Group Captain Cecil Chaudhry, SJ

My apologies again Mr Stuka, this is not intended for you !

IV. THE PATTERN OF ABUSE: RURAL VIOLENCE IN BIHAR AND THE STATE’S RESPONSE

The organized killing of poor peasants and landless labourers by middle and upper caste landed armies and [the ensuing] retaliation by Marxist-Leninist organizations [Naxalites] have been flashpoints in the agrarian scene in Bihar over the last fifteen years. This is not a new phenomenon. What is relatively new however is the entry on the rural scene... of a new upper caste landed organization called the Ranbir Sena. It has, over the last three years, been responsible for a series of massacres of the rural poor, such that the names of obscure villages have become known to a wider public through the national press...

In a region where tragic massacres repeat themselves with monotonous regularity, the state’s response is predictable and misdirected—setting up more police camps and increasing the financial allocation for anti-Naxalite operations... The issues remain the same; the landlord army is different each time. We are condemned to reiterate the same demands each time and like some ritual drama whose script is familiar to all, the same events are re-enacted each time, drawing the same reactions from the state... One has to remember that the dreadful reality of bloody massacres are the outcome of [the state’s] refusal to address basic questions of agrarian struggle.

— People’s Union for Democratic Rights, Agrarian Conflict in Bihar and the Ranbir Sena, October 199761

The eastern state of Bihar, with a population of eighty-six million people, is notorious for its poverty and lawlessness and for an ongoing conflict between Naxalites and private upper-caste militias set against the backdrop of acute social disparities. Since independence, Bihar has consistently ranked among the worst of India’s larger states in urbanization, production, and income; it has the highest number of very large landholders and one of the largest landless populationsamong all Indian states.62 Agrarian issues have long dominated the state’s political life as the feudal nature of landholding has remained largely unchanged despite legislation establishing ceiling

s on the maximum amount of land one individual can own. Political leaders who depend on landed elites for support have had little interest in pursuing reforms. Wages for agricultural laborers are also among the lowest in the country. In many districts workers are not paid in money but instead often work a full day for as little as two kilograms of rice.

Since the 1960s, social activists advocating on behalf of low-caste groups have attempted, through various forms of peaceful protest, to pressure the government to institute land reforms; at the same time, Naxalite groups have advocated armed resistance and have carried out targeted assassinations of landlords. In turn, higher-caste landholders have retaliated by forming private militias, known as senas (armies), to fight the Naxalites and terrorize and kill low-caste villagers whom they believe to have provided support to the Naxalites, or who have organized to demand better wages and other reforms. Hundreds of Dalits have been killed in sena attacks since the early 1990s. The attacks frequently take place at night; in many cases, the victims, including women and children, have been shot in their beds while they were sleeping. Members of the senas have also raped women and girls during the attacks. They have often claimed responsibility for the attacks and have even announced beforehand which villages they planned to target. However, because the senas enjoy the patronage of powerful elites, they operate with impunity.

Rather than addressing the security needs of landless laborers most affected by the violence or provide protection to villagers at risk, a series of inefficient and corrupt state governments since the early 1970s has only exacerbated the problem. In many instances, government officials—many of whom are alleged to have caste ties or other affiliations with the senas—have acted as agents of the private armies and have turned a blind eye to the killings. State security forces have helped train the senas, and in some cases, police have accompanied the militias during their attacks on Dalit villages. Police have also conducted their own raids on Dalit villages in the aftermath of massacres carried out by upper-caste militias. The ostensible reason for police raids has been to capture suspected Naxalites, but the raids are frequently used to punish villagers suspected of sympathizing with the militant groups. Like the attacks by private militias, police raids have been characterized by violence, looting, and assaults on women. The state’s response to militant activity by Naxalite groups and by the senas is conspicuously uneven. Sena members have rarely been prosecuted for acts of violence. Police routinely detain and charge suspected Naxalite militants, however, and many are killed in so-called encounters with the police.63

This chapter traces the conflict in Bihar since the birth of the Ranvir Sena, an upper-caste militia formed in 1994. Human Rights Watch investigated three massacres carried out by the Ranvir Sena and two raids conducted by the police in 1997 and 1998; documentation of those incidents, and additional information on other incidents, is provided below. The chapter also describes a pattern of state collusion and police complicity in sena attacks.

The Context of the Conflict

Scheduled castes constitute close to 14 percent of the population in Bihar; most of the agricultural laborers belong to these castes. The four main upper castes in the region are the Brahmins, the Bhumihars, the Rajputs, and the Kayasthas. There are more than one hundred backward castes, the dominant of which are the Yadavs and the Kurmis. In 1996 and 1997 the state government was led by Laloo Prasad Yadav, president of the Rashtriya Janata Dal party and member of the Yadav backward caste; although his administration was dominated by upper castes. Laloo Prasad Yadav resigned in 1998; he was replaced as chief minister by his wife Rabri Devi.

The implementation of reservations in favor of the backward castes has improved their status throughout the state; the same has not held true of scheduled castes whose status continues to deteriorate. Central Bihar in particular has seen a consistent rise in abuses against scheduled castes since the early 1990s at the hands of upper castes and backward castes who employ them as laborers on their lands. Rapes and murders of Dalit women in particular have reportedly increased during this period.64 As one long-time observer of violence in the state has noted, “Disparities in socioeconomic hierarchy run alongside the caste hierarchythroughout Bihar although the degree of relationship may differ in some districts... Scheduled Castes invariably fall in the lowest category both socially and economically.”65 A 1995 analysis of available statistics by The Pioneer, a Delhi-based daily, concluded:

[T]he distribution pattern of land and other resources is based on caste hierarchy. One-third of the upper castes have land worth more than Rs. 55,000 [US$1,375] whereas two-thirds of the scheduled caste households are landless and approximately one-fifth hold land with a total value of less than Rs. 5,000 [US$125].66

There is little organized official effort to bridge the class gap. Administrations that have governed the state since independence have not even succeeded in completing any land surveys.67 In the districts of central Bihar, money-lending, bonded labor, sexual assaults on rural women, and abuse of the landless class by landowners have all contributed to violent clashes between various castes.68 Successive Bihari governments have failed to implement land reforms and guaranties of minimum wages for agricultural laborers; as a result, disparities in wealth between landless Dalit laborers and their landed upper-caste and middle-caste counterparts have increased.69 The disparity and increasing economic exploitation have given rise to numerous militant leftist groups who have increased their membership, their political clout, and their weaponry since the 1970s. The central Bhojpur district of Bihar has long been a stronghold of these so-called Naxalite groups that operate under various political banners. The increase in Naxalite activities has also ushered in a rise in the number of private upper-caste militias, including the Ranvir Sena, that have been responsible for killing hundreds of Dalit laborers between 1995 and 1998. In these areas of Bihar, a class struggle has escalated into an armed caste conflict.

The “Naxalites”

Following the Naxalbari uprising in West Bengal in 1968 (see Chapter III), various Marxist-Leninist factions began calling for a militant peasant struggle against upper-caste domination in Bihar. An armed struggle in the countryside against semi-feudal interests, combined with area-wide seizures of land, were the groups’ primary tactics. Throughout their history, Naxalite groups have engaged in attacks on civilians and abuses that directly violate international humanitarian law. Critical of the parliamentary tendencies of the Indian Communist movement, especially the Communist Party of India and Communist Party of India (Marxist), the Naxalites actively recruited Dalit and lower-caste peasants into their militant struggle. By 1998, Naxalite groups were operational in thirty-six out of fifty-four districts in Bihar.

The Naxalite groups are dominated by the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC), the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Party Unity, and the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (CPI(M-L)) Liberation.70 In 1977 CPI (M-L) Liberation moved away from an emphasis on “annihilation of individual class enemies” to an attempt at organizing mass peasant movements through Kisan Sabha (peasants’ organizations). In 1982 the group decided to enter parliamentary politics under the banner of the Indian People’s Front (IPF). Though IPF won one parliamentary seat in 1989, and sent seven members in 1989 and six members in 1995 to the Bihar state assembly, its overall electoral success has since declined.71

While CPI(M-L) Liberation has pursued a parliamentary path, Party Unity and the Maoist Communist Centre have spearheaded a militant grassroots movement, that, in turn, has been targeted by Ranvir Sena attacks. Both the MCC and Party Unity are banned underground movements.72 The MCC was responsible for the killing of at least fifty-four upper-caste Rajput community members in Dalelchak Baghaura in May 1987. The incident was the worst massacre in the state until the Ranvir Sena killing of sixty-one Dalits in Laxmanpur-Bathe on December 1, 1997.73 MCC was also responsible for slitting the throats of forty-four upper-caste farmers in Bara village on February 12, 1992. Thirty-six died on the spot, and one died in the hospital. The killings were reportedly in retaliation for themurders of ten MCC supporters by the Savarna Liberation Front, an upper-caste Bhumihar militia, two months earlier.74 MCC has also targeted police officers, who find themselves ill-equipped to respond.75 According to press reports, 295 people were killed in Naxalite violence in 1995, 436 in 1996, and 424 in 1997. Not all clashes involve police: many of these deaths were attributed to interfactional fighting between Party Unity and MCC.76

On August 11, 1998, CPI(M-L) Party Unity merged with CPI (M-L) People’s War, popularly known as the People’s War Group (PWG). The merger was the culmination of five years of negotiations between the two underground movements. The unified party retained the name CPI(M-L) People’s War. Ever since its founding in 1980, PWG has attempted to unify all Marxist-Leninist groups under its umbrella. Strongest in the southern and central states, its merger with Party Unity gave it a foothold in the north. Like MCC and Party Unity, PWG has advocated the use of violence against the upper castes in organizing Dalits to achieve land reform.77 Firearms used by Naxalites are often looted or bought from corrupt police.78 As is typical of guerrilla organizations, Naxalites recruit membersfrom villages where they operate and draw on the support of the local population. It does not follow, however, that all villagers in a Naxalite stronghold are members of the organization, though they may have relatives or neighbors who do belong.

Caste Militias

Starting in the late 1960s, various upper-caste senas began to emerge in Bihar with the reported aim of containing Naxalite groups and protecting land belonging to upper castes. A look at their history reveals their political patronage. In 1969 the upper-caste Rajputs formed a militia named the Kuer Sena.79 In 1979 the Kunwar Sena of Rajputs was formed; it disintegrated in 1986. The Sunlight Sena, also dominated by Rajputs, came into being in 1988. One of its founders was a former governor of the state of Tamil Nadu. The Brahmarshi Sena, which represented Bhumihars before the creation of the Ranvir Sena, was launched at a conference in Patna, Bihar’s capital, in 1981. The Samajwadi Krantikari Sena, formed of Rajputs, was founded by a member of the state legislative assembly. The Bhumihar-dominated Savarna Liberation Front came into existence in 1990. Also known as the Diamond Sena, the militia was responsible for many massacres. On September 27, 1991, the sena beheaded seven Dalit and tribal laborers in Sawanbigha village in Jehanabad district. Soon thereafter, strongmen hired by landlords of Teendiha village in Gaya district beheaded nine laborers for their refusal to work as farm-hands for paltry wages.80

Like the upper castes, backward-caste landlords have cultivated private militias for protection. The Bhoomi Sena was formed by backward-caste Kurmis. Its founder was a former state minister and Janata Dal (People’s Party) leader. The Lorik Sena was formed by the Yadav landlords of Jehanabad district,81 while the Kisan Sangh is a militia of middle-caste landlords.82

Ranvir Sena

The Ranvir Sena was founded by upper-caste Bhumihars in Belaur village, Bhojpur district, in 1994.83 It first made international headlines in July 1996 with its attack on Bathani Tola in Bhojpur district, Bihar, which left nineteen Dalits and Muslims, mostly women and children, dead. Sixty members of the sena reportedly descended on the village and set twelve houses on fire. Using lathis,84 swords, and firearms, the attackers continued the onslaught for two and a half hours. The attack was reportedly in retaliation for the earlier killing of nine Bhumihars in Nadhi village, also in Bhojpur district, by the CPI(M-L).85 The conflict began when CPI(M-L) began organizing the agricultural laborers to demand the statutory daily minimum wage of Rs. 30.75 (US$0.77). Landowners were only willing to pay Rs. 20 (US$0.50). CPI(M-L) members convinced laborers to refuse employment at that wage and called for an economic blockade against landowners. The attack on Bathani Tola, press reports claim, was an effort to weaken the resolve of CPI(M-L) cadres organizing in the village and to prevent a labor boycott on hundreds of acres of land.86 None of the Ranvir Sena leaders were ever arrested for the Bathani Tola massacre.87

Since its inception, the Ranvir Sena has been implicated in killings, rapes and lootings in the villages of Belaur, Ekwari, Chandi, Nanaur, Narhi, Sarathau, Haibaspur, Laxmanpur-Bathe, Shankarbigha, and Narayanpur. On April 22, 1996, the sena gunned down five members of a marriage party in Nanaur village. The victims were believed to be CPI(M-L) supporters.88 In 1997 the sena killed three Dalits in Jehanabad district for raising their voice against the rape of a Dalit girl by upper-caste youths.89

Human Rights Watch spoke to members of the Ranvir Sena about the organization’s structure and ideology. Landowner Madan Singh of Ekwari village in Bhojpur district explained that sena membership was divided by districts and that all districts had a commander and at least 500 landowners “ready to take uparms.” He confirmed that although Patna was the center, the sena was also present in Jehanabad, Aurangabad, Bhojpur, Rotas, Gaya, Bahuwan, and Baxar districts. As of 1998 sena members had also established a presence in Bhagalpur and Muzafarrpur.90 Bhojpur, Patna and Jehanabad, also Naxalite-affected areas, have been centers of violence in the last several years.91 According to Singh:

Since 1970 there have been problems. It has been difficult for farmers. We cannot even get out of our house. They steal our crops and call strikes. We are farmers. That’s how we earn. They destroy that. It’s like kicking us in the stomach. We have to save ourselves and our crops. We need protection from Marxist/Leninists. After we got together, we began to give them an appropriate response, a jaw-breaking response. For all of Bhojpur district, we chose our men and from that year on, we have been battling with CPI(M-L). Those who have land are with us, and those who do not are with them.92

Upper- and lower-caste villagers in Ekwari claimed that Singh was on the CPI(M-L) hit-list. Another member of the sena, Arvind Singh, claimed that the CPI(M-L) had resolved to kill one rich landlord in each village: “They kill us and take our crops. To protect ourselves we started the Ranvir Sena.”93 According to members of Bihar Dalit Vikas Samiti (Bihar Dalit Development Organization, BDVS), a grassroots group active in the region for over ten years, the Ranvir Sena even has a program of life insurance: “Their families get paid Rs. 100,000 (US$2,500) if they get killed in a massacre, in the line of duty.”94 Reportedly, the Ranvir Sena has sophisticated arms, including semi-automatics bought with money raised through donation drives.95

Confrontations over Land

Dissatisfied with the pace of reforms, or the lack thereof, the underground armed movement of CPI(M-L) first launched a “land grab” movement in the early 1970s. Under the protection of CPI(M-L), sharecroppers began harvesting crops on upper-caste land in Bihar’s central districts as Naxalite cadres burned grain storages and imposed economic blockades on hundreds of acres of land that landlords were forcibly kept from cultivating. Blockades were often accompanied by labor strikes. The Ranvir Sena, and other senas before it, emerged to curb the movement and to quash its economic blockade.96

Wages in these areas have ranged from two kilograms of rice to Rs. 25 a day (US$0.63). Women have consistently been paid less. The Minimum Wages Act, legislated as early as 1948, and revised many times thereafter, now prescribes a daily wage of Rs. 32 (US$0.80), but Dalit demands for minimum wages have resulted in a violent backlash from landlords and their caste-based armies. According to government figures for 1995 and 1996, 84.9 percent of landowners in the state are marginal farmers owning less than five hectares each.97 With landholding ranging between five and twenty bighas (3.1 to 12.4 acres),98 even the slightest increase in wages paid to laborers would eat into the farmers’ minimal profits.99

A representative from the People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR), a well-respected national human rights organization that has previously documented abuses by security forces, was a member of a fact-finding team that visited Bihar to investigate police raids on Dalit villages in the aftermath of massacres in 1997. He explained the relevance of land to the conflict:

There are many fallow lands in these districts: at least thirty to forty acres in each village. With the Ranvir Sena in place, the land comes under the cultivation of landowners. Other villages have [Dalit] cooperatives, villages where the CPI(M-L) is stronger. The money from the cooperatives goes to lawyers who are fighting cases filed by the police against them [Dalits]. Their major aim is revolution... Even marginal upper-caste farmers employ Dalits to push the wages down. The agricultural laborers are largely Dalits, so the upper castes are united in this way... Dalits don’t live in the same settlements. The Mushahars, who are the lowest of the Dalits in these areas, are always segregated. They are also the poorest and the strength of these movements. They are the ones targeted in police raids and massacres when they are unorganized and unprotected by CPI(M-L). Their belongings are small, so it is easy to destroy their livelihood and take them to a stage of destitution.100

Between April 1995 and July 11, 1996, the date of the Bathani Tola massacre, forty-six people were killed on both sides in battles between the Ranvir Sena and CPI(M-L) in Bhojpur district.101 According to press reports, over 400 people, many of them civilians, were killed in conflict between the two organizations in 1997.102 Although the number of fatalities on both sides is high, the state’s treatment of the two camps differs significantly, as described below.

The raping of women is a common tactic employed by members of the Ranvir Sena and other caste militias to spread terror in lower-caste communities.103 In 1992 over one hundred Dalit women in the Gaya district of Bihar were reportedly raped by the Savarna Liberation Front.104 Pregnant women and children have also been killed. When members of the People’s Union for Democratic Rights asked the Ranvir Sena why they were killing children, they replied, “Because they will grow up to become Naxalites. We kill women because they will give birth to Naxalites.”105 The sena has also been known to loot many of the houses they raid.

Ranvir Sena Massacres and State Complicity

The extent of political patronage extended to the Ranvir Sena can be gauged by the fact that while a large number of Naxalites are killed in “encounters” [with police] not a single Ranvir Sena man has been subjected to this fate. The administration awakes a little later when it comes to tackl[ing] these armies. The outfit [Ranvir Sena] had declared a few days before the Jehanabad [Bathe] carnage that it would soon make a national and international headline.

— The Pioneer, December 12, 1997.106

In the districts of central Bihar, over 300 people were killed between 1995 and October 1997 in large-scale massacres committed by the Ranvir Sena.107 Three massacres since October 1997 have increased number of deaths to over 400. Human rights activists add that many have also been killed in smaller confrontations. Extrajudicial executions of Naxalites, coupled with evidence of police collusion with the Ranvir Sena, as documented below, have led to charges that the sena is being backed by the state administration and non-left political parties to check the growing Naxalite movement.108 Soon after a January 1999 sena massacre in Shankarbigha village, Jehanabad district, a senior police official was quoted as saying, “The administration would be happy if they kill the real extremists among the Naxalites, but they are killing soft targets like women and children and attacking villages of Dalits and weaker sections, which are unprotected.”109

Like other senas before it, the Ranvir Sena enjoys considerable political patronage. The sena is said to be dominated by politicians from various parties, including Congress, the Janata Dal, and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which in 1998 led India’s coalition central government.110 In turn, the BJP has enjoyed Bhumihar support in local elections, as described below.111 Notorious Ranvir Senaleader Bharmeshwar Singh is also a known BJP activist.112 While Bihar’s former Chief Minister Laloo Prasad Yadav, a member of a powerful backward caste, has accused the BJP of backing the sena, he himself has been blamed for only going after Naxalites, despite vows to disarm caste armies.113 Moreover, state agents at the village and district level are dominated by upper-caste members who often operate as “functionaries of mainstream political parties [and] are either active with or sympathize with the Ranbir Sena.”114

According to press reports, in districts across central Bihar, and particularly in Bhojpur district,

the police force has traditionally been dominated by Bhumihars and Rajputs. Since the implementation of the Mandal reservations,115 the OBCs too have been represented, but these are primarily Yadavs and Kurmis who also happen to be the new landowners in the districts. Caste as a factor in the police and administration is relevant in Bhojpur more than anywhere else in Bihar.116

The reported nexus between sena members and official paramilitary forces has also come under scrutiny:

According to the officials, the Sena goons received arms training from some former CRPF (Central Reserve Police Force) personnel.117 Bhojpur [district]… has a tradition of sending its young to the Army and paramilitary forces. While on leave, the paramilitary personnel equip the Sena goons with the latest tactics, keeping them constantly ahead of the Naxalites.118

The licensing of guns for sena members came under attack in a report by the People’s Union for Democratic Rights:

According to Home Ministry reports, the Ranbir Sena possesses 4,000 guns, both with and without licences. Until they actually fire their weapons, a group of Ranbir Sena members could be merely a group of landlords carrying legal arms. On the other hand, guns carried by labourers and poor peasants are likely to be unlicenced... The SSP [senior superintendent of police] gave an interesting explanation for not trying to withdraw licences from weapon-wielding members of the Ranbir Sena—that in the present state of agrarian conflict, the state could not protect all the bhumihars. Hence they had to be allowed to have guns for their own security and to safeguard their properties. When asked whether likewise the state was in a position to defend all dalits who did not possess weapons, he maintained a telling silence.119

Bihar is also notorious for instances of “booth-capturing” at election time; the practice of forcibly entering voting booths and stealing or rigging ballots.120 Political candidates ensure their majority vote with the help of senas, whose members kill if necessary. This phenomenon has been covered widely by the pressand by human rights groups.121 The Ranvir Sena was responsible for killing more than fifty people during Bihar’s 1995 state election campaign.122 A 1998 article noted the use of senas in Ara district, Bihar, during the February 1998 national parliamentary elections: “It is a measure of the chicanery and double-standards of most Ara politicians that when the opportunity arises, they do not hesitate in using the sena, though their public posture against the private army is holier than thou.”123

The impunity with which Ranvir Sena leaders carry out their attacks—at election time and other times—provides further evidence of government support. The police record speaks for itself. None of the Ranvir Sena leaders have been prosecuted for the murder of nineteen Dalits and Muslims in Bathani Tola in 1996 and the murder of eleven in Haibaspur in 1997. In Ekwari village in April 1997, police pried open the doors of lower-caste homes and watched as sena members killed eight residents. No sena member was prosecuted. The officers were subsequently suspended, then transferred, but they, too, escaped prosecution. A December 1997 massacre in Laxmanpur-Bathe left at least sixty-one Dalits dead. According to survivors in the village, the attackers identified by eyewitnesses were never arrested. Villagers also received threats of a future attack and felt unprotected despite the presence of a police camp in the village. In January and February 1999, the Ranvir Sena killed over thirty people within seventeen days in Shankarbigha and Narayanpur villages. Sena members had announced the attack in local papers two weeks ahead of time. The state did nothing to stop them. According to an article in The Statesman, a Delhi-based daily, sena members were aided by the police in entering Narayanpur village.124

State intervention often comes to a halt after the distribution of paltry compensation packages and the posting of police camps in massacre-affected villages. Human Rights Watch investigations, and the investigations of a nationalten-member civil rights team, found that in most villages police camps were located in the upper-caste areas, effectively inaccessible to Dalits and other lower-caste villagers.

Sena members who have been arrested have quickly been released on bail; none have been convicted.125 By contrast, some Naxalites who have been prosecuted have been awarded death sentences.126 Not only does the state treat the crimes of the two groups differently, but police and local officials openly tolerate the senas. On August 8, 1995, a little over two weeks after the killing of six Dalits in Sarathua village, the state government announced its decision to ban the Ranvir Sena.127 Sena members continued to hold meetings and conventions to openly outline their strategy and response to Naxalite attacks. Several leaders wanted by the police were present during one such meeting held on October 8, 1997, in Belaur village, Bhojpur district. The local administration was reportedly fully aware of the meeting and its participants but did nothing to disarm the group or arrest the wanted men.128 Six massacres, and police complicity in the attacks, are described in detail below.

Shankarbigha and Narayanpur

On the evening of January 25, 1999, at least twenty-two Dalit men, women and children were killed in the village of Shankarbigha, Jehanabad district, by members of the Ranvir Sena. The massacre was the fifth of its kind since July 1996 in which Dalit and lower-caste men, women and children were killed by the sena for their suspected allegiance to CPI(M-L) or MCC. According to pressreports, members of the Ranvir Sena entered eight thatched huts in the village during the night and fired indiscriminately on the occupants. Many of the victims, including several children, were shot in the head and stomach at point-blank range. Police suspected that the attacks were in retaliation for the killing of two sena activists the week before by MCC members. According to Jehanabad District Magistrate P. Amrit, the killers shouted Ranvir Sena slogans throughout the attacks. The village is only ten kilometers away from Laxmanpur-Bathe, the site of the December 1997 sena massacre.129 Ranvir Sena supporters told Times of India that the sena had planned to kill almost all the Dalits in the village, close to seventy people, but were unable to complete their task.

The police ignored early warnings that a massacre was likely. On January 8, 1999, a little over two weeks before the attack, Ranvir Sena leader Bharmeshwar Singh admitted in an interview to a local daily that the sena was planning an attack in Jehanabad district, “with renewed vigour [and] in a very calculat[ed] manner.”130 Singh also admitted that the sena had already chosen its target and was simply waiting for the “right time” to strike.131 According the CPI(M-L) General Secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, his group made a written submission to the local administration providing a list of villages deemed vulnerable to sena attacks. A list of “already-accused sena members” was also included.132

The National Human Rights Commission, a statutory body set up pursuant to the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, has asked the state government to investigate the massacre and prevent a recurrence of such incidents.133 Twenty-four people were arrested in late January 1999 in connection to the massacre, all of whom belong to the Bhumihar caste.134 Activists are pessimistic, however, that any will be prosecuted.135

A little over two weeks after the Shankarbigha massacre, on the night of February 10, 1999, the sena attacked neighboring Narayanpur village. Sena members killed twelve and injured seven. According to press reports, over onehundred heavily armed sena members descended on the village during the night and forced their way into homes, shooting at will. The attack, which began at 9:00 p.m., lasted for one hour. The police did not arrive until 8:00 a.m. the following morning.136 Bihar Governor Sunder Singh Bhandari stated that a “lack of vigil and alertness [had] led to a repeat of yet another strike by the Ranvir Sena.”137

In a press release issued soon after the incident, the Ranvir Sena claimed responsibility for both massacres. Shamsher Bahadur Singh, leader and spokesman for the sena, stated that sena members were forced to “take up arms to save the honour, dignity, and life and property of the innocent farmers.” The killings were meant as retaliation for the deaths of farmers at the hands of Naxalites over the past thirty years. The press release added:

Our fight will continue till the extremists as well as the government lift the illegal economic blockade and release confiscated land, other properties, arms and ammunition, etc. of innocent farmers... Our main targets of future attacks will be Khakaria village in Jehanabad district, Akbarpur village under the Paliganj police station in Patna district and those villages where Naxal activists have let loose a reign of terror and become centres of extremists.138

On February 12, 1999, the Indian president dismissed the state government and imposed federal rule in Bihar, citing as the reason a breakdown of law and order and constitutional machinery. The following day, paramilitary forces numbering in the thousands were dispatched to the state. Two days later, on February 14, CPI(M-L) Liberation members reportedly gunned down seven people, including four upper-caste Bhumihars who were said to be Ranvir Sena supporters, at Usri Bazaar, Jehanabad district. The police alleged that the attack was in retaliation for the killings in Shankarbigha and Narayanpur.139 In early March 1999, the central government reversed its decision to impose president’s rule. As of this writing, Bihar’s state government, with Rabri Devi as the chief minister, had been reinstated. Sena leaders Bharmeshwar Singh and Shamsher Bahadur Singh had yet to be arrested.

Laxmanpur-Bathe

On the evening of December 1, 1997, armed sena activists crossed the Sone river into the village of Laxmanpur-Bathe where 180 families lived. They raided fourteen Dalit homes and killed a total of sixty-one people: sixteen children, twenty-seven women, and eighteen men. In some families, three generations were killed. Twenty people were also seriously injured. As most of the men fled the village when the attack began, women and children numbered high among the fatalities. During the attack, at least five girls around fifteen years of age were raped and mutilated before being shot in the chest by members of the Ranvir Sena. Most of the victims allegedly belonged to families of Party Unity supporters; the group had been demanding more equitable land distribution in the area.

The village of Laxmanpur-Bathe has no electricity and is virtually inaccessible by road. In crossing the Sone river to reach the village, sena members reportedly also killed five members of the Mallah (fisherman) community and murdered the three Mallah boatmen who had ferried them across the river on their way back.140 According to newspaper reports, the main reason for the attack was that the Bhumihars wanted to seize fifty acres of land that had been earmarked for distribution among the landless laborers of the village. A group of peasants, reportedly affiliated with Naxalite activity, was ready to take up arms against them.141 Authorities apparently knew of the tensions but “had not cared to intervene in the land dispute and nip the trouble in the bud and instead allowed things to come to a head.”142 Following widespread publicity about the massacre, Bihar Chief Minister Rabri Devi suspended the Jehanabad district superintendent of police and replaced several senior officers.143

Human Rights Watch visited the village on February 25, 1998. According to villagers who survived the attack, close to one hundred members of the Ranvir Sena arrived en masse and entered the front houses of the village: “Their strategy was to do everything simultaneously so that no one could be forewarned.”144 Human Rights Watch visited a house in which seven family members were killed. Only the father and one son survived. Vinod Paswan, the son, described the attack:

Fifteen men surrounded the house, and five came in. My sister hid me behind the grain storage. They broke the door down. My sisters, brothers, and mother were killed... The men didn’t say anything. They just started shooting. They yelled, “Long live Ranvir Sena,” as they were leaving.145

At the time of the attack, the father, Ramchela Paswan, was away in the fields. When he returned, he found seven of his family members shot in his house: “I started beating my chest and screaming that no one is left. No one has been saved from my family. Then my son came out saying he that he had not been killed.”146

Human Rights Watch also interviewed seven female residents of the village, many of whom witnessed the rape, mutilation and murder of five girls. Thirty-two-year-old Surajmani Devi recounted what she saw:

Everyone was shot in the chest. I also saw that the panties were torn. One girl was Prabha. She was fifteen years old. She was supposed to go to her husband’s house two to three days later. They also cut her breast and shot her in the chest. Another was Manmatiya, also fifteen. They raped her and cut off her breast. The girls were all naked, and their panties were ripped. They also shot them in the vagina. There were five girls in all. All five were raped. All were fifteen or younger. All their breasts were cut off.147

Twenty-five-year-old Mahurti Devi was shot in the stomach but survived her injuries after extensive surgery. She had returned home after a dispute with her husband and was living in her mother’s house. She recalled:

They broke in and tried to open our box of valuables. They couldn’t so they took my chain and earrings off my body. There were ten to twelve of them in the house. They didn’t wear any masks. I said I had nothing. They said open everything. My mother was shot, and she fell down. They flashed a torch on my face. Then they shot me, and I fell down.The police took me to the hospital. After a three-day operation I came to, and the police took a report from me. Some people have been arrested, others are still free. They looted all the houses.148

At the time of the massacre, Jasudevi was at her husband’s home in another village. She arrived in Bathe the morning after the attack to find her two sisters-in-law and her fifteen-year-old niece shot to death. “My niece was supposed to go to her husband’s house the same day. She was expecting a child. When I found her it looked like she was trying to run away when she was shot.”149 Seven-year-old Mahesh Kumar was being held by his mother when she was shot. She fell forward and protected his body with her own. She then died.150

Local police had been aware of the possibility of violence long before the Bathe massacre. On November 25, 1997, sena leaders openly held a strategy meeting seven kilometers away from Bathe. Sena leader Shamsher Bahadur Singh had also been touring the area in the months before the massacre openly seeking donations from supporters. Police officers claimed to be aware of these meetings but dismissed them as routine—missing yet another opportunity to intervene and preempt a sena attack. One officer was quoted as saying, ``It`s like crying wolf. The Communist Party of India (M-L) keeps sending us complaint letters every week, we can’t take action every time.”151

According to members of Bihar Dalit Vikas Samiti, a grassroots organization, the events that unfolded in Bathe were more complex than a random attack on a Dalit hamlet:

CPI was organizing in Bathe because the residents were so poor and exploited, they couldn’t even feed themselves after a full day’s work. When they asked for more wages, they were beaten down even more. Some CPI(M-L) and Party Unity people had a split.152 A few people leftthem and gave information about party activities to landlords. The landlords contacted Ranvir Sena in Bhojpur, saying that they needed help controlling them. The Ranvir Sena came out at 4:00 p.m. They ate and drank liquor with the landlords and attacked at 9:00 p.m. They had a list of whom to attack but got drunk and killed anyone and everyone.153

The activists also claimed that the purpose of Bathe was “to teach others not to rebel or raise a voice. In so doing women became vulnerable and were sexually assaulted… They raped women and cut off their breasts. A woman whose pregnancy was nearly complete was shot in the stomach. They said that otherwise the child will grow up to be a rebel.”154

Life for most in the village has been disrupted. At the time of the Human Rights Watch visit, children were unable to go to school because a makeshift police camp had been located on school grounds. None of the adults were working. Villagers complained, “There is no work, all has stopped. Since they [Bhumihars] are the landed families, our people don’t get to work in their fields.”155

Since the massacre, police protection in Bathe has remained grossly inadequate. The Bihar government announced soon after the Bathe killings that police would be deployed in the area to set up camp and maintain law and order. However, when parliamentary elections were later announced, the police force was directed to control election-related violence. Despite their dual assignment of controlling the Ranvir Sena and watching the polls, the police seemed more intent on conducting raids on Dalit villages in the name of controlling “extremism” and seeking out Naxalite cadres than on protecting Dalit villagers. According to a member of BDVS, “Bathe protection is near the poor but it only benefits the rich. Police always go to the landlords’ houses... All their needs are taken care of byupper castes. If someone calls a meeting they won’t come. They say we don’t have time. They just do flag marches.”156

At the time Human Rights Watch visited the village, the Dalit residents of Bathe feared another attack:

Fifteen to twenty days ago we received a message that they will sprinkle petrol on the houses of villages and set them on fire—the houses of those that didn’t get killed the first time around. We told the police. They said we are here so nothing will happen, but the police are protecting them. They are stationed in the Ranvir Sena tola [hamlet]. Police are helping the Ranvir Sena. The accused are moving around freely. So we feel that the culprits are being protected.157

Human Rights Watch also spoke to police officers stationed in the village school. Officer In-Charge Amay Kumar Singh informed us that a total of twenty-six police officers were present in the village. He claimed that the police arrived soon after the massacre. According to Singh, twenty-five of the twenty-six perpetrators identified by villagers had been arrested but at the time of the interview (two months after the events) had not been formally charged. He claimed that the police were providing security for all villagers and that new threats had not been reported to them.

Like many officers, Singh claimed that police response to attacks is hindered by insufficient funding, infrastructure, and equipment for village-based police camps. These arguments fail, however, when one notes the frequency of police search and raid operations on remote Dalit villages. Though Singh believed that his officers had enough guns to provide security, and were able to communicate quickly with the area police station, he claimed that more men and more facilities were needed and that the roads to the village were in very poor condition. Road construction had begun soon after the massacre but came to a halt when “VIPs” stopped visiting the area. “We have no car. Look at our conditions. We are sleeping on the ground,” Singh complained.158 Deputy General of Police Saxenaalso reported that the local police station was poorly equipped and there was not enough personnel. “That’s why we couldn’t prevent this,” he said.159

On January 9, 1998, nine people suspected to be supporters of the Ranvir Sena were killed by CPI(M-L) activists in Chouram village, forty-five kilometers from Jehanabad. The killings were reportedly in retaliation for the Bathe massacre. The attackers opened fire indiscriminately on the victims as they were returning home from a funeral.160 Several Dalits in the Bathe area were subsequently taken into custody by the police. Bathe villagers claim that the sena members were actually killed by Marxist-Leninist party members who were not from their village: “Police have been harassing Dalits for fifteen kilometers around this village. No one cares about the sixty-one people who died here. Everyone cares about those nine. The Ranvir Sena says that they will take ninety for those nine killed.”161

Despite the arrests immediately after the massacre, as of February 1999 none of the sena members responsible for the Bathe attack had been prosecuted.

Ekwari

On the morning of April 10, 1997, members of the Ranvir Sena gunned down eight residents of Ekwari village in Bhojpur district in an operation that lasted two hours. Police officers stationed nearby forced open the villagers’ houses and then stood by and watched as the massacre took place. Seven of the eight killed belonged to the lower-caste Lohars, Chamars, Dhobis and Kahars. The village is known to many as the birthplace of CPI(M-L) in the 1970s. The head of the lower-caste hamlet in the village described the incident to Human Rights Watch:

They were killed by the Ranvir Sena. We recognize them. The police were with them. They weren’t shooting. They searched the houses. Then they left and Ranvir Sena came in and shot everyone. The police were still there. They were from the new police camp, not from outside. They sent more after the massacre. The sena killed to get more notoriety.162

An article in The Telegraph, a Calcutta-based daily, reported that the attackers raped two women before killing them: a fifteen-year-old girl and a woman who was eight months pregnant. A ten-year-old boy was shot in the head.

The partisan role of the police could not have been clearer. While policemen pried open doors of houses, the Ranbir Sena activists followed them in and mowed the people down. Sunaina Devi, an eyewitness to the murder of her father-in-law and sister-in-law, said that when they refused to open their doors, the policemen broke them open and let the killers in… Sagar Mahato said he saw the police running away and watching from a distance.163

The article also reported that the CPI(M-L) Politburo member and member of legislative assembly, Ram Naresh Ram, claimed that the murders were premeditated and that police were bribed by the landlords. A probable cause of the conflict, a villager added, was that many acres of land were lying fallow in the village due to a blockade imposed by the CPI(M-L).164

The Bombay-based Times of India reported that the fifteen-year-old was raped in the presence of her father. The pregnant woman was said to be the relative of Jai Kahar, a veteran CPI(M-L) activist and a suspect in the murder of a landlord in the area the previous year. An eyewitness recounted, “Fifty people belonging to upper caste cordoned off the entire small tola and started searching for firearms. I know them by their names. They are the landlords of this region. Indrajeet Singh, Binod Singh, Pankaj Singh, Ajay Singh are the main culprits who killed eight people in this tola.”165

Human Rights Watch visited the village of Ekwari in February 1998. A police camp had been established in upper-caste territory, an area inaccessible to Dalits who were afraid to cross the road dividing the two parts of the village. When Human Rights Watch asked the villagers to take us to the police camp they responded, “We can’t take you there. They are on Bhumihar land. No one is protecting us.”166

An Ekwari village sub-inspector told Human Rights Watch that in his camp there were two sub-inspectors, one sub-inspector BMP (Bihar Military Police), and seventeen constables, making a total of twenty officers. A second camp located near the village fields had nineteen officers. The sub-inspector claimed that the police presence was sufficient to maintain law and order in the village. At the time of the massacre, he was on assignment at the police station eight kilometers away.

There was a fight between CPI(M-L) and the Ranvir Sena. One Ranvir Sena member was killed. Eight CPI(M-L) were killed some days later. They were not members of CPI(M-L) but were killed based on caste. They have been fighting for years. People are killed on both sides. All have been arrested and charged. Thirty-six were named; approximately thirty were from the Ranvir Sena. All are in jail. There is only one absconder. He escaped from jail. When a CPI(M-L) dies, it’s always the Ranvir Sena; when a Ranvir Sena dies it is always a CPI(M-L) who kills. We also caught the CPI(M-L) who killed the Ranvir Sena. We are here for now and most likely will stay for a while.167

In the aftermath of the killings, seven police officers were suspended. Another police camp officer claimed that the suspensions were a political move. “Both sides are political, so whenever there are problems there is a lot of pressure on the state, the superintendent of police, the district magistrate. So in order to remove the pressure they suspend officers. The same officers come back on duty in a different police station.”168 When asked to describe the current situation, the sub-inspector responded that it was “peaceful and normal. There’s been so much violence here that even one murder every few months is considered peaceful. Labor is an ongoing problem. It’s a very old problem. Whenever killings take place, there is a strike. But now work is ongoing.”169

Residents of the Dalit and backward-caste hamlet agreed. They explained that work had started again, but “there was a lot of fear” and little protection. Although CPI(M-L) is active in the village, the lower-caste villagers claim that the “Ranvir Sena is more powerful. They have rifles, semi-automatics, and guns. Weonly have sticks.”170 The head of the lower-caste section of the village was also apprehensive about the police and had little faith in the protection they provided.

Police are here for law and order. They see what’s going on, but they are allied with the Ranvir Sena. They get money and food from the forward castes so they favor the forward castes. The police don’t care about the poor. We don’t go to the police, nor any other state agencies. We asked for help from the Bhumihars to keep the killings low. They said they cannot control them even though the Bhumihar population belongs to the Ranvir Sena. We have no protection.171

According to the former deputy superintendent of police (DSP) for Bhojpur district, Bihar, the April 1997 attack was due to “police negligence”:

The police completely failed in giving protection. They went in one house, and the Ranvir Sena went into another. The guards did nothing to protect them. The Ranvir Sena killed everyone in the police’s presence. By the time the station police came, the Ranvir Sena had run away.172

The former DSP went on to describe the situation of women and children.

There are 106 widows in Ekwari. At least fifty women have also been killed in the past several years. The Dalit men go to jail and get sentenced, while the Ranvir Sena has enough money to fight the case all the way to the Supreme Court. Dalit women are made homeless, and the children cannot go to school because the family needs the money to fight the cases against the men. The Ranvir Sena cares only about high numbers. They also rape the women. The police send innocent people to jail. No one can surrender for fear of so-called police encounters. They do not get justice from the police. That is the main factor.173

Even the landlords of the village (members of the Ranvir Sena) complained that the police, under pressure to maintain “law and order” in their jurisdiction, have arrested indiscriminately on both sides.

First the police were with us, now they have left us. Since 1995 the police have really bothered us. In April, people were killed here. They killed one farmer and destroyed all crops. Seven CPI(M-L) were killed by Ranvir Sena for retaliation. The police just take care of the dead bodies. They don’t really help. In response to the April massacre, the police destroyed a landowner’s house after arresting him. They also arrested thirty-nine people. All landowners were innocent. They were not part of the Ranvir Sena. The police were also involved in the Ranvir Sena massacre. Seven people were suspended. The police are not with anybody they are trying to scare people. They always capture the innocent, even when CPI(M-L) strike.174

As of February 1999, none of the sena members or police officers responsible for the killings in Ekwari had been prosecuted.

Haibaspur

On March 23, 1997, ten landless laborers were killed in Haibaspur village in Patna district, Bihar, apparently for aligning themselves with the CPI(M-L) Party Unity. Before leaving the village, the Ranvir Sena inscribed its organization’s name in blood on the rim of a dry well.175 Party Unity forces retaliated within a month by killing six Ranvir Sena supporters on April 21, 1997.176 According to BDVS activists, alcohol and the rape of Dalit women by the Bhumihar men played a role in the attack on the village:

The Dalits made alcohol, and Bhumihars drank it. When Bhumihars fought among themselves, they went to the Mushahars [Dalits], gave them drinks, and got them to take revenge on their enemies by taking their field crops and so on. But the Dalits were working for both sides so the Bhumihars killed them. They were double-crossing them. Theyonly gave them liquor to get them to do the work. Bhumihars give them money to make the liquor, then give some liquor to the Dalits to get them to do the work. Whoever makes alcohol also pays a commission to the police. When the Bhumihars came and drank, they also raped the Mushahar women. Mushahar men did not like it so they protested and were killed. The people killed were mostly innocent, but these are the two reasons it happened.177

According to an article in The Hindu, a Madras-based daily, although the police were informed immediately of the Haibaspur killings, they did not arrive on the scene until the following morning, after hearing that the chief minister was due to visit the site.178 When Human Rights Watch spoke to villagers in February 1998, they said they were still afraid of another massacre and had received threats from neighboring upper-caste landholders.179 Apart from the promise of small compensation packages, the state had done little to protect them.

Bathani Tola

In response to the Ranvir Sena attack on the Dalit hamlet of Bathani Tola in July 1996 (see above), then-Home Minister Indrajit Gupta expressed dissatisfaction with police protection in the affected region. Even though four police camps had been posted in the area, Gupta charged that they were, “paralysed, impotent and did nothing.”180 Residents of the village claimed that most of the main perpetrators were still roaming freely in their village, though the police claimed to have arrested all sixty men involved.181 A new police camp was soon set up near the site but was considered largely ineffective in checking threats from upper-caste landlords. “They are at the beck and call of the landlords. Their food comes from the landlords’ houses. How can they render us justice?” one villager asked.182

Despite signs of rising tensions in the area, police neglected to shift their picket (booth) to Bathani Tola.183 On July 26, 1996, the Bombay-based daily Indian Express reported that officials had received written notification of the possibility of an attack. In a letter dated July 4, 1996, to the district magistrate, the Bhojpur district committee of CPI(M-L) complained that the Ranvir Sena had “renewed its campaign of terror in the villages” and charged that the night before, “a gang of the Ranbir Sena [had] been engaged in indiscriminate firing.”184 The committee added that there was much tension and fear and urged the district magistrate to “take strong action immediately.”185 CPI(M-L) had also sent requests for protection on June 26, June 29, and July 2. According to press reports, Superintendent of Police S. N. Pradhan dismissed the letters as “routine.”186 The killings took place on July 11. During the attack itself, the police reportedly made no attempts to intervene despite being on duty a “stone’s throw” away from the scene.187 Soon after the incident the chief minister suspended police officers stationed in camps near the tola,188 but failed to prosecute them.

Government Compensation Packages

Instead of prosecuting accused sena members or taking action against colluding police officials, official action in cases of caste-based killings in Bihar has generally come to a halt after a few officers have been temporarily suspended and surviving family members have received the preliminary disbursements of their compensation money. The promised relief package has often included food rations, temporary manual labor jobs, and when the victims were Dalit and poor, an offer to build pucca (solid) houses. Solid houses are essential for instilling a sense of security for villagers whose flimsy mud huts are easier targets for police and sena raids. The government, however, has seldom followed through with promised relief packages.

In Shankarbigha, the government promised monetary compensation, a government job, and pucca housing to the victims’ dependents.189 Two and a half weeks later, in Narayanpur, the government promised Rs. 140,000 (US$3,500) toeach of the victims’ dependents.190 In Bathe, the Paswan family lost seven of its members. It received Rs. 100,000 for every family member killed from the Bihar and central government, for a total of Rs. 1,400,000 (US$35,000). The family used the interest from the money to construct a new house. Even though the entire village remained vulnerable to future attacks, pucca houses were only provided to the families of those that were killed.191 According to BDVS Director Dr. Jose Kananaikal, “Over 2,000 people have visited in the two months following Bathe. But now nobody cares. The chief minister also said they would get land, but that never happened. They also promised a school and a road, but that didn’t happen either.”192

When the chief minister arrived at the Haibaspur massacre site, he promised a compensation package to the families of the victims but failed to disarm the sena members responsible for the killings.193 The government announced Rs. 120,000 (US$3,000) as compensation for each victim. It also assured work and food rations for three months and promised pucca houses for the entire Dalit hamlet. In February 1998, almost a year after the massacre, a civil rights fact-finding team reported that only Rs. 20,000 (US$500) had been paid, that no work or food rations had been provided, and that the houses had only been partially constructed. Moreover, police raids since the beginning of 1998 had destroyed the little construction that had taken place. Dalit residents were also unwilling to work in adjoining villages where they were earlier employed for fear of another orchestrated attack by their employers.194

The State’s Targeting of Naxalites

As noted above, although both the Naxalites and the private militias share the responsibility for increased violence and deaths in the state, the state’s response to the Naxalites has been markedly different. Police have frequently operated as agents of the landed upper castes, conducting raids on Dalit villages and disguising killings as “encounters.” According to a People’s Union for Democratic Rights report, “The administration bans both the Ranveer Sena and the CPI(M-L) Party Unity but in effect treats them differently. [T]he judiciary is [also] influenced bythe social and political background of the people concerned.”195 PUDR members also believe that the government is under pressure to show that the killings will be stopped, but its actions have focused primarily on Naxalite activities.

Many are arrested under Criminal Procedure Code Section 107 for preventive detention. The Supreme Court has stated that the detention cannot be more than twenty-four hours, but in many cases it takes fifteen to thirty days to get a lawyer; sympathetic lawyers are already overburdened. The charges are bailable but they have no property, no surety. So they remain in jail for long periods of time… They won’t settle land disputes because land is in the hands of landlords. So they treat it as a law and order issue and arrest and raid instead.196

“Encounter” killings

The pattern of extrajudicial executions by security forces in disturbed areas and by police forces in Naxalite-affected areas has been documented by international human rights organizations and Indian civil liberties groups.197 The police routinely claim that the killings occur in so-called encounters. The People’s Union for Civil Liberties, the largest civil rights organization in the country, has described the use of the term “encounter killing” as

a unique contribution of the police in India to the vocabulary of human rights... it represents in most cases the taking into custody of an individual or a group, torture and subsequent murder. The death generally occurs as a result of the brutal torture or stage-managed extermination in an appropriate area. An official press release thenelaborately outlines a confrontation, an encounter where the police claim to have fired in “self-defence.”198

Such tactics have long been used against suspected Naxalites. In the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, the Naxalite threat has been used to justify state violence against all forms of peasant resistance and against other critics of state policy. Human Rights Watch has documented a pattern of systematic human rights violations that has formed part of the state government’s counterinsurgency efforts. Since 1968, security forces have murdered hundreds of villagers, guerrilla group sympathizers, and suspected militants in the state. Human Rights Watch has also documented the degree to which security forces have colluded with powerful landlords to crush organized efforts by peasant movements to secure their rights to land and fair labor practices.199

These tactics have also been used in Bihar. On April 15, 1994, police reportedly killed eleven MCC members in an “encounter” in Gaya district, Bihar. According to a report by People’s Union for Democratic Rights, since then, “there has been a significant rise in the number of people killed in this manner.”200 On December 27, 1997, an “encounter” took place in Kodihara village, Patna district.

At 5:30 a.m. that day, the police entered the village and caught hold of and beat people who were going out to work. There was a Naxalite squad in the village which noticed the arrival of the police and slipped away. The police fired at them but they escaped. Two of them hid in the fields nearby, but the police soon found them. The two of them handed over their weapons to the police and offered [to] surrender. But the police shot them dead in cold blood. This murder was seen by all the villagers assembled there.201

Villagers reported that after searching Kodihara, police moved on to Jhunauti. The raid on Jhunauti is described below.

Police have also repeatedly engaged in excessive use of force when dealing with Naxalites. On July 3, 1995, four Party Unity members were killed and eight arrested. The following month, the police fired into a crowd of 500 people gathered at a CPI(M-L) Liberation office in Begusurai town soon after they lathi-charged202 a peaceful protest on land reforms. Five people were killed, and one was seriously injured. Sixty-five people, including twenty-nine women, were arrested on charges of rioting and illegal assembly. Three people were additionally charged with murder and attempted murder. All those arrested were severely beaten in police custody. In this incident, as in the two described above, the police claimed to have fired in self-defense, while villagers and other eyewitnesses claimed that the firing was one-sided. Post mortems were conducted immediately, and the bodies were quickly disposed of, eliminating any possibility of independent autopsies for verification of the manner of death.203

Police raids

Under the pretext of seeking out Naxalite militants police have conducted raids on Dalit villages and falsely arrested those accused of harboring Naxalites. In some cases, federal paramilitary forces have been deployed. Like the private militias, police have sexually assaulted women and attacked children who remained behind after the men fled the villages. Women have also been arrested and taken into custody i

When we are working, they ask us not to come near them. At tea canteens, they have separate tea tumblers and they make us clean them ourselves and make us put the dishes away ourselves. We cannot enter temples. We cannot use upper-caste water taps. We have to go one kilometer away to get water... When we ask for our rights from the government, the municipality officials threaten to fire us. So we don’t say anything. This is what happens to people who demand their rights.

— A Dalit manual scavenger, Ahmedabad district, Gujarat1

Thevars [caste Hindus] treat Sikkaliars [Dalits] as slaves so they can utilize them as they wish. They exploit them sexually and make them dig graveyards for high-caste people’s burials. They have to take the death message to Thevars. These are all unpaid services.

— Manibharati, social activist, Madurai district, Tamil Nadu2

In the past, twenty to thirty years ago, [Dalits] enjoyed the practice of “untouchability.” In the past, women enjoyed being oppressed by men. They weren’t educated. They didn’t know the world... They enjoy Thevar community men having them as concubines... They cannot afford to react, they are dependent on us for jobs and protection... She wants it from him. He permits it. If he has power, then she has more affection for the landlord.

— A prominent Thevar political leader, Tamil Nadu3

More than one-sixth of India`s population, some 160 million people, live a precarious existence, shunned by much of society because of their rank as “untouchables” or Dalits—literally meaning “broken” people4—at the bottom ofIndia`s caste system. Dalits are discriminated against, denied access to land, forced to work in degrading conditions, and routinely abused at the hands of the police and of higher-caste groups that enjoy the state`s protection. In what has been called India’s “hidden apartheid,” entire villages in many Indian states remain completely segregated by caste. National legislation and constitutional protections serve only to mask the social realities of discrimination and violence faced by those living below the “pollution line.”

Despite the fact that “untouchability” was abolished under India`s constitution in 1950,5 the practice of “untouchability”—the imposition of social disabilities on persons by reason of their birth in certain castes— remains very much a part of rural India. “Untouchables” may not cross the line dividing their part of the village from that occupied by higher castes. They may not use the same wells, visit the same temples, drink from the same cups in tea stalls, or lay claim to land that is legally theirs. Dalit children are frequently made to sit in the back of classrooms, and communities as a whole are made to perform degrading rituals in the name of caste. Most Dalits continue to live in extreme poverty, without land or opportunities for better employment or education. With the exception of a minority who have benefited from India’s policy of quotas in education and government jobs, Dalits are relegated to the most menial of tasks, as manual scavengers, removers of human waste and dead animals, leather workers, street sweepers, and cobblers. Dalit children make up the majority of those sold into bondage to pay off debts to upper-caste creditors. Dalit men, women, and children numbering in the tens of millions work as agricultural laborers for a few kilograms of rice or Rs. 15 to Rs. 35 (US$0.38 to $0.88) a day.6 Their upper-caste employers frequently use caste as a cover for exploitative economic arrangements: social sanction of their status as lesser beings allows their impoverishment to continue.

Dalit women face the triple burden of caste, class, and gender. Dalit girls have been forced to become prostitutes for upper-caste patrons and village priests. Sexual abuse and other forms of violence against women are used by landlords and the police to inflict political “lessons” and crush dissent within the community. According to a Tamil Nadu state government official, the raping of Dalit women exposes the hypocrisy of the caste system as “no one practices untouchability when it comes to sex.”7 Like other Indian women whose relatives are sought by thepolice, Dalit women have also been arrested and tortured in custody as a means of punishing their male relatives who are hiding from the authorities.

The plight of India`s “untouchables” elicits only sporadic attention within the country. Public outrage over large-scale incidents of violence or particularly egregious examples of discrimination fades quickly, and the state is under little pressure to undertake more meaningful reforms. Laws granting Dalits special consideration for government jobs and education reach only a small percentage of those they are meant to benefit. Laws designed to ensure that Dalits enjoy equal rights and protection have seldom been enforced. Instead, police refuse to register complaints about violations of the law and rarely prosecute those responsible for abuses that range from murder and rape to exploitative labor practices and forced displacement from Dalit lands and homes.

Political mobilization that has resulted in the emergence of powerful interest groups and political parties among middle- and low-caste groups throughout India since the mid-1980s has largely bypassed Dalits. Dalits are courted by all political parties but generally forgotten once elections are over. The expanding power base of low-caste political parties, the election of low-caste chief ministers to state governments, and even the appointment of a Dalit as president of India in July 1997 all signal the increasing prominence of Dalits in the political landscape but cumulatively have yet to yield any significant benefit for the majority of Dalits. Laws on land reform and protection for Dalits remain unimplemented in most Indian states.

Lacking access to mainstream political organizations and increasingly frustrated with the pace of reforms, Dalits have begun to resist subjugation and discrimination in two ways: peaceful protest and armed struggle. Particularly since the early 1990s, Dalit organizations have sought to mobilize Dalits to protest peacefully against the human rights violations suffered by their community. These movements have quickly grown in membership and visibility and have provoked a backlash from the higher-caste groups most threatened—both economically and politically—by Dalit assertiveness. Police, many of whom belong to these higher-caste groups or who enjoy their patronage, have arrested Dalit activists, including social workers and lawyers, for activity that is legal and on charges that show the police’s political motivation. Dalit activists are jailed under preventive detention statutes to prevent them from holding meetings and protest rallies, or charged as “terrorists” and “threats to national security.” Court cases drag on for years, costing impoverished people precious money and time.

Dalits who dare to challenge the social order have been subject to abuses by their higher-caste neighbors. Dalit villages are collectively penalized for individual “transgressions” through social boycotts, including loss of employment and accessto water, grazing lands, and ration shops. For most Dalits in rural India who earn less than a subsistence living as agricultural laborers, a social boycott may mean destitution and starvation.

In some states, notably Bihar, guerrilla organizations advocating the use of violence to achieve land redistribution have attracted Dalit support. Such groups, known as “Naxalites,”8 have carried out attacks on higher-caste groups, killing landlords, village officials and their families and seizing property. Such attacks on civilians constitute gross violations of international humanitarian law. Naxalite groups have also engaged in direct combat with police forces.

In response, police have targeted Dalit villagers believed to be sympathetic to Naxalites and have conducted raids in search of the guerrillas and their weapons. While there is no question that the Naxalites pose a serious security threat and that the police are obliged to counter that threat, the behavior of the police indicates that the purpose of the raids is often to terrorize Dalits as a group, whether or not they are members of Naxalite organizations. During the raids, the police have routinely beaten villagers, sexually assaulted women, and wantonly destroyed property.

Higher-caste landlords in Bihar have organized private militias to counter the Naxalite threat. These militias, or senas, also target Dalit villagers believed to be sympathetic to Naxalites. Senas are believed responsible for the murders of many hundreds of Dalits in Bihar since 1969. One of the most prominent militias, the Ranvir Sena, has been responsible for the massacre of more than 400 Dalit villagers in Bihar between 1995 and 1999. In one of the largest of such massacres, on the night of December 1, 1997, the Ranvir Sena shot dead sixteen children, twenty-seven women, and eighteen men in the village of Laxmanpur-Bathe, Jehanabad district Bihar. Five teenage girls were raped and mutilated before being shot in the chest. The villagers were reportedly sympathetic to a Naxalite group that had been demanding more equitable land redistribution in the area. When Ramchela Paswan returned home from the fields, he found seven of his family members shot: “I started beating my chest and screaming that no one is left....”9 When asked whythe sena killed children and women, one sena member responded, “We kill children because they will grow up to become Naxalites. We kill women because they will give birth to Naxalites.”10

The senas, which claim many politicians as members, operate with impunity. In some cases, police have accompanied them on raids and have stood by as they killed villagers and burned down their homes. On April 10, 1997, in the village of Ekwari, located in the Bhojpur district of Bihar, police stationed in the area to protect lower-caste villagers instead pried open the doors of their residences as members of the sena entered and killed eight residents. In other cases, police raids have followed attacks by the senas. Sena leaders are rarely prosecuted for such killings, and the villagers are rarely or inadequately compensated for their losses. Even in cases where police are not hostile to Dalits, they are generally not accessible to call upon: most police camps are located in the upper-caste section of the village and Dalits are simply unable to approach them for protection.

In the southern districts of Tamil Nadu, clashes between Pallars (a community of Dalits) and Thevars (a marginally higher-caste non-Dalit community) have plagued rural areas since 1995. New wealth among the Pallars, who have sent male family members to work in Gulf states and elsewhere abroad, has triggered a backlash from the Thevars as the Pallars have increasingly been able to buy and farm their own lands or look elsewhere for employment. At the same time, a growing Dalit political movement has provided the Pallars with a platform for resisting the still-prevalent norms of “untouchability.” While some Dalits have joined militant groups in Tamil Nadu, such groups have generally engaged in public protests and other political activities rather than armed resistance. The Thevars have responded by assaulting, raping, and murdering Dalits to preserve the status quo.

Local police, drawn predominantly from the Thevar community, have conducted raids on Dalit villages, ostensibly to search for militant activists. During the raids they have assaulted residents, particularly women, and detained Dalits under preventive detention laws. With the tolerance or connivance of local officials, police have also forcibly displaced thousands of Dalit villagers. During one such raid, Guruswamy Guruammal, a pregnant, twenty-six-year-old Dalit agricultural laborer, was stripped, brutally beaten, and dragged through the streets naked before being thrown in jail. She told Human Rights Watch, “I begged the police officers at the jail to help me. I even told them I was pregnant. They mocked me for [having made] bold statements to the police the day before. I spenttwenty-five days in jail. I miscarried my baby after ten days. Nothing has happened to the officers who did this to me.”11

Excessive use of force by the police is not limited to rural areas. Police abuse against the urban poor, slum dwellers, Dalits, and other minorities has included arbitrary detention, torture, extrajudicial executions and forced evictions. Although the acute social discrimination characteristic of rural areas is less pronounced in cities, Dalits in urban areas, who make up the majority of bonded laborers and street cleaners, do not escape it altogether. Many live in segregated colonies which have been targets of police raids. This report documents a particularly egregious incident in a Dalit colony in Bombay in July 1997, when police opened fire without warning on a crowd of Dalits protesting the desecration of a statue of Dalit cultural and political hero Dr. B. R. Ambedkar.12 The firing killed ten and injured twenty-six.

Dalits throughout the country also suffer in many instances from de facto disenfranchisement. During elections, those unpersuaded by typical electioneering are routinely threatened and beaten by political party strongmen in order to compel them to vote for certain candidates. Already under the thumb of local landlords and police officials, Dalit villagers who do not comply have been murdered, beaten, and harassed.

Police and upper-caste militias, operating at the behest of powerful political leaders in the state, have also punished Dalit voters. In February 1998, police raided a Dalit village in Tamil Nadu that had boycotted the national parliamentary elections. Women were kicked and beaten, their clothing was torn, and police forced sticks and iron pipes into their mouths. Kerosene was poured into stored food grains and grocery items and police reportedly urinated in cooking vessels. In Bihar, political candidates ensure their majority vote with the help of senas, whose members kill if necessary. The Ranvir Sena was responsible for killing more than fifty people during Bihar’s 1995 state election campaign. The sena was again used to intimidate voters in Ara district, Bihar, during the February 1998 national parliamentary elections.

Dalits who have contested political office in village councils and municipalities through seats that have been constitutionally “reserved” for them have been threatened with physical abuse and even death in order to get them to withdraw from the campaign. In the village of Melavalavu, Madurai district Tamil Nadu, following the election of a Dalit to the village council presidency, members of a higher-caste group murdered six Dalits in June 1997, including the elected council president, whom they beheaded. As told to Human Rights Watch by an eyewitness, the leader of the attack “instructed the Thevars [caste Hindus] to kill all the Pariahs [Dalits]... They pulled all six out of the bus and stabbed them on the road... Five Thevars joined together, put Murugesan [the Dalit president] on the ground outside the bus, and chopped off his head, then threw it in a well half a kilometer away... Some grabbed his hands, others grabbed his head, and one cut his head... They deliberately took the head and poured the blood on other dead bodies.”13 As of February 1999, the accused—who had been voted out of their once-secure elected positions—had not been prosecuted. Those arrested were out on bail, while the person identified as the ringleader of the attack was still at large. The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes14 (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, enacted in 1989, provides a means to address many of the problems Dalits face inIndia. The act is designed to prevent abuses and punish those responsible, establish special courts for the trial of such offenses, and provide for victim relief and rehabilitation. A look at the offenses made punishable by the act provides a glimpse into the retaliatory or customarily degrading treatment Dalits may receive. The offenses include forcing members of a scheduled caste or scheduled tribe to drink or eat any inedible or obnoxious substance; dumping excreta, waste matter, carcasses or any other obnoxious substance in their premises or neighborhood; forcibly removing their clothes and parading them naked or with painted face or body; interfering with their rights to land; compelling a member of a scheduled caste or scheduled tribe into forms of forced or bonded labor; corrupting or fouling the water of any spring, reservoir or any other source ordinarily used by scheduled castes or scheduled tribes; denying right of passage to a place of public resort; and using a position of dominance to exploit a scheduled caste or scheduled tribe woman sexually.

The potential of the law to bring about social change has been hampered by police corruption and caste bias, with the result that many allegations are not entered in police books. Ignorance of procedures and a lack of knowledge of the act have also affected its implementation. Even when cases are registered, the absence of special courts to try them can delay prosecutions for up to three to four years. Some state governments dominated by higher castes have even attempted to repeal the legislation altogether.

Between 1994 and 1996, a total of 98,349 cases were registered with the police nationwide as crimes and atrocities against scheduled castes. Of these, 38,483 were registered under the Atrocities Act for the sorts of offenses enumerated above. A further 1,660 were for murder, 2,814 for rape, and 13,671 for hurt.15 Given that Dalits are both reluctant and unable (for lack of police cooperation) to report crimes against themselves, the actual number of abuses is presumably much higher. The National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has reported that these cases typically fall into one of three categories: cases relating to the practice of “untouchability” and attempts to defy the social order; cases relating to land disputes and demands for minimum wages; and cases of atrocities by police and forest officials.

Although this report focuses primarily on abuse against Dalit communities that have begun to assert themselves economically or organize themselvespolitically, it also examines the weakest sectors of the population: those with no political representation, living in the poorest of conditions, and made to perform the most degrading of tasks with little or no remuneration. To eke out a subsistence living, Dalits throughout the country, numbering in the tens of millions, are driven to bonded labor, manual scavenging, and forced prostitution under conditions that violate national law and their basic human rights.

An estimated forty million people in India, among them fifteen million children, are bonded laborers, working in slave-like conditions in order to pay off a debt. A majority of them are Dalits. According to government statistics, an estimated one million Dalits are manual scavengers who clear feces from public and private latrines and dispose of dead animals; unofficial estimates are much higher. An activist working with scavengers in the state of Andhra Pradesh claimed, “In one toilet there can be as many as 400 seats which all have to be manually cleaned. This is the lowest occupation in the world, and it is done by the community that occupies the lowest status in the caste system.”16 In India’s southern states, thousands of girls are forced into prostitution before reaching the age of puberty. Devadasis, literally meaning “female servant of god,” usually belong to the Dalit community. Once dedicated, the girl is unable to marry, forced to become a prostitute for upper-caste community members, and eventually auctioned off to an urban brothel.

This report is about caste, but it is also about class, gender, poverty, labor, and land. For those at the bottom of its hierarchy, caste is a determinative factor for the attainment of social, political, civil, and economic rights. Most of the conflicts documented in this report take place within very narrow segments of the caste hierarchy, between the poor and the not-so-poor, the landless laborer and the small landowner. The differences lie in the considerable amount of leverage that the higher-caste Hindus or non-Dalits are able to wield over local police, district administrations, and even the state government.

Investigations by India’s National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, the National Human Rights Commission, the National Police Commission, and numerous local nongovernmental organizations all concur that impunity is rampant. In cases investigated for this report, with the exception of a few transfers and suspensions, no action has been taken against police officers involved in violent raids or summary executions, or against those accused of colluding with private actors to carry out attacks on Dalit communities. Moreover, in many instances, repeated calls for protection by threatened Dalit communities have been ignored by police and district officials.

The “National Agenda for Governance,” the election manifesto for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which came to power in the February 1998 elections, outlines a program of action for the “upliftment” of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. It promises to take steps to establish “a civilised, humane and just civil order... which does not discriminate on the grounds of caste, religion, class, colour, race or sex”; ensures the “economic and educational development of the minorities”; safeguards the interests of scheduled castes, scheduled tribes and backward classes by “appropriate legal, executive and societal efforts and by large scale education and empowerment”; provides “legal protection to existing percentages of reservation in educational institutions at the State level”; and removes “the last vestiges of untouchability.” However, to date, the Indian government has done little to fulfill its promises to Dalits.

A national campaign to highlight abuses against Dalits spearheaded by human rights groups in eight states began to focus national and international attention to the issue in 1998. The recommendations for this report were drafted in consultation with more than forty activists who have been working closely on the campaign. In publishing this report now, Human Rights Watch adds its voice to theirs in calling upon the Indian government to implement the recommendations outlined in this report, to fulfill the commitments made regarding scheduled castes in the National Agenda for Governance, and to take immediate steps to prevent and eliminate caste-based violence and discrimination. We further urge the international community to press the Indian government to bring its practices into compliance with national and international law.

1 Human Rights Watch interview, Ahmedabad district, Gujarat, July 23, 1998. See explanation of manual scavenging below in this section and in Chapter VII.

2 Human Rights Watch interview, Madurai district, Tamil Nadu, February 17, 1998.

3 Human Rights Watch interview, Madurai city, Tamil Nadu, February 18, 1998.

4 “Dalit” is a term first coined by Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, one of the architects of the Indian constitution of 1950 and revered leader of the Dalit movement. It was taken up in the 1970s by the Dalit Panther Movement, which organized to claim rights for “untouchables,” and is now commonly used by rights activists.

5 The abolishment of “untouchability” was made enforceable through the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955.

6 The conversion rate used throughout this report is US$1 to Rs. 40.

7 Human Rights Watch interview, Madras, February 13, 1998.

8 The term “Naxalite” is derived from Naxalbari in the northern region of Western Bengal where, under the leadership of Kanhu Sanyal, the concept of “forcible protest against the social order relating to holding of property and sharing of social benefits” originated. National Human Rights Commission, Annual Report 1996-1997 (New Delhi: Government of India, 1998), p. 106. The Naxalite movement, which organizes peasants to bring about land reform through radical means including violence, was virtually crushed in West Bengal in the early 1970s but has a strong following in parts of Bihar and the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

9 Human Rights Watch interview, Jehanabad district, Bihar, February 25, 1998.

10 Human Rights Watch interview, New Delhi, February 21, 1998.

11 Human Rights Watch interview, Madurai, February 18, 1998.

12 Dr. B. R. Ambedkar was born in 1891 into the “untouchable” Mahar caste of Maharashtra and is widely regarded as one of the most ardent and outspoken advocates of the rights of Dalits in twentieth-century India. At a time when less than 1 percent of his caste was literate, he obtained a Ph.D. from Columbia University in New York and a D.Sc. from the University of London. His earliest efforts involved establishing a Dalit movement in Maharashtra by founding newspapers, holding conferences, forming political parties, and opening colleges and other educational institutions for the welfare of Dalits. During the 1930s, as a delegate at the London Roundtable Conferences, he stated the case for Dalits as a minority entitled to its own electorate. Ambedkar also led campaigns for religious rights for Dalits, including lifting prohibitions on allowing Dalits to enter temples. Eventually he advocated conversion to other religions, most notably Buddhism. He is perhaps best known for improving the status of Dalits through the drafting of relevant articles in the Indian constitution. He was named the minister for law in the first Nehru cabinet in independent India and served as chairman of the drafting committee for the constitution. Stephen Hay, Sources of Indian Tradition. Volume Two: Modern India and Pakistan. Second Edition. (New Delhi: Penguin Books India, 1988), pp. 324-333 and pp. 339-348. See also Dhananjay Keer, Dr. Ambedkar: Life and Mission (Bombay: Popular Prakashan Private Limited, 1990); Verinder Grover, ed., Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar: A Biography of his Vision and Ideas (New Delhi: Deep and Deep Publications, 1998).

13 Human Rights Watch interview, Madurai district, Tamil Nadu, February 15, 1998.

14 The term “scheduled castes,” by which Dalits are also called, refers to a list of socially deprived (“untouchable”) castes prepared by the British Government in 1935. The schedule of castes was intended to increase representation of scheduled-caste members in the legislature, in government employment, and in university placement. The term is also used in the constitution and various laws. Pauline Kolenda, Caste in Contemporary India: Beyond Organic Solidarity (Menlo Park: The Benjamin/Cumming Publishing Co., 1978), p. 128. The term “scheduled tribes” refers to a list of indigenous tribal populations who are entitled to much of the same compensatory treatment as scheduled castes.

15 National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, National Crime Records Bureau (M.H.A.), Statement Showing Cases Registered with the Police Under Different Nature of Crimes and Atrocities on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes from 1994 to 1996 (New Delhi: Government of India, 1997).

16 Human Rights Watch interview, Bangalore, July 26, 1998.

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH ON THE TOLERANT STATE OF INDIA:

Human rights violations by all parties in Kashmir have been a critical factor behind the escalation in fighting there. If those violations had been seriously addressed at any time over the last ten years, the risk of a military confrontation between India and Pakistan might have been reduced. Even if the current crisis is resolved, the conflict will not end unless the international community puts pressure on India to end widespread human rights violations by its security forces in Kashmir, and on Pakistan to end its support for abusive militant groups.

Despite government claims that ``normalcy`` has returned toKashmir, Indian troops in the state continue to carry out summary executions, disappearances, rape and torture. Militant groups in the state have also killed civilians. A government offensive in Doda and southern border districts has revived patterns of abuse by Indian forces that had abated in the Kashmir valley, where the conflict has been centered since it began in earnest in 1990.



Millions Face Abuse

Today more than one-sixth of India`s population, some 160 million people, live a precarious existence, shunned by much of society because of their rank as ``untouchables`` or Dalits-literally meaning ``broken`` people-at the bottom of India`s caste system. Dalits are discriminated against, denied access to land, forced to work in degrading conditions, and routinely abused at the hands of the police and of higher-caste groups that enjoy the state`s protection. Despite the fact that ``untouchability`` was abolished under India`s constitution in 1950, the practice of ``untouchability`` remains very much a part of rural India.

India`s government has done little to address long-standing human rights concerns, including violence against the country`s ``untouchables,`` or Dalits. Dalits are discriminated against, denied access to land, forced to work in degrading conditions, and routinely abused and even killed at the hands of police and high-caste groups.

Other marginalized groups in India are also under threat. Religious intolerance has been promoted by leaders with close ties to the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Assaults on church workers, nuns and priests, and arson attacks on churches and other property have increased sharply in Gujarat, and there have been violent incidents in other states, including Orissa.

In Maharashtra state, the U.S. energy conglomerate Enron has been complicit in serious human rights abuses. Enron owns 50 percent of the Dabhol Power Corporation -- the largest single foreign investment in India whose new power plant is largest private power project in the world. Security forces hired by the project have routinely beaten and harassed people demonstrating peacefully against the power plant. Dabhol has indirectly benefited from other repressive government actions aimed at quelling opposition to the plant.

The government has also failed to address ongoing concerns about abuses by its forces in Kashmir. Despite government claims that ``normalcy`` has returned to Kashmir, Indian troops in the state continue to carry out summary executions, disappearances, rape and torture. Militant groups in the state have also killed civilians. A 1998 government offensive in Doda and the border districts has revived patterns of abuse by Indian forces that had abated in the Kashmir valley, where the conflict has been centered since it began in earnest in 1990.

Children are often the victims of abuse in India. Though illegal, bonded child labor is endemic throughout India. Street children in India are routinely detained illegally, beaten and tortured and sometimes killed by police. India`s failure to implement its own laws has contributed to these abuses.

With apologies to all Indian Moderates:

PLIGHT OF THE INDIAN CHRISTIANS(London, September 30, 1999) – The Indian government has failed to prevent increasing violence against Christians and is exploiting communal tensions for political ends, Human Rights Watch charged in a report released today. The 37-page report, Politics by Other Means: Attacks Against Christians in India, details violence against Christians in the months ahead of the country`s national parliamentary elections in September and October 1999, and in the months following electoral victory by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian People`s Party, known as the BJP) in the state of Gujarat.





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( *) These sites are not part of Human Rights Watch on the Web, and The HRW has no control over their content or availability.









``Christians are the new scapegoat in India`s political battles. Without immediate and decisive action by the government, communal tensions will continue to be exploited for political and economic ends.``



Smita Narula

Researcher, Asia Division of Human Rights Watch





Attacks against Christians throughout the country have increased significantly since the BJP began its rule at the center in March 1998. They include the killings of priests, the raping of nuns, and the physical destruction of Christian institutions, schools, churches, colleges, and cemeteries. Thousands of Christians have also been forced to convert to Hinduism. The report concludes that as with attacks against Muslims in 1992 and 1993, attacks against Christians are part of a concerted campaign of right-wing Hindu organizations, collectively called the sangh parivar, to promote and exploit communal clashes to increase their political power-base. The movement is supported at the local level by militant groups who operate with impunity.

``Christians are the new scapegoat in India`s political battles,`` said Smita Narula, author of the report and researcher for the Asia division of Human Rights Watch. ``Without immediate and decisive action by the government, communal tensions will continue to be exploited for political and economic ends.``

The Hindu organizations most responsible for violence against Christians are the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council, VHP), the Bajrang Dal, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (National Volunteer Corps, RSS). According to a former RSS member, these groups cannot be divorced from the ruling BJP party: ``There is no difference between the BJP and RSS. BJP is the body. RSS is the soul, and the Bajrang Dal is the hands for beating.``

A majority of the reported incidents of violence against Christians in 1998 occurred in Gujarat, the same year that the BJP came to power in the state. In April 1999, Human Rights Watch visited the Dangs district in Gujarat, site of a ten-day spate of violent and premeditated attacks on Christian communities and institutions between December 25, 1998, and January 3, 1999. The report documents patterns there that are representative of attacks across India. These include the role of sangh parivar organizations and the local media in promoting anti-Christian propaganda, the exploitation of communal differences to mask political and economic motives underlying the attacks, local and state government complicity in the attacks, and the failure of the central government to meet its constitutional and international obligations to protect minorities.

Jamuna Bhen, a thirty-year-old agricultural laborer in Dangs district, told Human Rights Watch, ``The Hindus removed the ornamentation from our church on December 25 [1998]. They threatened us by saying that they will set the church house on fire. Then they started taking down the roof tiles…. There were one hundred to 200 people who came from other villages. They said, ‘We will burn everything.` We begged them not to. We said, ‘Don`t do this,` and said we will become Hindu.``

In January 1999, Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons were trapped in their car and burned alive in the state of Orissa, reportedly by Dara Singh, a local leader of the extremist group Bajrang Dal. On the eve of India`s national parliamentary elections in September and October 1999, the situation for minorities in the state deteriorated significantly. In August 1999, Singh struck again, chopping off the arms of a Muslim trader before setting him on fire. One week later, Rev. Arul Doss was shot in the chest with an arrow and beaten to death by a group of unidentified assailants. The BJP charged the Congress-led state government with criminal negligence, while Congress sought to blame the incidents on the policies and activities of sangh parivar organizations. While communal tensions in the state were exploited by political parties on all sides, the main perpetrators of the attacks were still at large.

In a pattern similar to the response to organized violence against lower castes, the tendency is for local officials under pressure to arrest a few members, but not the leaders, of the groups involved. The communities affected represent some of the poorest in the country and include Dalits (``untouchables``) and members of local tribal communities, many of whom convert to Christianity to escape abuses under India`s caste system. In many cases, Christian institutions and individuals targeted were singled out for their role in promoting health, literacy, and economic independence among Dalit and tribal community members. A vested interest in keeping these communities in a state of economic dependency is a motivating factor in anti-Christian violence and propaganda.

Though eyewitnesses have identified politicians and local officials as participants in the attacks, the state administration and Hindu nationalist leaders continue to portray the incidents as actions instigated by minority communities. The chief minister of Gujarat and BJP spokesmen have even blamed the violence on an ``international conspiracy`` to defame the political party. The prime minister has called for a national debate on conversions, signaling tacit justification for the motives underlying the attacks. The central and state governments continue to ignore the recommendations of the National Commission for Minorities.

Human Rights Watch called on the Indian government to meet its constitutional and international obligations to ensure that religious minorities may equally enjoy freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practice, propagate and adopt religion. In particular, Indian officials should commit to taking steps to prevent further violence and end impunity for campaigns of violence and prosecute both state and private actors responsible for the attacks.

The full text of the report is available online at http://www.hrw.org/reports/1999/indiachr/ The password is smita

For Further Information:

Smita Narula:

Sept. 29 - Oct. 3:

+ 44 171 713 1995 (w) +44 171 282 5500 (h)

After Oct. 3:

+ 1 212 216 1253 (w) +1 212 481 1160 (h)

Sidney Jones:

+ 1 212 216 1228 (w) + 1 718 788 2899 (h)

V. VIOLATIONS BY INDIAN GOVERNMENT FORCES: STATE-SPONSORED ``RENEGADE`` MILITIAS

Both regular, uniformed Indian army and federal security forces and state-sponsored paramilitary groups have committed serious and widespread human rights violations in Kashmir. These violations have characterized the behavior of regular troops since the conflict began in 1990. While reports of some kinds of abuse have decreased since 1994, such as the indiscriminate use of lethal force against unarmed demonstrators, other abuses, notably summary executions and torture, show no sign of abatement, due in part to the activities of the state-sponsored militias. As noted above, these groups operate without any accountability. Wearing no uniforms, their members cannot be easily identified. There is no one to whom civilians may register complaints about the group`s behavior. As one Kashmiri doctor told Human Rights Watch/Asia, ``When someone misbehaved, he was wearing a uniform, so he was accountable. We could call his commander. Now, when these renegades misbehave, there is no one to call. No one accepts responsibility for them, though we know the government is sponsoring them.``

Human Rights Watch/Asia obtained overwhelming evidence of the fact that these groups are organized, armed and protected by the Indian army and other security forces and operate under their command and protection, despite the Indian government`s claims to the contrary. The government uses the groups in a number of ways: as informers who watch and report on the activities of the militants; as spies to infiltrate existing militant organizations; or as members of paramilitary ``renegade`` organizations to attack members of Jamaat-e Islami and Hezb-ul Mujahidin and other militant groups. Members of these militias are also used to support Indian government policies. In public statements, Koko Parray has indicated his group`s support for the elections and intention to field candidates and ensure that people in areas under its control vote despite the militants` boycott.

Government officials have described the recruitment of former militants as a rehabilitation program. While that might be the stated goal of the government`s efforts, as of April 1996, no rehabilitation programs were functioning. In an interview with Human Rights Watch/Asia, Gopal Sharma, Inspector General (IG) of Police, acknowledged that since August 15, 1995, the government had agreed to pay Rs. 5,000 [$143] to any militant who surrendered AK-series assault rifles and varying amounts for other small arms. Sharma also stated that upon surrendering their weapons, the militants were supposed to be sent to designated rehabilitation centers where they would be paid Rs. 2000 [$57] a month for sixmonths. At the time that Human Rights Watch/Asia met with IG Sharma, he claimed that one such center had been established in Jammu and another was to be created in Srinagar. However, a report by India Today published in March 1996 noted that no one was lodged at the Jammu center.37 Sharma admitted:

There could be some militants working with the security forces as gatherers of information. Koko Parray`s group is thirty strong, maybe 100 strong. Militants are 8-9,000 strong. Some militants who split with their former allies may be able to get the protection of the security forces.

Government officials routinely deny that these groups do anything more than act as informants for the security forces. In a March 1996 report in the national daily Hindu, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Secretary Ashok Kumar denied allegations that the government was providing arms to surrendered militants, stating that ``[t]he government will not be party to such a racket. We are not giving arms to the illegal persons.`` That statement was contradicted by Lt. Gen. (Retd.) D.D. Saklani, adviser to the state governor, who told reporters that the government was going to provide the surrendered militants with licenses for 12-bore guns [shotguns].38 In a report published in the Times of India on March 9, 1996, Colonel K. P. Ramesh of the Rashtriya Rifles stated that surrendered militants were provided arms for their protection and given reward money for providing information.39

During the Human Rights Watch/Asia visit to Kashmir in January 1996, we were informed that these groups have been armed by the government. On several occasions, Human Rights Watch/Asia observed members of these groups moving about openly carrying automatic weapons, in full view of security personnel, even though under the government`s rehabilitation program, all surrendered militants are required to hand over their weapons. In one case investigated by Human Rights Watch/Asia, members of Ikhwan-ul Muslimoon, who had detained a hospital worker they suspected of militant sympathies, ordered his colleagues to buy him a pistol so that they could confiscate it and pretend to the security forces that they had succeeded in getting a militant to surrender.40

On several occasions in January 1996, Human Rights Watch/Asia also observed Indian army forces carrying out patrols and other operations accompanied by members of such groups. In one incident, for about three hours on the morning of January 21 in Naseem Bagh, seven kilometers southwest of Srinagar, four men armed with AK-47s blocked the road and stopped every passing vehicle. Accompanying them were six army soldiers of the Rashtriya Rifles unit. A witness told Human Rights Watch/Asia about another incident that occurred at 9:30 am on January 23, 1996. The witness had observed a white car on the main road in Wanbal - Nawgam, six kilometers southwest of Srinagar. In it were six people, all of whom were wearing civilian clothes, including one known to the witness as a surrendered militant. About thirty feet behind the car were seven army trucks and an eighth army vehicle bearing a red cross. All of the vehicles, led by the white car, were proceeding very slowly in a line toward Srinagar.

In January 1996, a taxi driver in Srinagar told Human Rights Watch/Asia that several days earlier he had been approached by two members of a paramilitary group who demanded the use of his taxi. The driver stated that the men told him they wanted to go to a village ten kilometers outside Srinagar. The driver took them, but when they got there, one of the men pulled out a grenade, the other a pistol. One of the men showed a card, which the driver could not see, and said they were ``Task Force`` and that they needed the car, but they would return it by 3:00 pm that afternoon. Then the men said that they would drop the driver off at a bus stop so he could get back to Srinagar. One of the two men drove. As he drove, they passed by an army camp. The soldiers waved the car by without stopping it. The men dropped the driver off. The driver returned to Srinagar and waited at the taxi stand that afternoon, but the taxi was not returned to him until two days later.

The state-sponsored groups operate with impunity. In an interview with Human Rights Watch/Asia, Police Inspector General Gopal Sharma claimed that ``surrendering [did] not relieve [former militants] of legal responsibility for their crimes,`` and that some had been prosecuted, ``but convictions [were] hard to come by.`` However, another police officer responsible for investigating the activities of these groups contradicted Sharma`s assertion, complaining that Army and BSF officers had also secured the release of paramilitary force members when they had been arrested by local police. He told Human Rights Watch/Asia:

The government has recruited criminals who loot and steal and extort and these criminals are living in security force camps. This is the third force—the renegades. It is completely true that they exist. ... It is 100 percent true that police investigate crimes, arrest individuals and then the army interferes and lets them go so they can work with the army as renegade forces.

According to a report in India Today, the government`s policy of using surrendered militants for counterinsurgency efforts ``has heightened the enmity between the various security agencies operating in Kashmir —mainly the Border Security Force (BSF) and the army—with each trying to score a point by notching up a higher tally of surrendered militants.``41 Militants who have surrendered to the army have been beaten by BSF forces for not surrendering to them. The BSF reportedly told some of them to obtain new weapons so that they could surrender again, and the BSF could get the credit.42

Victims of abuse by these groups have testified that the government has deliberately avoided arresting members of these groups even when there was clear evidence of their committing crimes. Residents angry at extortion by the groups have demanded that the administration either disarm the groups or give them uniforms.43 After four journalists were abducted by Ikhwan-ul Muslimoon forces in July 1995, the security forces made no effort to apprehend leaders of the group, even after Koko Parray acknowledged publicly that he had ordered the kidnaping. Parray was even permitted to hold a press conference on the incident.

The security forces have also been complicit in these crimes. During the journalists` kidnaping, Ikhwan forces were waved through security checkpoints after they had given a prearranged password. The paramilitaries operate in close proximity to army and BSF camps. Some members of these groups have been housed in the camps.

Security too is a major problem, for groups like the Hizbul Mujahedin and HUA [Harakat-ul Ansar] are waiting to bump off the surrendered militants. Fear has set in with the killing of eight surrendered militants and most of them are forced to sleep in army camps at night.44

A witness who was abducted by Ikhwan-ul Muslimoon forces told Human Rights Watch that he was detained at a house adjacent to an army Rashtriya Rifles camp at Umarheer, Ahmed Nagar, Baspara, three kilometers from Soura hospital. A Rashtriya Rifles bunker stands at the entrance to the house. The local Ikhwan-ul Muslimoon commander, Mohammad Ramzan, who had interrogated the witness, apparently lived in the house. Ikhwan-ul Muslimoon forces identified two women who were cooking in the house as Ramzan`s wife and sister-in-law.

The paramilitary militias have principally targeted Hezb-ul Mujahedin militants and members of the banned pro-Pakistan political party, Jamaat-e Islami. Like their counterparts in the regular security forces, they have also killed civilians in reprisal for militant attacks on their forces. According to a press report, in early February, 1996, Hizbul Mujahedin forces abducted twelve members of a state-sponsored paramilitary group from a house in Bagh-e-Mehtab located near an army camp. The heads of three of the men taken were found later; the fate of the remaining nine is not known. Other members of the state-sponsored group retaliated by dragging an elderly man off a bus and lynching him and burning down eleven houses and seven shops.45

Attacks on Human Rights Activists

Human rights activists have increasingly come under attack in Kashmir. Between April 1995 and April 1996, two human rights monitors were killed and one critically injured.46 The impact on Kashmir`s human rights community has been devastating. Lawyers who had formerly taken up petitions on behalf of victims of abuses no longer do so out of fear of reprisals, particularly from the mercenary groups. Many have left Kashmir. The few human rights activists who have continued to document abuses in Kashmir do so at considerable risk to themselves.

The Murder of Jalil Andrabi

The body of Jalil Andrabi, a prominent human rights lawyer and pro-independence political activist associated with the JKLF, was found in the Kursuraj Bagh area of Srinagar on the banks of the Jhelum river on the morning of March 27, 1996. According to press reports, the body was in a burlap bag. Andrabi, who was forty-two, had been shot in the head and his eyes had been gouged out. He had apparently been dead for at least one week. According to eye-witnesses, Andrabi was detained at about 6:00 pm on March 8 by a Rashtriya Rifles unit of the army which intercepted his car a few hundred yards from his home in Srinagar. On March 9, the Jammu and Kashmir Bar Association filed a habeas corpus petition in the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, and the court ordered the army to produce Andrabi. H