A protest in the Indian state of Gujarat’s largest city, Ahmedabad, on Sunday by thousands of Dalits — members of India’s lowest castes — has brought to a head the contradiction between Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise of economic opportunity for all and a politics of division driven by right-wing Hindu ideology.
The protest was called after four Dalits skinning a dead cow — a scorned task relegated to the long-oppressed group — were set upon by cow-protection vigilantes on July 11 near Una, Gujarat. The gang stripped the Dalits to the waist, chained them to a car, and beat them for hours while the police and others looked on.
The cow, sacred to Hindus, has become a lightning rod for the Hindu right under Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party government. Mr. Modi himself has exploited the cow slaughter issue at rallies. The B.J.P.’s president, Amit Shah, has boasted, “Wherever there is a B.J.P. government, there is a ban on beef.” On Sunday, a B.J.P. member of Parliament, Raja Singh, declared, “I extend my full support to all those who take it upon themselves to teach those few Dalits a valuable lesson.”
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Members of India’s low-caste Dalit community protested last month in Gujarat, after four Dalit men were attacked by cow-protection vigilantes.The result is lawless vigilantism. Last September, a Muslim man whose family was suspected of eating beef was killed by a mob. In March, two cattle traders were lynched in the state of Jharkhand.
Dalits have refused to handle dead animals, whose rotting carcasses are piling up, until they are given assurances that they will not be attacked and that their longstanding oppression will be addressed. Though aspirations and educational levels have risen among Dalits, they still face terrible prejudice. In January, a Dalit Ph.D. student committed suicide after caste-based hounding.
In 2014, Mr. Modi, who ran Gujarat for over 12 years, won India’s national election by a landslide on a promise to transform all of India on the Gujarat model of economic development. Protests last September by middle-class Patels, angered by a lack of jobs, indicated that even those who should be doing well in Gujarat are struggling.
On Monday, Mr. Modi’s handpicked successor, the Gujarat chief minister, Anandiben Patel, resigned, a sign of the B.J.P.’s concern that the turmoil in Gujarat will harm the party in state elections next year and national elections in 2019. That could very well happen if Mr. Modi does not break his shameful silence on cow vigilantes, and reset his political compass on a course of economic opportunity, dignity and justice.
The National Campaign Against Torture (NCAT) in its “India: Annual Report on Torture 2019” released on the occasion of the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture stated that a total of 1,731 persons died in custody during 2019 i.e. deaths of about five persons daily. These included 1,606 deaths in judicial custody and 125 deaths in police custody.
Torture is perpetrated to extract confession or bribes and torture methods used in 2019 included hammering iron nails in the body (Bihar), applying roller on legs and burning (Jammu & Kashmir), ‘falanga’ wherein the soles of the feet are beaten (Kerala), stretching legs apart in opposite side (Kerala), hitting in private parts (Haryana), electric shock (Punjab and Uttar Pradesh), pouring petrol in private parts (Uttar Pradesh), applying chilly power in private parts (Kerala) beating while being hand-cuffed (Kerala), pricking needle into body (3-Year-old minor in Tamil Nadu), branding with hot iron rod (3-Year-old minor in Tamil Nadu), beating after stripping (Haryana and Assam), urinating in mouth (Uttar Pradesh), inserting hard blunt object into anus (Bihar), beating after hanging upside down with hands and legs tied (Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh), forcing to perform oral sex (Gujarat), pressing finger nails with pliers (Assam), beating with iron rods after victim is suspended between two tables with both hands and legs tied (Madhya Pradesh), forced to do Murga pose or stress position (Haryana), and kicking in belly of pregnant woman (Assam).
Indian police officers in the town of Nagina chased a group of Muslim teenagers into an empty house. They grabbed them and took them to a makeshift jail. And then, the boys and community leaders said, the officers tortured them.
Four of the boys, who ranged in age from 13 to 17, said that police officers used wooden canes to beat them and threatened to kill them.
Indian Police officers over the course of 30 hours terrorized them.
According to two of the boys, the officers laughed during beatings, saying, “You will die in this prison.”
More accounts are emerging of abuse meted out by police officers.
Almost all the violence has been directed toward Muslim residents. More people — at least 19 — have been killed!
Witnesses said that police officers opened fire on demonstrators with live ammunition, broke into houses and stole money, and threatened to rape women.
Police officers were encouraged by their superiors to kill protesters.
The Indian police have become a lynch mob! Inidan police officers having been given the green light by senior officials to use harsh measures against Muslims.
A 20-year-old Dalit man was allegedly burnt alive over his relationship with a woman from another caste, the killing causing his mother to die of shock.
The victim was beaten up, kept hostage in a house and set ablaze.
Locals rushed to the spot on hearing his cries and took him to a local hospital. He was referred to a Lucknow hospital but succumbed to injuries on the way.
India : Hyderabad : Andhra Pradesh Telangana2018-09-20
A father attacked his 20-year-old daughter and her newlywed husband in the heart of the city on Wednesday, chopping off her left forearm and slashing her jaw. The incident comes days after a Dalit youth was mercilessly murdered in front his pregnant wife in Nalgonda district.
Police said the father was upset over the inter-caste marriage — the woman an OBC (Other Backward Class), her husband, B Sandeep (22), a Dalit. Sandeep and Madhavi Chary, in a relationship for five years, secretly got married on September 12, despite stiff opposition from her father.
Madhavi was left with a 12-inch gash on her neck and jawline and her left forearm barely hung by the skin. She was in a 10-hour surgery at the time of going to print. Sandeep, in another hospital, received 10 stitches to close the deep wound at the angle of his mouth; the attending doctors said he was in deep shock.
