Forty years after Karamchedu, caste cauldron still simmers
India, July 17 -- Like many villages across India, Karamchedu had two drinking water tanks - a sprawling one used by the dominant Kamma communities and a decrepit one used by the Dalit Madiga groups. For decades, this hierarchical compact had held because of a wicked cocktail of oppression and helplessness in a region where the division between the land-owning communities and the labourers was stark. The farmhands earned lower than the minimum wage and many were locked into generational cycles of debt by agricultural landlords.
On July 16, 1985, that compact broke.
That evening, a young Kamma man was washing his buffaloes near the steps of the tank used by the Dalits. A disabled Madiga man and another woman from the community objected to their primary drinking water source getting contaminated by sludge. Shocked by what they saw as an affront, a second Kamma man joined his fellow villager and together, they thrashed the two Dalit people with the thick ropes used to whip buffaloes. During the melee, the woman hit back - some said she grabbed hold of the rope and struck the second man, others said she shielded herself from the incoming blow with her water pot. As the dispute spiralled, a third Dalit man intervened to plead for a compromise.
But the dominant group was seething. It was unprecedented that the marginalised community had just not submitted to the diktat of the powerful, and instead had the audacity to hit back. That night, groups of men tried to drag the Dalit woman out of her hut but were thwarted. The next morning, a hundreds-strong mob descended on the Madigapalli with axes, sticks, and spears. By 9am, the settlement was ravaged and the houses of the 300-odd families torched; six people were hacked to death and at least three women were gang-raped. For years, the other traumatised Dalit families refused to return.
The brutality of the Karamchedu massacre sparked outrage, galvanised Dalit communities in their quest for a stronger law to protect them against atrocities, and shattered the chimera that an India readying itself for the 21st century could shed caste dogma. The first such killing in southern India in nearly two decades, it birthed an independent Dalit movement that focussed on Dr BR Ambedkar's philosophy as a driving force. The murders also set the unfortunate stage for a string of similar caste attacks across the country - many at the hands of a landed, dominant community. That some of these same communities are now not only asking for reservations but also underlining their marginality shows just how long a time period 40 years is.
Caste atrocities have blighted the history of independent India, belying the promise of India's founding document many times over, and splintering the hopes of each generation to undo the knots of caste that continue to bind society. But the grisly crime at Karamchedu presaged three important factors.
One, the massacre was stoked by critical shifts in state politics, where the dominant Kamma community was coalescing behind the newly formed Telugu Desam Party and the Dalits were moving away from Left (and radical Left) politics towards the Congress. The Dalits had defied their landlords and voted for the national party in assembly elections just two years before. This tension between dominant communities (many of whom are landed and some classified as backward) and the Dalits continues to simmer unresolved and has bubbled up to the surface in a number of atrocities against the marginalised castes (think of Tsunduru, Khairlanji, Dharmapuri, Mirchpur). This was more straightforward when the lines of electoral support were clearly demarcated, with dominant groups backing regional outfits and Dalits siding with the Congress or the Left. But it complicates contemporary politics, especially for the Opposition that is trying to marry the two groups even as sections of Dalits are more comfortable with the BJP. In states such as Bihar, this dichotomy is most pronounced and continues to pose the biggest challenge to the 85-15 brand of politics.
Two, the 23-year-long trial in the case - the trial court sentenced 159 people to life imprisonment, the Andhra Pradesh High Court found infirmities in the investigation and prosecution, and acquitted everyone, and eventually the Supreme Court sentenced one person to life in jail and 29 others to three years imprisonment - spotlighted a common problem in cases involving atrocities against Dalits. Despite the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act - one of the toughest anti-discrimination laws in the world - shoddy investigation and poor prosecution often ensure that powerful perpetrators are able to bend the system to their advantage. From Laxmanpur Bathe to the recent Hathras gangrape, there is a long line of crimes where Dalit victims have struggled to access justice even in glaring cases, given systemic biases on the ground among the law enforcement machinery.
And three, while the nature of caste discrimination is morphing both in urban and rural areas, the motivation remains the same. From spectacular acts of violence, perpetrators have moved to more everyday killings (attacking someone for riding a horse or sporting a moustache, for example) in rural areas, and subtler forms of bias in housing, education and employment in urban areas. But caste animosity is still driven by a misplaced sense of superiority, a desire to put some people in their place, a belief that reservation (and not historical disadvantages) is the fount of caste, and a zeal to preserve a fundamentally unequal system of social life. Unfortunately, modernity has only altered the form of this stubborn bias, not tempered it. No caste census will cut it either....
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