Qaisar Mansoor
The Covid-19 lockdown disproportionately hurt marginalized communities due to loss of livelihoods and lack of food, shelter, health care, and other basic needs.
According to latest data, crimes against Dalits increased in India. This, Dalit rights activists said, was in part as backlash by members of dominant castes against any efforts toward upward mobility or what they might perceive as a challenge to caste hierarchy. In August, 2021, 40 Dalit families in Odisha were socially boycotted when a 15-year-old girl plucked flowers from the backyard of a dominant caste family. In July 2021, a Dalit man was stripped and beaten along with his family members in Karnataka for allegedly touching the motorcycle of a dominant caste man. In February, a Dalit man was beaten to death by members of dominant caste in Tamil Nadu for defecating in their field. In September, a Dalit lawyer was killed over his social media posts critical of Brahminism.
Cases of domestic violence rose during the lockdown, as witnessed in many countries globally. In March, authorities executed the four men convicted for the gang-rape and murder of Jyoti Singh Pandey in 2012 in Delhi, even as there was a 7.9 percent increase in rape cases registered in 2019 over the previous year. Calls for the death penalty also failed to address systemic barriers to justice for survivors of sexual violence in India, including stigma, fear of retaliation, hostile or dismissive police response, and a lack of access to adequate legal and health support services.
In September, a 19-year-old Dalit woman died after being gang-raped and tortured allegedly by four men of dominant caste in a village in Uttar Pradesh. The authorities’ response highlighted how women from marginalized communities face even greater institutional barriers. State authorities cremated the victim’s body without the family’s consent and denied the woman had been raped, despite her dying declaration— apparently to shield the accused belonging to a dominant caste. The state government claimed that protests against the rape and killing were part of an “international conspiracy” and arrested a journalist and three political activists under terrorism and sedition laws, and also filed cases against some protesters for alleged criminal conspiracy.
Sexual harassment at work remains an entrenched problem. The government has failed to properly implement the 2013 Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Law, including ensuring the creation and proper functioning of complaints committees for women in the informal sector.
Recently, Madhya Pradesh State Election Commission cancelled the Panchayat elections scheduled for 06 Jan, a move which comes after a Supreme Court ruling and the state government’s stand that these polls should not be held without Other Backward Classes (OBC) reservations. Chandrashekhar Azad, Bhim Army Chief along with his associates had been arrested by police for demanding 27 percent reservations for OBCs. They were arrested from outside Chief Minister’s residence. Congress MLA Kamleshwar Patel said that it is the right of every Indian citizen to conduct peaceful agitation for their legitimate demands.
But CM Shivraj government brutally crushed their attempt to protest outside CM’s residence, which Congress party strongly condemned. Although, Section 144 of CrPC has been imposed in the city citing Covid-19 protocol, whereas, RSS organized march past in the city and instead of stopping them police and administration provided them security. BJP government is anti-OBC and is trying to end OBC reservation in panchayat elections.
