IN 2005, Gohana in Sonepat district of Haryana witnessed the torching of several Dalit homes by members of upper castes. Now Mirchpur, a village 58 kilometres away and located deep inside Hisar district, has met a similar fate.
On April 21, as many as 18 homes belonging to Dalits from the Valmiki community here were set on fire by upper-caste youth over an alleged slight on the part of the former. An 18-year-old disabled woman and her father died in the fire, the latter while attempting to rescue the former. Twenty-six persons were injured and 14 houses damaged.
Forty-three persons were named in the first information report, while 31 were arrested under as many as 14 sections of the Indian Penal Code, apart from the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
A meeting of the khap panchayat (a socio-political organisation of the Jat community) called by a government school teacher on April 24 demanded the release of those arrested. A senior officer of the district administration, who was present at the meeting, dismissed the congregation as harmless.
The immediate provocation for the arson was that a mongrel barked at some Jats, who in turn threw stones at the dog. The stone accidentally hit a Valmiki boy and a scuffle ensued. The Jats took this as an opportunity to teach the upstart Valmikis a lesson.
The police, although aware of the tensions brewing between the two communities, deliberately allowed them to escalate. Elders of the Valmiki community said they had kept the station house officer (SHO) of Narnaund, the police station under which Mirchpur falls, informed about the gradual escalation in the violence, including the stoning that had begun in the early hours of April 21. Armed policemen were present in the village even during the arson, but they allegedly did not try to disperse the miscreants.
The next day, a Communist Party of India (Marxist) delegation led by the State secretary of the party, Inderjit Singh, and All India Democratic Womens Association (AIDWA) State secretary Shakuntala Jhakhar visited Mirchpur and prepared a detailed account of the losses suffered. The delegation accused the police officers of criminal negligence and demanded full compensation for all the victims. The State administration later agreed to the demand.
Opposition parties and Dalit organisations have blamed the Bhupinder Singh Hooda-led Congress government for taking a lackadaisical view of the systematic violence perpetrated by a section of the Jat community. They have demanded that the government take stern action against all those involved, including the police officers accused of being complicit in the arson. On April 26, the incident resonated in Parliament where members cutting across party lines condemned the incident.
On April 29, Rahul Gandhi, Member of Parliament and All India Congress Committee general secretary, paid an unannounced visit to Mirchpur. Union Tourism Minister Kumari Selja, who represents the reserved seat of Ambala in Haryana, had visited the village five days earlier.
Members of the Valmiki community told Frontline that the Jats resented the formers improved economic status and reduced dependence on them. The mongrels bark was only an excuse. Village dogs are known to bark at strangers but it doesnt lead to systematic arson and murder, said Ram Avtar, a senior functionary of the All India Agricultural Workers Union (AIAWU). A Dalit himself, Ram Avtar feels this is not going to be the end of the clashes between the upper-caste and lower-caste people, since the latter are getting more powerful socially and politically.
Two elected representatives from the Dalit community, one a panchayat member and the other a block samiti member, were beaten badly when they went to broker peace between the two communities.
It is a standard modus operandi. They first create a conflict, beat us up and then call for reconciliation when they feel that we may go to the police, said Rishikesh, an engineer with the Public Health Department. In 1989, when he was an assistant draughtsman, he was abused by the son of the then sarpanch and later beaten up by a mob of Jat youth for retaliating. When he threatened to go to the police, the sarpanch called for a compromise. Rishikesh has sent his children outside the State to study. He has a son who has an M.Phil from Pondicherry University. I have a house here but I dont like living here any more, he said.
They call us dedh [a derogatory term with casteist connotations]. They object to our sitting on charpoys [a type of cot used in villages], said Ram Kumar, a retired principal. Almost every Valmiki family in the village had a matriculate, he said. Back in 1995, in order to defuse the tension in the village, those like his father had accepted the humiliating terms set by Jats such as removing his turban in front of Jats. But the Valmikis are in no mood to take such insults any more.
The benefits of reservation and the legal safeguards have empowered the Valmikis. There are teachers, engineers, army men and gazetted officers from among them. But a good number of educated Valmikis work as daily wage labourers. With few government jobs and no agricultural land to fall back on, this section depends on construction and agricultural work on land owned by Jats.
Mirchpur is a big village, with 300 Valmiki families. But most of them have fled the village to live with their relatives or at the community guesthouse in Hisar town. Despite the 700-strong police force, which includes Hisar Superintendent of Police Subhash Yadav, in Mirchpur, they refuse to return as they fear further reprisals.
The girls school is located in the middle of Jat dwellings. How can we ensure the safety of our daughters? asked Bharpai Devi, a Mirchpur resident.
The village has pucca dwellings. The ones owned by Jats look richer. One house, owned by Chander Singh, a Valmiki, could easily pass off as the house of a Jat. Double-storeyed and spacious, it had a provision store attached, which was the familys source of income. I built this house by herding goats. Now all is gone, Chander Singh said teary eyed, looking at the gutted store. Three Valmiki women, the few left in the village, sat in a huddle, wondering what lay in store for them. They said that Jat women also participated in the arson and looting. Sanjay Singh, a daily wage labourer whose house was burnt down, said: They used kerosene from a depot owned by one of our community members. I had to break a side wall to drag out my brothers family, who were hiding in one of the rooms at the back.
At the Valmiki guesthouse in Hisar town, women and injured men sat huddled together. No one from the government, barring the Additional District Commissioner, had visited them. We walked nearly 25 kilometres for nine hours and finally were picked up by a vehicle organised by our community members, said Kailasho, a victim.
The Jats have an ego. The Chief Minister is from their community, the police are with them, and the land is owned by them. What do we have? asked Jaswant, a youth. The Valmikis, he said, were the only community among Dalits who stood up to the Jats.
Ram Avtar, who has been organising agricultural workers in the area for several years, most of them Dalits, said that all forms of harassment, including denying work and wages, was used against them. He added that nearly 200 cases of wage denial were reported at the Hisar office of the AIAWU every year.
As the State general secretary of the organisation, he had initiated the practice of holding hearings every Monday at the AIAWU office, and notices were sent out to alleged harassers, he said. They [the harassers] come in hordes after consulting lawyers about the S.C. and S.T. Act and then agree on a compromise, promising not to misbehave or deny wages, he said. In 1997, he said, Dalit dwellings in Mirchpur were brought down. Eleven months ago, two women belonging to the Dom community (a Dalit community that relies on alms) were paraded naked, he said.
After the carnage, it was time to apportion responsibility. The State government suspended the SHO, Vinod Kajal, who was accused of involvement, conspiracy and negligence. The S.P. admitted it was unfortunate that the SHO did not appreciate the situation. He was, however, helpless in taking a stronger view on congregations such as the khap panchayat.
The government has promised the Valmiki families 100 per cent compensation for the damage caused. But the emotional wedge caused by the carnage is bound to stay. No one from the Jat community in Mirchpur went for the funeral of the two dead Valmikis. This is worrying as normally after such incidents, the warring communities attempt a truce by attending funeral obsequies, said Inderjit Singh.
There was talk of relocating the Dalit families, which, Hisar Deputy Commissioner O.P. Sheoran admitted, was not a practical solution. There is no such precedent in the State. And what is the guarantee that conflicts will not take place there as well? he told Frontline. He told a CPI(M) delegation led by Lok Sabha member Sushmita Baori that the victims would be compensated fully. He said the demand that the main connecting lane between the houses of the two communities be sealed off was impractical.
The reluctance of the State government to take on errant members belonging to the economically, socially and politically strong communities is bound to create a crisis of faith. Many other villages in Haryana such as Duleena (in Jhajjar district), Harsola and Salwan (Jind), and Balamba and Petwaad (Hisar) have witnessed atrocities against Dalits, ranging from murder to social and economic boycott, in the past few years.
Chief Minister Hooda visited Mirchpur almost a week after the incident, while his opponents within the party as well as members of the Opposition paid multiple visits to the village. Hooda merely termed the incident as unfortunate. His government has been reluctant to take a strong stand against caste and khap panchayats, which issue death sentences, order social embargoes on couples marrying in violation of community norms, and harass Dalit communities. Will his government, with all its pretensions of making Haryana a world-class State, be prepared to take the proverbial bull by the horns?
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