Chronicling the role and views of communists in the struggle for the annihilation of caste
Preethy Sekhar, Joint Secretary of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) writes: In a gruesome incident of hate crime, a Dalit youth has been murdered in Mumbai. On Saturday, 7 May 2022, a horrifying incident took place in Bhayander in the northern suburbs of Mumbai. Thirty year old sanitation worker Krishna Palaram Tusamad […]
CPI(M) leader Sanoop U was hacked to death on Sunday night (4 October) reportedly by a gang of RSS, Bajrang Dal and BJP workers. Sanoop belonged to a Dalit community, and was the Joint Secretary of the Democratic Youth Federation of India’s (DYFI) Chovvanur Area Committee. Sanoop is the fourth left activist killed in Kerala by right-wing forces in the past seven weeks. The right forces are emboldened by their faith that the mainstream media would come to their aid as usual by playing down the murders of communists, as if communists are lesser human beings. Even sections who are otherwise vocal about atrocities against Dalits largely tend to ignore the murders of Dalits who are communists, as evidenced by reactions to the murder of DYFI activist Asok in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu in June 2019. [Read more]
25 December 2019 marks the 51st anniversary of the Keezhvenmani massacre, where 44 Dalit agricultural workers were killed by feudal landlords in Keezhvenmani village of Tamil Nadu. Anticaste.in republishes an article by Vijoo Krishnan, Joint Secretary of the All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS), who wrote the piece after visiting Keezhvenmani in 2017. [Read more]
An activist of the left-wing Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) was murdered by casteist fanatics on Wednesday night in Tirunelveli, Tamil Nadu. 23 year-old Ashok, the Tirunelveli district treasurer of the DYFI, was returning from work when he was hacked to death at Karaiyiruppu village near Thachanallur. DYFI activists say that the murder of Ashok is in response to the role that he played in the resistance against the abuse of Dalit workers and women by reactionary elements of the dominant community, as he mobilised youth to fight caste oppression and discrimination in his village. [Read more]
Thousands of people participated in the protest organised by the Dalit Shoshan Mukti Manch (DSMM) on 21 March 2018. [Read more]
Preethy Sekhar
Hundreds of young men and women in Mumbai joined the Mumbai Youth March organized by the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) on April 23 evening to protest against increasing atrocities on minorities and Dalits in the country. The fearless march of the youth shouting slogans against Gaurakshak criminals and their political masters resonated with the protest in the hearts of the downtrodden people. [Read more]
Editorial by People’s Democracy, October 2, 2016
September 29, 2016 marks the tenth anniversary of the Khairlanji atrocity. The brutal murder of Surekha Bhotmange along with her daughter, Priyanka, and her two sons, Sudhir and Roshan (visually challenged) in this small hamlet in Bhandara district of Maharashtra revealed many old and new facets of the violence that dalits are subjected to. [Read more]
Brinda Karat
Khairlanji, the name of a village in Bhandara district of Maharashtra, evokes the power, brutality and arrogance of India’s caste system and the impunity enjoyed by its most cruel practitioners. It was here, on this date 10 years ago, that Surekha Bhotmange, a Dalit woman farmer, was killed along with her two sons, Roshan and Sudhir, who was visually disabled, and her 17-year-old daughter, Priyanka. Each of them had been subjected to the most horrible violence by members of the dominant OBC caste in this area, who now employ the same upper-caste hegemonic practices and methods against Dalits that they had been victims of, and which they had once fought against. The state refused to admit that the murder of four members of a Dalit family in Maharashtra was a caste crime. Ten years later, the demand for a repeal of the legal protection for Dalits can be heard. [Read more]
Brinda Karat
Four years ago, Surekha Bhotmange, a dalit woman farmer living in the village of Khairlanji in Maharashtra was brutally killed along with her two sons, Roshan, the visually handicapped Sudhir and her 18-year-old daughter Priyanka. Her husband Bhaiyyalal Bhotmange escaped. The method of killing was brutal. Each was hunted down and beaten to death by a mob of men belonging to the dominant caste in the village. Recently, the Nagpur bench of the Mumbai High Court gave its judgment in the case. It held that caste had nothing to do with the killings. It agreed with the judgment of the sessions court on the non-applicability of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities Act) (POA). If Khairlanji was a shame and disgrace to our nation and our Constitution, the judgment adds another chapter to it. [Read more]
Barely had the nationwide shock and outrage against the brutal killings of four dalits in Khairlanji subsided, a systematic attempt is on to sabotage the case by intimidation of key witnesses. The active collusion of local administration, perpetrators of this heinous crime and political leadership continues unabated in an effort to prevent delivery of justice. The CPI(M) expressed its deep concern at these recent developments in the Khairlanji case and appealed to the central government to ensure speedy justice. Polit Bureau member and MP, Brinda Karat, met the union home minister Shivraj Patil along with key witness Sidharth Gajbhaye on January 16, 2007 in New Delhi and raised this issue. [Read more]