For the past one week, the whole nation is protesting and demanding justice for a 20-year-old girl in the town of Hathras. At the same time, some politicians are questioning the hype for the Hathras incident that is been created by Media as well as the people who are protesting it.
Let us look deeper. If you think, Hathras incident is the find of this kind that had happened in our country, it's surely not. If you think, this is the first time a Dalit woman had been brutally raped by upper caste people then that is also wrong. If you think that this is the first time, the police officials are showing their arrogance with the protestors, that is not.
Then why Hathras is focused more?
Rape is Rape and there are no contradictions in it. The punishments should be quick and the policies should be implemented in such a way that no one should think of these brutal incidents. But the more pressure and focus on this one particular incident is because it's a heinous caste crime.
The family of the girl who got killed by the upper caste Thakur men had a family dispute with the latter for almost 20 years. The Caste atrocities in the form of oppressing Dalits were the prime issue which later got into assaulting the girl sexually and finally killed her.
We can't take this incident as a similar one to Nirbhaya's case and Jyoti Singh's case. Obviously, all the sufferers were women and there is no denying on that. But in Hathras' case, the upper caste men knew the girl personally before assaulting her and they targeted her with an assumption that she is a Dalit. So, no one will come in support of her family.
This caste attitude made the Thakur men go to the most vulgar extreme after raping a 20-year-old girl. The Dalit family has some agricultural land. The Thakur family would bring their buffaloes to graze on the crops in the agricultural lands that belonged to Dalits. So, the girl's family members insisted many a time to take the buffaloes away. So far it is a dispute that could happen between any two individuals: between two Thakurs, too. It is clearly evident from this incident that Caste violence which eventually led to sexual violence was the prime motto behind the girl's death.
The victim's family belonged to the caste of Valmiki. Yes, you read it right. The same name as the one who wrote the Hindu epic, 'Ramayana'. In that village where this incident had happened, there were around 200-250 houses that belonged to the upper caste Thakur community, and the Valmiki community had around 4-5 houses in total.
There they have historically faced exclusion and oppression in society, and are frequently affected by anti-Dalit violence and repression by members of other castes. This is very common in most of the villages across the nation. Even in my village, the backward castes, though they are backward they feel superior in front of Dalits which is why they occupy the main areas of the villages. And the oppressed communities will be living in the slums which will be outside the villages.
The disputes will be very common between the two different communities and when a Dalit comes in the picture, the upper caste people will use all their political and societal weapons to sideline the avarnas to show their arrogance and disgraceful caste pride.
So, in Hathras' incident, we can't just take the issue very lightly because it's deadly caste violence which is why a girl from an underprivileged community got raped and succumbed to Death.
The upper caste people whenever they get into any sort of disputes with underprivileged people, will use the caste domination as the factor and will get into the imagination that, we have all the right to attack and offend the Dalits at any cause. A dispute because of not allowing the buffaloes of upper caste people in their farmland was the only reason why is why a family is crying out in pain after losing their daughter.
There is a video which is been circulated through social media which shows a group of people(Thakur Community) protesting outside their houses in a cluster asking to release the rapists and withdraw all the cases that had been booked under the brutal assault of a woman. So how can we just ignore this crime as just the issue of sexual violence? Sexual violence happened to a 20-year-old Dalit girl just because of sheer caste pride and domination.
These kinds of caste acts of violence will end up in bringing catastrophe only to the people who were underprivileged. Even the media and judiciary were heading to issues pertaining to privileged classes. This is why Hathras is becoming much more important to speak for on a wider scale.
Labeling it as sexual violence and demanding justice for it can give an interim solution. But demanding justice by condemning it as the caste violence and anti-Dalit violence is what we need and this is where the true justice will be served.
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