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.

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.

Delhi Police ACP (Assistant Commissioner of Police) Booked for Raping Woman, Molesting her Minor Daughter, Kidnapping Son. The officer befriended the woman after her husband, a criminal, died. The report says that the officer raped the woman on multiple occasions but she was scared of reporting the matter, fearing safety of her three children.

On September 14, in a horrific incident of caste violence, a 24-year-old man belonging to the Scheduled Caste community was brutally killed by a machete-wielding man. This incident happened in broad daylight outside a hospital in Miryalaguda, Telangana, where the man along with his pregnant wife visited for a check-up. She also said that her family never accepted their relationship as they belonged to the Vysya caste (caste Hindu) and Pranay belonged to Madiga Scheduled Caste. The main attacker is still absconding. The police have learnt that Maruthi Rao gave the attacker 10 lakh for the murder. Maruthi also tried to bribe Dr Jyoti, the gynaecologist who was treating Amrutha. Reports suggest that he offered a huge amount of money in exchange for aborting Amrutha’s child. Reportedly, her father had filed multiple fake cases against Pranay before too to harass him.

A policewoman from Haryana Police was gang-raped inside an all-women police station in Palwal. India has an issue with sex crimes, and this latest one is just one of a string of shocking rape attacks. According to the victim, the two accused raped her inside the police station at knife-point. They also threatened to kill her if she narrated the incident to anyone. These all women police stations were set up to ensure that women were free to make complaints of sexual harassment and rape. But now even women police officers are not safe inside the stations. According to the victim, the two accused raped her inside the police station at knife-point and also threatened to kill her if she told about the incident to anyone. However, no arrest has been made yet.

"Instances of atrocities against the Scheduled Castes by those belonging to the dominant castes have shown no sign of abating even after 71 years of Independence." – says Delhi High Court – "Violence against the Dalits is grim reminder of absence of equality in society.” A dog belonging to a Dalit barked at a group of inebriated Jat youths passing through a Dalit locality. The trivial incident led to the Mirchpur killings, as has also been observed by the Delhi High Court in its judgment. When Mirchpur happened in 2010, a magazine even published a story, Mirchpur: A dog story. More than about the canine’s natural instinct, the article was about how humans failed to recognise the basic democratic rights of the fellow citizens. In the gory incident, 51 persons belonging to the Balmiki community were injured and 18 homes were torched. Also, large-scale rioting and looting were witnessed. The residents had to flee the village and take shelter at a farmhouse. Oppression of Dalits and minorities by self-styled custodians of the majority make headlines almost on a daily basis. Labelling it as state-sponsored oppression might be jumping the gun, but, the condemnation of such inhuman acts is too little and too late — a proof of state’s reluctance to check caste-based crimes.

‘To be lynched is a crime. To be poor is a crime. To defend the poor is to plot to overthrow the government.’ Pune police conducted simultaneous raids at the homes of well-known activists, poets, lawyers and priests across the country, and arrested five people – high-profile civil rights defenders and two lawyers – on ludicrous charges, with little or no paperwork, Arrests, assassinations, lynchings, bomb attacks, false flag attacks, riots, pogroms – all kinds of violence.+ arrests of lawyers and activists. As it prepares for the 2019 election, the BJP has emerged as by far the wealthiest political party in India. Karnataka police led the assassination of the journalist and activist Gauri Lankesh, which have in turn led to the unveiling of the activities of several right-wing Hindutva organisations like the Sanathan Sansthan. What has emerged is the existence of a shadowy, full-blown terror network, with hit-lists, hide-outs and safe-houses, flush with arms, ammunition and plans to bomb, kill, and poison people. With the assurance that they have the blessings of the powerful, and possibly even the police. The privatisation of education is undoing even the very small good that the policy of Reservation did. We are witnessing the re-Brahminisation of education, this time fitted out in corporate clothes. Dalit, Adivasi and OBC students are once again being pushed out from institutions of learning because they cannot afford the fees. The lynching of Muslims and the relentless attack on Dalits, the public floggings, the arrest of Chandrashekhar Azad, leader of the Bhim Army who dared to stand up to attacks by Upper castes. The attempt to dilute the Scheduled caste and Scheduled Tribes Atrocity Act. Approximately 3,00,000 people, mostly Dalit, attacked by Hindutva fanatics, the Pune police arrested five activists, accused of plotting violence at the rally and also of plotting to kill the Prime Minister Narendra Modi. They remain in custody, charged under the draconian Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. Fortunately they are still alive, unlike Ishrat Jahan, Sohrabuddin and Kauser Bi, who, years ago, were accused of the same crime, but did not live to see a trial. Both the Congress-led UPA and the BJP to disguise their attacks on Adivasis, and now, in the case of the BJP, their attack on Dalits – as an attack on “Maoists” or “Naxals.” Arresting activists and calling them “Maoists’, the Government manages to undermine and insult Dalit aspiration. There are thousands of people in jail across the country, poor and disadvantaged people, fighting for their homes, for their lands, for their dignity—people accused of sedition and worse, languishing without trial in crowded prisons. The vulnerable are being cordoned off and silenced. The vociferous are being incarcerated.

Indian authorities detained five activists and raided the homes of several others on August 28, 2018, for allegedly inciting caste-based violence in January, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International India said today. The government should cease politically motivated arrests and harassment of human rights activists and other actions aimed at chilling peaceful dissent. “The latest arrests of human rights activists show the government’s widening assault on free speech to create an atmosphere of fear across India,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Officials are again targeting human rights defenders and those working with poor and marginalized communities just for doing their jobs.” Hindu nationalist groups and alleged supporters of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), some carrying saffron flags, objected to the Dalit association, calling it anti-national for celebrating a colonial victory. The organizers of the Dalit rally said they wanted to campaign against the pervasive ideology in India that leads to attacks on Dalits and Muslims. The National Human Rights Commission has issued notices to Maharashtra state’s chief secretary and director general of police, saying that it appears police did not follow the standard operating procedure in these arrests, “which may amount to violation of their human rights.”

The right-wing activists say they have beaten men they suspected of violating core Hindu beliefs and threatened interfaith couples because they fear Muslims are stealing their women. They say they’re ready to kill for their faith if necessary. Even if a life is lost, we don’t care. It’s been a summer of rage in India. Dozens have been killed by lynch mobs, and extremist Hindus continue to assault and kill others, many of them Muslims. In the latest viral video, religious pilgrims angered over a minor traffic incident used sticks to demolish a car as police looked on. Much blame has been cast on India’s governing Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, with critics charging that they have encouraged violence by Hindu extremists.

In what appears to be a case of honour killing, a 27-year-old pregnant woman was brutally murdered by her own family members in the city outskirts on Thursday morning. Vijayalakshmi fell in love with her neighbour Suresh and married him about four years ago. Since her parents were against the marriage, the couple left the city soon after they tied the knot. Police say that Vijayalakshmi’s family members, knowing she was in town, went to Suresh’s house and forcibly took her away to a community hall where they strangled her using her saree and later slit her throat. Yellanki Vijayalakshmi, who was in the seventh month of her pregnancy.

A 26-year-old Dalit man was beaten to death in Jalore district on August 1 allegedly by eight men who suspected that he had an affair with the wife of one of the accused, police said. Body of Mahendra Meghwal was found in an SUV parked outside a hospital on Sayala town in Jalore district on August 2. “Her family said that the two had an affair and Meghwal had kidnapped her,” said Jalore’s additional superintendent of police Ram Kumar Kaswan. On August 1, Narpat Singh and seven others took Meghwal to an isolated place outside the village, hung him from a tree and beat him up in order to get information about Kanwar’s whereabouts. “The next day, they took him to Ahmedabad in an SUV. When the accused failed to get information from him about the missing woman, they beat him to death,” the police officer said. Meghwal’s uncle Mana Ram Meghwal alleged that police had not arrested the mastermind of the murder. “He has political influence and has evaded arrest. He should be arrested,” he said.

Hari Singh (21), a schedule caste, was brutally thrashed by a mob on Thursday night minutes after he arrived to meet his 18-year-old girlfriend, an OBC, at her house. The girl’s neighbours barged into her house, dragged out the youth, tied him to a pole and assaulted him mercilessly. Hari was rushed to the district hospital, where his condition is said to be critical. The girl also sustained injuries in the attack. “As my family has been opposing our relationship, we decided to get married in court. On Thursday I called him to my house. However, minutes after he arrived, my neighbours and other villagers forcibly entered the house and attacked him,” Hari’s girlfriend Rinki Maurya said. The 18-year-old said that she kept screaming for help while Hari was being attacked. “They tied him to a pole and kept beating him until he lost consciousness. They thrashed me too. Luckily, I found my phone and called Dail 100. If police hadn’t arrived, they would have killed us,” Rinki said. Someone from the crowd recorded a video of the incident and uploaded it online. Within hours, the clipping went viral.

BJP President Amit Shah, while recently addressing the party’ social media volunteers in Kota, Rajasthan said that the party workers have the power to make any message go viral. During the nearly 40-minute long speech, the BJP President boasted as to how the party’s WhatsApp group has over 32 lakh people. He also recounted how a party worker had spread the fake news of Akhilesh Yadav slapping his father Mulayam Yadav which went viral. He added that the party workers are capable of delivering any message to the public. During the elections in Uttar Pradesh in 2017, BJP’s social media workers had created two big WhatsApp groups which had a total of over 31 lakh members. Every day at 8 am, they would send ‘Know the Truth’ where the truth about all the false stories printed about BJP was shared via the app. He added that ordinary people and social media would go after whichever publication printed such false stories. He said that this helped the media to become neutral slowly.

In a video that is of the government college of postgraduate studies at Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh, a senior professor of the college is seen apologizing by touching feet of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) workers after they threatened him with a police complaint. Professor Gupta came out of his class and allegedly asked them to stop shouting slogans as it was becoming difficult to teach. This enraged the protestors, who termed him anti-national and allegedly threatened him with a police complaint, even pressurizing him to apologize. The video shows him asking them to first stand in a line, after which he started apologizing by falling at their feet. This is not the first time that the ABVP workers have created a ruckus in a campus. Just a few months back, in a horrific and shameful incident, members of the ABVP assaulted a professor University in Gujarat, blackened his face and paraded him in the college. Last year too, ABVP workers locked down the seminar hall and pelted stones at students. Those who harass teachers are no less than goons who believe that they can threaten, assault and humiliate anybody and even get away with it. Their confidence is not misplaced though, given that these incidents are a common occurrence.

Hindu political outfit, Navnirman Sena in Uttar Pradesh has given party tickets to two accused involved in two different lynching cases. The party has nominated them as their candidates to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The first ticket was given to Shambhulal Regar, the man arrested for burning and lynching a Muslim man in Rajasthan’s Rajsamand in December 2017. Days after this, the political outfit gave another ticket to Rupendra Rana, one of the main accused in the Dadri lynching case in 2015. Five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court held that the candidates could not be disqualified just based on the criminal cases against them. “Rupendra Rana is the perfect person to protect cows as he has spent 2.5 years in prison for the respect of gaumata“, as reported by The Times of India. He further says that Rana has not made false promises of saving the cows, instead, he has proven his commitment to cows in 2015. Three years ago Mohammed Akhlaq was lynched and his son Danish was brutally thrashed by a mob over the suspicion of eating beef. The mob barged into his house and thrashed him, Akhlaq had succumbed to his injuries on the spot. The party said that it is covering for the Hindu-leaning candidates as the party aims to make a “pro-Hindu government” in India, adding that the party would hold Hindu rallies on October 14 and November 18. On the nomination of Shambhulal, who murdered a muslim man in Rajasthan last year and uploaded a video of his crime on social media, Jani said he is the supreme candidate. “There can be nobody better than him” for a Hindutva face to contest elections. He claimed that after the incident, he had gone to Rajasthan where he met several people who supported and lauded Shambhulal’s efforts to “save Hindutva”. The party has also revealed another name for their candidate post. It has decided to give the ticket to father of the two brothers, whose lynching allegedly by a Muslim mob triggered the Muzaffarnagar riots of 2013. The father would be contesting the elections from Muzaffarnagar.

While addressing the party’s social media volunteers in Rajasthan’s Kota recently, Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah said that the group had the power to make any message go viral, whether real or fake. "We can keep making messages go viral, whether they are real or fake, sweet or sour," the BJP president boasted. And every day at 8 am they would send ‘Know the Truth’. In which the truth about all the false stories printed in the newspapers about the BJP was given via WhatsApp, and it would go viral. And whichever paper had carried these stories, ordinary people, and social media, would get after them, that why have you printed lies, you should print the truth. And by doing this, slowly, the media became neutral.

In Gujarat, a Dalit youth was allegedly thrashed by upper caste community members on Tuesday evening, for using the suffix ‘Sinh’/'Singh' (lion) with his name, which the Kshatriya community consider to be their entitlement. Soon after adding Sinh to his name on Facebook, 22-year-old Maulik Jadhav started to have death threats from members of the Darbar (Kshatriya) community. Around six men allegedly thrashed Jadhav, hurled casteist slurs and abused him. However, he managed to escape the spot. “Using ‘sinh’ is not the prerogative of any community. My brothers and I decided to use ‘sinh’ with our name after which, I started getting abusive calls and threats from members of the Darbar community.” The word ‘Sinh’ means lion in Gujarati, cognate with the name ‘Singh’ used in other parts of the country.

A 30-year-old Dalit (UnTouchable) man was brutally thrashed to death by five workers of an industrial unit in Gujarat's Rajkot on Sunday.

The phrase “love jihad” is meant to inflame dark fears that Muslim men who woo Hindu women might be trying to convert them to Islam — a prejudice that the Hindu right has tried to stoke for nearly a decade. But use of the term has spread on social media with the rise of the Hindu nationalist party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at a time when religious hatred is growing on Facebook in India, its largest market. About two weeks after they filed the police report, Ramiz said he was coming home in the evening when two men grabbed him, roughed him up and tore his shirt collar. “Why did you report us?” they hissed, he said. And, “why are you dating a Hindu girl?” Meanwhile, conservative Hindu groups supporting Modi’s powerful Bharatiya Janata Party began pushing into areas in India’s east and south traditionally dominated by other languages and regional parties, including the couple’s home state of West Bengal. But the idea that Muslims may be actively working to convert Hindus figured prominently in the recent debate over the case of a woman in the southern state of Kerala who converted to Islam and married a Muslim over the objections of her family. On March 8, India’s Supreme Court upheld the woman’s right to choose her faith and partner. But India’s National Investigation Agency, which investigates and prosecutes terrorism, is continuing its investigation into the case.

The Indian government failed to stop or credibly investigate vigilante attacks against minority religious communities during 2017, Human Rights Watch said. Many senior leaders of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) publicly promoted Hindu supremacy and ultra-nationalism at the expense of fundamental rights for all Indians. Extremist Hindu groups, many claiming to be affiliated with the ruling BJP, committed numerous assaults against Muslims and other minority communities in response to rumors that minority group members sold, bought, or killed cows for beef. Instead of taking prompt legal action against the attackers, police frequently filed complaints against the victims under laws banning cow slaughter. There were at least 38 such attacks in 2017, and 10 people were killed. “Indian authorities have proven themselves unwilling to protect minority religious communities and other vulnerable groups from frequent attack,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. Indian authorities also harassed and brought charges, including for sedition and criminal defamation, against activists, academics, journalists, and others critical of government actions or policies. Threats of legal action and arbitrary corruption investigations put increasing pressure on journalists and media outlets to self-censor.

The RSS and its allies thrived on spreading anti-Muslim hatred till recently. Now, they are targeting the OBC and Dalits. There have been reports of Dalits being targeted by radical Hindu elements even in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh. Essentially, the BJP and its Sangh allies are against the empowerment of Dalits. Frequent incidents of violence against members of the Dalit community are creating resentment in the community. They wanted to teach Dalits a lesson. They are fed up with Dalits asserting themselves politically as a community. They are of the view that Dalits, who according to them occupy the lowest rung of the archaic caste system, don’t have the right to celebrate their history. The Maharashtra government, instead of arresting perpetrators and instigators of violence against Dalits, has filed an FIR against Dalit leaders. The boiling anger against the incident is spreading nationwide. Dalits want authorities to take action against perpetrators of violence.

Vigilante violence aimed at religious minorities, marginalized communities, and critics of the government—often carried out by groups claiming to support the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—became an increasing threat in India in 2017. The government failed to promptly or credibly investigate the attacks, while many senior BJP leaders publicly promoted Hindu supremacy and ultra-nationalism, which encouraged further violence. Dissent was labeled anti-national, and activists, journalists, and academics were targeted for their views, chilling free expression. Foreign funding regulations were used to target nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) critical of government actions or policies. Lack of accountability for past abuses committed by security forces persisted even as there were new allegations of torture and extrajudicial killings, in numerous states of India.

Role of two Hindutva organisations – the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s National Executive Committee –  who were alleged to have incited the violence, leading up to the violence in Bhima Koregaon and the violence itself. and the influence on the police investigation. Caste violence in Bhima Koregaon near Pune on January 1 by the police. Pune police has arrested ten activists and lawyers who work with Dalits and Adivasis for their alleged role in the violence. The police has accused the activists of using the Dalit commemoration event at Bhima Koregaon to build support for a Maoist conspiracy to undermine the goverment. On Wednesday, the public prosecutor claimed in a Pune court that this conspiracy extends to an assassination plot targetting Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The little act of violence was mild by the standards of videos that go viral across India’s 1.2bn mobile phones. The scene was widely shared, and for compelling reasons. The two women were complete strangers. The older one happens to be Sangeeta Varshney, a prominent local member of India’s ruling party. The younger woman, who is Hindu, had been spotted sitting in a teahouse with a man who is Muslim. In a later interview on television, Ms Varshney explained that as a mother and a Hindu herself, she had a God-given right to hit the other woman. This was, she continued, a clear-cut case of “love jihad”. State institutions and India’s courts take on the role of prejudiced patriarchs: “They have internalised a demonisation of the Muslim male, and see women as essentially foolish and immature.” In May, a court in the southern state of Kerala summarily annulled a five-month-old marriage on grounds that the wife, a convert to Islam, had disobeyed her parents and been lured into a potentially dangerous liaison with a Muslim man. Sensitivities in Kerala have been high since the discovery, last year, that several newly-wed Muslim couples had emigrated. It is not only Muslims who are accused of preying on Hindu women. A 28-year-old Hindu woman filed charges against a yoga centre in Kerala earlier this month, alleging that she had been held there against her will for three weeks, abused and indoctrinated in an attempt to make her divorce her Christian husband. Her affidavit alleged that another 60 women had been held at the centre in similar circumstances.

Opposing the ruling party’s wrongdoings may prove irreparably costly as Chetram, a resident of Ghurdevi village in Uttar Pradesh’s Bahraich district, found out. Chetram, a Dalit, had opposed illegal mining allegedly being carried out by Nishank Tripathi, son of BJP legislator Subhash Tripathi. He had written letters to the District Magistrate and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, seeking their help. In the evening of last Wednesday, the body of Chetram’s 10-year-old son was found buried in the sand. His letters to the DM and the CM failed to elicit a positive response. No one has been arrested so far. This is not the first time that BJP lawmakers or their nearest kins or supporters have gone berserk and have taken law into their own hands. Early this month, Shriram Sonkar, BJP MLA from Mau, slapped a home guard who tried to stop the legislator’s SUV from entering the `No Entry zone’ near Sahkarita Bhawan crossing, a stone’s throw from Lok Bhawan, the seat of power in Lucknow.

The role of police has come into focus in the case of the Telangana honour killing, where the couple are both dead and the upper-caste father of the girl is the culprit along with the police. Police Inspector Srinivas tore their registered marriage papers to nullify the wedding. He also justifies his role in the episode, saying, “Srinivas Reddy and Venkatiah agreed that their children made a mistake by getting married. Reddy said that if his daughter wishes to go back to Naresh, he would not object. For a peaceful solution between the two families, I conducted the meeting. Swathi went with her father while Naresh went away with his father. After that I do not know what happened, but came to know later that Swathi went missing on March 31." Local political leaders who dropped by to console him. On May 16, Swati was found hanging in the bathroom at her home.

Religious tolerance has deteriorated and religious freedom violations have increased in India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's regime – 'Constitutional and Legal Challenges Faced by Religious Minorities in India' and sponsored by the US Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF). — Religious minority communities and Dalits face discrimination and persecution in India where hate crimes, social boycotts and forced conversion have escalated dramatically since 2014. — "Under Congress Party and BJP-led governments, religious minority communities and Dalits, both have faced discrimination and persecution due to a combination of overly broad or ill-defined laws, an inefficient criminal justice system, and a lack of jurisprudential consistency. In particular, since 2014, hate crimes, social boycotts, assaults, and forced conversion have escalated dramatically," — "Since the BJP assumed power, religious minority communities have been subject to derogatory comments by BJP politicians and numerous violent attacks and forced conversions by affiliated Hindu nationalist groups such as Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, Sangh Parivar, and Vishva Hindu Parishad." — There are constitutional provisions and state and national laws in India that do not comply with international standards of freedom of religion or belief, including Article 18 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights and Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. — "The Indian government-at both the national and state levels-often ignores its constitutional commitments to protect the rights of religious minorities. National and state laws are used to violate the religious freedom of minority communities."

The Bombay high court recently granted bail to three men who were charged with allegedly murdering a Muslim man after attending a meeting of the fringe right-wing group Hindu Rashtra Sena (HRS) in Pune in 2014. The high court said the accused did not kill the man over a personal enmity and that they had been provoked “in the name of religion”. The accused went out on the road wielding hockey sticks and spotted Mohsin and Riyaz Shaikh on a bike and started assaulting them. Mohsin and Riyaz, young Muslim IT professionals, were on their way to dinner. Mohsin succumbed to his injuries but Riyaz escaped. “The meeting was held prior to the assault. The accused had no other motives, such as any personal enmity, against the innocent victim. The fact that the victim belonged to another religion is in favour of the accused, who were clearly provoked in the name of the religion, and thus committed the murder."

22-year-old man was arrested for sharing “objectionable comment about beef” on WhatsApp. He died in custody due to beating and torture by police – his postmortem examination has concluded. The police took action against Ansari because they felt that circulation of such messages on beef would disturb the communal peace of the area. The area is now under close surveillance of security force.

"We took action because the WhatsApp message, with some comments about beef, had the potential to disturb communal peace", said police. Less than a week after he was arrested for allegedly sharing an objectionable comment about beef on WhatsApp, Minhaj Ansari, a 22-year-old from Jamtara district in Jharkhand, died due to torture and beating in police custody.

According to what the police told Indian Express, a WhatsApp message that allegedly made an objectionable comment about beef started doing the rounds in Dighari village of Narayanpura on October 2. A few people were detained. While others were released, Ansari was arrested on October 3. Two days later, his family was told that he had been shifted to Dhanbad for treatment after suffering injuries in custody. He died there two days later.

Consider crimes against Dalits. National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data shows that crimes against Dalits increased from less than 50 (for every million people) in the last decade to 223 in 2015. Among states, Rajasthan has the worst record although Bihar is a regular in the top 5 states by crimes against Dalits. Gujarat had a rate lower than all-India average (for crimes against Dalits) in 2011. It has crossed the mark since then.

The Gandhian non-cooperation movement of Gujarat’s Dalits and their move to join forces with Muslims have rattled the right wing, whose cow-protection vigilantism now threatens to blow up in its face. It is likely the most Gandhian of protests in the past 65 years — the leaderless Dalit non-cooperation, which started in Una in July and has now spread to the rest of Gujarat. After seven young men were flogged for skinning a dead cow near Una, Dalits belonging to nearly 30 different groups pledged to discontinue removing the carcasses of cattle or skinning them — a work that has been their lot under the centuries-old caste system. Soon, reports of attacks against the protesters began trickling in from Samter (August 16), Bhavra (August 20), and Rajkot (August 24). Dalits have responded with non-resistance — not a single instance of retaliation has been reported so far. What has completely unnerved the Hindu nationalist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is the spectre of Dalit-Muslim unity and a potential fissure in the Hindu fold.

A dalit (OutCaste) youth was stripped and beaten by locals in Rajasthan for allegedly talking to a girl. He was tied with a rope and paraded in the village with a garland made of shoes on him. He was also subjected to electric shocks. The ordeal didn’t end there for the OutCaste youth. The police refused to file an FIR after the victim and his family complained. Both the police inspector and the ASP, allegedly in connivance with the accused, not only ignored his complaint but put him in lock up (jail).

A group of men bashed up two Dalits, accusing them of stealing a cow and killing it for meat at Sudhapalem in Bheemunipalem of Uppalaguptam mandal in East Godavari on Monday night, a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned against such attacks on Dalits, at a public meeting in Hyderabad. However, the attackers were not gau rakshaks, but men who suspected theft of their cows; they tied up Mokati Elisha to a pole and beat him up severely. They also beat up his younger brother Venkateswara Rao and the auto rickshaw driver.

Protesters have blocked a key highway in India to protest against the death of two children who were burnt alive in an arson attack near the capital Delhi. A toddler and a nine-month old died after their home in Faridabad town was set on fire early on Tuesday, allegedly by upper-caste men.

Simply abolishing surnames will not end caste-based discrimination. Protecting the rights of every person, will. One should not need to resort to destroying anyone's sense of personal identity in order to maintain peace and equality. Dalits should not have to live in fear because of who they are and from where they come. Their identities should be free from scrutiny, and the way to do that is by protecting them, and enforcing the anti-discrimination laws already in place.

Sixty-six years after the abolition of untouchability, these chronicles of discrimination and oppression continue to find resonance in modern India. One woman has started a publication where Dalits and other minorities have the opportunity to voice their opinions. But do all stories of Dalits and Adivasis have to come only from them? Can only the disadvantaged write about the disadvantaged? These are some of the questions that Gupta has faced.

How Dalit anger against destruction of Ambedkar Bhavan found expression in the Ambedkar Bhavan and Una protests

"No caste practice is innocuous or harmless. Being an upper caste (though not Brahmin), urban woman myself, I speak from a position of privilege. My experiences of caste discrimination are unlikely to shock – nobody has thrown me out of a temple, served me tea in a separate glass in a tea shop, or raped me to teach my community a lesson for its over-reaching ambitions. But there are many instances in which I’ve noticed people around me making casteist statements and endorsing casteist practices with impunity. No caste practice is innocuous or harmless."

Dalits bond together with non-Hindus. There is religious intolerance in the area, and those who do not subscribe to the Hindu religion are discriminated against. There is a common goal between these groups. They both want to live as free people, given the equal status and respect as everyone else. Just as the Dalits would like to get rid of the Caste system, religious minorities would like to be able to express their beliefs without fear of discrimination.

Dalits in Gujarat have united over Modi's shameless silence on cow vigilantes

Thousands of Dalits rallied on Sunday in in Gujarat state, in protest over their treatment by upper-caste Hindus. Landless Dalits are at the bottom of India's age-old social hierarchy, making them vulnerable to discrimination and attacks by upper-caste Hindus, including by hardline "gau rakshak" vigilantes who regard cows as sacred. Unrest in the state erupted last month after four Dalit men in the city of Una were tied to a car, stripped and flogged by Hindu vigilantes, who accused them of skinning a cow, a revered animal for Hindus. Caste-based discrimination was banned in India in 1955, but centuries-old attitudes persist and low-caste Indians still face prejudice in every sector, particularly in rural areas. Crimes against India's lower-caste communities rose by almost a fifth to 47,064 in 2014 from the previous year, according to national data. In Gujarat, crimes against lower-caste communities, including indigenous people, had a conviction rate about six times lower than the national average.

A low-caste Indian couple were hacked to death by a shopkeeper because of an unpaid loan of 15 rupees (about 22 cents). It is the latest incident of violence against the Dalit community, who occupy the lowest-of-the-low rung in Hinduism’s abstruse caste system. Dalit groups protested the killings of the couple. The couple reportedly had five children, including two married daughters. The three other children—boys aged 11, nine and eight—were said to be in a state of shock. Although discrimination based on caste has been unlawful in India for decades, atrocities against Dalits are not new, and have gone unpunished for centuries. But several recent high-profile attacks on members of the community have stunned India. Earlier this month, four Dalit men were beaten up by a cow-protection group while attempting to skin the animal. Hindus view cows as holy and there’s a separate battle around India over cow slaughter. Dalits are murdered because people in higher castes decide to take the law into their own hands. Dalits do not command much respect, and they are treated as such. Dalits already have a very difficult time making a living wage, and the added civilian terror and violence inflicted upon them must cease.

Dalits have long been barred from certain Temples and worship services. This element of discrimination stops them from educating themselves about religion, which many use in attempt to justify to Caste system. By not being allowed into Temple, the Dalits have an increasingly difficult time understanding the system in which they exist, which makes it more difficult for them to argue against the status quo.

Man rapes Dalit girl for second time and kills her, after being released on bail. The girl, from the “untouchable” Dalit caste, said she had been repeatedly raped, beaten, deprived of food and forced to drink acid mixed with fruit juice during her imprisonment. They told her if she revealed anything in court, they would kill her father and mother. She suffered so much pain and her perpetrators were roaming free. (A student of the same caste was allegedly gang raped on 13 Julywhile on her way home from college in Rohtak, Haryana, by a group of men including two suspects who assaulted her three years earlier.)

Police said the victim, 15-year-old Swapnil Sonawane, was killed because the girl’s family did not approve of him as he belonged to a different caste. A Dalit boy was allegedly beaten to death on Tuesday night by the family of a 15-year-old girl he was in a relationship with. Police said the victim, 15-year-old Swapnil Sonawane, was killed because the girl’s family did not approve of him as he belonged to a different caste. The girl belongs to the OBC Agri community. When Swapnil’s mother and other relatives arrived at the police station Monday night, they were allegedly told by the police to ensure Swapnil ends the relationship. “My wife was told by a lady police officer, ‘Why are you behaving like characters in the film Sairat. Your story will also become like the film’s. There will be bloodshed in your home’,” Shahaji alleged. Sairat, a Marathi film, tells the story of an inter-caste couple who are killed in the name of honour by the girl’s family. Mane allegedly refused to register a complaint when Shahaji approached the police station on Tuesday — hours before Swapnil’s murder — because he feared for his son’s life. "I took him to the police station but one of the police officers did not allow us to meet the senior inspector. My complaint against the girl’s brother was not registered. Had they taken action, my son would have been alive today." “When Swapnil’s mother approached the police with some relatives, PSI Rajguru did not pay heed to their requests,” said a police officer.

Four Dalits are tied to a car, dragged around and beaten in public for performing their job of skinning a dead cow in Gujarat by the Upper Caste Hindus. Dalits are considered below cows in the Indian Hindu caste hierarchy, and the new violent mob vigilantes of Hinduism have been meting out violence in the name of Hinduism on Dalits across India.

On July 4, the Juno spacecraft will arrive at Jupiter. The solar-powered craft will spend 20 months studying the planet’s composition and history, then burn up in Jupiter’s atmosphere. Juno is now accelerating toward Jupiter, pulled in by gravity. On July 4, Juno will fire its main engine for 35 minutes to slow down and be captured into orbit around the planet.

There are hair salons that refuse to give haircuts to Dalit customers. This blatant form of discrimination is alive today in certain parts of India. Even certain upper-caste barbers who are willing to engage in business with Dalit customers have been threatened and warned against it. This pressure only increases the sense of inequality in the region.

Religious tolerance in India is deteriorating while religious freedom violations are increasing —  Minority communities have experienced numerous incidents of intimidation, harassment and violence during the past year largely at the hands of Hindu nationalist groups —  "Higher caste" individuals and local political leaders also prevented Hindus considered part of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Dalits) from entering religious temples —  Members of the ruling BJP tacitly supported these groups and used religiously-divisive language to inflame tensions further —  Indian constitutional provision deeming Sikhs, Buddhists and Jains to be Hindus contradicts international standards of freedom of religion or belief.

Treating workers as if they are widgets to be used up and discarded is a central part of the revised relationship between employers and employees that techies proclaim is an innovation as important as chips and software. The model originated in Silicon Valley, but it’s spreading. Old-guard companies are hiring “growth hackers” and building “incubators,” too. They see Silicon Valley as a model of enlightenment and forward thinking, even though this “new” way of working is actually the oldest game in the world: the exploitation of labor by capital.

What if, say, the bottom quarter of the population in the United States and Europe simply couldn’t find a job at a wage that could cover the cost of basic staples? What if smart-learning machines took out lawyers and bankers? Or even journalists and economists?

Muslim transporters of “Cow” were nearly lynched in Rajasthan yesterday. Truck is said to be carrying 50 cows and was passing through Chhoti Sadri Pratapgarh district, Chittorgarh, Rajasthan on 31 May 2016. The mob of Hindu “activists” chased the truck and later set it on fire. The driver and his three helps were stripped and mercilessly beaten in the presence of police. A case of cruelty against animals have been lodged against the four transporters. The Cow Protection Groups (Gau raksha dals), which operate in numerous areas, celebrate with great impunity all their catches and the brutal punishment they reward to beef dealers. They themselves share pictures and videos of their “great” achievements. In one case near Aligarh they even allowed an “embedded journalist” to record and report their stories of saving Mother Cow.

Graphs and Charts highlighting India's caste problem

Dalits are beginning to use Social Media to affect change. The internet poses a new way for people to protest against injustices, manners which were not possible for most of the years in the Caste system's existence. The virtual world poses an easier manner for large groups of people to put overbearing pressure on others to change their policies and actions, and make sure that Dalits are treated equally and fairly.

Dalit man digs water well, because he is forbidden to use the communal town well due to his "Untouchability" status. For months, people in parts of rural India have been left struggling as an unusually dry monsoon season has dried up many of the wells that people rely on for water every day. However, not only is the drought making life harder for people in these communities, but it is highlighting many of the caste tensions that are still a daily part of life for many Indian people known as “Dalit.”

Dalits do not merely want to be given more jobs or higher paying jobs. It's more than that. Dalits want to be treated as human beings. They want to be allowed the appropriate dignity, empowerment, and participation entitled to all other members of society. It is not merely a practical discrimination upon them, but an ideological one as well. For Dalits to be treated equally, it would send a powerful statement that all human beings should be treated with certain basic rights.

22-year-old Dalit boy, V Shankar, was hacked to death by three goons at 3 in the afternoon in full public view. Shankar, a resident of Kumaralingam village, was a young engineering student still pursuing his studies from a private engineering college and had married Kausalya, a girl from the upper caste Thevar community, just eight months ago. The fact that a Dalit boy had the temerity to marry a girl from a higher caste, did not go down well with the girl’s family, who opposed the couple eloping and marrying against family wishes. The girl had earlier filed a police complaint against her father, but as usual, was taken lightly by the police. Sunday saw the consequence of that laxity. The boy is dead and the girl lies critically injured in hospital. After 68 years of independence, India has still not been able to get rid of regressive social practices like honour killings and caste-related violence.

A 22-year-old engineering graduate from a Dalit family was hacked to death by three men on a motorbike at a busy junction in Udumalaipettai town of Tamil Nadu’s Tirupur district on Sunday afternoon, allegedly for marrying a woman from the Thevar community. The Thevars are a dominant community in southern Tamil Nadu. The wife, 19, was also attacked and is admitted at a local hospital with multiple injuries. She is out of danger, the police said late Sunday evening.

According to one study, hundreds of people are killed each year in India for falling in love or marrying against their families' wishes. A man from India's Dalit community has been hacked to death on a crowded road in a suspected honour killing in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. Dalits, formerly known as untouchables, form the lowest rung of India's caste hierarchy.

In yet another incident of caste violence in Tamil Nadu, a newly-wed couple was beaten up by goons in full public view in Udumalpet, Tirupur, on Sunday, after which the culprits then hacked the man to death. Reports said that the victims' inter-caste marriage was the reason why the assailants killed the man. According to a report in The Times of India, the attackers were the woman's relatives. Eight months ago, Shankar had married Kausalya despite opposition from her parents. This horrific incident brings to light the severity of the problem of caste violence in Tamil Nadu. The NDTV report said that this was the third incident of this kind in the state in the last five years. The murder of a Dalit man over inter-caste marriage brings back memories of the tragic incident in 2013 when a Dalit man called Ilavarasan was killed after marrying a Vanniyar girl called Divya. Ilavarasan's body was found on a railway track in Dharmapuri district.

Dalit man hacked to death in "honor killing," for marrying a woman outside of his Caste. No arrests have been made, police officer Senthil Kumar said. The couple met as students at an engineering college in the Tiruppur district of Tamil Nadu state and married eight months ago, police said. Such was the opposition to the union that Kausalya was asked to put in writing at a local police station that she was of sound mind when marrying the man of her choice. The public nature of the crime, which took place in front of a shopping mall, underlines how religious strictures run deep in India despite years of economic development and efforts to end the ancient caste system. In spite of greater urbanization and social mobility, caste-based violence remains stubbornly pervasive. The killing showed nothing seems to have helped or changed how the politics of caste plays out.

Official statistics reported 28 honour killings in India in 2014, the most recent year on record, although UN estimates say the true figure could be as high as 10,000. The state of Madhya Pradesh had the most murders due to honour killings in 2014 - one-in-four took place in the central state, according to India's National Crime Records Bureau. That same year, an additional 1,307 murders due to love affairs were counted across India, and a further 1,196 due to "illicit relationships".

India has long witnessed so-called honour killings, where couples are targeted because their families or communities disapprove of their relationships over caste or religion. They are carried out by relatives or caste groups to protect what is seen as the family's reputation and pride. There are no India-specific figures available, but United Nations statistics say 1,000 out of the 5,000 such killings every year are in India. India's Supreme Court ruled in 2011 that those involved in honour killings should face the death penalty.

Unfortunately, Caste is not yet solely an issue of the past. The gap between the high and the low castes, between so-called backward and forward communities, not only persists, it also manifests itself through ever-more subtle and complex forms of discrimination and violence. Being the beneficiary of reservations can itself be a stigma. Dalit students still come from severe poverty. They lead de facto segregated lives on nominally diverse and inclusive campuses. They still face daunting disadvantages in the job market even after they graduate with degrees. The ability of “reserved” candidates is always suspect, regardless of their performance. “My birth is my fatal accident,” Mr. Vemula wrote in his suicide note. But his birth as a citizen of democratic India should have been a guarantee of dignity, opportunity and respect. He also wrote that he blamed no one. Yet there are culprits: his fellow Indians who have embraced democracy without understanding that its first principle is equality for all. He left behind a searing suicide note: “The value of a man was reduced to his immediate identity and nearest possibility. To a vote. To a number. To a thing. Never was a man treated as a mind.”

India has passed several laws to end manual scavenging with government pledges to modernize sanitation and criminalize those who employ manual scavengers. Yet Dalit communities continue to face threats of violence, eviction and withholding of wages if they try to give up the practice, human rights groups say. And crimes against lower-caste Indians are rising. There were more than 47,000 such crimes in 2014, an increase of about a fifth from the previous year, according to official figures.

A brief and condensed history of the Caste system. Dalits are at the very bottom of the Caste system, and continue to face persecutions to this day. Under the Caste system, they are born into the Dalit Caste, and can never leave that demographic.

Mr Vemula, 26, was one of five Dalit - formerly known as untouchable - students who were protesting against their expulsion from the university's housing facility. India's 180 million Dalits are among its most wretched citizens, because of an unforgiving and cruel caste hierarchy that condemns them to the bottom of the heap. At Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences, India's leading medical school, an investigation of a case of discrimination against a Dalit student found vile abuses written on the doors and walls of hostel rooms where Dalit students lived. When he went to the director of the institute to lodge a complaint, the latter flatly denied that there was caste discrimination on the campus. This is a school which produces India's best doctors. This is also the school where a federal investigation into complaints of caste-based harassment and discrimination against Dalit and tribal students uncovered a shocking picture of abuse. Politicians are accused of not confronting this appalling discrimination with the zeal it deserves. Instead, Dalit and tribals have also become pawns in India's hideous vote bank politics. In modern-day India, the segregation of Dalits begins early: they are separated by markers and coloured wrist bands in classrooms; and forced to clean school toilets. Upper caste school children routinely boycott school lunches cooked by Dalit cooks.

Unfortunately, Caste-Based Discrimination is not dying with the older generations. Young children today are subject to discrimination for being Dalit, even in the public government-sponsored schools. Various methods have been used to degrade the Dalit students, including assigning them the tasks of cleaning the toilets, and wearing color-coded clothing to distinguish which children were from which Caste.

A 12-year-old Dalit boy in Jodhpur was beaten up by his teacher for allegedly taking a plate from a stack meant for upper castes. The Indian Express visits schools across the country where lessons in caste differences start early. In the schools of Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu, caste comes in shades of red, yellow, green and saffron. It’s what students wear on their wrists, on their foreheads, around their necks, under their shirts. It’s who they are. The district administration found that wrist bands were often used to target on the basis of caste. The headmaster said anything, even a song, can trigger caste tension among students. These practices emerged in the 1990s. People here say such caste markers were unheard of until two decades ago. Tamil Nadu is known for violent caste conflicts between OBCs and Dalits.

47,064 cases of crimes against Dalits were registered last year, up from 39,408 in 2013 and 33,655 in 2012. According to NCRB 2014 data, the chargesheeting rate in crimes committed against Dalits is 92.3%, while the conviction rate is 28.8%. Crime against Dalits increased by 19% from 2013 to 2014. It is very difficult to get the police to cooperate with us. We often have to resort to protests and dharnas to even get a chargesheet filed. Sometimes, the victim is not aware that there is a special act for crimes committed against SC/STs.

Dalit family burnt alive in revenge killing in New Delhi metro area. Upper caste Rajputs set fire to the home of a Dalit family near New Delhi killing both the sleeping children inside aged 2 years and 9 months while their parents have suffered severe burn injuries.

The members of the Vanniyar community dug up the road so as to block the path of the procession. The main road "divides the houses of Dalit and Vanniyar families". Several Dalit women were also abused in the attack. The women were stripped and told to run, leaving their children behind. The mob that carried out the attack, also burnt vehicles belonging to Dalit families, and slaughtered livestock. The incident brought back memories of a similar attack in Tamil Nadu in 2012, when nearly 150 Dalit houses were torched after the suicide of a man (from the Vanniyar caste), whose daughter had eloped with a Dalit boy.

One of the telling factors of Caste, is by a person's surname. Family names are unique to castes, and Dalit's have to live knowing that divulgence of their names can influence how they are treated. For example, this woman was refused a home, because her last name was traditionally Dalit-sounding, and the landlord was afraid that having her as a tenant would alienate neighbors from the community.

On Monday, the country woke up to the shocking news of the murder of a 19-year-old Dalit girl from Pratapgarh district, who refused to let go of her relationship with a youth even after constant threats from her family. Here is a list of the ruthless honour killings that happened in the last three months.

Indian government once again attempted to silence discussion of women’s issues by banning “India’s Daughter,” a stirring documentary that revisits the savage 2012 gang rape of a 23-year-old Delhi woman. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Venkaiah Naidu called the film “an international conspiracy to defame India.” Just a few weeks after the 2012 Delhi Rape Case, a 17-year-old Indian girl who was gang-raped committed suicide, apparently because police would not file an official report on the attack. A year later, a 16-year-old girl was gang-raped, set on fire, and two months later died of her injuries. During those two months, the police did not file a crime report. More recently, The Indian Express reported that a 6-year-old girl was sexually assaulted with an iron rod by a security guard. Often, women who suffer violence stay silent because they have no faith in India’s justice system.

US President Barack Obama on Thursday said the "acts of intolerance" experienced by religious faiths of all types in India in the past few years would have shocked Mahatma Gandhi. The US President, who has just returned from India, was referring to violence against followers of various religions in India in the past few years. He, however, did not name any particular religion and said the violence is not unique to one group or one religion. "Michelle and I returned from India - an incredible, beautiful country, full of magnificent diversity - but a place where, in past years, religious faiths of all types have, on occasion, been targeted by other peoples of faith, simply due to their heritage and their beliefs - acts of intolerance that would have shocked Gandhiji."

‘Tradition’ is broadly defined as a belief or custom that is passed between generations. It can be cultural, religious or something entirely different. It can be praised and celebrated and adapted over time, or it can be viewed as dated and misunderstood and forced upon people who would otherwise not participate. It can breed sorrow and guilt, fear or even pain. In many cases, it can be or do all of those things. In some parts of Nepal, it’s Chhaupadi. Girls and women are made to live in makeshift huts while they’re menstruating out of the superstitious reasoning, and a tradition linked to Hinduism, that their blood is considered impure.

Indian state of Maharastra enforces Caste and Gender Discrimination of aeons by giving sole duty to OutCaste Women to collect and dispose waste and trash in the big city of Pune in Maharastra. Maharastra is one of the biggest states in India and is run by Upper Caste Political Parties like Shiv Sena that routinely and violently violates, beats, rapes and even kills the oppressed Dalits and Adivasis.

India’s southwestern state of Kerala, noted for its high levels of social development, exhibited markedly different patterns in the 2014 election from most other parts of the country. In Kerala, parties on the far left did quite well, as did the center-left Indian National Congress, whereas the center-right BJP performed quite poorly, as did regionalist parties. To understand the electoral geography of Kerala, it is necessary to examine religion and caste. The Ezhavas, the most numerous of all the Hindu groups in Kerala, are also the most puzzling of its peoples. Subdues by centuries by the Brahmins and the Nairs, regarded as outside the four-fold caste system, they nevertheless retained a pride even in their position as the leading caste of the outcastes, and during the nineteenth century developed a great will to rise above the limitations which society had laid upon them … . The Ezhavas sought education, even established their own schools… . Fortunate Ezhavas took to business and the Congress Party: unfortunate ones to radical rebellion, for the poor Ezhavas have long formed the dedicated core of the Communist Party in Kerala. … No group anywhere in India has so successfully, by its own efforts, removed itself from the double stigma of untouchability and ex-untouchability.

In Gujarat’s Mehsana district, Dalits cannot sell milk to cooperatives as it comes from ‘Dalit’ cows; in Rajasthan’s Ajmer, a Dalit woman is branded a witch, beaten and ostracised from the village; in Orissa’s Kandhamal, a Dalit girl was trafficked for sex and in Haryana, minor Dalit girls are gang raped every other day by dominant or upper caste men. Each time these victims of caste atrocities tried to register a complaint, they were threatened, coerced and counter cases were slapped against not only them but also civil society organisations and lawyers working with them. Medical reports of rape survivors were routinely fudged and the police refused to register appropriate FIRs. The violence committed on Dalit women’s bodies was gruesome, to say the least. These facts came to light when victims of 45 such cases, mostly Dalit women from nine States across the country, deposed before an eight-member jury of a National tribunal over two days in the Capital. There is wanton negligence of officials at all levels– right from constabulary to superintendent– and there has been a failure of proper implementation of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

Statistics from National Crime Records Bureau's Crime in India 2012 report plotted on a map of India to highlight which Indian states have the highest rate of crime against women. The rate of crime against women means the number of crimes against women per one lakh population of women. The statistics from the 2011 Actual Census (Provisional) women population have been used to calculate the crime rate.

About 30 percent of Lok Sabha members and 17 percent of Rajya Sabha members have criminal cases pending against them, said a report which noted that the probability of winning an election by a candidate with criminal record is higher than that of one with a clean background. Shiv Sena members top the list. The joint report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and the National Election Watch (NEW) was based on affidavits filed by candidates during elections since 2004. The analysis stated that a candidate with a clean record has 12 percent chance of winning the election whereas for a candidate with a criminal record, the chance of winning is 23 percent. A total of 8,790 affidavits filed by MPs and state legislators were analysed. Out of 4,181 repeat candidates, 1,072 had a criminal case the first time they contested an election and 788 cases had the second time also. This goes to show that political parties gave tickets to 74 percent of candidates with criminal records second time despite knowing their criminal background.

Primitive practices around caste and marriage are still finding support – even in urbanised, educated India. A leading Indian matrimonial website found that more than 99% of its users chose to mention caste when searching for a partner. In villages and cities across northern India, the most dangerous choice young people could make is one most of us take for granted – choosing their own partner. In recent years, they have ordered the honour killings of young couples for marrying outside their caste, for marrying within their gotra (ancient lineage as defined by Hindu tradition) and even for marrying someone from a neighbouring village. In short, one could invite censure, and usually worse, by marrying anyone against the wishes of their parents and the community. In April, two low-caste Dalits were burned alive and 18 houses gutted by a mob that was hundreds-strong. The state remains "a mute spectator", as admitted by the judge of the high court that was "flooded with petitions" seeking judicial confirmation of the right to life and liberty of married couples. These norms enjoy as much implicit support even in the most urbanised, educated and apparently liberated sections of the country. Caste preferences weigh in as heavily among the mostly urban, net-savvy Indians as it does among the khap panchayats. A leading Indian matrimonial website found that more than 99% of its users chose to mention caste when searching for a partner.

India: Social Boycott of Dalits in Madhya Pradesh - Uncivil Society, Apathetic Administration

India has systematically failed to uphold its international legal obligations to ensure the fundamental human rights of Dalits, or so-called untouchables, despite laws and policies against caste discrimination, the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice and Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today. More than 165 million Dalits in India are condemned to a lifetime of abuse simply because of their caste by Hindutva terrorist. “The Indian government can no longer deny its collusion in maintaining a system of entrenched social and economic segregation.” In 1996, CERD concluded that the plight of Dalits falls squarely under the prohibition of descent-based discrimination. The pervasiveness of abuses against Dalits is corroborated by the reports of Indian governmental agencies, including the National Human Rights Commission, and the National Commission on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. These and other sources were compiled, investigated, and analyzed under international law by NYU School of Law’s International Human Rights Clinic. India’s report to CERD, eight years overdue, covers compliance with the convention from 1996 to 2006 yet does not contain a single mention of abuses against Dalits – abuses that India’s own governmental agencies have documented and verified.

On 25 March 2007, Awadkesh Kumar, 24, was hit by gunshots fired by members of the dominant caste in his community. Awadkesh was semi-unconscious for five days and lost both eyes. Four arrests were made, but the court case is still pending. Meanwhile, Awadkesh is unable to feed his family and relies on the help of neighbors.