unique in its brutality.

Due to the socio-political and economic domination of higher castes, as in the Bura Bartara incident discussed above, the police shy away from registering a formal complaint. Delay in filing the FIR, delays in the investigation and filing of charge sheets are common. Meanwhile, plenty of evidence goes missing and the victim’s family become more vulnerable. In the Bura Bartara case, it was found that the investigation was led by an officer belonging to the higher caste. Hence, the narrative of the accused from Lodhi community found primacy and the investigation report conveniently omitted the caste motive of the violence. Furthermore, the special court and designated court act on the investigation and charge sheet filed by the police. The social status of the accused and the role of higher castes in atrocities play a significant role in preventing justice to the SCs. An erroneous investigation report misleads the court procedure. Sometimes, despite the public prosecutor’s efforts, little attention is given to the narrative of SC victims. Lack of resources adds to the impossibility of taking the case to its logical conclusion. The SCs are mostly very poor and unable to visit courts periodically due to lack of money, commuting distance, the threat from higher castes and eventually witnesses turning hostile. The financial assistance which is given to witnesses and the victim’s family under the rules of the SC/ST (POA) Act, 1995, was never attained in the Bura Bartara case. Access to such remuneration is an additional battle that the victim or their family has to fight.

Conclusion

Justice K. Punnaya Commission (2001) constituted to enquire into matters of untouchability and atrocities stated that the success of the SC/ST (POA) Act will rely on the enforcement machinery to which it is entrusted. Lack of seriousness among officials, police preventing SCs from registering cases under the special Act, forcing victims for compromise, arranging false evidence and shoddy probe are the major causes for the ineffectiveness of the Act on the ground.

In an exchange between Ranajit Guha ⁴⁹ and Upendra Baxi, ⁵⁰ we are informed that law serves as the emissary of the state. Baxi added that the other form of law that exists in society is the law of the samaaj ⁵¹ Caste dharma, this article contends, is the law of the Indian samaaj. The SCs, therefore, suffer double violence, the violence of the modern law and the violence of caste. The discussion in the sections above points out the inability of the law to fashion power relations located at the depth of the Indian samaaj. The law of the caste is an accomplice in the domination by Brahminical patriarchy. Abstract legalism of the SC/ST (POA) 1989/2015 only testifies to the law’s distinctive ways of leaving the Dalit subject betrayed and humiliated. The outcome of this hypostasis is to assimilate the justification of caste violence to the order of law and legal process. The failure of the law becomes the fate of the SC when it is guided and nurtured by the Brahmanical patriarchal state, its institutions and civil society. The upper caste practices counter-sovereignty because it upholds the laws of the caste dearer than the constitutional sovereignty of the modern nation-state. In this light, atrocity is an event, a discursive site that deploys politics and power on behalf of the caste. Caste atrocities on SCs highlight that the dharma of caste is hegemonic over the spirit of the constitution. Such dharma has cleverly permeated the conduct of ‘procedure’ and hijacked or sabotaged the intention of the law.