Rising Crimes Against Dalit Women

Dalit women bear the brunt of caste and gender violence, especially rape, in india. What makes them particularly vulnerable?

- Kaushik Deka

The details—flashing across newspaper headlines and television screens and circulated over social media—are by now all-too-familiar. Of a young Dalit girl, not yet 20, dragged into the fields, allegedly gang-raped by four upper-caste men, tongue cut, spine broken and left to die. Her mother hears her screams, finds the bleeding daughter, the family rushes first to the police station, then to a hospital in Aligarh, and when her condition takes a turn for the worse, she is shifted to the Safdarjung Hospital in Delhi where, two weeks after her ordeal began, she succumbs to her injuries. Her body is brought back to Hathras and cremated by the police in the dead of the night. Without their consent, says the family. To pre-empt the breakdown of law and order, say the police.