#ReportingToRemember Ankita Khandelwal, Hema Ahuja, & Bhakti Mehere

Dr Payal Tadvi was the first woman from her community to pursue post-graduation and the first from her family to become a doctor. Image Source: The New Indian Express

“Ankita Khandelwal, Hema Ahuja, & Bhakti Mehere, in 2019 allegedly drove Dr Payal Tadvi to suicide through casteist harassment. They blamed her saying she could not “handle” the pressure of being a medical student. ”

On May 22, 2019, Dr. Payal Tadvi, a 26 year old second-year student at the BYL Nair Hospital in Mumbai, was driven to commit suicide due to the casteist abuse, bullying, and harassment of three of her seniors, as well as the institutional negligence towards the same. Her abusers were Ankita Khandelwal, Hema Ahuja, and Bhakti Mehere. Although their castes have not been explicitly reported, all of them belonged to upper-castes, Khandelwals and Ahujas both predominantly belonging to mercantile Baniya castes.

Dr Payal belonged to the Muslim Tadvi Bhil community. The Tadvi Bhils are an Adivasi community who live in parts of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Maharashtra, and belong to the larger Bhil community which is listed as a Scheduled Tribe. Many parts of the community have converted to Islam, like Dr Payal’s family. Muslim ST families often find it more difficult to avail of reservation, as their names are often omitted from the quota list.

Dr Payal Tadvi had first reported the harassment to her husband in 2018, and it continued until she finally could not take it anymore. Her harassers obstructed her work and education, abused her publicly, and barred her from entering the delivery room. According to her family, they humiliated her for having availed of reservations, a constitutional right. They allegedly said things such as “You people are adivasis, your job is to clean, you go and do that“, “We will not let you study, we will not let you go to the operation table”, “You do not deserve to be a doctor, you people can’t become doctors, it is our work“.

According to witnesses, they humiliated her publicly saying, “Ye kaam kon karega, ye tera kaam nahi hai toh kiska kaam hai? Tu chhoti jaat ho ke hamari barabari karegi kya (Who will do this work, if this is not your work then whose is it? Coming from a lower caste, you think you are our equal)?” and “Aye Adiwasi… tu idhar kyu aayi hai? Tu delivery karneke layak nahi hai, tu hamari barabari karti hai (You tribal, why have you come here? You’re not competent to perform a delivery, and you are trying to compete with us).”

According to Snehal Shinde, a main witness and friend of Dr Payal who faced similar discrimination from them, they continued to stand outside her room and taunt her, in the last moments of her life, unaware that she was committing suicide.

Besides the three seniors who directly abused her, there were others also responsible for her distress, including the Head of the Department, Dr Yi Ching Ling, to whom her mother had complained about the harassment. Dr Ling reportedly not only refused to take any action but also disclosed the details of the complaint to the accused hence making Dr Payal even more vulnerable. The institution is also responsible for Dr Payal’s mental distress since it did not have any formal mechanisms in place to address complaints of caste-based harassment, and no SC/ST cell, to ensure the safety and wellbeing of its Dalit and Adivasis students.

More than a year after her death, in July 2019, pictures of her suicide note which had been deleted, were recovered from Dr Payal’s phone, suggesting that the three abusers, who had entered her room shortly after she committed suicide, had tampered with the evidence as well. The note named all three of them and outlined the casteist harassment as the reason for her taking her life.

However, the abusers had throughout the investigation and the court proceedings, blamed Dr Payal. Shortly after her death, they wrote to the Maharashtra Association of Resident Doctors, blaming Payal for not being able to handle the work pressure at the hospital.

While moving for bail, they blamed Dr Payal’s performance for not being up to the expected standards at the hospital and the huge amount of pressure caused by this, and even claimed that she had “shirked responsibilities”

Later in June 2019, during court proceedings, their representatives questioned Dr Payal’s “capacity” to deal with academic pressure, blamed her unstable mental health and alleged that marital discord was the real cause for her death. They questioned why Dr Payal had opted to stay in the college hostel when her husband Salman Tadvi, also a doctor, was an assistant professor in the same BYL Nair Hospital, and lived nearby, and shifted the blame of the abuse on Dr Payal by implying that she was only reprimanded because she was not doing her job well.

References:

https://www.news18.com/news/india/double-bind-of-discrimination-mumbai-doctor-payal-tadvis-death-a-chilling-reminder-of-adivasi-muslims-struggling-for-rights-2167847.html
https://www.dalitcamera.com/payal-tadvis-life-snuffed-out-by-caste-hindus-and-lack-of-institutional-mechanisms/
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/accused-told-payal-tadvi-suicide-case-tu-chhoti-jaat-ho-ke-hamari-barabari-karegi-kya-5852768/
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/it-has-become-unbearable-cannot-stand-a-minute-with-them-payal-tadvi-in-suicide-letter-1573618-2019-07-25
https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/in-other-news/270519/doctors-accused-in-mumbai-doctors-suicide-seek-fair-investigation.html
https://thewire.in/caste/payal-tadvi-case-caste-violence-atrocity
https://www.business-standard.com/article/pti-stories/didn-t-know-caste-of-mumbai-doctor-who-ended-life-say-accused-119052801330_1.html

#ReportingToRemember the Media

Source: Telegraph India

“#ReportingToRemember news media for undermining the anxieties based on a life of discrimination, that drove 14 year old Dalit girl, Devika to suicide in Kerala, 2020. Instead the narrative framed her as a teenager upset over “not having a smartphone” , erasing the social exclusion she faced”

On June 1, 2020, 14 year old Devika, a Dalit girl was driven to commit suicide due to the structural oppression she faced as a Dalit student, especially exacerbated by the lockdown.

Devika belonged to a family of daily wage labourers, whose income was hit strongly by the sudden and complete lockdown imposed by the Indian government during the pandemic. Schools remained closed for the first few months of the lockdown after which the Kerala government announced that online classes would take place. The classes could be accessed via smartphone, and those who didn’t have one could access the classes using their TV. Those who didn’t have a TV would be provided with tablets. Although the government had given these assurances, no arrangements had reached students like Devika yet. Their family could not afford a smartphone and their TV had recently stopped working. Devika had also received the Ayyankali scholarship and was extremely anxious about losing it.

The media reported the incident in a matter which undermined Devika’s anxieties. All headlines framed her suicide as being caused merely due to not possessing a smartphone or not being able to attend online classes. The reports stressed on how there were alternatives to smartphones for attending online classes. All of this served to paint Devika as having unwarranted anxieties, ignoring that behind an immediate trigger, suicides are often caused by sustained mental pressures. Devika’s family's financial hardships, the uncertainty of their livelihood and future during the pandemic, the burden of performing well academically and availing of a scholarship, and the social exclusion she could have faced due to her caste in school, and finally, the immediate trigger of not being able to attend classes which showed the negligence of institutional mechanisms towards marginalized students, could all have been factors which drove Devika to take her own life. However, these structural issues were ignored for the sensational headline of a teenaged girl committing suicide over a problem that could have been managed, hence blaming her for her own marginalization.

References:

https://feminisminindia.com/2020/06/09/suicide-14-year-old-dalit-woman-kerala-misrepresented-media/
https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/kerala/2020/jun/02/lacking-smartphone-to-attend-online-classes-class-9-girl-sets-herself-ablaze-in-kerala-2151154.html
https://mumbaimirror.indiatimes.com/news/india/keralas-experiment-with-virtual-classes-upset-over-not-having-smartphone-class-10-girl-commits-suicide/articleshow/76151031.cms

#ReportingToRemember Kunbis & Dominant castes of Khairlanji and the Media

Bhaiyalal Bhotmange, the only member of the Bhotmange family who survived the attack, fought for justice for his family years. He passed away 20th January, 2017 due to a heart attack. (Source: Rons Bantwal, Daijiworld.com)

“A mob of predominantly Kunbis-Marathas tortured, raped, & murdered the Bhotmanges in Khairlanji, 2006. The violence was blamed on Surekha Bhotmange through rumours that she was having an affair & sold liquor.”

On September 29, 2006 four members of a Dalit family, Surekha, Priyanka, Sudhir, and Roshan Bhotmange were tortured and murdered by villagers mostly belonging to the dominant Maratha-Kunbi caste in Khairlanji, Maharashtra. Surekha and Priyanka were stripped naked, paraded around the village, and gangraped and tortured before being murdered.

Kunbi is a term used to refer to many traditionally non-elite agricultural castes from Western India. They are classified as OBC but are a dominant land-owning caste in many regions. All the other villagers were part of the mob too. This included the Kalars and the Gonds, both dominant castes.The Bhotmanges belonged to the Mahar caste, a Scheduled Caste in 16 states. They were one of only two Dalit families in the village who owned land and cultivated it for their livelihood. The Bhotmange family also ensured to educate their children. The dominant castes of the village could not accept this empowerment and frequently created conflicts, picked fights, and got violent against the family. The family faced caste oppression throughout their stay in the village, with Surekha not being allowed to construct a pucca house on her own land, and Priyanka being subject to casteist taunts even as she topped at her school.

On September 3, Siddharth Gajbijiye, the other land-owning Dalit in the village, was beaten up by some villagers belonging to the dominant castes of Kunbi, Kalar, and Gond. They allegedly did so due to a dispute over payment of agricultural wages. An FIR was registered against the assaulters later, in which Surekha and Priyanka served as witnesses. Around four years before this incident, Gajbijiye had stood by the Bhotmanges when the dominant caste families who owned the land around them were trying to forcefully seize their land.

The accused threatened them at that time, asking how they could dare to give witness against them, and saying that they will “finish them off”. They were arrested but released on bail the very next day, on September 29. Immediately after release, they went to Siddharth Gajbijiye’s house to take revenge, and not finding him, they held a meeting in the village with the local MP and MLA, shortly before going to inflict the violence on the Bhotmange family, suggesting that they had the backing of political powers.

According to Bhaiyalal, the only surviving member of the family, who was witnessed the lynching and rape of his family members, the mob went to their house, and some women from the OBC families dragged Priyanka and Surekha out of the house, beating them and tearing their clothes on the way. The sons were also caught and beaten up. The mob shouted, “You Mahars have let things go to your head”. They were tortured and murdered in the village square, with the involvement of the entire village, and their bodies dumped in a canal 2 kilometres away from the village.

After the incident, rumours were created in order to downplay the caste-based aspect of the violence. The rumours said that the violence took place because Surekha had an affair with Gajbhiye, and that she sold liquor- both questioning her morals and purity of character, in order to dilute the fact that the violence was a caste-based atrocity.

References:

https://roundtableindia.co.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=7302:khairlanji-gruesome-massacre-of-dalits-dalit-fury-scorches-maharashtra&catid=122&Itemid=138
https://navayana.org/blog/2017/01/22/the-entire-village-was-involved-sir-entire-village-bhaiyalal-bhotmange/?v=c86ee0d9d7ed
https://www.huffingtonpost.in/2016/09/29/a-decade-since-the-khairlanji-massacre-theres-been-no-let-up-i_a_21483135/

#ReportingToRemember Vijendra Singh, Priya Shukla, Ishwar Chand Baid, and Rajasthan Police

Delta would lead the Independence day parades at her school. Source: Mahendra Meghwal/BBC

“Delta Meghwal, a 17 year old Dalit student, was found dead inside a water tank in 2016. This was a day after she was allegedly sent to clean her teacher Vijendra Singh’s room at Jain Adarsh Teacher Training Institute in Nokha by her warden. Priya Shukla, the college warden, had made Delta sign an apology note saying that she had consented to sex with her teacher Vijendra Singh, who had allegedly raped her a day before she was found dead.
The Rajasthan police allegedly transported Delta Meghwal’s body in a garbage truck without collecting evidence & framed her death as a suicide even though the postmortem suggested murder.”

On March 29, 2016, 17-year-old Delta Meghwal, a Dalit girl, was found dead inside a water tank at the Jain Adarsh Teacher Training Institute for Girls in Nokha, Bikaner. On the previous day, she had told her parents that the warden at her hostel, Priya Shukla (whose caste was unreported, but surname suggests she is a Brahmin) had made her go to her physical education teacher’s room in order to clean it. This caste-based abuse was then followed by her PE teacher, Vijendra Singh (caste unreported) allegedly raping her.

Instead of reporting this to her parents or firing the teacher for raping a student and filing a legal complaint against him, the college administration attempted to cover up the incident by blaming Delta. They made her sign an apology note along with Vijendra Singh, which implied that the act had taken place with mutual consent, though she was a minor. The principal Ishwar Chand Baid (caste unreported, though surname is often used by Jain Banias) did not take any action against the PE teacher nor did he inform the parents as was his responsibility.

After her body was found in the tank, police officials of the area removed the body from the water tank, without following the protocol for collecting evidence, such as recording a video of the condition of her body or even recording a panchnama, which is a record of observations by five people. Her body was taken to the hospital for a post-mortem in a garbage truck, insulting her even after her death. The FIR was not filed for 24 hours after her body was found.

The post-mortem suggested that she had not drowned to death, as her lungs were not congested. Although this implied foul play since the body had been placed in the tank after she was already dead, the police was in a hurry to pronounce it as a suicide even before the forensic report came out. After the forensic report came out in April, 2016, the police claimed that the report suggested that she had drowned, in contrast to the inferences drawn by local activist Suresh Jogesh who had accessed the post-mortem report.

The warden, PE teacher, and principal abused their power to first inflict casteist abuse and sexual violence on Delta, and then used intimidation and shaming to coerce her into signing an apology, that they further used to blame her after her death. The note was used to portray her as unreliable and morally impure, ignoring the fact that she was a minor and a student and Vijendra Singh was responsible for abusing his power as her teacher. In her statement to a fact-finding team of the National Human Rights Organization, the warden framed the rape as equal “wrongdoing” on the part of both Delta and Vijendra Singh. The police also attempted to go through her text messages and phone records to suggest that she had been in a ‘relationship’ with the PE teacher for 2-3 months.

References:

https://medium.com/@maarizwickmaitreyi/how-brahminism-killed-anitha-and-delta-8366feb09488
https://www.thecitizen.in/index.php/en/NewsDetail/index/1/7352/Why-Has-The-Mainstream-Media-Blacked-Out-The-Death-Of-Delta-Meghwal
https://velivada.com/2017/03/28/remembering-delta-meghwal-an-unfinished-painting/

#ReportingToRemember Mani & Chitra (caste unreported)

Source: The New Indian Express

“G.Santhiya, a 22 year old Dalit woman, was driven to suicide after facing caste based harassment at work, when she complained about being forced to work extra hours by her supervisors, Mani and Chitra.”

On November 9, 2019, G Santhiya, a 22 year old Dalit woman from Nagamalaipudukottai, ended her life by consuming pesticide shortly after she returned from work. She was a tailor at a garment factory in Kappalur. The production manager and supervisor of the factory named Mani and Chitra (caste unreported) had allegedly forced her a few days before this to work extra hours by insulting her and saying that she did not work well. She had complained to their supervisors about this. In retaliation, they had allegedly started harassing her, and calling her by her caste name in front of the other workers in order to humiliate her. Unable to tolerate the shame and humiliation, she committed suicide.

G.Santhiya initially faced abuse of her rights as a worker by her superiors at her workplace. Using humiliation as a weapon, they attempted to exploit her labour beyond what she was being paid to do. After she sought recourse from her workplace, they retaliated by inflicting casteist abuse on her. This was an attempt at blaming the victim for her own exploitation, creating a hostile work environment, putting her in her place through humiliation and shame, and intimidating her about the possible future harassment and abuse she would face from not just her superiors but also possibly from her upper-caste peers. The distress caused by this victim blame at her workplace pushed her to take her own life.

References:

https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil-nadu/2019/nov/13/three-booked-after-dalit-woman-ends-life-in-madurai-2060976.html
https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil-nadu/2019/nov/13/three-booked-for-abetting-suicide-of-woman-in-madurai-2061146.html

#ReportingToRemember Etawah Senior Sub-Inspector Shyamlal Yadav

A still from the video recording of the police beating Komal.
Source: PTI/Outlook

“Sub-inspector Shyamlal Yadav in UP, 2009, beat up Komal, a 6 yr old Dalit girl for allegedly stealing 280 INR from a woman on the street. He justified it saying she had admitted to the theft.”

On February 2, 2009, a police officer in Etawah, UP was caught on tape torturing and assaulting a 6 year old Dalit girl, Komal. The police officer, Senior Sub-Inspector Shyamlal Yadav, belonged to the Yadav caste, classified as OBC in the state. As he inflicted the violence upon her, six other police officers (names and castes unreported) stood by watching and did not intervene. He tortured her based on the allegation that she had stolen Rs 280 from another woman. She belonged to a family of daily wage labourers.

In the footage, the police man can be seen pulling her hair, beating her, and slapping her repeatedly as she begs for mercy. The police man tried to justify it saying that she had admitted to stealing the money. It was later found that the allegation was false.

The allegation, even if there was evidence, is immaterial in this case. A representative of the criminal justice system assaulted a Dalit child for no reason other than to assert his power over her, in a context where the criminal justice system is structurally biased against Dalits, and police brutality and wrongful incarceration is widely normalized. A 2018 survey showed that 35% of Dalits were afraid of being falsely persecuted and mistreated by the police over allegations of petty theft.

The policeman’s justification of torture, and misrepresentation of facts on record (the allegation was later found out to be false), is an attempt at blaming the child for the violence she had to face. The police here abused their power to assert that the safety and dignity of a Dalit child is conditional upon her legal innocence or her apparent morality. 

Following national outrage, senior sub-inspector Shyamlal Yadav was sacked while SHO Chandrabhan Singh was suspended.

References:

https://www.cfo-india.in/cmsarticle/up-police-turn-devil-thrash-8-year-old-dalit-girl/
https://www.indiatoday.in/latest-headlines/story/6-yr-old-dalit-girl-beaten-up-by-police-in-up-38759-2009-02-03 
https://www.outlookindia.com/newswire/story/dalit-girl-was-beaten-over-a-false-complaint-of-theft/653466

#ReportingToRemember Brothers Sachin and Sonu Gautam

Source: India Today

“Sachin allegedly abducted & raped a minor Dalit girl in UP, 2020. He was arrested. After Sachin’s arrest, Sonu allegedly harassed & threatened the victim’s father, driving the minor to suicide.”

A minor Dalit girl was abducted and raped by Sachin Gautam on 19th December, 2019. The rapist had been arrested and sent to jail. However, on 14th May 2020, the brother of the accused, Sonu Gautam, allegedly began to harass and threaten her father. Witnessing this, she committed suicide by hanging herself. The caste of the perpetrators has not been reported, though Gautams are often Brahmins or Rajputs in Uttar Pradesh.

The immense psychological, emotional, and physical distress of rape is followed here by intimidation, humiliation, and the threat of violence. This violence is not just aimed at the victim but her family as well. The burden of her family’s safety and dignity is placed on the victim. Thus, an environment of shame and fear is created for the victim to blame herself for the dangers to her family.

Here especially, a minor Dalit girl faced immense distress on witnessing how her family was being further punished for the violence she faced, which added to the trauma of rape, leading to her taking her own life.

References:

https://www.deccanherald.com/national/minor-dalit-rape-victim-kills-herself-after-after-watching-her-father-being-threatened-837935.html
https://www.outlookindia.com/newsscroll/minor-dalit-rape-victim-kills-herself-after-father-threatened/1835216
https://www.indiatoday.in/crime/story/minor-dalit-rape-victim-kills-herself-after-father-threatened-by-accused-brother-1678410-2020-05-15

#ReportingToRemember UP Police Senior Sub-Inspector Subhash Chand

Source: National Herald India

“Sudesh, a 39 year old Dalit woman was sexually harassed by 2 men in 2018. She reported. Instead, the police detained her husband.

Inspector Subhash Chand allegedly extorted INR 5000 from her & still didn’t release her husband, driving her to suicide.

In her suicide note Sudesh said that since the police were siding with the accused she did not have any hope of getting justice & was ending her life.”

On April 14, 2018, Sudesh, a 39 year old Dalit woman committed suicide. Earlier that day, she was on the way to her village Raipur, when two men Pradeep and Subhash (caste not reported) allegedly harassed her and pulled her into a sugarcane field to molest her. Her 8 year old son was with her. She was reportedly beaten up by the molesters when she tried to raise an alarm but they ran away when people started gathering.

According to reports, her husband went to the police station to file a complaint, but Police Sub-Inspector Subhash Chand detained him instead. He also demanded that Sudesh pay a sum of 5,000 rupees to get him released. She scrambled to arrange for the sum and got it from the kiln owner where she worked, reaching the police station at night. The police still did not let her husband and her son go.

The police abused their power to harass and humiliate the victim’s family in order to punish her for getting molested and for daring to take action. The police forced her to undergo further distress and pay for her husband’s release when neither of them had committed any crimes. Criminalising, bullying, and humiliating a victim of violence and her family when they seek legal recourse is an act of victim blame especially used to punish Dalit women for not tolerating sexual violence quietly.

Feeling helpless, she hanged herself, writing in her suicide note that since the police were siding with the accused, she did not have any hope of getting justice, and therefore, she was ending her life. Victim blame pushed her to take her own life by adding the burden of intimidation, humiliation, and harassment instead of protection on top of the burden of facing sexual violence.

References:

https://www.nationalheraldindia.com/india/up-harassment-dalit-woman-hangs-herself-in-muzaffarnagar-girls-stop-going-to-school-in-saharanpur
https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/crime/140418/dalit-woman-in-up-commits-suicide-over-sexual-harassment-by-2-men.html
https://www.indiatoday.in/crime/story/dalit-woman-commits-suicide-after-facing-sexual-harassment-in-uttar-pradesh-s-muzaffarnagar-1211326-2018-04-13

#ReportingToRemember Ariyalur police

Nandhini was found dead at this site. Image Source: Priyanka Thirumurthy for The News Minute

“ Manikandan, a Vanniyar youth, allegedly pursued a relationship with Nandhini, a 17 year old labourer at a construction site he was supervising. He pressured her to get an abortion since he wouldn’t marry a Dalit, & when she refused, he allegedly raped & murdered her in Tamil Nadu in 2017 along with three other Vanniyar youths. The police didn’t file an FIR when she went missing, claiming that she had eloped even though she was minor.

Instead, the Ariyalur police shamed Nandhini’s family and humiliated her mother, framing rape as a ‘love affair’. They allegedly said,
”You do not know how to raise a girl.”
”What kind of a mother are you that didn’t know your daughter was pregnant?”

Rajashekhar, a leader of the Hindu Munnani party to which Manikandan belonged, also victim blamed her on record, saying,
”We hear that the girl had aborted many children before and had relationships with many men” ”

On December 29, 2016, Nandhini, a 17 year old Dalit girl, went missing in Ariyalur, Tamil Nadu at about 8 pm in the evening. Nandhini belonged to the Paraiyar caste, a Scheduled caste in Tamil Nadu.

As soon as she went missing, her mother, Rajkilli, started searching for her in the village and enquired with her friend Devi, but could not find her. At around 8:30 pm, one of Nandhini’s relatives received a call from someone who identified himself as Thamilasaran and said that Nandhini was in his custody. Later, Manikandan, the man who confessed to abducting, raping, and murdering her, admitted that this call was actually from him.

The family went to the Irumbulikurichi police station immediately, with the phone number. The family was asked to write down the complaint but the police refused to file it, saying they would file it the next day. “Do you have no other job? Why are you coming so late?”, the police rebuked the family.

Nandhini had left school after class 8 in order to support her family, which included her mother, elder brother, and elder sister. She became a daily wage labourer and did any odd jobs that came along her way. A local contractor had employed her as a labourer to build a road, right in front of their residence.

It was here that Nandhini met Manikandan Ramasamy, a 26 year old man who was supervising the construction, and who belonged to the dominant Vanniyar caste. Manikandan was also the taluk secretary of the Hindu fringe group known as the Hindu Munnani, and was reportedly very close to the district secretary Rajashekhar. Manikandan and Nandhini began a relationship, in spite of Rajkilli, Nandhini’s mother, repeatedly warning Manikandan that they will face problems since they are from different castes. Manikandan told her they were just friends.

The Vanniyars are a caste historically associated with agricultural labour and classified by the government as a backward class. However, Vanniyars have increasing influence in Tamil Nadu due to their ownership of land and political power. Vanniyar political organizations such as the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK), reported to have a strong base amongst the Vanniyars of Nandhini’s village as well, has been known for anti-Dalit mobilisation and violence. In Nandhini’s village, strongly segregated by caste, there were 3000 Vanniyar families, and only 300 Dalit families.

After being rebuked and told to leave on December 29, the night that Nandhini first went missing, Nandhini’s family returned to the police station to file a complaint on December 30.

They insisted that their daughter was kidnapped, but the police filed a missing persons complaint. Nandhini was a minor, and according to the law, her being taken away without the legal consent of her guardians amounts to kidnapping. The police thus not only went against the wishes of the family but violated the law in filing a missing persons complaint.

According to the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences or POCSO Act of 2012, the police should have made immediate arrangements for the care and protection of the child within 24 hours, and the police was duty-bound to inform the parents of the status of the investigation. Instead, the police took no action, and treated the family with disdain. As reported by the News Minute, the police said to Rajkilli, "We'll find her but when a saree falls on thorns it has to be removed slowly”, implying that they would not take any swift action. They further insulted her saying, “Look at how you have brought her up. Child has gone rogue and you are sitting at home, you are coming here. Are you a woman?”

On January 2, Nandhini’s friend and neighbour Devi told the family that she had been abducted by Manikandan, and the family went to the police station again with this information. This time, the police told Rajkilli that they were going for security duty to a temple festival and asked her to return after three days. The FIR was only filed on January 5. They called Manikandan for an enquiry on January 5 but he was let off after two villagers signed as witnesses on his behalf. After this, Manikandan went absconding.

Meanwhile, the police filed a counter-affidavit and said that through their inquiry they had found that Manikandan and Nandhini were having a ‘love affair’ and she had ‘eloped’ with him. This was in spite of the fact that Nandhini was a minor taken away from her family without their consent and a love affair would be inconsequential as she was below the legal age of consent.

On January 12, Manikandan attempted suicide by consuming poison and was admitted to a private hospital which informed the Kuvagam police, which is a few kilometres away from Nandhini and Manikandan’s village. The Kuvagam police station registered this case as it was under their custody, and Manikandan gave a statement saying he had attempted suicide as he was being traced in relation to Nandhini’s case. Still, the Irumulikurichi police did not take over. It was only on January 14 that Manikandan himself went and confessed to his crimes at the Village Administrative Officer’s office. This was however, an extra-judicial confession.

Manikandan stated in his confession that Nandhini had told him she was pregnant. He was unwilling to marry her since she was a Dalit and so he decided to use and murder her. He tried to push her to get an abortion, and abducted her when she refused. He was seen by witnesses as late as January 3 ferrying Nandhini around on his bike, apparently trying to find a doctor to conduct the abortion. He reportedly could not find a doctor who was willing to take the risk, as she was a minor and unmarried. Manikandan confessed to abducting Nandhini with three accomplices, also from the Vanniyar caste. They gangraped her, murdered her, and then disposed of her in a well.

The police only informed Nandhini’s family of this an hour and a half after the confession was given. The family rushed to find the body in the well, which was in a decomposed state. The body was taken away by the police for the post-mortem immediately, without the consent of the family.

The post-mortem confirmed that she was raped and murdered, and the men allegedly also inflicted violence on the foetus. When the pregnancy was discovered, the police berated and humiliated Nandhini’s mother, saying “What kind of mother are you? How could you not know that your daughter was pregnant?” However, the post-mortem did not record details of the pregnancy, and neither was a DNA test conducted. While the police claimed that the foetus was too young for the DNA test, Rajkilli estimated based on the fact that Nandhini had not had her period for three months, that the foetus was much older than the police were attempting to portray it as.

Activists have pointed out that the date and time of death is being manipulated by the police in order to hide their inaction and the fact that they failed to take action while she was in illegal custody for nearly a week. The various discrepancies and faults made by the police in filing of FIRs, taking witness statements, interrogating all the accused, recording evidence related to the pregnancy, and so on, are bound to favour the accused when the case goes to trial.

Nandhini and Manikandan’s relationship, as well as Nandhini’s feelings towards Manikandan have been a prominent theme throughout media reports. Nandhini was just 17 years old at the time, when her 26 year old employer engaged in a relationship with her. She was not just legally below the age at which she could give informed consent, but their relationship was also marked by the major power differences between her and Manikandan. Besides the age gap, Manikandan also belonged to the dominant Vanniyar caste, and hence held power over her family and community, which was further strengthened by the clout he held in local politics. Manikandan was also Nandhini’s supervisor at a job that was essential for her family’s economic well-being.

Even with her consent, Nandhini was vulnerable to manipulation and abuse in this relationship. When a kidnapping born out of this is termed as ‘elopement’ or a ‘love affair’ by the police, it is not only in violation of the law, as pointed out by Priyanka Thirumurthy of the NewsMinute, but it also invisibilises caste, and blames a 17 year old girl for giving consent. Rather the blame of manipulation and abuse of power should be on Manikandan. This victim blame ignores the fact that this relationship would have legally qualified as statutory rape.

One of the crucial facts that perhaps led to her death was the fact the police refused to file a kidnapping complaint even though they were legally required to do so irrespective of whether or not she eloped, since she was a minor. They went against the family’s wishes and filed a missing persons complaint instead. Instead of cooperating with the parents and conducting the investigation with the urgency it required, they blamed Nandhini’s abduction on her mother, shaming her saying that they did not know how to raise a child. The police especially humiliated her when Nandhini’s pregnancy was revealed, blaming the violence on both of their characters- Nandhini for having had sexual relations, and her mother, for not controlling her and knowing about her pregnancy.

The involvement of the Hindu Munnani led to further victim blame which served local politics. Although apparently in conflict, both Hindu and secular groups were dominated by the Vanniyar caste, to which the perpetrator belonged. The secular group attempted to paint it as a communal crime, hence invisibilising caste dynamics and absolving the perpetrator of the blame of committing casteist violence.

Hindu Munnani leaders also invisibilised caste dynamics of the crime, and the District Secretary Rajashekhar went on record to blame the victim, saying “We hear that the girl had aborted many children (sic) before and had relationships with many men.”

In April, 2019, the Madras High Court directed the lower court in Ariyalur to conclude the trial within six months. However, no verdict has been reported yet.

References:

https://www.deccanchronicle.com/nation/current-affairs/060217/was-ariyalur-girl-gang-raped-killed.html
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/nandini-rape-and-murder-complicated-caste-religion-politics-plays-out-in-tamil-nadu/story-gcF019Ezsa2HHUGQseXIxK.html
https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/anatomy-forgotten-rape-year-nandhini-was-killed-justice-remains-elusive-80552
https://cpiml.net/liberation/2013/07/patriarchal-and-anti-dalit-offensive-tamil-nadu
https://www.newsclick.in/20-dalit-homes-allegedly-attacked-pmk-workers-ariyalur
https://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil-nadu/2019/apr/02/wont-transfer-ariyalur-rape--murder-case-madras-hc-1959015.html

#ReportingToRemember Anil Mishra (Brahmin) and Media

Source: India Today

“Anil Mishra, a Brahmin, allegedly murdered a 23-yr-old Dalit woman in Madhya Pradesh, 2018, for daring to report him for sexually harassing her while she was a domestic worker at his house. The media called him her “jilted lover”.”

On 20th August, 2018, Ranu Nagatra, a 23 year old Dalit woman who studied at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Government Girls College in Seoni, MP, was allegedly murdered by a man named Anil Mishra, whose surname shows that he is a Brahmin though this has not been explicitly stated in news reports. She was a resident of Phulwari village and in her final year of B.A. She had been working as a domestic worker at his house to make ends meet for her family after her father’s death.

Mishra had repeatedly harassed her while she was working at his house, according to reports. Around six months after she had filed the sexual harassment complaint against him, she was on her way to college. Mishra was waiting for her on his bike near the Kotwali police station. Here, they had a conversation after which he reportedly got furious, dragged her by the hair, pushed her on the roadside, and murdered her in broad daylight by bashing her head in with a big stone lying nearby. Before that, he had tried many times to pressure her into withdrawing her complaint but she had refused. She died on the way to the hospital.

The first instance of victim blame here is the pressure the man put on her for months, to force her to withdraw her complaint. The act of seeking justice for workplace harassment here led to further harassment and intimidation. This points to not only the tactic of victim blame employed by the harasser, but also the negligence of the police authorities in protecting a victim from the aftermath of raising her voice.

Certain media reports framed the violence as a case of a ‘jilted lover’ taking revenge after having his advances refused by the victim. The caste of the perpetrator was not mentioned in media reports either.

First of all, this invisibilises the nature of the advances themselves. The advances were made by a male Brahmin employer at a job that was crucial for Ranu’s family’s survival. He commanded power not just within the workplace but over her family and community as well. He made “advances” towards a young, Dalit woman while she was at work, knowing that she was not his equal in that context. These are not “romantic advances” but rather an abuse of power and an attempt at exploitation. To invisibilise this crucial dynamic is to shift the blame away from the perpetrator.

Secondly, the victim is being blamed for saying ‘no’, and it is being implied that it is justified for the man to inflict violence in retaliation. Should all “lovers” who are “jilted” pick up rocks to beat women to death? Anil Mishra’s status as a Brahmin man is what enabled him to inflict this violence in order to punish a Dalit woman for daring to say no and for filing a complaint.

Invisibilizing caste and power when they are the very reasons why she was harassed and murdered, is victim blame.

References:

https://scroll.in/latest/891232/madhya-pradesh-man-allegedly-stones-dalit-student-to-death-after-being-accused-of-sexual-harassment
https://www.newsclick.in/woman-killed-allegedly-accused-refusing-withdraw-sexual-harassment-case-against-him
https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/jilted-lover-bludgeons-woman-madhya-pradesh-1319164-2018-08-20

#ReportingToRemember Inspector N.K. Rabari and Modasa Police

Kajal was found dead at this site. The police claimed that Kajal had committed suicide by hanging herself from this tree. The post-mortem reports revealed sexual assault and rape.

There is a recurring visual and narrative of dead Dalit women hanging from trees being written off as suicide; that which needs to be questioned and be made part of our resistance. Women committing suicide due to shame after sexual assault is a recurring narrative that is woven to erase murder, especially given the discrepancies between the post-mortem reports and how the case is being resolved.

Image source: Sukanya Shantha for the Wire

“Inspector N.K. Rabari allegedly refused to file an FIR when Kajal Rathod, a 19-year-old Dalit girl, went missing in Modasa, 2020. He claimed to her family that she had eloped with a man from her own caste.
Kajal was allegedly abducted, raped, & murdered by 4 men from the Rabari caste. When her body was found, the Modasa police ignored evidence of violence to call it a suicide, blaming Kajal for her own death. ”

On January 5, 2020, the body of Kajal, a 19-year old Dalit woman was found hanging from a banyan tree in the Saira village in Modasa, Gujarat. She had been missing for four days before that.

Her sister reported that she had been abducted by four men from the Bharvad family- Bimal, Darshan, Jigar, and Satish. She alleged that after abducting her, the four men had gangraped and then hanged her. All of the four men belonged to the Rabari caste, which has historically been associated with pastoral occupations. The Rabari caste is classified as OBC (Other Backward Class) in the region and although the caste is socially and economically backward, this particular family owned land and commanded political influence. The victim was from the Chamar caste, a Scheduled Caste traditionally associated with occupations considered ‘impure’ by Hinduism such as tanning and leatherwork, and against whom untouchability is still practised by upper-caste Hindus.

When she first went missing, the family went to the police station to file a report, but were faced by inaction from the authorities. N.K. Rabari, an inspector who belonged to the same caste as the rapists, reportedly refused to file a complaint. He said that he had knowledge of her whereabouts, and lied to the family saying she had eloped to marry a man from their own caste. He even said he would soon produce her with her marriage certificate. At this time, she was possibly still alive, and could have been saved from her abductors had the police not intentionally dismissed the parents.

The family’s instinctive fear and distress was natural seeing as they were one of only four Dalit families in the village, surrouunded and outnumbered by powerful castes. The police’s victim-blame was directed at both the victim and her family. They dismissed the family’s fears and experience, rendering the caste oppression they have faced in the village invisible. Not only did the police lie to the family, they also intentionally picked the kind of lie that would put blame on the victim and the men of their own caste.

Later, the police misinterpreted and ignored crucial pieces of evidence which suggested assault and rape, as well as her sister’s testimony, instead claiming that the victim had committed suicide. They exploited the fact that she was no longer alive to give her testimony to blame her for the violence she faced, in spite of all evidence to the contrary.

References:
https://thewire.in/rights/modasa-gangrape-murder-case-investigation-discrepancies
https://thewire.in/women/gujarat-modasa-dalit-woman-raped-hanged

#ReportingToRemember Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Kubbra Sait, and Twitter Trolls

Born in 1982 in New Delhi, Niharika Singh won the title of Miss Earth India in 2005 and began acting in 2006, making her feature film debut in the 2012 film Miss Lovely. She is currently the director of Future East Film.

Her maternal family is from the Regar caste, and her paternal family is from the Jatav caste. In 2018, she wrote an account of her experiences of sexual harassment and violence and her #MeToo experience as a Dalit woman naming Nawazuddin Siddiqui and Mayank Singh Singvi. Nawazuddin Siddiqui is a Sheikh, an upper caste Muslim. Mayank Singh Singvi’s caste has not been reported, though Singvis are often Bania Jains.

In her account, she outlined the various encounters she had with actor Nawazuddin Siddiqui, who allegedly coerced her and made inappropriate advances towards her without any consideration for her consent on multiple occasions. In 2009, he allegedly came to her house and grabbed her suddenly without her consent. According to her, it was only after coercion that she gave in and began a relationship with him. The relationship lasted a few months, ending after she said she realised he had been telling a series of lies to her, including not disclosing that he was married to a woman he had abandoned after making demands for dowry. In 2013, he allegedly made advances towards her again while working on a film, which she refused. In 2014, he once again grabbed her after a promotional event, according to her statement, and after she refused, he began to discredit her as an actress in his circles.

In 2017, he wrote a memoir titled ‘An Ordinary Life’ with Rituparna Chatterjee, in which he fabricated stories about their relationship and sexual encounters, using her real identity, without her consent. News publications began to print and publicise the excerpts which mentioned her, using various images from her life. The excerpt portrayed her as a ‘faux-fur’ wearing seductress, waiting for Siddiqui with candles lit across her home, jealously sending emails to other women he had been with. He sexualised her without her consent, and this was not fact-checked by the author or the publication house, both of which refused to apologise or take responsibility for it.

In 2018, when she wrote her statement published by journalist Sandhya Menon, various people victim-blamed her on twitter. Trolls claimed that she was lying, many blamed her for mentioning her caste, blaming her for continuing to associate with him, and so on. Actress Kubbra Sait also publicly defended Siddiqui and dismissed Singh’s experience, saying that she was simply airing a relationship gone sour and ruining a man’s reputation. There was also an organized troll campaign with identical tweets about Singh lying and Siddiqui being a good man.

In her account, Singh also mentioned abuse by Mayank Singh Singvi, who allegedly physically abused her and used casteist slurs. Although the details of this have not been reported on, she mentioned that he spread false stories about her in her social circles, which amounts to victim blame.

The ease with which the character of a Dalit actress was maligned in the public sphere in violation of all journalistic and publication norms, without so much as protecting her identity, show the prevalence of victim-blame against Dalit women who are seen as sexually available by default.

References:

https://twitter.com/TheRestlessQuil/status/1060850214267871238/photo/2
https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/celebrities/niharika-singh-says-nawazuddin-siddiqui-is-lying-to-sell-his-memoir
https://www.thequint.com/entertainment/bollywood/nawazuddin-siddiqui-an-ordinary-life-memoir-niharika-singh
https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/why-are-nawazuddin-siddiquis-defenders-using-the-exact-same-tweet-to-troll-niharika-singh-1935195.html
https://feminisminindia.com/2019/08/09/conversation-niharika-singh-caste-representation-feminism-bollywood/
https://www.bollywoodlife.com/news-gossip/a-passionate-relationship-with-miss-lovely-co-star-niharika-singh-a-one-night-stand-with-a-jewish-waitress-5-revelations-of-nawazuddin-siddiquis-love-life-from-his-book-an-ordinary-life-a-memoi-1086638/
https://www.ndtv.com/entertainment/kubbra-sait-trolled-for-defending-nawazuddin-siddiqui-after-metoo-allegations-says-why-should-i-not-1946623
https://www.ndtv.com/entertainment/kubbra-sait-jumps-to-nawazuddin-siddiquis-defense-after-niharika-singh-names-him-in-metoo-account-1945686