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Abolish the caste system now
Rakesh Bhatnagar
Monday, December 14, 2009 0:26 IST Email
Court rulings that do not find killings on caste lines an exceptional
crime inviting the extreme penalty amount to further subjugation of
victims from the lower strata of society, especially since India has a
whopping 170 million Dalits.
By any stretch of imagination and fair play such rulings are not fit
to remain alive in the case law as the accused would use them as a
mitigating circumstance to avoid the capital punishment.
This discussion is related to an exceptional Supreme Court (SC) ruling
of December 10 commuting to life the death sentence of four convicts
of a disgraceful "honour" homicide.
The homicide was orchestrated and executed by a man and his friends to
avenge the marriage of his sister to a "low caste" Keralite in Mumbai.
The trial court and the Bombay high court rightly did not show
leniency to the so-called upper caste killers migrated from Uttar
Pradesh (UP) and ordered death. Things, however, changed in SC.
"If he (the brother) became a victim of his wrong but genuine caste
considerations, it would not justify death," ruled the SC bench of
justices S Sirpurkar and Deepak Verma.
A few days ago, another bench of SC justices Dalveer Bhandari and AK
Patnaik had reversed the acquittal of six persons in a caste-related
crime.
The judges held that "unfortunately, the centuries-old Indian caste
system still takes its toll. This case unfolds the worst kind of
atrocities committed by the so-called upper castes (Kshatriya or
Thakur) against the so-called lower castes in a civilised country".
They said it's absolutely imperative to abolish the caste system as
expeditiously as possible for smooth functioning of the rule of law
and democracy in our country.
These rulings must be viewed against the backdrop of the national
scene. The National Crime Bureau showed two years ago that UP topped
the list of atrocities against SCs and STs, with 2,113 cases of the
9,819 cases nationally. The data also indicated a 10.2% increase in
crimes against the two oppressed communities at the national level.
It's also reported that cases relating to crimes against the deprived
and oppressed section of society, 'Dalit', do not reach courts. If
they do, the most likely outcome is acquittal. Official data reveals
that between 1999 and 2001, 89% of trials involving offences against
Dalits resulted in acquittals.
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