Dalit women of Bhagana demand justice at a protest site in Delhi.
Source: Neyaz Farooquee/Al Jazeera
““There was some chakkar between one of the girls & an accused boy. It’s all politics.These girls are known to have multiple love affairs.” #ReportingToRemember Sarpanch in response to the rape of 4 Dalit girls by 5 Jat men in Haryana, 2014.
The 4 girls: age 13 yrs, two 17-yrs & 18 yrs all belonging to the Dhanuk caste, were allegedly sedated, abducted & raped by 5 Jat men. The adolescents were relieving themselves in a field at night.
Jats in Bhagana had previously usurped land meant to be distributed to SC & OBC populations. Dalits including Dhanuks, Chamars & Valmikis, were made to pay for small land plots, while Jats got it for free.
ats of the village took over a playground - ‘Ambedkar Chowk’, a meeting place for Dalits .When the Dalits protested the Panchayat’s decision
(headed by a Jat Sarpanch), the Jats enforced a social boycott. Dalits were left without access to livelihood. Dalit women were harassed & in heightened fear. 2 of the 4 girls had dropped out of school before the rape, for fear of harassment. 138 Dalit families fled the village.
150 Dhanuk families had stayed back including the victims families. The 4 girls woke up from the sedation & found themselves with bruises & torn clothes in the Bhatinda railway station.
The village Sarpanch mocked the families of the survivors. He termed it an ‘elopement’ & refused to file a complaint.
Later, the Sarpanch also threatened to kill the girls if they told anyone of the rape.
The sarpanch attempted to forcefully marry the adolescent survivors of rape, to the accused, framing it as elopement. The forced marriage was prevented by Dalit youth. The police filed the complaint after the community protested.
Sarpanch & a patriarchal accomplice were named by the survivors but left out of the FIR. They were further subjected to the 2 finger test. The Jats of Bhagana now boycotted the Dhanuks as well.
The Dhanuks were excluded from employment & didn’t receive support from authorities. 80 families including the victims fled the village due to ostracisation & threat of violence. They camped in Delhi in protest.
According to NewsLaundry reports, the then CM of Haryana refused to support Dalits of Bhagana in response to caste-based sexual violence. He reportedly said “I’m a Jat first” & “Chief Minister later”.
In 2015, the five accused Jat men were acquitted by a fast track court in Hisar for lack of evidence.”
On the night of March 24, 2014 four girls, a 13-year-old, two 17-year-olds, and one 18-year-old, from Bhagana in Haryana went to the wheat fields near their homes to relieve themselves, as they did every night. There, they were allegedly sedated and abducted by 5 men belonging to the Jat caste, who carried them off in a car and then raped them. The five accused were Lalit, Sumit, Dharnwir, and Sandip Panghal from Bhagana, and Parmal Panghal from Kugand. The victims also accused the sarpanch Rakesh Panghal and his uncle Virendra of planning the violence. The victims, who woke up in the Bhatinda railway station in Punjab, with torn clothes and bruises on their body, were found there on March 25.
The victims belonged to the Dhanuk caste, a Scheduled caste in Haryana. The perpetrators, Jats, are an agricultural caste which was dominant in Bhagana due to ownership of land and political power. Dalits made up 30% of the population of the village, and included the Chamar caste, the Dhanuk caste, and the Valmiki caste. Bhagana had seen years of caste hostility by the Jats against the Dalits, starting from 2011, when the Jats appropriated a large part of the community land which was to be distributed by Panchayats to SC and OBC populations. The Jat khap panchayat ensured that the land was given for free to the Jat families while Dalits were made to pay 1000 rupees for each 60-yard plot of land. The Jats also took over a playground which had for years been a meeting place and community space for the Dalits, known as ‘Ambedkar Chowk’.
When the Dalits protested against this decision of the Panchayat which was under the leadership of Ramesh Panghal, the Jats unleashed a social boycott that left the Dalits without livelihood, access to resources, healthcare, and so on. Dalit women were routinely harassed by Jat men who built a culture of shame and fear in the village, and prior to the rape, two of the victims had even dropped out of school due to harassment by youth from the dominant caste. In 2011, 138 Dalit families were forced to flee from the village due to the constant threat of violence from the Jats, with about 150 Dhanuk families staying back.
After the four girls went missing, their families went to Panghal to ask his help in filing an FIR. He laughed and dismissed their worries, terming it as an elopement, even though three of the girls were minors, and refused to file a complaint. When the families said that they would go ahead and file a missing persons complaint without his cooperation, he finally revealed that he knew about their whereabouts. Rakesh Panghal along with his uncle Virendra drove the families to Bhatinda. There, they made the family go back via train citing lack of space and drove the girls back themselves. The two men intimidated and threatened the girls on the journey back, saying that they would kill them if they told anyone what happened. They also tried to drive them to their own house, intending to marry them off to the accused, and frame the violence as a case of elopement. The victims were rescued by some men from their community on the way.
The police ignored their complaints and refused to file an FIR until 200 people protested outside the station. In the FIR, the names of Rakesh and Virendra were excluded even though the victims had named them in their testimony. On March 25, after going through the trauma of being sedated, abducted, raped, and threatened, the girls were made to wait for their medical test till 1:30 AM at night. During their medical examination they were subjected to the extremely dehumanising two finger test, an unscientific method where medical professionals penetrate a rape victim’s vagina without their consent, aiming to check the “elasticity” of the vagina and give an opinion about whether the victim is “habituated to sex”. This method is not only invasive and traumatising, but is also based in victim blame, as women’s sexual history is used to discredit their testimonies of rape.
After this, as the victims’ families sought justice, the Jats extended their social boycott, which was earlier focused on the Chamar community, to the Dhanuks as well. Members of the Dhanuk caste were even excluded from employment under the MGNREGA scheme. In spite of sustained protests, they did not receive any support from authorities, and in fact the then-Chief Minister of Haryana Bhupendra Singh Hooda flatly refused to help them saying that he was a Jat first and a Chief Minister later.
Members of the Jat community went on record on multiple platforms to engage in victim blaming. Rakesh Panghal said, “It was a consensual act. There was some chakkar (illicit affair) between one of the girls and an accused boy. It’s all politics”. On another occasion he said, “These girls are known to have multiple love affairs. How can they be trusted?”. Shakti Singh, who became the sarpanch after Panghal, said, “The girls went with the boys on their own will and later blamed it on them”.
Following the rape, around 80 families along with the victims were forced to flee due to the threats and ostracization by the Jats, and they set up a protest camp in Delhi. In 2015, the five accused were acquitted by a fast-track court in Hisar for lack of evidence.
References:
https://www.newslaundry.com/2016/08/30/the-story-of-bhaganas-dalits-land-lost-gangrape-social-boycott
https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/bhagana-dalits-to-protest-outside-hooda-residence/article5997888.ece
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2014/5/13/indias-dalit-rape-victims-cry-for-justice
https://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/reliving-a-nightmare/article6019311.ece
https://www.hindustantimes.com/chandigarh/with-no-solution-in-sight-hostility-continues-between-upper-and-lower-castes-at-bhagana-village/story-4hCRhOU8RgBakadpIKh8PO.html
https://india.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/05/29/rape-allegations-in-a-haryana-village-underscore-a-social-fracas/
http://feministsindia.com/bhagana-rape-context-dalit-rights-common-land/
http://www.humanrights.asia/news/urgent-appeals/AHRC-UAC-063-2014/
https://www.indiatoday.in/magazine/nation/story/20130211-gangrape-two-finger-test-is-not-just-unscientific-but-degrading-761954-1999-11-30
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/chandigarh/hc-disposes-of-plea-related-to-bhagana-gang-rape-case/articleshow/73994925.cms
