The Pardhi community has been subject to wide range of exploitation and harassment for decades.
The photo essay Justice Delayed is Justice Denied by Helena Schätzle and Sudharak Olwe critically reflects on caste violence against Dalits in India. Although there are laws against caste-based violence, prejudice is deeply ingrained in society’s everyday life. A Dalit who experienced a violent felony and who claims his or her right faces massive counterforces which impede legal processes. The news of atrocities on Dalits moreover get little noticed in newspapers and other media. The following photo documentation creates as much visibility for a people and the invisible processes of atrocities against them as for its social consequences that are oriented toward the past. In the context of this common ground, Olwe and Schätzle remind the viewer in their photo essay of the formation of the present through the past in order to point to a better future.
In India, where caste prejudice is deeply ingrained in society, a Dalit trying to assert his or her rights is normally perceived as an attempt to swim against the tide. His or her rights and needs are considered below those of higher castes.
Be it land dispute, reservation, and participation in Panchayat Raj system, aspiring to a higher education, conflict over sharing water and natural resources, intercaste relationships or even entering temples, such issues have always led to heinous crimes against them like murders, rapes, and arson.
Caste violence against Dalits has triggered condemnation and sometimes nationwide protests. More than 144,000 cases of atrocities against Scheduled Castes and 23,408 cases of atrocities against Scheduled Tribes came for trial before the judiciary in 2016, as per the last available data from the National Crime Records Bureau. Yet most cases of atrocities on Dalits never see the light of the day and the perpetrators never come to justice. The laws are made and yet not accessible to the people that need them the most. Only ten percent of cases go to trial and 25 percent of this number end in convictions.
Justice in these cases is also an agonizing wait to be recognized as rightful members of civil society. The atrocities and crimes committed in the name of caste urgently needs the attention of policy makers, members of society, the media, and most importantly the ones who uphold the law of the land.
Aher Vahegao was the home to 14 Pardhi families, which were attacked. Their house were reduced to ruins by the upper-caste people.
Ramesh, Vasram, and Bechar Sarvaiyas were tied to the back of their car and paraded half-naked whilst brutally beaten through the city of Una under the suspicion of killing a cow.
The family’s primary occupation was to pick up and dispose dead cattle with a three-wheeler. After the incident they quit skinning cows for a living and started working as laborers. They also renounced the Hindu religion (the cause for their discrimination) and converted to Buddhism.
Lalji Survaiya's mother recalls how Lalji was burnt alive beyond recognition by upper-caste villagers. In a prophecy they had seen in a holy fire, Lalji was suspected of hiding an upper-caste girl who had run away from the village.
Lalji’s sister-in-law, who had been wounded in the attack, also died of shock within the next ten days. The family has been relocated to a village 300 km away, where they face assaults by the villagers, too.
Pradeepbhai Kalubhai Rothod, a 21-year-old Dalit youth, was hacked to death for owning a horse by three men from the Rajput community. Today Pradeep's best friend is taking care of the horse.
On December 7, 2016, 22-year-old Ajay Khurasane was brutally assaulted by a group of upper-caste people in Ahmednagar district’s Pohegaon village over a mere suspicion of conspiracy. Ajay’s elder brother Ashok went to confront the perpetrators, they hit them both on their heads with sharp weapons, injuring them severely.
Asha Kamble, a young Dalit widow with two kids has been subjected to constant mental and physical harassment by the upper-caste villagers over the past six years.
Gauri was stripped naked and beaten up and raped by seven to eight policemen for four days in a hotel. When she was transferred from one police station to another, she was again subjected to torture, assault, and rape.
Bant Singh was attacked by a group of seven Jat men armed with iron rods, axes, sticks, and pump handles. He was found with his limbs barely clinging to his torso. Three of them had to be amputated.
The rationale for this torment was to revenge Bant Singh for standing up against the aristocracy of the village and getting justice for his daughter, who was raped by a group of upper-caste villagers six years ago.
Manik, age 25, was hacked to death for celebrating Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar’s anniversary on April 14, 2014.
Jayesh Solanki was brutally thrashed to death by a group of youth from Patel community for attending a religious Garba event.
Jayesh's mother Madhuben cannot help the remorse and still blames herself for not stopping her only son that day.
Mahesb Rathod of Vithlapur village of Gujarat was brutally thrashed by upper-caste Darbars for wearing a chain, a nice shirt, and Mojdi shoes.
Rohan Kakade, a Mahar boy from Satara, was subjected to cold-blooded murder by five Maratha men. He was suspected of having an affair with the sister of one of the Maratha men.
The family recalls how the perpetrators chopped off Rohan’s head, burnt his body, and dumped it in a hilly area near Jadhavvadi waterfall.
A nine-year-old disabled Dalit girl from Solapur district’s Pandharpur Taluka was raped and beaten by her neighbor. Since then her grandmother has been relentlessly fighting for her granddaughter’s justice.
The 24-year-old nursing student Gagar was brutally killed and assaulted in Shirdi in May 2016 by upper-caste men for keeping a ringtone of Ambedkar, a Dalit himself, who wrote the Indian constitution.
Gagar’s family was devastated by his death and couldn’t succumb to the fact they lost their kid to caste violence for such a trivial reason.
Mahar man Tukaram and Sakubai’s 38-year-old son Sanjay Danan was killed for his rightful demand for promotion.
Six Pardhi homes including Sukanya’s were ransacked and burned by the villagers on suspicion of a robbery in Gangawadi village.
Sukanya’s brother Papu along with his brother were picked up from their school in Gangawadi for a robbery of Rs 70,000 and were tortured by electric shocks and bamboo sticks. Since then they are not allowed to reenter school.
Seema Pawar was brutally punched in the eye by an upper-caste villager for getting water from a nearby hand pump.
Supriya Gade, a Matang girl from Ahmednagar district, was molested, beaten, and burnt to death for resisting a rape attempt by her neighbor. The family can’t forget how her body was 90 percent burned when she was taken to the hospital.
Lata Kale's husband recalls the day he had to catch hold of his three-month old son who got washed away in the rain while watching his wife being beaten to death by upper-caste villagers. Lata had demanded to get her money back from a construction worker. She had asked him to make a well, but he never built it. She needed the money to take her ailing son to the hospital.
The 18-year-old Dalit, a girl who was deaf and mute, was gang-raped and brutally beaten in Phalten block of Maharashtra’s Satara district.
Jaydeep and his family were brutally beaten after the upper-caste of the village were jealous of him buying a new expensive bike and putting a sticker of a moustache on it. Moustaches are only supposed to be worn by upper-caste Darbar people.
Jaydeep's grandmother still suffers from injuries and cannot leave her bed anymore.
Taramati Kole and her mother Sewantabai demonstrate how their 17-year-old boy was arrested and brutally thrashed for a false crime report by the police in Panghari.
Sangeeta Makwana, a 7-year-old student in the second grade, was kidnapped, raped, and murdered. Her body was found in the washroom of a nearby municipal school building. The case was never properly investigated, and her family still live in fear.
Noor Khan’s courage is the result of her own struggle with the police. Ten years ago, her husband was taken away by the police on false charges of robbery and later declared dead in police custody.
Nandu Parmeshwar’s house was ransacked and burned down and family members were assaulted and beaten up for living in a Maratha-dominated area.
Parmeshwar and his wife Asha fear for their lives and the future of their children.
The community has been attacked earlier, but strongly support each other and fight in court for their rights.