Chronicling the role and views of communists in the struggle for the annihilation of caste
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]
Ashok Dhawale
On September 29, 2006 took place the horrific massacre of a dalit family at Khairlanji in Bhandara district near Nagpur. It is indeed a shocking irony that such a heinous incident, which recalls dark memories of the Kilvenmani dalit massacre in Tamil Nadu nearly four decades ago, should occur in a state that has had a long and rich tradition of great social reformers like Mahatma Jotirao Phule, Chhatrapati Shahu and Dr Ambedkar – that too in a year that marks the half century of Dr Ambedkar’s conversion and demise. [Read more]
Kalindi Deshpande
This article by AIDWA Vice-President Kalindi Deshpande about the intervention of the CPI(M) following the Khairlanji massacre originally appeared in People’s Democracy, dated November 19, 2006. [Read more]
A CPI(M) delegation comprising Brinda Karat (Member, Polit Bureau and MP), Mahendra Mule (member, Maharashtra state committee), Kalindi Deshpande (vice president, AIDWA) and local CPI(M) activists visited the Khairlanji village in Bhandara district on November 9 and met the surviving members of the dalit family, four of whom had been brutally butchered. This is the statement issued by the delegation on November 10, 2006. [Read more]