Context
Apex court verdict will make the SC/ST Atrocities Act toothless, roll back social transformation
Why the recent SC verdict will make the act toothless?
- Low arrest and conviction rate in such cases: According to the Ninth Annual Report of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes for 2015-16, rate of crime from increased from 16.7 per cent to 19.6 per cent in 2013 and there has also been a sharp decrease in conviction rate (from 29.6 per cent to 23.8 per cent) in the same period
- Majority of the Cases filed are only between SCs and OBCs: The agrarian economy and the social structure in rural areas are such that conflicts are predominantly between the SCs and Shudras/OBCs. likeReddys, Jats and Patels.
- Some misuse is inevitable: In the process of implementation, some misuse could happen, a few innocent people could go to jail, but to make the Act toothless will amount to rolling back social transformation
- Political Connection: Atrocities on Dalits have increased after the BJP came to power
- Hinduism’s Varnadharma order: Even the Shudra/OBCs who operate within the Hindutva ideological domain are against Constitutional reforms and they believe in the classical Varnadharma order in so far as the Dalit question is concerned
- AdhithayanAgamashastra
- The Supreme Court’s AdhithayanAgamashastra verdict of 2015 affirmed the Agamashastra position
- The verdict allowed the continuation of inherited Brahmin priesthood in temples and checkmated spiritual reform
- As in the case of the SC/ST Atrocities Act, there was no serious intervention from the government in AdhithayanAgamashastra
Conclusion
Casteism and untouchability is a self-negating institutional mechanism that is built into Hinduism. If the courts do not examine this issue from the perspective of social equality — and continue to defend the right to practise untouchability by imposing all kinds of controlling mechanisms — they would end up harming Hinduism itself.
