As men arrange themselves comfortably on a charpoy, Munnish Devi, 50, finds herself a spot on the mud floor of her three-room house at Bhureka village in Uttar Pradesh’s Mathura district. Devi, whose husband passed away a few years ago, has four daughters. One of them is Kalpana, 20, who married Akash, 21, in May this year. The only memory Devi has from the wedding is a blood-stained pair of white pyjamas, which she has kept in a stainless steel trunk. It’s a reminder of the day a celebration turned violent.
Akash, a member of the Dalit community, was dragged off the chariot he was riding joyously to his bride’s house. Many wedding guests were allegedly assaulted by a group of men from the Jat community because members of the Dalit community had organised a wedding procession.
In Uttar Pradesh, numerous cases have been reported where Dalit families have faced violence from upper caste communities for organising wedding ceremonies in smaller towns and villages. As many as 15,368 cases of atrocities against Scheduled Castes and five against Scheduled Tribes were registered in the State in 2022, as per the National Crime Records Bureau data. There is no separate data on atrocities against Dalits during celebrations.
Every month though, there are incidents of Dalit wedding processions being attacked in the State. On June 21, Arti Kumari, 19, and Vikas Singh, 21, were getting married in Etah district’s Dhakpura village. When their baraat reached a Rajput-dominant settlement, they allegedly faced threats and stones were pelted. The wedding ultimately took place under police protection.
A ‘bidai’ under police watch
In Bhureka, where mud houses dot green fields, people primarily engage in farming. Despite being located just off the Yamuna Expressway — the 165-km, high-speed road that connects Noida with Agra — people in the village have a slow life.
Inside Devi’s barely constructed house, open from all sides, men discuss the heatwave. Kalpana’s cousin, Anil Kumar, 25, shows videos of the wedding day. He explains how, on May 22, a group of people allegedly from the Jat community in the neighbouring village disrupted the wedding procession. They were upset with the DJ playing music and Akash riding a chariot, he says. “They hurled casteist abuses and attacked our baraatis (members of the bridegroom’s procession). It was shameful. We were all so excited about the wedding. Akash’s family had come from Aligarh. When the men started threatening our baraatis, we called the police,” Anil says.
After the police arrived at the marriage hall, barely a few kilometres away, the couple completed their pheras (seven rounds around the fire) at midnight.
The next day at 8 a.m., Anil says, the same group, and 20-25 others, returned to the house, holding weapons. They tore the baraatis’ clothes, hit them, and damaged the tent and everything in the vicinity. They hurled casteist abuses and insulted the women and children, he says.
“We couldn’t sit there and see our guests being insulted, so we retaliated, and many of us, including the elderly, got hurt. Look at our stained pyjamas,” he says, pointing to a video of the incident. “These were brand new, and now, this is the only memory we hold.” Anil looks away as other family members show their wounds.
An FIR has been registered at the Naujheel police station against 20-25 people for rioting, house trespassing, and criminal intimidation under sections of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
Circle Officer (Mant) Gunjan Singh says six persons from the village have been arrested in connection with the incident. “The allegation that the baraat was stopped is false. Our investigation did not reveal it. The argument took place only because the DJ played loud music at night,” he says, adding that only three persons asked for the volume to be turned down.
During the ‘bidai (giving away of the bride)’, Kalpana’s family was at the police station, waiting to give their statements. “The last thing I could have given my daughter was a peaceful goodbye; even that wasn’t allowed,” Devi adds.
Kalpana studied till Class 8; Akash works as a carpenter. The family felt that their daughter would have a better life in a city. Many young women in the village marry in that hope. Not many have access to higher education. A marriage that will take women to a city is seen as a way out of both poverty and suppression.
Soon after the incident, which was reported across newspapers, Ram Khiladi, 60, a resident of Bhureka village, says his daughter’s ‘rishta (match)’ from Palwal in Rajasthan seems to have fallen through. “The family has stopped responding. They said they wouldn’t send their baraat to our village because they would get attacked. This is what the attack has done to our people,” he says.
While the ‘pradhan (village head)’ is usually the first to respond to local matters, villagers say it depends a lot on which community they are from and which community is at the receiving end. In Bhureka, the pradhan, Bhuvnesh Sharma, hails from the Brahmin community, and he did not offer any support, they say.
Sharma says he did. “I even met the family,” he says, though he does not give details of what they spoke about.
‘A form of resistance’
Sushil Gautam, a Dalit rights activist, who has been working on ground for more than 20 years, believes that even though times are changing, “issues still persist”. He talks about how the traditional system of marriage has evolved in the Dalit community over the past few years. “With access to social media and education, people from the Dalit community have understood what the term ‘resistance’ means. It is about creating a safe space for ourselves and accessing rights, be it marriage, education, or something as small as keeping a moustache,” he explains.
Gautam says even during wedding ceremonies, photographs of Dalit icons such as Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Ravidas, and Jyotibha Phule take centre stage. “In several instances, when a Dalit wears bright colours, like yellow or green, casteist slurs are hurled at them.” This behaviour was endorsed by the caste system for centuries to make the so-called lowest castes unseen and unheard, he says. “Now, people from the Dalit community dress up and the women wear the bridal red. Nobody can take that away from us,” he says.
Professor Ravikant, a Dalit scholar from Lucknow University who has been teaching Hindi since 2006, says, “Dalits have had to experience life from a jhoothan and utran (leftover and second-hand) standpoint.” He talks about how Buddhist weddings have become a tradition in many Dalit families, especially Jatav households (landless leather workers) owing to the influence of social media.
“No Brahmin priest wants to enter the house, and it helped us in understanding how people from our community can celebrate marriage. A wedding card now has a photo of Bahujan figures, not Hindu gods. We don’t have shlokas (verses) in Sanskrit,” he says, adding that people have replaced wedding gifts with texts and paintings of Bahujan figures or the Constitution.
Pushpendra Chahar has a brass band shop in the middle of the hustle and bustle of Akola, 20 km from Agra. Chahar has had a busy month, coordinating baraat preparations across western Uttar Pradesh. He has horses and chariots, with many preferring the more ornate way of getting to the bride’s house. Chahar’s father started the business 70 years ago. He has seen weddings change from simple single-horse affairs to Bollywood-scale celebrations.
Chahar has organised baraats for people from the Dalit community, but says there is always the fear of an attack. When the groom climbs atop a horse or a chariot, that becomes a talking point in smaller neighbourhoods, he says. “We try to avoid any such route that could lead to trouble. Who wants to have an argument on such an auspicious day?” People can identify a Dalit wedding because it often won’t have photos of Hindu gods like Ram, Krishna, Hanuman, or Shiva. “A sure-shot giveaway is a photo of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar or Gautam Buddha,” he says.
Embarrassed and embittered
In Rehadra village in Amroha district, Om Prakash Rampal, 36, a tailor, has been busy. He sits under a barely functional fan, with the temperature touching 45 degrees Celsius. Two portraits of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar hang on a blue wall in an otherwise unpainted home. Two of his daughters have just married. The family took a loan of ₹2 lakh and sold land to get another ₹4 lakh, he says.
Rampal is stressed; so is his wife Anita. Their daughters, Sonam, 22, and Sonika, 19, bought a laal joda (red lehenga-choli) from the market, along with make-up, bangles, and other accessories, in their excitement for their weddings. Sonam married Satish Kumar, 24, who works at a private company; Sonika married Amit Kumar, 20, who owns a shop.
On June 2, Sonam and Sonika’s wedding processions came to the village. Around 5.30 p.m., 15-20 people from the Yadav community allegedly entered the procession and stopped people from dancing. Loud music was playing, and the Yadavs told the baraatis they needed them to clear the road. When they refused, the Yadavs hurled casteist abuses and starting attacking people with sticks, rods, knives, and sharp-edged weapons, Rampal says.
Kalpana’s uncle, who was injured in the alleged attack in Mathura’s Bhureka village.
| Photo Credit:
SHASHI SHEKHAR KASHYAP
When he talks, the women, with their heads covered, surround him, fanning him with a handmade fan. Most of them sit on the muddy floor, the men on the charpoy.
Police say they had to resort to mild force to disperse the crowd and restore order. In view of the heightened tensions, a police force has been deployed to maintain law and order in the village. Sonam’s wedding took place under police presence. The family didn’t get enough time for the bidai. “The baraatis refused to eat food; they were embarrassed. We too were,” Anita says.
Circle Officer (Gajraula) Shwetabh Bhaskar says, “Since the victims sustained injuries that were not serious, the three accused were arrested and let off after paying the surety.”
A call for help
Ravikant says despite several such incidents, there is lack of support from the government and the Opposition. “The national commissions (for minorities, SCs, STs) rarely take a stand when such incidents happen. They don’t even take cognisance of the matter. Even BSP (Bahujan Samaj Party) leaders hardly react. SP (Samajwadi Party) leaders post on X, and Aazad Samaj Party leaders reach when the incident hits national headlines. The community needs much more than a social media post,” he says. The three parties have traditionally supported the Dalit cause.
Rashmi Verma is a member of the not-for-profit organisation, Dalit Dignity and Justice Centre, and a lawyer who has been taking on cases pertaining to violence against the Dalit community in the State. She says in most of the cases she has dealt with, people weren’t aware of the provisions under the SC/ST Act.
“People are not educated, so they rely on the police. When they go to a local police station, the police register an FIR, but may not book the case under the stringent SC/ST Act. Compensation is a key point that is usually missed,” she explains over a phone call.
While getting an FIR registered is a task, so is the long road to justice, Verma says, adding, “When the court cases start, the victims don’t know they have access to a government lawyer, and sometimes pay for private lawyers, who charge hefty amounts. Most victims come from rural communities, where they earn meagre amounts through farming and labour work, so they also have to give up a full day’s work.”
35 years later
On June 21-22, 1990, violence broke out in Agra’s Panwari village over a Dalit groom riding a horse. Men from the Jat community had allegedly attacked the baraat. A Dalit man was killed and many injured, leading to riots, houses being set on fire, and many Dalits fleeing the village.
In May this year, a special court sentenced 32 men to five years in jail. While 72 people were named as accused, 22 have died during the trial.
In Akola, primarily where the Jatav community resides, people recall the incident as “Panwari kaand (murder)”. Around 8.30 a.m. in the area, many have gathered on the street as a snake charmer reads palms.
Standing between two motorcycles that occupy the width of the kaccha road, Manoj (name changed to protect privacy), 46, recalls he was only 10 at the time of the incident.
Hesitantly, he says, “After that, many of my neighbours fled and settled in neighbouring districts. People were scared to live here.”
Manoj says there is peace within the Dalit and Jat neighbourhoods, but little interaction between them, with weddings largely confined to their own neighbourhoods. As he watches the snake charmer, he says, “We’re not allowed to enter their temples, so we created our own.”
samridhi.tewari@thehindu.co.in
Edited by Sunalini Mathew
