MORE than ten days had elapsed since the gruesome murder of two dalit children, Roshni (12) and Avinash (10) of the Balmiki community when the CPI(M) took out a rally October 5, demanding justice for their families. Since there is no Party unit in the district, comrades from Gwalior spent days here mobilising local people for the rally.  Many from Gwalior, especially AIDWA members also participated.

 A delegation of Party leaders, Jaswinder (state secretary), Akhilesh (district secretary, Gwalior) and myself from the Polit Bureau met members of the district administration after the procession arrived at the collectorate from the Old Bus Stand.  We told them that we had come because even after so many days, very little had changed for the families of the two children.

On September 25, the two children were beaten to death with lathis because they were defecating in the open ground near the Panchayat building.  The men who killed them were Yadav brothers who took pictures of them with their mobile phones while abusing and then killing them.  This atrocity occurred less than 100 feet away from the tiny hut in which the children lived with Manoj, Roshni’s elder brother, Avinash’s father.  Manoj rushed to the scene when he heard their shrieks but it was too late.  The police responded to his call and arrested the two brothers.

There was no one to help the grieving family with the funeral arrangements.  Theirs is the only Balmiki family in the village and the other dalits were wary of helping them.  Fear coupled with their own prejudices kept them away.  It was others of their own sub-community along with a few activists who came from neighbouring areas and assisted them.

The district administration – after the local media had ensured that the case dominated headlines and air waves – visited the family but, unfortunately, displayed the kind of prevarication and lack of sympathy that has now become commonplace when such atrocities occur.  Without any kind of enquiry having been conducted, the police chief said that the attack did not appear to be influenced by caste prejudice while the district collector said that the children were using the open space because they had only recently come to stay in the hut leaving Roshni’s father’s home which had a toilet.

The notoriety that the case had earned, however, ensured that the SC/ST Act was invoked against the murderers and, therefore, Rs 4.35 lakhs was paid for each child.

Three days later, on September 28, the  Gwalior CPI(M) and DSMM delegation was the first to visit the village, Bhavkhedi.  They met the bereaved family and also talked to others in the village.  They were told that the Yadavs were the dominant caste who not only owned most of the land but also controlled the panchayat – both the sarpanch and the secretary were Yadavs who were related to the killers.  Neither of them had bothered to visit the family.

Manoj told the CPI(M) and DSMM leaders that they lived in an atmosphere of fear.  He had been applying for a house and also for a toilet under government schemes to which he was entitled both as a dalit and as a BPL-card holder but he was denied both by the sarpanch.  He said that he was constantly being forced to work for the members of the dominant caste who paid only a pittance.  Other members of the family said that their children were scared to go to school.  Roshni had been a bright student who wanted to become a doctor but even she had become irregular in her attendance because the teachers used to make her and other dalit children clean the school and ill-treated them in other ways as well.  Manoj’s older daughter, Pooja, has also stopped going to school for the same reason.

Many promises were then made to the family – they would be given Rs 50 lakhs as compensation for each bereavement, they would be given a permanent residence in Shivpuri, they would be given security.  When our procession reached the collectorate where Manoj and his family were waiting for us, we realised that very little had actually been done as far as implementing the assurances made by the administration – Rs 50 lakhs compensation in addition to the Rs 4.35 lakhs per child that has to be paid under the SC/ST Act.

Despite all evidence to the contrary, a section of the administration is accepting and repeating something that the Yadav family members are putting out, that Hakim Yadav (one of the two accused) is of ‘unsound’ mind.  The sarpanch has told visiting journalists  that Hakim had an uncontrollable temper, that his own family members avoid him and, most recently, that one of his brothers actually tried to stop him from attacking the children.  The absurdity of this statement is revealed by the fact that both the children were attacked by two people with such ferocity that, in a few minutes, they were dead.

Manoj told us that various relatives and supporters of the killers were moving around with weapons despite the fact that there were police on guard in the village.  (The administration accepts that even the licenses of the killers’ weapons have not been cancelled.)  He said that they were creating an atmosphere of fear and insecurity so that he and other witnesses would be forced to withdraw the case.

When we asked Manoj about the other promises that the administration had made, he said that bank accounts in which the initial compensation cheques were to be deposited have still not been opened.  He said that they are completely bankrupt and are living on the help that they receive from members of their community.  Obviously, the children are not going to school.  As far as a home is concerned, they have only been given assurances but nothing has come of them.

We met members of the administration along with Manoj and his family.  At first, they tried to shrug off all our questions and complaints saying that everything possible was being done to help the family.  When we insisted on speaking to them at length and forcing them to respond, then, their attitude changed, slightly.  They were forced to accept that the bank accounts were not yet functional and that the promised home was nowhere in sight.  When we told them about the threats that the family was receiving, eventually they agreed to ensure their security.  We then spoke to them about the caste discrimination being practiced in the schools and also the fact that Hakim Yadav had actually misbehaved with Roshini earlier.  This had made her so apprehensive that she refused to go out of the hut after sunset.  At first, the officers refused to accept any of this.  Then Manoj’s wife, Sampat and his daughter, Pooja, very reluctantly and very hesitantly, told the officials what they had told us.  ‘Yes’, said Sampat, ‘Roshni told me that Hakim had tried to stop her on her way home…she was very frightened when she came running home.  She refused to say anything more than this.’

About the discrimination in the schools, Pooja said that it was because of the treatment that they faced that she had stopped going to school like Roshni.  One of the policemen present interrupted saying  that the principal of the school had said that since he had no staff to clean the school, what else could he do other than ask the children to clean.  We immediately intervened saying that it was a question of picking on children belonging to a particular community to do the cleaning that was objectionable and, in fact, a criminal offense.  The administrative officers had to reluctantly agree that this was so.

Along with the family, we came away from the meeting with some more assurances:  the bank account would become operative on Monday, the additional compensation from the government was being processed, no harm would come to the family, the complaints against the school would be dealt with etc.

We assured Manoj and his family that the CPI(M), DSMM would stand firmly with them and would do everything in their power to see that justice is done.

While this horrifying incident reveals the depth of caste prejudice that exists at various levels of our society and the fact that dominant and politically important castes are given automatic  protection by State and its various organs,  it also exposes one of myths crucial to Narendra Modi’s campaign:  the myth of open defecation free (ODF) India and the incredible numbers of toilets being provided to rural homes by his government.

On Gandhi Jayanti, Modi made an extraordinary statement saying ‘Today, rural India has declared itself open defecation free.’  Modi and his legion of sycophants and cheerleaders have been making preposterous claims about the numbers of toilets that his government has built.  The underside of this is that government officials have been pressurised in the last few years to make false statements about the numbers of toilets built in order to bolster these claims.  Village after village is being declared ODF.  The village of Bhavkhedi was declared ODF in 2018.  Once this happens, obviously, no request from any villager for the construction of a toilet can be entertained.  This is the trap in which Manoj and his unfortunate family were caught.  This is a trap in which millions of others are finding themselves.

What we saw in Shivpuri and what we heard from people there made us acutely aware of the fact that this entire area is a site of extreme caste-discrimination and oppression.  Our Party in Madhya Pradesh has now decided that we will undertake a tour of villages in the area and undertake a survey on the various forms of untouchability practiced here.  For example, in many villages, SC women have to carry their chappals in their hands when they enter the presence of people belonging to higher castes.  CPI(M) leaders present decided to undertake a survey of villages in the area and to concretise demands against forms of untouchability discovered.