The response of post-Independence India to crimes against dalits is a curious mix of comprehensive legislation and a comprehensive failure to administer them.

Checking crimes against the Scheduled Castes was one of the urgent tasks the new nation had set for itself. Its Constitution of 1950 reflected this. Article 14 enjoins equality before law. Article 15 expressly prohibits discrimination on grounds of caste among others. Article 16 guarantees equality of opportunity in matters of public employment, with a specific reference to caste. Article 17 abolishes untouchability in any form. Apart from these, there were Articles 243, 330 and 332, which mandated reservations for SCs/STs.

Five years after the Constitution, the state enacted the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955. But since this law was found to address the issue in a very superficial manner, the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act was enacted in 1989. The offences set down in the Act range from humiliations like forcing members of the community to eat or drink obnoxious substances or dumping excreta outside their homes, or stripping and parading them naked, to the crime of forcibly occupying and cultivating their land, or compelling them into performing bonded labour. Crimes against women in this context were specifically recognised, including those of a sexual nature. What is instructive about this elaborate roster of offences is that its roots lie in the everyday experiences of dalits in many parts of the country.

The Atrocities Act invites strict penalties, provides for the externment of those likely to commit offences, asks for the setting up of special courts for speedy trials, provides for collective fines, and puts the onus on the government to ensure effective implementation of the law. In 1995 rules dealing with the Act came into force. Among other things, they allowed the government to take pre-cautionary and preventive measure if it had reason to believe that an atrocity would be committed.

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.

If Khairlanji is to be a much required wake-up call, the Indian government needs, first of all, to implement the Atrocities Act and Rules in letter and spirit. States must necessarily set up special courts in every district, appoint special public prosecutors and try every case with the seriousness it deserves. This would include protecting witnesses and victims, and ensuring that they are provided with the resources to follow up on their cases. There must be specially constituted vigilance and monitoring committees with dalit representation at every level. Training needs to be imparted to officials and the police to enforce the Act. Copies of the Act should be prominently displayed in every local government office and police station, and schoolchildren need to be taught about the legal safeguards.

The country seems to have forgotten the beast. Khairlanji has come as a reminder that it is alive and roaring. We need to rediscover the will to fight it.