The sexual assaults on women belonging to the oppressed castes hardly evoke responses from the civil society of the country, compared to the incidents involving women from historically privileged communities, stated N. Ravi Kumar, poet and journalist, in Shivamogga on Wednesday.
In a talk on Dalit – An analysis organised by Bahumukhi, a forum for literary and cultural debates in Shivamogga, Mr. Ravi Kumar said during the rape and murder of a girl reported in 2012, the one reported in Hyderabad in 2019, or the recent incident in Kolkata, the civil society staged protests and demanded strict action against the perpetrators of the crime.
“This is how civil society should respond to atrocities against women. However, we do not see such a response when women from marginalised communities are victims. There were hardly any protests when a Dalit woman was sexually assaulted and murdered in Vijayapura in 2017. Similarly, there were hardly protests when Dalit sisters were raped and found hanging from a tree in Uttar Pradesh in 2022,” he said.
The people from downtrodden sections continue to face atrocities in different ways in the changing world. “People elected from reserved constituencies have to maintain good rapport with upper caste people and remain silent on atrocities on Dalits in their areas. Many senior politicians have said that they were denied opportunities because of their caste,” he stated.
Mr. Ravi Kumar made a presentation on the status of Dalits in the country with statistics on crimes against Dalits and newspaper reports on atrocities against Dalits.
Published – September 12, 2024 08:18 pm IST
