It is a pattern that appears to be as enduring as it is nauseating. Despite the Indian Constitution’s solemn commitment to banish all forms of untouchability and discrimination, despite its enshrining of the citizens’ fundamental right to equality and dignity, in spite of the assured strides that democracy has taken in India belying odds real and imagined, violence against Dalits continues across the country. Even the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, drafted in 1989 specifically to provide exemplary punishment to those who perpetrate violence and abuse upon Dalits, has failed to stem the rot. The gutting of nearly 50 houses of Dalits in Gohana sub-division of Sonepat, not far from the national capital, on Wednesday, is the most recent episode.Haryana, site of the latest outrage, is known to seethe with a routinised caste violence perpetuated by its dominant caste community against the Dalits. In Haryana, five Dalits were lynched allegedly for skinning a dead cow, right in front of the police chowki of Dulina in Jhajjar district, that shameful October of 2002. And instead of going after the accused, the police registered a case against the victims under the Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act, even sent the cow carcass for a postmortem. The initial FIR filed by the SHO at the Jhajjar police station named no one. Some things haven’t changed in Haryana since. There’s a new political regime in place, but the Dalit’s lack of faith in the state’s sincerity in protecting her from violence remains unchanged. When the mob reached the Valmiki basti in Gohana on Wednesday, it found that residents of the houses they set afire had already fled. The Dalit residents apprehended violence after the murder of a person from the Jat community on Saturday last; having no faith in the police’s ability or willingness to protect them from retribution, they vacated their houses long before the killer mob arrived.This pattern of abuse and impunity is not an inevitable one, not even in Haryana. The Hooda administration has the opportunity to break it by honestly pursuing the guilty of Gohana and bringing them to justice.
