Are we living in our own state? Are we safe in this country?: Yogesh Maitreya

This article is based on the author's fieldwork experience while working with Manuski, Pune in October 2013.

Disclaimer: All the names in the article have been changed.

Today morning, at the desk given by my Internship agency to work, I wrote the brief history of an atrocity where a nineteen year old (Schedule Caste) girl, was raped by two Maratha boys of her village. Before examining such incidences, the reality of atrocities in these hamlets of Maharashtra was just another story or tale for me. A story or a tale which we hear from a distance, from second-hand sources and, further, leave it to die in the mind. The narrations from the victims on paper has something shivering in it; it moved me to bleakness as I read further. The victim’s narration was such that one could hardly avoid the vulnerability of their social setting. Now, the deeper I look into the heart of my country, the gloomier I see the face of it. I see the air around me full of hostility. And I could no longer avoid questions which I always ask myself: are we living in our own country? Are we safe in this country when two Dalits are murdered every day in India?

Here is the Case history in brief:

Her family lives in Barad, Beed, which is one of the districts in the state of Maharashtra. Beed is largely unknown to much of the Indian population; though Maharashtra is known for its being the “progressive”, “industrially developed” state, on the other hand, Beed is declared as an atrocities-prone area. According to the NCRB (National Crime Record Bureau), from 1994 to 2003 atrocities against Schedule Castes (SC) in Maharashtra outnumbered the list of criminal cases. And according to the study conducted by Indian Institute of Dalit Studies (Delhi) during 1990’s, the Marathwada region of Maharashtra which comprises Beed district, recorded “high incidences of caste bondage and previous records of atrocities against Dalits” NCRB’s 2012 data shows the record of 1091 cases of crime against SCs in Maharashtra alone. This case is one among them.

The girl, Aditi, was 19 years old and studying in Renuka Nursing Home, Beed in 2012. She has four sisters - among them two are married - and two brothers. Her father and mother are labourers. They belong to the Mang caste, constitutionally a Schedule Caste-the most vulnerable caste in the context of atrocities in Beed District. On the occasion of Mahashivratri on 20^th February 2012, the girl along with her sister Nanda went to attend a religious-procession at Pimpri. Further, their brother-in-law Mahesh - who married their sister Uttama - arrived to meet them at Pimpri. He had gotten to know from Uttama on Mobile-Phone that her sisters were already there. Uttama was in her parent’s house in Barad for the Mahashivratri Festival. She told Mahesh to go straightway to Pimpri, meet her sisters, and that she would join them at Pimpri, which she did by 2.30 pm.

After they came together at Pimpri, they paid a visit to a temple and went shopping. Mahesh spent almost all his money here and whatever money he had left would only enable him to travel to his wife’s house at Barad. He suggested that his golden earring would fetch some money and so he gave his golden earring to Aditi and asked her to go to Kaij and sell it to a goldsmith. And he with his wife Uttama and sister-in-law Nanda left for Barad.

As the golden earring had no receipt or acknowledgement receipt, the goldsmith in Kaij refused to purchase it. Aditi had no option but to return to her home by 6 in the evening. She only had enough money to reach Marasajog and she decided to walk the further distance. By that time her mobile phone’s battery got discharged. At this place both the accused, Bala Dhakane and Ram Munde age 22 and 23 respectively, along with four passengers in their Maruti Jeep MH-23-J-653 came and stopped their Jeep in front of Aditi. And offered her ride to her home. Aditi, who was helpless with no money and desperate to get home by night-time sat in the back seat of the Jeep. They drove the Jeep to Pimpri and dropped four passengers. From there, they headed up to Lavhari.

In the middle of the ride, they stopped the Jeep and Bala asked Aditi to come and sit in the middle seat. Bala too came and sat beside her there and forced himself on her. Ram who was at the driving seat left his position, meanwhile Bala had started to rape her. When, afterwards, she tried to get out of the Jeep, Bala pushed her back inside and this time Ram raped her. Later they threatened to kill her if she would inform anyone about the incident, and they dropped her off at Pimpri Phata and left. But this didn't end here.

When she filed the FIR, she was asked to undergo the medical examination to confirm the incident was rape. Along with Maharashtra Police employee Tandle, and Homeguard Asha Chate she had been sent to SRTR hospital in Ambejogai Taluka in Beed. Aditi was accompanied by her elder sister Pratibha. There, Homaguard Asha Chate started to harass her verbally, pressurised her by constantly blaming Aditi for the rape, started cursing and advising her to commit suicide to escape from stigma. By this constant pressure, Aditi had gotten demoralised. Later, on 24^th February 2012, she swallowed 9 to 10 tablets by 11 am when her parents were not at home. By night time, she had started vomiting and her head was aching, when asked what happened by her sister, she narrated the morning's incident. Her brother-in-law and sister Pratibha took her to the nearby Rural Hospital. Thus she was saved, with a wound which, perhaps, could not be healed. 

Yogesh is a 1st year student of the M.A. in Social Work (Criminology and Justice) programme at TISS, Mumbai.

On how to manufacture a captive national audience - Convention Centre and Us: Nidhin Shobhana

Illustration by the author.

When we visit the official website of Tata Institute of Social Sciences, the image of the grand, glassed convention centre with its confusing installation at the entrance, will surely tempt you. We associate glass structures with new ideas of mobility. These ideas are made possible by specific temporal and spatial developments. It’s often potrayed as the perceptive face of the institute.

Over the years its thick carpet has collected a lot of meaning. The politics of images, embossed on its circular outer wall has attracted a lot of attention among Dalit and Adivasi students on campus.

One day, a close friend of mine, pointed out at the images on the walls and asked ‘Do you find Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar anywhere?’ He added that the images, which apparently highlight the diversities in India, choose a particular depiction, privileges a particular imagination. Imaging India’s diversity with the help of temples, M.K.Gandhi, Nehru, Thrissur Pooram and Kathakali reminds me of INCREDIBLE INDIA advertisements. This investment, possessive indeed, in potraying a particular kind of nonconflictual, harmonious diversity is not new. Sangh Parivar does the same.

The majority of students who enter TISS have long been consumers of this imagined community soaked in potions of uniformity, caste, masculinity and heteronormativity. They have received the required training.

The portrayal aims at warding off dissent. Differences which embody diversities are coloured with pleasant but desperate strokes of integration. The richness of the sight (thanks to affirmative action) made possible by incessant liberatory struggles, across the dimensions of the country, is overshadowed. Every social and spatial site, is then, very neatly, ‘taken care of' to produce a particular kind of response among students. In fact students become an annexe of this imagination. The image of diversity has many extensions. The persona and the poetics of the classroom can be read as an extension of this imagined unitary space called Nation. It forms a part of the Nation continuum.

Body becomes an important site of constructing this sweet portrait. By design, the institute will build a convention centre which facilitates a permanent seating arrangment. The chairs are fixed to the floor and you are fixed to the chairs. Fixed and arrested.

The permanence in the seating arrangement is assisted by an in built system of spatial surveillance. The semi-circle seating arrangment allows layered mutual surveillance. The corners however become sites of subversion. The teacher, especially the one who displays great faith in his charisma and dogma gets really disturbed by the creatures who occupy the corners. He believes in straightening them. He does not shy away from doing that.

The air is manufactured using a centralized system of air conditioning. In fact, A/C air has become a signature of power. It caters the extended image of the Nation; it caters the aspiration of the imagined national community.

Sam Pitroda was impressed by this image manufactured in the convention centre. He called the sight ‘bright, beautiful youthfulness’. The captive force of compulsory attendance was pushed under the carpet, as always.

Why do we need so many students in a classroom? Is it some sort of quality control measure? The national elite should look alike, should smell of the same perfume, should wear the same colour and should speak the same tongue. The norm excludes more than includes. Any deviance would attract straightening missionaries. A decentralized classroom would spoil the image of harmonious, conjugal sameness. It’s a threat.

Dissent, democracy and transformation are taught in such unhappy controlled spaces. We sleep, play games, crack jokes and try to take notes in silence. We do not discuss our internal conflicts, sense of hatred, and sense of betrayal or confront latent anger. Pleasure is a taboo in the classroom. There are a few teachers who long for greater engagements. Some try their best. However, they are crippled by the image; they are limited by the protocol of infrastructure.

They call it foundation courses. Yes, we find the foundations of a captive national audience in us. Constipated, sad, with a heightened sense of self.

And each time an aspirant looks at the image of the convention centre, s/he is tempted to join the ranks of the same captive national audience.

Nidhin was a student of M.A. Habitat Policy and Practice at TISS, Mumbai but dropped out in the third semester.

These are the personal opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions of the fieldnotes editorial team.