http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_exclusive-where-do-we-take-our-dead-and-go-ask-dalits_1599355Exclusive: Where do we take our dead and go, ask Dalits
Published: Sunday, Oct 16, 2011, 9:15 IST | Updated: Sunday, Oct 16,
2011, 15:07 IST
By Yogesh Pawar | Place: Mumbai | Agency: DNA
Upper caste farmer Mahadeo Khandu's son Dilip of Mhalsapur-Zavle
ploughs a plot where Dalits used to bury their dead.
If pain had a face, it could be Narayan Sonawane's. The 45-year-old
Dalit farmer keeps scratching a shaving wound on his face till it
bleeds, and makes him flinch. The pain, perhaps, momentarily takes his
mind off the gruesome reality outside his hut — a seven acre plot that
used to be a Dalit cremation ground until a year ago.
In June 2010, it was usurped by upper caste Maratha farmer Mahadeo
Khandu. And on this day, as Sonawane stands watching mutely, Khandu
supervises the tilling of the land. The land where the bodies of
Sonawane's parents were laid to rest.
"I buried my father here two years ago. And my mother a year before
that with my own hands," says Sonawane, fighting back tears. "Would
upper castes let this happen to their own dead?"
As a crowd gathers around, a nonplussed Khandu shouts, "Don't listen
to him, he's lying." But he quickly changes tack. "Come now...We are
all from the same village. Why take such petty differences to the
media?" Seeing that his words have had no effect, he adds, "I'll build
a shed for you to cremate your dead. I don't even want money for
building it."
We soon discover the reason for Khandu's generosity: the appropriated
land is worth Rs30 lakh at market rates, while the steel shed with
asbestos sheet roofs will cost a mere Rs30,000!
Khandu and Sonawane belong to Mhalsapur-Zavla village in Beed
district, which falls in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra. Such
casual take-over of Dalit lands by upper castes is fairly common, not
just in this district, but all over Maharashtra. According to figures
compiled by the Maharashtra ministry for social justice, Dalit burial
grounds have been usurped by upper castes in with 72.13% of the
state's 43,722 villages.
About 150 km from Mhalsapur-Zavla, in Parbhani district's Devalgaon
village, the tension is palpable. It has been less than a week since
violence erupted over a Dalit's attempt to bury a deceased family
member in the demarcated cremation ground. Upper caste men stopped the
funeral procession, brutally attacked the pall-bearers, and flung the
body of 39-year-old Shevanta Pawar to the ground. The pall-bearers,
including Pawar's husband, Mahesh Pawar, 42, barely escaped with their
lives.
Recalls a bitter Mahesh, "Upper caste men attacked us and threw my
wife's body into the bushes nearby. After we lodged a complaint with
the tehsildar, the police arrived, and only then could we recover the
body from the bushes and do the last rites."
Despite the violence, and the tension in the village on account of it,
the upper castes are unrepentant. "This is our way of life. Those who
don't like it here are free to leave," says Dhanajirao Kale, an
obviously well-to-do upper caste farmer. Kale even has a word of
advice for us, "It is better that you city folks stick to what you
know and understand."
Adding insult to injury
Nearly 60 km away, the Dalits of Malegaon still can't forget November
22, 2008. On that fateful day, upper caste men led by priests of the
local Khandoba temple, Sanjay and Ganptrao Naik, attacked a funeral
procession with sticks and swords because they were taking a dead body
to the designated crematorium. "They beat up everyone and forced them
to flee with my father's body, which then lay in our house for two
days," remembers Urmila Waghmare, daughter of the deceased, Ramchandra
Waghmare. "When the body began to decompose and smell, we had to
cremate it on the roadside," she adds, tears welling up in her eyes.
When Dalit rights organisations like Samajik Nyay Andolan forced a
reluctant police to lodge an FIR, reprisal from the upper castes was
swift —the Waghmares' home was burnt down. Urmila's distraught mother
Mandubai suffered severe burn injuries but survived. While the
culprits, thanks to their political patrons, move around freely,
Urmila and her mother live without a roof over their heads. Promises
from the then collector, Radheshyam Mopalwar, that they will get a
house under Indira Awaas Yojana have remained promises. "Every time I
go to the social welfare officer, he asks me to come later," says
Urmila.
There are, of course, instances where official apathy has reduced even
death to a farce. Like in Madalmoi village of Georai tehsil in Beed,
where the 0.275 acre crematorium (Survey No 357) was first given to
the Dalits by the Nizam in 1354. It was encroached upon by a wealthy
Maratha, Sonaji Bhopale, in 1965, and subsequently sold to a local
money lender, Sitaram Govind Harkut.
Complaints from the Dalits led to a law suit, which is still pending
in court. So after every death, the Dalits take the dead body and lay
it in the middle of the busy highway for a rasta roko. "Once we create
a traffic jam, the cops and the tehsildar scurry to the spot, and only
then are we allowed to perform the last rites on the allocated land,"
says Sarjerao Shinde, a resident of the village.
The Marathas are calling it blackmail. "Why can't they wait for the
case to be decided by the court if they know they are right?" asks an
angry Harkut.
'Marathwada is worst'
These are by no means isolated incidents. In fact, since there have
been several such incidents in the constituency of BJP general
secretary and deputy opposition leader in the Lok Sabha, Gopinath
Munde, and in Dehu village in NCP chief Sharad Pawar's constituency.
When contacted by DNA, Munde admitted that the problem existed in his
constituency, but was quick to add that it was prevalent across the
state.
"I have myself raised this issue several times, first in the state
assembly and then in the Parliament, but the government is not serious
about addressing this long-standing issue," he said. When asked why
the NDA government did nothing about the issue during the Sena-BJP
reign in the state, he said, "Undoing what the Congress had allowed to
fester for 45 years is not an easy task," adding, "If the Dalits
unite, mobilise and take to the streets on this issue, I will gladly
join them gladly in their fight."
Article 17 of the Constitution abolishes all forms of untouchability.
But the reality is otherwise even when it comes to burying/cremating
the dead. In hundreds of villages and hamlets across Mahahrashtra,
Dalits are not only denied access to the common burial/cremation
ground but prevented from using even the burial grounds specifically
demarcated for them.
"The level of friction over the issue is the highest in Marathwada,
where over one-fifth of the population is Dalit," explains Eknath
Avhad of the Manavi Hakk Abhiyan, which has been fighting for Dalit
rights in the region.
"Dalit youth of today do not want to wait endlessly for justice to
prevail. Their increasing aggression is seen by upper castes as a
challenge to their social and economic status."
Will justice ever be done?
Dalits have traditionally had separate tracts of land to dispose of
their dead as a part of the caste system. "In Maharashtra, these are
on the eastern side of the village, so that the whole village is not
'polluted' by the winds blowing from the direction of the Dalit
cremation ground," points out Ganpat Bhise of the Samajik Nyay
Andolan, a Parbhani-based organisation fighting for the restoration of
these cremation tracts to Dalits.
"The upper castes want to usurp Dalit cremation grounds, and they also
do not want us to cremate our dead anywhere else. Where do they want
us to take our dead and go?" asks Bhise. "Why then don't they allow us
to use the same crematoria that they do?"
He says claims of progress on integration and mainstreaming of Dalits
ring hollow on the ground, and remembers how the then Nanded collector
had mocked him during a protest against the Malegaon incident, asking,
"Do you expect the Collector to go to every Dalit's house and help him
fight for justice?"
Access to cremation/burial grounds has become an increasingly
sensitive issue over the last decade as population has grown. Land,
always a contentious resource, is more so in this arid belt, which has
the lowest per capita income in the state. "It is ironic that in the
birthplace of BR Ambedkar, Dalits continue to be denied dignity even
in death," observes Eknath Avhad. "The government's inability to
resolve this issue even six decades after Independence has only
created another reason to keep the caste cauldron on the boil."
Same story across the country
Punjab: A paradox of Sikhism
Though Dalits form 30% of Punjab's population, and though Sikhism
frowns on discrimination in the name of caste or creed, untouchability
against the Mazhbis and Ramdasias, the two Dalit castes among Sikhs,
is well established. They have been forced to live in separate
settlements, contemptuously called thhattis or chamarhlees, and forced
to reside on the western side, away from the main area of the
villages, so that the winds blowing over them don't pollute the upper
castes. All the Sikh organisations, from Sikh temples to the political
parties, are under the control of the Jat Sikhs, who refuse to
consider Dalit Sikhs equals even after death. The former disallow
cremation of the latter's dead in the main cremation grounds. Over the
years, such harsh discrimination has forced Dalits to establish
separate gurdwaras, marriage places and cremation grounds. This, in
many ways, is the biggest paradox of Sikhism, which is often
characterised as 'emancipatory' and 'revolutionary'.
Tamil Nadu: Evidence of atrocity
A study by the Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front (TNUEF)
shows problems relating to burial and burning grounds in over 75% of
the state's 30,000-odd villages. The NGO Evidence found that Dalits
had faced atrocities over burial/cremation in 208 of the 213 villages
covered by their survey. In 153 villages, Dalits were not allowed to
carry their dead through areas where the dominant castes lived. In 132
villages, Dalit graveyards do not have water, power or a cremation
shed.
Gujarat: it's 'wasteland'
According to the Ahmedabad-based Behavioural Science Centre (BSC), of
the 18,100 villages in the state, 5,000 have no legal burial grounds
for Dalits. Though the Dalit custom of burying the dead is an age-old
one, the government doesn't recognise it. As a result, the unregulated
lands are classified as wasteland. Despite the fact that the Revenue
Department had passed a GR in September 1989 to consider 1972 as the
year for earmarking land for burial, nothing has been done so far.
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