There is a sharp increase in attacks against Dalits in India in 2022. The discrimination faced by Dalits is evident in panchayats at the rural level and even in big companies at the urban level. Caste discrimination is increasing in education, politics, the health sector, and other social sectors. We are providing here a list of 21 attacks against Dalits in various parts of India in 2022.
1. Dalit attacked for riding a mare
On January 2022, upper caste community men attacked a Dalit groom for riding a mare at his wedding. This incident occurred at the Ganiyari village of Sagar district, Madhya Pradesh. According to the police, Dilip Ahirwar was the first Dalit man who rode a horse in a wedding ceremony in Madhya Pradesh. The attack happened when the groom went to his wedding, riding a mare under the protection of police personnel. The assailants who belong to the upper caste community attacked the groom’s house.
2. Dalit journalist threatened to death
Meena Kotwal is a Dalit journalist who founded the media platform ‘The Mooknayak’ that specially focused on marginalized communities. Kotwal hails from the ‘dhobi’ community of the scheduled caste. On 28 October 2021, she filed an FIR under the SCs/STs Act after receiving death threats and obscene messages over the phone. Kotwal, after five months, filed the second FIR again on March 2022, as there was no arrest for those who threatened her. Still, Kotwal is waiting for the Delhi police to arrest those culprits who threatened her.
3. Dalits were attacked for not voting for a specific candidate
On the first phase of Uttar Pradesh Assembly Election Polls held on 10 February 2022, it was reported that a group of Dalit community people in Adda Village was attacked and injured by some men for not casting a vote for a particular political party as per their instruction. The unfortunate incident happened in the Mathura district, in Govardhan and Saunkh, which fall under the Agra division. According to India Today, three accused passed caste-indicative words, made lewd comments, and started firing their guns.”
4. A Dalit boy made to lick feet
On 10 April 2022, a teenage Dalit boy studying in class 10 was bullied by some men in Jagatpur town of Uttar Pradesh’s Rae Bareli. According to the sources, the boy left with his friend on a motorcycle to Ramlila Maidan on 10 April 2022. Later he was taken to a garden where the culprits humiliated and thrashed him. He was forced to lick the feet of one of the accused. The teenage boy and his mother complain to the police when the video footage of the incident went viral on social media. The UP police have arrested eight men in connection with this case.
5. Dalit man was forced to rub his nose at his spits in Odisha.
The caste-related discrimination incident happened on 21 April 2022 in Tikhiri village, Kendrapara district, Odisha. A Dalit man was publicly insulted by the Tikhiri village head. According to the police report, Chameli Ojha, the Tikhiri village head, went to collect donations for installing a statue of a deity, and when the victim, identified as Gurucharan Mallick, refused to pay and said that he already contributes the money, the head became furious and allegedly abused the man and his wife. Later, the village committee boycotted Gurucharan Mallick’s family, which ordered him to rub his nose at his spits. However, the police reported that Chameli Ojha denied the allegations against him, and police investigations are going on.
6. Dalit couples stopped from entering the temple
The Rajasthan police arrested the Jalore city temple priest, Vela Bharti, for stopping a newlywed Dalit couple from entering the village temple as they belong to low caste people in April 2022. As the couple stated, they were stopped at the temple gate and asked to offer the coconut at the temple gate. Harsh Vardhan Agarwalla, Jalore police superintendent, looked over the matter and registered a case against Vela Bharti under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
7. Dalit girl denied education
On July 2022, some ‘upper caste men stopped a minor Dalit girl. As per reports, the girl was made to stop going to school as others girls of the same caste didn’t go to school. The incident took place at Bawaliakhedi village in Madhya Pradesh. According to the Week journal, the girl was accosted by upper caste men, identified as Kundan, Makhan, and Dharmendra Singh, and started questioning her schooling. When objected by the brother, he was allegedly thrashed by the mob of three men. later, the assailants attacked the victim’s family members along with other family members.
8. Muslims attack Dalits for playing loud music
On 8 July 2022, a Dalit man’s wedding Baraat was attacked by a mob of Muslim men in front of a mosque in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh. The incident happens when the groom’s party passed through the road at around 3 pm on Friday in the Bhojahedi village, Muzaffarnagar. According to the source, the Muslim men were irritated by the loud music played by the baaratis, so they began attacking them with batons and sticks. As per the report, the Muslim men claimed that the loud music scared their goats.
9. Dalit sisters raped and murdered in Uttar Pradesh
On 15 July 2022, the two Dalit teenage sisters, aged 15 and 17, were raped and murdered in Tamoli Purva village, Lakhimpur Kheri district, Uttar Pradesh. As per the police report, six men were found committing the crime and further investigation has been going on. One of the main accused, named Chhotu, is the victims’ neighbor, and he is the one who introduced the two girls to the main accused, Junaid and Sohail, who were known each other for some time.
According to Sanjeev Suman, the police chief in Lakhimpur Kheri District, the two sisters were lured to the nearby field on Wednesday afternoon, allegedly raped by the two accused, Junaid and Sohail, who later confessed to the crime. After the incident, the two girls insisted on marriage to the duo, which sparked an argument between them, and after the men, the two strangulated them with their scarf. They then called upon their friends and took help to hang the bodies from the mango tree to make it appear like an attempted suicide. However, the post-mortem report confirms the rape of the girls and strangulation as the cause of death.
10. Dalit boy was beaten to death for touching a water pot
A shocking incident has led to rock the whole nation. A nine years old schoolboy named Indra Kumar Meghwal, who belonged to the backward caste, was beaten up by his school teacher belonging to the ‘upper caste.’ National Commission for Scheduled Caste reported that the Dalit boy was allegedly assaulted for touching a water pot meant for ‘upper caste.’ The shocking incidents happened on 20 July in Saraswati Vidhya Mandir, a private school in Surana village, Jalore District, Rajasthan. After the boy developed pain in the ear, the father took him to six different hospitals, and as the condition worsened, the boy succumbed to his injury. The boy died in the Civil hospital in Ahmedabad on 13 August 2022.
11. Dalit man denied right to hoist the Indian flag
An unfortunate incident happened during the celebration of 75 years of Independence Day on 15 August 2022, at Tamil Nadu’s Pudukottai. It is reported that Tamilarasan, the president of Senthangudi panchayat, who belongs to the Dalit community, felt disappointed and humiliated when he is not getting his rightful honors to hoist the tricolor national flag at a local government school. According to TOI, he was invited to hoist the tricolor by the school principal, but when he went there, the principal himself hoisted the flag. Tamilarasan added it was to humiliate him in public view.
12. Dalit woman stopped from hoisting the national flag
In a complaint letter to the Deputy Superintendent of Police, Kallakurichi, on 3 August, a Dalit woman panchayat president wrote in seeking police protection to hoist the national tricolor flag on Independence Day. But, according to the president, V Sudha, she was stopped from hoisting the national flag by the president and the vice president of the Parent Teachers Association in the same school on Republic Day as she hails from a scheduled caste group.
13. Dalit man murdered by his upper castes in-laws
Jagdish Chandra, a 38 years old Dalit man was a resident of Panuadhokhan village, Almora District, Uttarakhand. He was found dead inside a van near the Bhikiasain area on 2 September. Jagdish, by profession, was a political activist and a member of the Uttarakhand Parivartan Party (UPP). He had tied the knot with his wife Geeta Singh aka Guddi, in a temple on 21 August. Geeta’s family, belonging to the Rajput caste, was against their marriage because of their different castes. Being furious with the daughter’s move, Geeta’s father, Juga Singh, planned to kill both the couples. On 1 September, Jagdish was abducted while he was out for some personal work.
According to the police, after the kidnapping, Jagdish was taken to a secluded place in silapani, and there he was beaten up brutally with some blunt objects like batons and Jagdish died on the spot. The police caught the accused, red-handedly while they are taking the body to dispose of it. The police have arrested the culprits, the deceased victim’s father-in-law, mother-in-law, and brother-in-law, in connection with the killing of Jagdish. It is confirmed that all the accused have confessed to the crime. It is essential to acknowledge that the couple had already written to the administrator in seeking protection before Jagdish’s murder.
14. Dalit boy assaulted for seeking permission to go to the toilet
A Dalit boy was assaulted by his teacher over the charge of seeking permission to go to the toilet. A 14-year-old Dalit boy, identified as Harkesh Kumar, a student of class 8 in a government school in Bijnor’s Chandpur Tehsil, Uttar Pradesh, was being thrashed by his teacher, named Harendra Singh (32) when the boy asked for permission to go to the toilet. According to the police, the teacher had denied the request initially, and when the student sought approval for a second time after half an hour, the accused had beaten up the boy with a stick. The boy then fell unconscious and was admitted to a hospital.
15. Dalit boy killed over a spelling mistake
A 15-year-old Dalit student named Nikhil Dohre was assaulted by his class teacher earlier this month in the Auraiya district, Uttar Pradesh. During the exam, the boy was beaten up over the misspelling of the word ‘social.’ The teacher, who hails from the upper caste, thrashed the student with a rod until he fell unconscious. On Tuesday, 27th of 2022, the boy succumbed to his injuries and died at a hospital. According to the police report, the culprit has fled the place, and the police are on the search for the accused.
16. Dalit man assaulted by right-wing activists
Dalit leader Manjunath, the former vice president of Halasulige gram panchayat, was assaulted and attacked by a Bajrang Dal member. According to Indian Express, the man identified as Deepu suddenly stopped Manjunath on his way from his sister’s residents to his house to transport a cow. The incident broke out when the accused passed casteism abuse and allegedly attacked the man in Sakleshpura taluk in Hassan District, Karnataka, on Saturday, 20 August. As for now, the police have registered two FIRs against Bajrang Dal activists, including Deepu, Raghu, Kaushik, Guru, Kiran, Shivu, Naveen, and Lokesh, under Sections of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 and Sections 504, 323, 341, and 506 of the Indian Penal Code. Such an attack showering casteist abuse was condemned by many organizations including several Dalit organizations and protests has been on rage from various part of the state.
17. Dalit men thrashed to death in Karnataka
A shocking, brutal murder happened in Karnataka’s Tumakuru, where two Dalit youth were murdered by caste Hindu men in Peddanahalli village in August 2022. According to Indian Express, the two deceased were identified as Girish (32) of Manchaladore village and Girish Mudalagiriappa (30) of Tumakuru. On the night of Thursday, a local temple festival was performed by the villagers. During the celebration time, one of the main accused, Nandish, convinced the two Dalit youths to accompany them and take them to a secluded area where the accused, along with his friends, started torturing them and burnt their legs with coconut leaves not to flee from the site. Later, they beat them to death.
18. Dalit journalist filed a case against a Brahmin journalist
On 3 August 2022, an FIR has been registered by a Dalit journalist, named Rajendra Gautam (44) against a fellow veteran Brahmin journalist, identified as Hemant Tiwari (56). Gautam who runs two newspapers, Nishpaksh Divya Sandesh and Tijarat in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh made a hate crime allegation against Tiwari. According to Gautam, since he failed to back up Tiwari in the Uttar Pradesh State Accredited Correspondents Committee election, Tiwari passed casteist slurs at him. But when Tiwari crossed the limit and made remarks about his wife and son, Gautam filed the case against him. However, Hemant Tiwari considered Gautam as defaming and misusing the Atrocities Act against him. Therefore, he denied the allegation charges by Rajendra Gautam.
19. Dalit youth attacked by upper-caste men
On 15 August 2022, a group of Dalit youth was attacked by a group of muthuraja men in the muthuraja area, Trichy. The incident happened on Monday when the seven Dalit youth rode through the area of mutharaja to take a bath in the new Karuppampatti canal on the last day of Manjal Neer Festivals. Seven Muthuraja men who hail from the most backward castes order the Dalit youths not to enter their area. When objected by the Dalit youths, an argument broke out among the groups where mutharaja men passed casteist abuse on the Dalit men. Later, they were allegedly attacked with coconut sticks and stones by those seven muthuraja men leaving the youths injured in their neck, head, legs, and shoulder. All of the seven Dalit youth were hospitalized at Musiri.
20. Dalit mother and son harassed and humiliated
On 31 August, a Dalit mother and son were assaulted in Uttar Pradesh’s Gonda. According to Akash Tomar, Superintendent of police, the woman and his minor son were allegedly harassed and passed casteist slurs by the head representative of the village and his companion in Kallapur Saraiharra village on Sunday. The mother and son were assaulted in front of the public and locked out of their house by the accused, Santosh Yadav, and his companion Sant Kumar Yadav.
21. Dalit student attacked by upper caste teacher
On 3 September 2022, a Dalit school boy, studying in class vi was thrashed by an upper caste teacher as he touched the teacher’s motorcycle. According to the police, the accused teacher, Krishna Mohan Sharma, was enraged when the boy touched his motorcycle. So he first locked up the boy inside a classroom, thrashed him with a broom and rod, and further choked the boy. The police stated that the incident broke out in a Higher Secondary School, Ranaupur, under Nagra police station limits, Uttar Pradesh’s Ballia.
