Forty years after Karamchedu, caste cauldron still simmers

Like many villages across India, Karamchedu had two drinking water tanks —a sprawling one used by the dominant Kamma communities and a decrepit one used by the Dalit Madiga groups.

- Dhrubo Jyoti

For decades, this hierarchical compact had held because of a wicked cocktail of oppression and helplessness in a region where the division between the landowning communities and the labourers was stark. The farmhands earned lower than the minimum wage and many were locked into generational cycles of debt by agricultural landlords.

On July 16, 1985, that compact broke. That evening, a young Kamma man was washing his buffaloes near the steps of the tank used by the Dalits. A disabled Madiga man and another woman from the community objected to their primary drinking water source getting contaminated by sludge. Shocked by what they saw as an affront, a second Kamma man joined his fellow villager and together, they thrashed the two Dalit people with the thick ropes used to whip buffaloes. During the melee, the woman hit back — some said she grabbed hold of the rope and struck the second man, others said she shielded herself from the incoming blow with her water pot. As the dispute spiralled, a third Dalit man intervened to plead for a compromise.

But the dominant group was seething. It was unprecedented that the marginalised community had just not submitted to the diktat of the powerful, and instead had the audacity to hit back. That night, groups of men tried to drag the Dalit woman out of her hut but were thwarted. The next morning, a hundreds-strong mob descended on the Madigapalli with axes, sticks, and spears. By 9am, the settlement was ravaged and the houses of the 300-odd families torched; six people were hacked to death and at least three women were gang-raped. For years, the other traumatised Dalit families refused to return.