5th May Attack on Dalits Was Not in Saharanpur Alone

400 Dalit families in Garagaparru Village, West Godavari District, Andhra Pradesh have been facing social boycott since May 5, 2017.  Remember how the Dalits were prevented from erecting Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s statue in Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh? In a similar fashion the upper castes of Garagaparru have prevented the Dalits from installing the statue of Babasaheb Ambedkar at the village. The village alreadyhad statues of Mahatma Gandhi, Sir Arthur Cotton, Alluri Sitaramaraju, Tandra Paparayudu (Local Warrior) and the idols of Rama and Krishna. The Dalits of the village felt that it would also be good to have the statue of the Father of Indian Constitution as well.The members of the SC community approached the elected village Sarpanch, Unnabatla Elizabeth, and Mandal Parishad Territorial Committee (MPTC) member, Siringula Venkata Ratnam, with their proposal to install the statue.

On April 23, 2017 the Dalits erected the statue. By next day morning the statue was stolen by the upper castes.To protest this, a daylong Rasta Roko was held. The sub-collector (RDO )intervened, following which the stolen statuewas brought backand re-installed at the old Panchayat Office. The statue was garlanded by the sub-collector himself. Unhappy with this development, the upper castes led by Balram Raju, Gattukoppala Srinivasu and Muddunoor Ramaraju called a ‘meeting of 14 castes’. In this meeting it was decided that if the statue was not removed from the village by May 5, 2017, the Dalits (Malas) would be socially boycotted. If anyone disobeyed this diktat, a fine of₹1000 would be imposed. The Dalit tenants who were cultivating the land for past 20 – 30 years were asked to give up the land. The Dalits who were working as drivers on the auto rickshaws and tractors were dismissed. The animals belonging to the Dalits were prevented from grazing on common grounds. 

The implementation of social boycott by the dominant caste groups was so strict that a registered medical practitioner (RMP Doctor) who was treating patients from the Dalit community was asked to leave the village. Even the vegetable vendors and provision stores were not allowed to sell to Dalits.  On top of all that, to monitor thewho they were meeting or interacting, a CCTV camera was installed at the Dalit Colony onMay 5.

The people approached the government officials to bring it to their notice the social boycott imposed on them. “As soon as we got to know of this social boycott, we along with CPI(M)and other Dalit organisations approached the government officials to sort out the issue”, P. Rama Krishna of Kula Vivaksha Porata Samiti (KVPS) said. “The government officials were not helpful at all, so we formed a committee to fight this boycott”, he said.

Only after 10 TV, a news channel, broke this news did the larger public come to know about the issue. Immediately, different organisations took up the issue and visited the Dalits of Garagaparru. All India Dalit Rights Forum convenor K. Ananda Rao who visited the village said, “If there is a social boycott in the developed Godavari districts you can imagine the conditions of the Dalits [in the country]”.

The AP government has imposed Section 144 to prevent activists from visiting the village. Criticising the anti-Dalit measures of the state and the central governments, V Srinivasa Rao, National Convening Committee member of the Dalit Shoshan Mukti Manch, stressed that the governments claiming to be pro-Dalit have actually been on the side of the perpetrators of atrocities against them. He demanded that the State and the Central Governments must take action against the culprits who have been involved in this crime.

The District collector Bhaskar Katamneni who initially said that there was no social boycottwas forced to conduct an enquiry when news of the incident spread and became a point of discussion. Neither the perpetrators were arrested nor wasany action taken against the higher officials under whose jurisdiction the social boycott has taken place.Instead, ironically, the TDP/BJP government suspended the MRO, the VRO and the SI who hail from the Dalit community.

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