In Dalit History — Legal Protections : The SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989
For a successful revolution it is not enough that there is discontent. What is required is a profound and thorough conviction of the justice, necessity and importance of political and social rights. — Dr. B. R. Ambedkar
Article 15 and 17 of the Constitution of India specifically protect against discrimination on the basis of Caste and race and abolish Untouchability as a practice.
However, 8 years after independence, there was still a need felt for a specific Act of law to address the practice of Untouchability and this was established as the Untouchability Offences Act 1955 which was later amended to Protection of Civil Rights Act 1977.
Still the period from the 70s to the 1990s saw some of the most incredible levels of crimes against Scheduled Castes (Dalits) and STs (Adivasis).
These crimes included several mass pogroms. For example, from 1970s to well into the 2000s, the State of Bihar a number of mass atrocities against Dalits. In some states like West Bengal, already displaced Namashudra communities were actually ethnically cleansed in numbers ranging in thousands in places like Marichjhanpi.
In addition to mass atrocities, several everyday crimes were perpetrated against both Dalit and Adivasi communities. These crimes were actually distinct from the general spectrum of hate crimes were based on Caste and were not sufficiently covered under Protection of Civil Rights Act or the Indian Penal Code. These crimes included specific acts of humiliation, harassment and dehumanisation that are the unique outcomes of the Brahminical hierarchy that organises Indian society.
On seeing their communities’ vulnerabilities to what was then termed “gruesome acts”, Dalit and Adivasi activists and representatives of government fought a hard battle for a comprehensive set of protections to be passed.
Their efforts culminated in the Parliament passing ‘Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act’, 1989 & Rules, 1995.
The preamble of the Act states that the Act itself is set-up “to prevent the commission of offences of atrocities against the members of Scheduled Castes and Tribes, to provide for Special Courts for the trial of such offences and for the relief and rehabilitation of the victims of such offenses and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.”
Listed below are only some the provisions of this very extensive act that protect against specifically described atrocities commonly perpetrated against SC/ST community members:
The Act prohibits the inflicting any of the following on SC/ST persons:
- Putting any inedible or obnoxious substance into the mouth of an SC/ST person
- Dumping excreta, sewage, carcasses or any other obnoxious substance onto their premises
- Garlanding with footwear or parades naked or semi-naked
- Forcibly removing clothes from the person, forcibly tonsuring of head, removing moustaches, painting face or body or any other similar act, which is derogatory to human dignity;
- Corrupting the water of any spring, reservoir or any other source used by a SC or ST community
- Obstructing SC or ST persons from using common property resources of an area, or burial or cremation ground, river, stream, spring, well, tank, cistern, water-tap or other watering place, or any bathing ghat, any public conveyance, any road, or passage;
- Obstructing SC or ST persons from mounting or riding bicycles or motor cycles or wearing footwear or new clothes in public places or taking out wedding procession, or mounting a horse or any other vehicle during wedding processions;
- Obstructing SC or ST persons from entering any place of worship which is open to the public or taking out, any religious, social or cultural processions including jatras
- Causing physical harm or mental agony on the allegation of practicing witchcraft or being a witch
- Dedicating a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe woman to a deity as a devadasi
- Intentionally touching a SC or ST woman when such act of touching is of a sexual nature and is without the recipient‘s consent
- Using words, acts or gestures of a sexual nature towards a SC or ST woman
- Forcing ‘begar’ or other forms of forced or bonded labour onto an SC or ST person
- Compelling an SC or ST person to dispose or carry human or animal carcasses, or to dig graves;
- Forcing, employing or permitting a SC or ST person to do manual scavenging
- Wrongfully occupying or cultivating any land, owned by, or in the possession of or allotted to a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe
- Interfering with the voting rights of a SC or ST person through violence or intimidation
- Wrongfully dispossessing SC or St persons from their land or premises or interfering with the enjoyment of those rights, including forest rights, over any land, water or irrigation facilities
- Destroying the crops of a SC or ST person
- Destroying, damaging or defiling any object generally known to be held sacred or in high esteem by members of the SC and ST communities
The SC/ST PoA act also demands some stringent standards are set for investigating complaints filed by members of the SC and ST community:
These include:
THOROUGH INVESTIGATION
The investigating officers should be police officers not below the rank of Deputy Superintendent of Police with experience and ability to investigate such cases
DEADLINE FOR FILING A CHARGESHEET
Within 30 days of the atrocity, the investigation should be complete and a chargesheet filed
NON-BAILABLE
Anticipatory bail is never to be made available to persons accused of offences under the Act
SPECIAL COURTS
Where required Special Courts are to be set up to them to ensure speedy trial
EXPANDED PUNISHMENT
“Exemplary punishment” is required to be set at a scale much higher than under the Indian Penal Code for atrocities on SCs/STs
OFFICIAL ACCOUNTABILITY
Neglect of official duties of public servants under the Act is deemed punishable.
FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE
Financial assistance and provision of relief and rehabilitation is to be mandatorily provided to victims
TRAVEL ASSISTANCE
Victims are required to be paid travel and maintenance allowances so that they are able travel to court hearings and legal proceedings without loss incurred to them.
The Act was fully implemented in 1995. Again activists did the work of bringing awareness of the act to the people, to the police, and judiciary. They went from village to village setting up meetings and awareness camps, from police station to police station to demand accountability under the Act. In many ways they are still, in the 2010s, having to do this work because of the undying resistance to compliance under the SC/ST PoA Act by police and members of “upper” Caste society.
Dalit human rights organizations like the NCDHR ( National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights) have continued to maintain and update studies on its implementation and recording and publicizing the data associated it.
They have also been fighting intense lobbying from upper Caste groups calling for anything from a severe dilution to the end of the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act.
On March 20, 2018, two upper Caste supreme court judges, Justice Adarsh Goel and Justice U.U. Lalit, called for a dilution of the supposedly “stringent provisions” of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, citing “misuse” and making it harder for Dalit and Adivasi people to file complaints under the Act.
The act of filing a complaint under the act is already hard for SC and ST people. Much exists to point to the fact that despite the robustness of the law, the reality is :
- Victims experience dismissal at the police stations
- Police co-operate with upper caste perpetrators to file false cases
- Police perpetrate further violence on complainants
- Upper caste intimidation causes victims to take back their filed complaints
- Upper caste perpetrators file false and vexatious counter-cases on the victims and their families
- Cases are not solved within the 30-day limit
- Cases are not seen to by officers of the correct rank
- Cases do not get dates for judicial hearings on time
- Special courts are not prioritized
- Victims unable to travel long distances to court, not given promised travel assistance funds, drop their cases for fear of livelihood loss.
(Source: People’s Report on the Implementation of the SC/ST PoA , 2011)
This new ruling is an abomination and even more importantly and irrational decision in a nation where a crime is committed against a Dalit every 15 minutes and at least 6 Dalit women are raped every day, where over the last ten years (2007–2017), there has been a 66% growth in crimes against Dalits a doubling in the number of rapes of Dalit and Adivasi women (National Crime Records Bureau, 2017) And while the complaint chargesheets are filed at an (already low rate of) 77 percent, the conviction rate is is abysmal at only 15.4 percent.
Renowned former journalist and one of the most formidable Dalit voices, Dilip C Mandal said, “These figures mean that the law is not implemented properly and the investigating agencies do not do their work properly. The Supreme Court could direct the government to arrange the correct implementation of this law. But instead, the court decided to weaken the law itself.”
Dalits and Adivasis are coming together everywhere, in every state, in every political camp, in every class and Caste sections to fight this ruling. More than 10 people have already lost their lives and thousands more are jailed without bail just for protesting. We push forward.
#JAIBHIM
