Boricha had complained to the police against Darbars’ frequent attempts to usurp his land and house for which the Dalit activist was assaulted as many as 13 times, thrice in the presence of policemen
Mahesh Trivedi | Clarion India
AHMEDABAD – Tormented and tyrannised by upper-caste bullies for donkey’s years, the five-million-odd Dalits in Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Gujarat are bracing up to take the bull by the horns.
Hundreds of Scheduled Caste men and women from all over the state flocked to Sanodar village in Bhavnagar district last week to offer their condolences to a fearless farmer who was hacked to death by headstrong Darbars on March 2, but vowed to stand up and be counted.
Though a strongly-worded memorandum demanding one-acre land and lifetime pension for 50-year-old Amra Boricha’s family was handed over to the district police chief immediately after the prayer meeting, the demands were repeated at another large gathering of the socially-disadvantaged community at Sanand, 22 km from here, on Saturday (March 20).
On March 22, the Dalits, seething with anger over Boricha’s daylight brutal murder inside his own house by ten forward-caste men with swords, spears and steel rods, will also assemble at the Bhavnagar district collector’s office to submit another memorandum of demands, including a licence for a revolver for protection of the lone Dalit family in the one-horse hamlet.
Jignesh Mevani, firebrand independent legislator of the oppressed community, also raised the murder issue in the legislative assembly on Thursday and Friday asking why the negligent and irresponsible police sub-inspector, an accused in the case, had not been collared so far but the lawmaker was ordered to be forcibly evicted from the House and suspended by the Speaker.
Come April 14, Ambedkar Jayanti, some 3,000 Dalits who have been harassed by high-caste fellow citizens for a dog’s age, will next take out a ‘Lalakaar Yatra’ (Challenge March) to indicate that they will no more take caste-Hindus’ torture lying down but will take on the tormentors.
“On April 14, we will take out the rally and will try to get the possession of 14 land parcels in Gujarat which have been allotted to landless Dalits but have been wrongfully occupied by upper-caste people,” Mevani told Clarion India.
After all, at the root of the savage attack on Boricha, also a right-to-information (RTI) activist, was his constant complaints to the police against Darbars’ frequent attempts to usurp his land and house for which the Dalit activist was assaulted as many as 13 times, thrice in the presence of policemen.
“Boricha had been receiving death threats for the past seven years but despite his demand for armed policemen at his home, only two baton-carrying guards were provided to him with the result that the goons carrying sharp-edged weapons gate-crashed into his house and killed him,” revealed Niru Chorasia, Bhavnagar district coordinator of Navsarjan, an Ahmedabad-based NGO working for Dalits’ rights.
According to Kantilal Parmar, well-known social worker and human rights activist, the failure of the state government to provide protection to Dalits has led to the murders of 688 of them besides 2,500 other crimes like rape, robbery, violent attacks, etc. ever since the Atrocities Act came into force in 1990.
“A 2017 circular of the Vijay Rupani government promising pension, employment and land to the bereaved families of Scheduled Castes has only remained on paper,” says Parmar, adding that targeted Dalits are either done to death or are forced to migrate to safer places.
While RTI activist Sanjay Ezhva opined that the Gujarat government had completely failed to provide security to anyone who was a conscious citizen, Dalit Adhikar Manch convener Kirit Rathod said that Boricha’s murder had angered the Scheduled Caste community which was already upset over the Rupani administration’s refusal to include the name of their messiah Babasaheb Ambedkar in the list of national leaders, and added that the saffron-ruled state was sitting on a tinderbox of Dalit unrest.
Top-notch RTI activist Pankti Jog, convener of the Mahiti Adhikar Gujarat Pahel, said that Boricha had to sacrifice his life because under the RTI Act, the state government was obliged to disclose panchayat funds details he had sought in 2013 but did not do its duty and, consequently, the poor activist was beaten up by panchayat office-bearers.
Truth to tell, like Boricha, true-blue Dalit activists in Kutch, Botad, Banaskantha and Gir Somnath districts also have been facing death threats but are yet to be given police protection.
Sums up Mevani: “The fact that Boricha was assaulted as many as 14 times shows that there is absolute blatant disregard for the rule of law in Gujarat as if the Constitution has gone for a six in the Rupani regime which, strangely, calls itself a sensitive administration.”
