Samyak Tirri
Social Exclusion by Caste in terms of Justice and Protection
The prominent legal Maxim reads “Justice Delayed is Justice Denied”, but in the case of Tsundur the justice and protection both are denied directly which left eight deaths unanswered. This is a note of social exclusion which highlights the prevalence of justice and protection denial in the case of Tsundur. This is not a single story of a Tsundur alone, but a compilation of thoughts which talk about the loss that was faced by the Dalit community as a whole. If this case of Tsundur has to be viewed towards the delivery of justice and the protection by the forces that are meant to safeguard the citizens, then the exclusion is said to be a life threatening scenario for the people of any particular group (Dalits in this case), which is considered to analyze. There are thousands of cases reported on a daily basis, the case of Dankaur in Greater Noida, where the police stripped a dalit family naked on read for asking a speedy investigation, stands as the example for the exclusion by the safeguarding forces of societies in the name of caste[1], the Karamchedu massacre of 1985, the Khairlanji Massacre of 2006, the Kumher massacre and many more. In all these massacres happened, the similarity lies in the acquaintance of all the accused. If no one is a criminal then who will answer the deaths?, if these many cases are reported then where will the number of unreported cases stand?
In India there are several crimes happening in the name of castes, and the majorly discussed events are the massacres that had happened, which overlaps the daily dose of exclusion that everyone faces. Many events of inhumane and discriminatory activities of the people the country are justified by caste in India[2]. These massacres against the people are mostly based on the castes, where the higher caste people commit the crimes over the lower caste people, for many reasons, and defend them in the name of caste or sometimes reasons can’t even be identified. These are some of the reported events as the number is more, there might be events that aren’t reported for many reasons, that are aligned to the caste system in India.
If the commitment of crime is on one side, the serving of justice comes to the major stake which hasn’t reached or served people in many of the situations. Even the National Crime Report Bureau has stated that the year of covid has seen a surge in the crimes of atrocities[3]. This is one example of the statement that crimes against the dalits are always on the rise, not even a deadly pandemic could pause it for a while, when the whole world is struggling to live. Along with that the number of pending atrocity cases will portray the gap in delivering justice in atrocities cases. One of the example for this is that in the tsundur case, there is a clause for the condonation for the late which is around 1400 days[4]. These are the ideas of the exclusion that is happening towards the people based on their caste and in terms of justice delivery also. The National Coalition for strengthening SCs and STs (PoA) Act feels that even after the amendments of the acts there are several things that obstruct the people in accessing the justice[5]. According to the NCRB report the cases which are pending in investigation of the PoA Act stands at 70,818 towards the end of 2021. Towards the end the pending cases of the PoA act cases for trail are 96.0%. This stands as the evidential figure of the judicial system’s exclusion of the cases which are about the prevention of atrocities.
The case of tsundur is an example of the failure of the police system which is meant to be a safeguarding system, which they failed to and also the lapse in the justice delivery is very much evident in this particular case. Initially the justice was delivered late, which was later challenged in the state High Court, where the state High Court convicted all the accused in the case. This case is further carried by the Supreme Court of India, from 2014, the proceedings of the case are suspended and the case is pending in Supreme Court of India
Case Study
Executive Summary
This case study tries to interpret the events and the arguments that are associated with the TSUNDUR MASSACRE, which happened on 6th august 1991. This event is a reported event of the exclusion of the dalits in terms of protection by the police and also by justice by the judicial system, considering the fact that the High Court of Andhra Pradesh acquitted all the accused, and the reason is failing to prove the incidents. The reasons mentioned by the High Court are that the reporting time by the people who escape from the massacre is two days away from the date of event, which implies that the court seeks immediate reporting while killings are taking place. In the year 2014 the case went to the hearing of the Supreme Court of India, which is still pending for judgment in the Supreme Court. But, the Supreme Court of India has held all the judgments and it also ruled in a similar manner citing the technical grounds associated with inconsistency of deposition of witnesses and delay in filing the case.
Context
Tsundur massacre is a case of caste hierarchy and the resultant violence associated with the caste. The incident happened in the year of 1991, where 8 members of the dalits were killed allegedly by the upper caste members. All the dead bodies were thrown into the water bodies that are near to the tsundur village, and rest of the injured people of the same community fled to the nearest village of tenali for seeking of protection and medical help. This whole massacre is associated with the two major castes of the tsundur which are Reddy and Telaga. The survivors of the massacre had flown to the nearest village, and were admitted to the hospital. After the massacre, with the help of some major dalit organizations in the state, the survivors started a legal battle. A special court has been set up in place of the incident which has given the judgment of life imprisonment to 21 accused and 1 year rigorous imprisonment to 35 accused. This judgment is challenged in the High court of Andhra Pradesh, where it has acquitted all the accused of the incident.
Background
Tsundur
According to the judgment of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh, the relation between the Reddies and Dalits is not cognizable[6]. There are several reasons for the same and the most mentioned reason is that the Dalit youth being educated starting from 1990, couldn’t take the dominance from the upper class, and at the same time, Reddy and Telaga community people want to continue the dominance. In relation to this there are several cases and counter cases laid on both the community people prior to the massacre. These cases range from bullying, harassment to stabbing, kidnapping and other crimes, which has happened a few years before. During that tenure, all the people who were involved in the events received a warning from the local police.
These events are one side of the argument stating as the reasons of the event, on the other side, the population of the Reddys, and Telags (considered as the higher caste) in the village is almost equivalent to the population of malas, but there are several events of untouchability, denial of the entry to temples and water resources has happened in the village, due to better education and occupational opportunities to the youth of mala community, the power dynamics has taken a great changed which has resulted in lowering the prominence of the upper class people in the village affairs. For which the upper class people felt that they should regain the power over the lower class, and they were waiting for a spark that ignited the quarrel or the disturbance between both the communities. During the event there were cited events where the mala youths were involved in misbehavior with the women of other communities. These events have led to the start of the violence in the village.There are some reported events of the misbehaviours by the Mala Youth, and equally by the Reddy Youth, where both of the parties has received warning from the police[7]. There are reported tensions arose between both the parties, where the police tried to keep extra force, but couldn’t because of the ongoing bundh on the same day.
Case
The event of the massacre started with the filing of cases and counter cases that are associated with Malas and Reddies. In the morning, police entered the harijanawada to arrest the people who are associated with the case filed about detaining a boy from Telaga community, where the police initially went to arrest the people from Reddy community where they failed to arrest anyone who are associated to the case of stabbing Yacob on 5th of August[8], after knowing that police raided Harijanwada, all the people of harijanwada fled in fear of police and they entered two major routes, one is the railway track and another one is the modduthur road. According to the sources present at that place, after entering the Modduturu road the Malas were chased by 50-60 people from upper caste, particularly from Reddy and Telaga community, some of the doesn’t belong to the village also, which possibly gives the idea that there are people from other villages too. Eventually all the people started chasing them, killing a few and leaving some injured. Along the Moduturu road, there is a river channel of Tungabhadra, where some of the dead bodies are found after 48 hours of the incident.
The search team started after the RDO of Tenali received a complaint from an unknown person in the evening of 6th, where the SI of Tsundur reported that there were no such complaints, after 2 days of treatment the survivors reached and started the protests. In the search for dead bodies, 3 of the dead bodies were found in pieces packed in a gunny bag, which were found in the Tungabhadra river channel. So, the key sections that are mentioned in the case are, murder, threatening and causing intentional injury by deadly weapons and act of trying to disturb the evidence. Based on the FIR there were 121 accused, and the protests took place, with the help of the Dalit Mahasabha Leaders.
Countering these protests the upper caste people of the surrounding villages had staged protests, chanting “Long live, unity of Upper class” and also they chanted and challenged to kill Katthi Padmarao, who was then the face and key person for the agitation and supported the people all along the case. Police haven’t responded to any kind of the chantings that are made by the upper class people, in which some of them are a direct threat to the people who are trying to stand with the people of Tsundur.
While the people are performing peaceful strikes, claiming that there is a suspected Naxalite in the group of the protesters, the police have opened fire on the people and killed a person. The deceased person was Anil kumar, who was a direct witness, educated and a person with some political consciousness. Claimed as one of the strongest witnesses in the case, eventually died in the hands of the police in their open fire.
This strengthens the claim of biases in the investigation. This is one such example which claims the fact that the safeguarding system of the society, which is police, haven’t stood on the side of justice and became the follower of the caste hierarchy. After such events the unity among the dalits was increased and with that the dalits had won their will of setting up a special court at the place of incident and also making the people who had the fair track of addressing the atrocities case, were appointed as the Public Prosecutors.
On 1st of December 2004 the trail of the case has started, out of the 219 accused that were filed in the FIR, 33 has already died in the pendency, on 18th of July, 2007 the trail of the case has closed and the judgment of the special court is given on the 31st of July 2007. After the judgment the accused filed 8 appeals in 2007, then in 2008 the state filed for the enhancement of the punishment and the accused filed an appeal in 2011. After all these the High Court gave its judgment on 22, April 2014, which pronounced the acquittal of all the accused who were given punishment by the lower court which is the special court.
Judgment
In the judgment the High Court has felt that there are discrepancies from the witness, which can’t prove the accused as the people who are rarely involved and has struck down the judgment of the trial court and has acquitted all the accused. With this the state has moved to file an appeal in the Supreme Court of India, on the judgment of the High Court of Andhra Pradesh, where the Supreme Court of India has stayed all the further proceedings of this particular case, and this is even extended to the stay of the appeals. This case’s first hearing happened on 30th of july 2014. From then the judgment of the case is pending in the Supreme Court of India.
The High court of Andhra Pradesh has mentioned in the judgment that because of the rising tensions over decades between the people, Police have failed to identify or predict the situation. Along with that, the Court has also mentioned that the Dalits were late in reporting the incident which happened after two days of the incident. High court mentioned that the incident directly or indirectly has ruined the peace and prosperity of many families in the village, which has to be settled by the elders of the village in a way to stop such incidents happening in future.
Unanswered Questions of the Case
Being the pending judgment of the case in the Supreme Court of India, how should the case be considered as?
In a way, whether the state has to feel that the justice is served by the trial court judgment or should they feel that the injustice happened in both the trial court and the High Court, where the trial court has released 123 accused mentioned in the FIR and punished the rest and the High court has acquitted all the accused.
Who stands incompetent here, the trial court, for the reason being that the judgment was overruled by the high court, or the High court, which failed to answer the deaths of 8 people of Tsundue on 6th August 1991.
Also there was a mention by the High Court which claims that there is a delay in the reporting, which signs that the delay in the report might not also give justice to the people. If the same applies to the aspect of justice, delay in justice also shouldn’t be considered appropriate. These are some of the questions that were left unanswered in this case, along with many other questions that all the people involved in the case.
Key Conclusions
The aspects of Justice delivery in this case are delayed and also justice is not given to the people who lost their lives with reasons that show that there is lack of evidence, and claims that the prosecution failed to prove the presence of the accused. There are many incidents where the trial court judgment is overwritten and was acquitted by the higher courts in similar cases. One such case is Miyapur massacre (16th July 2000) where the special court has given life imprisonment to 10 people who are involved in killing 32 members of the village, which happened in 2000. But, in the judgment of the High Court 9 out of 10 accused got acquitted. This event portrays the exclusion of the people from the delivery of justice.
Similarly the role of police in the event of Tsundur is highly controversial, where the police haven’t done anything when many people stood out of the police station with deadly weapons. Also police have allegedly flown all the villagers towards the place, where the people are ready to attack on the Dalits. In such situations the exclusion of people from safeguarding can be concluded.
Caste stands as the major reason for the exclusion that is happening to the people in the country, as earlier mentioned that any event happened whether it is good or bad can be backed by a single name which is caste. This is how the exclusion of people of various aspected in terms of caste happens in the country.
Conclusion
This case is written in a way to let everyone interpret on the aspect of how important the justice and protection systems are, and the failure of which brings such situations that puts a question mark to existence. This particular case can show the functioning of the police system and the judicial system and it can also highlight that major loop in the judicial system which is judgements being challenged in the higher levels, the whole justice to the people or the judgment of the case can be struck down when the case is moved to higher courts. In this case the kind of striking down of the judgment questions the justice for the Dalits who were killed in Tsundur by people who are punished by the trial court and others who were also taken part but weren’t proven present. The highlighted thing or the most bothered thing is that, dead bodies were found, cases were filed, and the witnesses were present, still the judicial system claims that there is a discrepancy and has acquitted all the accused in the case. Are the dead bodies standing as nothing in the eyes of all the justice and protection systems? Is it implying that justice too has a caste bias? Who was responsible for the deaths?
Towards the end, this is a single case study of Tsunduru. If we have to write such cases everyday, counting one case per day to write, it takes 142 calendar years just to write about the atrocities that happened in 2023.
References
Brutal Killings of Harijans in Tsundur Village of Guntur District. (91, 08 09). Parliament of India. Retrieved October 19, 2022, from https://parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/lsdeb/ls10/ses1/0409089101.htm
Dabas, M. (2016, July 25). 11 Major Incidents Of Violence Against Dalits Which Show How Badly We Treat Them. Indiatimes.com. Retrieved October 19, 2022, from https://www.indiatimes.com/news/india/11-major-incidents-of-violence-against-dalits-which-show-how-badly-we-treat-them-258944.html
High Court of Andhra Pradesh. (2014). AP HIGH COURT JUDGMENT IN CHUNDUR MASSACRE CASE. Academia.edu. Retrieved October 19, 2022, from https://www.academia.edu/6942742/AP_HIGH_COURT_JUDGMENT_IN_CHUNDUR_MASSACRE_CASE
Nellutla, V. r. (2014, May 26). Killing the dead all over again – 26 May 2014. India Together. Retrieved October 19, 2022, from https://indiatogether.org/court-verdict-on-tsundur-massacre-human-rights
News click. (2022, August 31). NCRB Report Shows Rise in Atrocities Towards Dalits and Adivasis. NewsClick. Retrieved October 19, 2022, from https://www.newsclick.in/NCRB-Report-Shows-Rise-Atrocities-Towards-Dalits-Adivasis
Pingle, G. (1999). Breakdown of Law and Order in Tsundur, Guntur. Academia.edu. Retrieved October 19, 2022, from https://www.academia.edu/62667290/TSUNDUR
Saha, D. (2020, August 6). 29 Years to Tsunduru Dalit Massacre: Justice Yet to be Served. Gauri Lankesh News. Retrieved October 19, 2022, from https://gaurilankeshnews.com/29-years-to-tsunduru-dalit-massacre-justice-yet-to-be-served/
Samuel, P. (2013, August 7). Tsunduru Dalit massacre: a blood-soaked chapter in modern history. The Hindu. https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/andhra-pradesh/tsunduru-dalit-massacre-a-bloodsoaked-chapter-in-modern-history/article4996786.ece
Sena, R. (n.d.). Caste-related violence in India. Wikipedia. Retrieved October 19, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste-related_violence_in_India
Untitled. (2014, September 26). Human Rights Forum |. Retrieved October 19, 2022, from http://humanrightsforum.org/beta/wp-content/uploads/2013/Books/4.%20TSUNDURU%20AN%20ATROCITY%20AND%20ITS%20AFTERMATH.pdf
[1] (Dabas, 2016)
[2] (Sena, n.d.)
[3] (News click, 2022)
[4] (Untitled, 2014) human rights forum
[5] (News click, 2022)
[6] (High Court of Andhra Pradesh, 2014)
[7] (Pingle, 1999)
[8] (Pingle, 1999)
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