In terms of the law, therefore, the state is fully enabled to prevent such atrocities. Why then do they continue to occur with such sickening regularity? There are four broad reasons for this. The most conspicuous, of course, is institutional apathy — caused sometimes by ignorance, but most often are a deliberate choice. It begins with the initial and very crucial step of filing the FIR. The widespread reluctance within the police force to file cases under the Atrocities Act is well-known. The courts too display a similar propensity to be cavalier with such cases, choosing often to dismiss them on some technical ground or the other. Secondly, those attacked or humiliated are either too ignorant or too intimidated to file cases under the Act. Retribution, they know, can be swift and awful. Third, is the lack of state action — it is the state government that is required to implement the laws, but many of them have not even bothered to set up the special courts mandated by the Atrocities Act, far less adopt the pro-active stance that they are required to, under the law. Finally, there is a yawning abyss between metropolitan and rural realities. Caste hierarchies persist in urban contexts as well, but it is in the countryside, where villages are structured along caste lines, that the barbaric sway of the old caste order is allowed full play. And because urban elite do not experience caste discriminations or witness them in quite the same way, they can argue that the country has put the ugly legacy of caste behind it. This, of course, is far from the truth, and we have Khairlanji to prove it.

... contd.