From villages to cities, why untouchability continues to hold Gujarat firmly in its grip

In September this year, the collector of Patan in north Gujarat directed 436 ration card holders of Kanosan village to the neighbouring village Edla. The fair price shop (FPS) in Kanosan, a village with a population of about 2,200 dominated by Thakors, which is an Other Backward Caste, is run by Kanti Parmar, a local Dalit. For more than a year, the Thakors of the village have not been buying provisions from Kanti because of his caste identity. The Thakors instead travel to the neighbouring village to buy essentials.

Arvind Vijayan’s order issued on September 12, 2023, states that the residents of Kanosan have stopped buying ration from Kanti Parmar’s FPS one-and-a-half years ago. The villagers have instead been buying from three neighbouring villages named Edla, Vaglod and Nayta. The residents have, however, alleged that they were denied ration at Parmar’s shop.

“The boycott of the FPS first started in 2021 when 371 people in Kanosan made a fake allegation that the ration dealer in their village was supplying poor quality stuff. They were, in turn, buying essentials from a FPS dealer belonging to upper caste community from the neighbouring village,” reads the order of the collector.

Despite knowing the allegations were false and motivated, Vijayan transferred the ration cards of Kanosan’s upper caste families.

Noticeably, before issuing the order, Vijayan had taken statements from 268 residents of Kanosan out which only 8 villagers were willing to buy ration from Parmar’s shop.

“Ever since I earned the contract of the FPS in 2021, I have been facing issues. Earlier they had accused me of poor distribution and the villagers were not buying provisions from my shop. I was desperate as I was not making any money,” says Kanti Parmar who is now planning to move court to save his sole means of livelihood.

An anguished Parmar, for whom the shop is the only source of income, attempted to commit suicide by consuming poison. While Parmar’s life could be saved, the poison led to a serious injury in one of his legs and it had to be amputated. Later a case was filed against 5 people and they were put behind bars. But all five were released on bail within a month.

“After the FIR, some locals visited the shop but that changed about two years back when I refused to give ration to a villager of Thakor community as he was not eligible. Incidentally, he was a community leader and Thakors began to boycott my shop. Since then, the footfall at my shop began to go down. Things took a turn for the worse when some of us Dalits filed a complaint against a few Thakors after an atrocity case in the village. Although, except for one case, the other complaints were taken back later and the issue was resolved mutually,” he said.

Noticeably, this is not the first time a Dalit family in Gujarat has been socially and economically boycotted in a village dominated by upper caste community.

Punishing by ostracising

In 2019, a Dalit man’s wedding procession on a horse through the Lhor village in Mehsana, again in north Gujarat, was not taken well by Thakors who form 90% of the population. The action of one Dalit family prompted the social boycott of the entire Dalit population of the village and the situation was sorted only after an FIR by the groom’s father Manubhai Parmar.

The problem started when Parmar’s eldest son Mehul was getting married. Parmar informed the village sarpanch of the route the wedding procession would take and that the groom would be riding a horse. The village sarpanch called a meeting of the villagers, barring the Dalits, where the Thakors said that they were disturbed at the turn of events as Dalits were not following the ‘societal norms’.

According to the FIR filed by Parmar, “The five men including the sarpanch and deputy sarpanch of the village decided to boycott the Dalits. As part of the boycott, it was decided that nobody will give any food and work to Dalits or let them sit in public vehicles to commute. It was also decided that anybody who is found to be violating the rules of the social boycott would be fined Rs 5,000 and be thrown out of the village.”

“The impact was felt the very next day of the wedding when two Dalit women were denied essentials from the local grocery shop,” added the FIR.

Untouchability is a harsh reality of Gujarat in various forms in both urban and rural areas despite the constitutional ban.

Village divides

In villages across Gujarat, Dalits usually live at one end away from the main village, and the village well and crematorium is off limit for them. They are not allowed to have a haircut in the village, keep a moustache or ride a horse. The upper caste villagers avoid stepping on the shadow of a Dalit or sitting together at a social function. They are also barred from entering temples. If a Dalit family has to live peacefully, they have no choice but to accept the diktat. Besides, not following the diktat comes with consequences like social boycott or even violence.

Ironically, the Ministry of Social Justice and Welfare in 2017 recommended that the state government should take the initiative to build separate crematoriums for Dalits.

“Years of denial let the practice of untouchability thrive and sanctioning a separate crematorium legitimised untouchability. The issue still exists, the move did not bring any solution. Dalits are still discriminated on a daily basis in Gujarat. Yet, for the government untouchability does not exist,” said Ghanshyam Shah, an activist and a former professor of Jawaharlal Nehru University based in Ahmedabad.

In October 2021, Govind Vaghela, a Dalit farmer from Ner village of Bachau taluka, Kutch, was thrashed brutally by a group of 20 men belonging to Ahir community (OBC) for entering the village temple. Vaghela and his uncle collapsed as they tried to run away from the attackers after which the men reached his home to thrash his 64-year-old father, his wife, son and nephew.

The six family members were rushed to Bhuj General Hospital with severe injuries on the head and limb. An FIR was filed later in which Vaghela stated that he was warned against entering the temple premises. Two days later, the local police held a press conference refuting his statement and stated that the incident was a result of “political rivalry”.

In March 2023, an FIR was filed by Dalits of Nalsar village in Banaskantha district stating that all 80 families of the village were being boycotted by the upper caste villagers following a complaint by a Dalit family regarding a land dispute.

As per the FIR registered by Jayesh Bhatiya, a Dalit agrarian labourer, the villagers were told not to provide the Dalit families with ration, or work as agrarian labourers, or allow them to ride public vehicles.

On November 25, 2010, then 19-year-old Sadhna Manubhai Vaja, a resident of Sugala village in Gir-Somnath district, had gone to fetch water from a village well. She was stopped by an upper caste woman who hurled casteist abuses and shouted that water would get impure if Sadhna went near it. When Sadhna objected to it, Khasia, her husband and four other men grabbed her by her hair and thrashed her. Following this incident, an FIR was filed at the Kodinar police station in Junagadh.

In February 2017, the upper caste communities of Randej village in Mehsana district decided to boycott the Dalit families of the village after they protested against a separate seating arrangement for Dalits during a temple ceremony in the village.

The upper caste community of Randej responded by declaring a penalty of Rs 2,100 on anyone who maintained social contact with the Dalits. Following which, shops stopped selling essential commodities, public vehicles refused to commute to the areas where Dalits lived and Dalit daily-wagers were refused work.

The situation was sorted only after Dalits met the district collector, requesting to provide transport facility, monetary help and supply of essentials under police protection.

Urban untouchability

In urban areas, the most commonly practiced form of untouchability is Rampatar – a practice of keeping separate utensil for Dalits and barring Dalits from buying or renting houses in areas dominated by upper castes.

Sunil Jadav, a Dalit professor in a college in Jamnagar is well known in the state for the 16 books he has authored. He used to be a journalist for more than a decade before he took to teaching. Despite making a name for himself, caste-based discrimination has been a part of his daily life.

“As a child, growing up in villages in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, social discrimination was a norm. My grandmother used to work as agrarian labourer and I would accompany her almost every day. After work, all labourers would be given chapatis and buttermilk. While everyone shared common steel utensils, I had to find an earthen set kept in some corner of the field, wash the mud off it and stand at a distance from the person who would serve us. But I was shocked when an incident happened with me years later in an educational institute in a city in Gujarat,” said Jadhav

“A fellow teacher was advising a student against taking tuitions from me. I recall he had said to not listen to me as I will pollute the student who hailed from an upper caste. It doesn’t matter how qualified I am, the fact that I am a Dalit is still more relevant in this society,” he added.

Kantibhai Parmar, an activist for over a decade, was refused a rental home by several home owners in Ahmedabad when he decided to move to the city for work several years ago. When Parmar decided to buy a house in Ahmedabad, he was refused by real estate brokers who asked him to move to Chandkheda area of the city where a considerable population of Dalits reside.

In March 2021, Kiritbhai Parmar, a local Dalit political leader was elected the mayor of Ahmedabad. However, he continued to live in his personal home in a slum in city instead of shifting to the official bungalow assigned for the mayor. Parmar has refused to comment on the matter but he is the first mayor of the city who has not been lived in his official bungalow.

Untouchability in 98 forms

On August 15, 2017, Martin Macwan, the head of Navsarjan NGO, that has been working in the state for Dalit rights, started a campaign against untouchability after a survey across 1,489 villages in 14 districts of Gujarat found that there are 98 forms of untouchability practised by upper castes against Dalits.

“In our survey, we had concluded that untouchability is not just far from being eradicated, the practice may have even intensified in rural Gujarat,” Macwan said.

As per the survey, discrimination against Dalit children is prevalent in 53.8% of government primary schools. In most cases, Dalits children are made to sit in a separate row while receiving their mid-day meal or even made to clean the toilet in the school. Adding to that, Dalit children are not allowed to participate in the school’s morning prayers and are made to sit separately from children belonging to upper castes.

“The village well and crematorium are off limit for the Dalits, and they are not allowed to cut hair in the village, keep a moustache or ride a horse. The upper caste villagers avoid stepping on the shadow of a Dalit, sitting together at a social function and bar them from entering temples. They also avoid buying provisions from shops owned by Dalits,” the report adds.

The report further states that even the Dalit sarpanch of the villages aren’t immune to the caste discrimination. A Dalit man or woman is barred from village functions or has to sit separately even if he/she is a sarpanch.

“Kamalpur village of Dasada taluka in Surendranagar is a reserved seat for scheduled castes, hence the sarpanch of the village is always a Dalit. However, the sarpanch is barred from functioning in his official capacity and the deputy sarpanch, who usually belongs to a higher caste, is making the decisions and is the functional head of the village,” said Natubhai Parmara, a Dalit rights activist associated with Navsarjan.

In another incident, Babubhai Senma, a sarpanch of a Nandoli village, Mehsana had to file a case in the Gujarat High Court after the village began to socially boycott Dalits of the village.

Senma had been the sarpanch of Nandoli village from 2006 to 2011. However, a Dalit man’s rise to a position of power did not go down well in the village dominated by Thakors and he was thrashed one day.

Following an FIR by Senma, the situation only got worse. Villagers decided to boycott Senma and five other Dalit families living in Nandoli. After Senma complained to the authorities about the boycott and the additional collector visited the village, the boycott only intensified.

Senma resorted to knocking at the doors of the Gujarat High Court. At the high court, Justice GR Udhwani questioned how the social boycott constituted untouchability, leaving Senma’s advocate with no option but to seek time to reply with supporting precedence.

In yet another incident a Dalit sarpanch in Nagadka village in Rajkot was prevented by the husband of the deputy sarpanch from unfurling the national flag in 2020. An FIR was filed in the matter which is still under investigation.