Ujjain rape survivor’s ordeal continues as caste bias looms over political arena
In Sept, a 13-year-old girl, bleeding and semi-nude, was seen begging for help in the streets of Ujjain after being brutally raped by an autorickshaw driver
Satna: At dusk, a frail-looking girl walks slowly wincing in pain towards a handpump about 300 meters away from her house in Madhya Pradesh’s Satna district, carrying two plastic containers . Her aunt asks her to hurry up, as they have to return home to cook before it gets dark.
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Barely a month ago, the 13-year-old girl, bleeding and semi-nude, was seen begging for help in the streets of Ujjain after being brutally raped by an autorickshaw driver. She had run away from her home after a tiff with her grandfather and reached Ujjain. After medical treatment at an Ujjain hospital, she returned home on October 12.
Ujjain’s apathy to the victim was evident in videos that emerged of her seeking help, but back home, there is not much sympathy for her, especially among upper castes, who continue to discriminate against Dalits like her. Her family, and other Dalits have to use a separate handpump and there is no electricity supply to her Dalit basti. “That is how we have been living here for decades,” said her grandfather. The family belongs to the scheduled caste Dohar community considered untouchable in Satna.
Her ordeal
Rape survivor’s grandfather regrets his own role in the sordid affair; had he not scolded her on September 24 morning she would not have left, he says. When he went to lodge a complaint with Jatwara police station, about two km from the village, that evening, the police personnel asked him to search for her himself. An FIR was lodged almost a day after he complained.
“Had the police acted on my complaint, the girl could have been found in a train and saved from being raped,” he said. Jatwara police station in-charge Shweta Maurya defends the police’s response. “The grandfather had come to the police station in the night and a policeman was sent to her house but nobody was found at home. Later, we took prompt action in the matter.”
On September 24, the girl, who is speaking impaired, was going to school, 3 km from her house, to appear in an Olympiad. Her grandfather told her to stay at home. At about 10 a.m. when her grandfather took his goats for grazing, she left the house. She reached Jatwara railway station from where she boarded the train for Satna and then Ujjain.
Her grandfather said that as she came out of the Ujjain railway station, an auto driver offered her help. “He took her to an insolated place and raped her. He pushed her into the autorichshaw once again and dropped her near the Mahakal temple. Nobody helped her ,” he said, narrating what happened with his granddaughter on the morning of September 25.
The survivor’s brother added: “We have been facing discrimination for years. There is no sympathy for my sister among the upper castes as we are from Dohar (cattle grazing) community,” the boy said. The family claimed that the only benefit they receive from the government is ₹600 per month social justice pension, the grandfather said.
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Political fury
The incident has brought politicians from almost all political parties to their small hut assuring help. “A few people helped financially but I don’t know how to secure future of the girl,” the grandfather said.
Others in the village thought that the incident would bring development there as elections are near. That was not the case. A man from Dalit Rajak community said there is no electricity in their Dalit locality for the past three months due to a faulty transformer . “The sarpanch is from the Rajput community and works only for betterment of upper castes Rajput village, who are getting regular electricity supply,” he said.
Almost half of village’s 1,900 voters are Dalits but the difference t between their part of the village and that of upper caste Rajputs is evident. “They have paved roads and we don’t have even a proper kacha road. Discrimination is part of life here,” said a former village sarpanch Brijbhan Sen, who was elected to the post when it was reserved for Dalits, a decade ago.
Data suggests that crime against Dalits in Madhya Pradesh is higher than the national average. In 2021, of 50,900 incidents of crime against SCs in India, 7,211 were reported from MP. Madhya Pradesh had a crime rate of 63.6% against SCs in 2021 against the national average of 25.3% that year. Dalits account for 16% of the state’s population and 35 of 230 assembly seats are reserved for them.
Panchayat secretary Santosh Namdeo denied allegations of discrimination saying those in Dalit village don’t pay electricity bills and no one from there applied for cooking gas cylinder under the Ujwala scheme either. “Every village has their own tradition but there is no discrimination,” he said.
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Dalit politics
Both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress are trying to woo Dalit voters. The BJP carried out five Ravidas Samrasta Yatras in MP before Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of Saint Ravidas temple in Sagar on August 12, 2023. The Congress in its manifesto promised justice, equal treatment and status of Constitution Rakshak Senani to scheduled caste members. The term refers to volunteers who would create awareness about Constitutional safeguards.
The rape survivor’s village falls in Chitrakoot legislative assembly, a Congress bastion, from where Nilanshu Chaturvedi of Congress won in 2018 by defeating BJP candidate Surendra Geharwar. In this election, Chaturvedi and Geharwar will contest again. BSP candidate Shubhash Sharma is also trying to woo voters by using this incident as a major poll issue.
BJP candidate Surendra Geharwar evaded question on Dalit discrimination. “I go and eat food everywhere but a few people aren’t interested development as it will end poverty. I am against discrimination and the local MLA should take care of it and check it.”
Congress MLA Neelanshu Chaturvedi said, “I am trying hard to end discrimination for overall development but I didn’t get support of the BJP-led state government in many projects that can bring equality.”
“I don’t think anything will change,” said a woman neighbour of the rape survivor. “We got some attention because of this horrible incident with this girl as elections are around, otherwise nobody cares for her.”
A beneficiary under the state government’s Ladli scheme, in which every woman gets ₹1,000 per month as allowance, she said, “We want to be treated like Ladlis ( the pampered ones) too.”