Gujarat, the Top Tormentor of the Dalits Anand Teltumbde

Gujarat, the Top Tormentor of the Dalits

Anand Teltumbde

In the heat of widespread agitation of the Dalits in Gujarat over the public flogging of a Dalit family by cow vigilantes group at Mota Samadhiyala village in Gujarat’s Una taluka, the BJP awkwardly sought to pass it as an unfortunate incident in the state that otherwise had low rate of atrocities on the Dalits. It also argued that the greatest number of atrocities were reported from UP and Bihar, where the BJP is not in power. Narendra Jadhav, who was recently nominated as the Rajya Sabha member tried to buttress the argument. During a panel discussion on NDTV on the topic of cow vigilantism, he read out atrocity statistics, though totally out of context, in order to buttress the point. He repeated the argument in The Week (August 07, 2016): “In 2014, the top three states were Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar. Gujarat, which is the centre of attention now, actually had much lower rate of crimes against the scheduled castes in 2014—2.4 per cent—whereas the above mentioned three states were all in the range of 17 per cent to 18 per cent.” He was horribly wrong. By the rate of crimes against the scheduled castes (incidence of atrocities per lakh population of the scheduled castes), which he agrees as the real index of atrocity measure, the top three states were: Goa (66.8), Rajasthan (65.7) and Andhra Pradesh (47.6) [See Column 6 of table 7.1, Crime in India 2014], incidentally, all the NDA states, the first two being confirmed BJP states and Andhra Pradesh being its ally. In fact, Uttar Pradesh, whom he referred to as the top culprit, had the crime rate of just 19.5, much below Gujarat’s 27.7.

It may be erroneous to make a statement on the basis of figures for just one year. If one takes a look at the previous years, we might get a better idea about Gujarat’s relative rank in crimes against Dalits. In 2013 when Narendra Modi’s publicity of Vibrant Gujarat had reached crescendo in the wake of ensuing general elections and his imminent coronation as the prime ministerial candidate, the rate of crime against the SCs was 29.21, up from 25.23 in the previous year- 2012, marking it as the fourth worst state in the country. In both these years it was approximately 1.5 times the national averages of 16.95 and 19.85 for 2013 and 2012 respectively. The order of the worst states in both the years remained the same: Rajasthan, Goa and Bihar. The much maligned UP, had the atrocity rate of 15.00 (2013) and 17.16 (2012), far below the national averages for those years. The data for these two years convincingly establish Gujarat’s rank among the top tormentors of the Dalits.  

The NCRB in the earlier years has erroneously used total population as the denominator instead of population of the SCs and corrected it only in 2012. Therefore, Gujarat’s vileness was understated in comparison with other states for those years. The corrected rates further reinforces our inference.

In terms of the major class of atrocities like Murders and Rapes also Gujarat beats most states dry. Table 1 provides the rates of these atrocities for the years 2012 and 2013 for the major states of India to show how Gujarat ranks among the top few for the crimes against the Dalits.    

Table 1: Rate of incidence of Murders and Rapes (per lakh population of the Scheduled Castes)

Year	2012		2013		2014*
	Murder	Rape	Murder	Rape	Murder	Rape
Gujarat	0.56	2.29	0.71	3.82	0.6	1.1
Andhra Pradesh	0.39	1.49	0.38	1.64	0.4	0.7
Bihar	0.16	0.49	0.30	0.85	0.3	0.2
Chhattisgarh	0.18	3.86	0.18	3.37	0.2	2.2
Haryana	0.37	2.79	0.43	5.45	0.4	2.0
Jharkhand	0.03	0.41	0.15	0.31	0.1	0.3
Karnataka	0.34	0.83	030	1.29	0.3	0.6
Kerala	0.03	6.34	0.07	7.36	0.1	4.0
Madhya Pradesh	0.78	6.75	0.68	7.31	0.7	4.2
Maharashtra	0.27	1.49	0.30	2.75	0.3	1.3
Odisha	0.15	2.21	2.26	2.77	0.1	1.3
Rajasthan	0.54	3.44	0.62	5.01	0.7	2.8
Tamil Nadu	0.26	0.47	0.19	0.39	0.3	0.2
Uttar Pradesh	0.57	1.45	0.54	1.91	0.6	1.1

*NCRB changed the classification of the crimes and hence they are not strictly comparable with the previous years.

Source: Crime of India, 2012 and 2013. National Crime Research Bureau, Govt. of India, New Delhi

The table clearly shows that in terms of the rate of Murders, Gujarat has been ahead of all the states except for the two in 2012, viz., Uttar Pradesh (0.57) and Madhya Pradesh (0.78) and clear winner in 2013. Actually, it ranked approximately on par with Uttar Pradesh, the much maligned state for crimes against the SCs even in 2012. In 2014, it exactly paired up with UP in both, the rate of murders as well as rapes. It was much ahead of all the states except for MP (0.7) and Rajasthan (0.7) in Murder and behind MP (4.2), Kearala (4.0), and Rajasthan (2.8) in Rapes.   

Widespread prejudice on the part of the state functionaries in respect of atrocities on the Dalits is reflected in abysmally low conviction rate is just 2.9 % as against 22 % over the country. A study of 400 judgements delivered under the Atrocity Act over ten years since April 1, 1995 in the Special Atrocity Courts set up in 16 districts by the Ahmedabad based Council for Social Justice, revealed how police deliberately weaken cases in investigation and ensure eventual acquittal of the criminals. Even it indicted judiciary in being eager to use alibi of technical lapses in investigation to acquit criminals but failing to use the provisions of the Act to punish those who were responsible for those lapses.

Gujarat’s middle caste feudalism is so repressive for its Dalits, who number less than half of the national average, that they could not build any sustaining resistance movement despite promising flashes of rebellion from time to time. One could easily see monumental discrimination in the resettlement colonies of earth quake victims in Kutchh or scores of Dalits working as bonded labourers on the land of which they were the legal owners for decades. The caste character of rural Gujarat was exposed by the Navsarjan survey of untouchability a few years back finding over 98 % villages in Gujarat practicing untouchability. Under the garb of being Gandhi’s native state and the recent Modiesque propaganda of development, this gangrenous bosom of Gujarat remained hidden.

The problem is Dalit politicians and intellectuals instead of exposing this malady and exerting pressure on the state to correct the situation, distort facts to the advantage of the ruling classes and reinforce status quo for their petty personal gains. To some extent it may be understood as the class characteristic of these elements but when their crop overwhelms the movement it becomes a worrying matter.