|
|
Kherlanji: Where caste is a license to
rape and kill
BY A CORRESPONDENT
November 20, 2006
Kherlanji is no business centre. Not even an upcoming one. For an India that is leapfrogging into the paradise of power and economic freedom, this Maharashtra village doesn’t even exist. For, Kherlanji is a village of no big money. Kherlanji is just another rural hamlet where caste defines life.
Little wonder why September 29, 2006, dawned in the morning and saw the sun set at dusk as usual, at least for the people of this nation, the police and the so-called omnipresent media. The government, the people, the media and even the watchdogs of societal
propriety sought to close their eyes when four hapless members of a dalit family were massacred and the women among them were gang raped and abused in the most heinous manner on that fateful day. Can disgrace be better defined?
For those who finally managed to come in late, Kherlanji is a village of 170 households, home to around 780 people. Situated some 50-km north of Bhandara town, off Tumsar road in Maharashtra, this village used to be home to the Dalit Buddhist family of Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange, his wife Surekha, (44), his daughter Priyanka (18) and sons, Roshan (23) and Sudhir (21). Till, September 29, 2006.
Kherlanji, home to the mostly dalit Buddhists, is also the kingdom of upper caste Hindu landlords. In a nation where the upper caste kings wield the license to annihilate, Kherlanji turned out to be a meek victim. The Bhotmange story is just the right case study.
Kherlanji today is tale of four hapless members of the Bhotmange family who were hunted down by hooligans in the garb of custodians of moral justice. Surekha Bhotmange, and her husband Bhaiyyalal eked out their living by growing cotton and rice in their little piece of land. Till 1996, the couple had owned five acres of agricultural land. Come 1996, and two acres were forcibly taken away from them so that neighbouring farmers belonging to the upper castes could drive their tractors across to other villages.
Recently, they had come again hunting for more land in order to build a water pathway. In a bid to protect the land they were left with, the Bhotmanges protested. They found support from another dalit, Siddharth Gajbhaiye, Bhaiyyalal’s cousin.
The angry upper caste men, who saw a glitch, began working overtime to spread false tales of an illegitimate relationship between Gajbhaiye and Surekha, in an obvious a ploy to malign them. The Bhotmanges and Gajbhaiyye, interestingly, belonged to the Mahar caste, which had given birth to the great B R Ambedkar
The hate campaign gained epic proportions resulting in Gajbhaiye paying the price for helping the dalit family. A mob beat up Gajbhaiye, alleging that an illicit relationship with Surekha. Following this, Gajbhaiye filed a police complaint against 15 men from Kherlanji village and got 12 of them behind bars. Surekha too signed on the FIR as one of the witnesses and identified the 12 in a police parade.
Almost a month later, on September 29, the 12 men were released on bail. Spewing venom, they headed for the Bhotmanges’ dwelling place threatening to finish off the entire family. Fully drunk, the hooligans broke open the door of Bhotmange’s hut. Unable to find Bhaiyyalal, they dragged out Surekha, Priyanka, Roshan and Sudhir to the village chaupal. The girl, Priyanka, an Army aspirant and NCC cadet, was strapped on to a bullock cart while being dragged away.
The entire upper caste Powar and Kalar families had by then come together to witness the crime. On reaching the chaupal, the hooligans shouted to the sarpanch to allow them to sexually assault the women. What happened next was hell. They raped the women and killed all four, even as the upper caste men, and women, looked on as mute spectators. Though one woman among them protested, she was silenced with a tight slap. Worse, she later on said she saw nothing.
Surekha and Priyanka were stripped, paraded naked. They were beaten with bicycle chains, hacked with axes and publicly gang raped until they died. The drama never ceased to end even with their death. The corpses of the women were raped again. The men continued to breathe venom by shoving rods into their genitals. Sudhir and Roshan were the next targets. They were beaten up, genitals mutilated, faces disfigured. Their lifeless bodies were then thrown away.
Meanwhile, Bhaiyyalal hiding behind a hut helplessly watched his family’s gruesome end. He ran away from the village unable to bear the insult and pain. An hour later, a village meeting was called and the upper caste bosses decreed for the knowledge of the entire lot of witnesses and spectators that nobody saw anything!
The police arrived much later, and went back at the same pace. The next day, when Bhaiyyalal filed an FIR at the police station, the officer in charge refused to believe him. However, a police patrol team managed to come across a smashed mobile phone and mutilated corpses resulting in the suspension of a constable and the officer who was in charge of the police station on the day of the fateful massacre.
Though photographs of the mutilated bodies with rods in the genitals of the women are believed to have been taken by the police patrol team, none has seen the light of the day.
Worse, a post-mortem conducted on the day after the incident said no rape had happened. It was now left to the Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS), a regional farmers’ organization, to make the issue heard. The bodies were later exhumed and a fresh post-mortem report is being awaited. Though as many as 38 men from Kherlanji are behind bars at present, the VJAS alleges that the perpetrators are still roaming free.
What is more shocking is that the mainstream media, the big bosses of communication who claim to be national flag bearers of social justice, never though the incident deserved front page. A section of the local press and the Tehelka were the only ones who found the story worthy enough to be covered.
Bhaiyyalal may have got a few lakhs of rupees as compensation, but it’s a shame that such an incident escaped public attention. Who is to be blamed? The powers that rule us? The media who sought to switch off their roving eye for fear of unnecessary wastage of valuable space on the front page? The police, who proved to be just puppets in a land of political power? Or is it the hapless souls who had the misfortune of being born into low caste families destined to be victims of the upper caste hooligans?
Kherlanji is just another hapless hamlet where caste rules. India dies in its villages, where the lower castes live a dog’s life. When will the media, the cops and the political powers that be, realize that there is more to social responsibility than just applauding success and money power? Is anyone listening?
|
