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Show Notes
Witch Hunt presents an eye-opening discussion with human rights lawyer Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni regarding her research and work in the field of law and caste-based discrimination in India. Exploring human experience realities like social untouchability, caste-based discrimination in education, the plight of manual scavengers, and the witchcraft accusation atrocities committed against multitudes of vulnerable women with inferior status.
This thoughtful exchange regarding the struggle for equality in India provides a clear lens for understanding the human rights violations of the caste system, the experience of “untouchables” in India, and the urgent need for effective societal transformation and accountability to extinguish these entrenched harmful practices.
Recommended Reading
Papua New Guinea Sorcery and Witchcraft Accusation-Related Violence National Action Plan
Pan African Parliament Guidelines for Addressing Accusations of Witchcraft and Ritual Attacks
Recommended Viewing
IK Ero On Next Steps For Ending Witch Hunts TINAAWAHP
Saving Africa’s Witch Children
Websites of Note
International Alliance to End Witch Hunts
Petition to recognize those accused of witchcraft in Massachusetts
End Witch Hunts
The International Network against Accusations of Witchcraft and Associated Harmful Practices
Grassroots organizations working with The International Network
Storymap explaining the dynamics of sorcery accusation related violence
Transcript
Josh Hutchinson: welcome to Witch Hunt, the podcast that seeks to understand witch hunts and find ways to end them. I'm Josh Hutchinson.
Sarah Jack: And I'm Sarah Jack. My ancestors Rebecca Nurse, Mary Esty, Mary Hale, and Winifred Benham were victims of witch trials in Massachusetts and Connecticut.
Josh Hutchinson: And my ancestors, including Mary Esty, were involved in the Salem Witch Trials. My 10th great grandfather, Joseph Hutchinson, provided the land where the Salem Village Meeting House stood and later played a role in the trials, first as an accuser, but later as a defender of Rebecca Nurse.
Sarah Jack: Our family heritage started us on our quest to understand witch hunts.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for joining us on our journey.
Sarah Jack: Witch hunting dates back to ancient times.
Josh Hutchinson: And deadly witch hunts continue to occur in all corners of the globe today.
Sarah Jack: As historian Wolfgang [00:01:00] Behringer has stated, there have never been so many witch hunts as we see in today's world.
Josh Hutchinson: In this episode, we are joined by Dr. Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni, who discusses how India's caste system interacts with supernatural belief to trigger witchcraft allegations and violence against the country's most vulnerable people, the Dalits, or Untouchables.
Sarah Jack: Be aware, there are references to violence against women, including sexual violence.
Josh Hutchinson: While the journey through such topics is tough, it leads us to greater empathy and action. By confronting these issues, we can work towards meaningful change.
Sarah Jack: We welcome Dr. Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni, lecturer in law at University of Lincoln in the UK. Her expertise includes international human rights law, Indian constitutional law, and anti-discrimination laws.
Sarah Jack: What should we know about your professional background and work?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: [00:02:00] I'm currently working as a lecturer in law at University of Lincoln in England, and I have done my PhD from Lancaster University pretty recently. My thesis was on untouchability with studies on manual scavenging and caste-based discrimination in higher educational institutions in India.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And I've done my, LLM from University of Reading, also in the UK, and my B.A.LL.B. Honours, and I'm a gold medalist from National Law School of India University, Bangalore, which is, like really top university in India, a law university in India. And I've been working in this area of caste and untouchability for quite a few years now, particularly because it was a focus of my PhD thesis.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And even when I was a student at National Law School of India, University of Bangalore, I did have an opportunity to, work with, some of the constitutional bodies in India, like the National Commission for Scheduled Castes, [00:03:00] which has been established to look after and protect the rights of the marginalized communities such as Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, or what we call as Dalits and Adivasis in common parlance.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: When I was working there, I did an internship. I worked on the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act 1989, and I did propose amendments to the Act, as to how to make the Act more stringent and enforceable, so that it protects the rights of the most vulnerable and marginalized sections of the Indian population.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And I did publish a lot on this area, as well. I'm a human rights lawyer. So most of my publications are in this area. And of course, here and there are a few about international law, and humanitarian law as well. And, one of the book chapters, which I wrote in 2020, it's about international health regulations. I co-authored the book chapter with Professor Susan Rowe, who was a dean at the University of [00:04:00] Victoria in Canada. It was on, as I said, international health regulations. That was one of the first books on COVID-19 law and policy context in Asia. It was published by Oxford University Press, New York.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And that chapter has been listed by the WHO in, in their research database. And I've also presented joint oral statements before the United Nations. And several of my written statements have been, published in the United Nations website and my work has also been cited by the UN Committee on CRC Rights of the Children.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Yeah, that's, that's pretty much about me.
Josh Hutchinson: Congratulations on all your successes. Many more to come, I'm sure. You mentioned the Dalits and the Adivasi, can you tell us who they are?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: It actually goes back centuries. So in order to understand what they are, we need to understand [00:05:00] the institution of caste, which is one of the most exclusive features of the Indian society and particularly the Hindu social order. And it's perhaps one of the longest surviving social hierarchies in the whole world, and this hierarchy reflects complexity and stratification as it situates people in a very complex hierarchical order.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So I would like to take the definition of caste, which is given by Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar, who is the father of the Indian constitution, the chief architect of the Indian constitution and the first law minister of independent India. He defines caste in India as an artificial chopping off of the population into fixed and definite units, each one prevented from fusing into another through the custom of endogamy, that is marriage from within the community. So the conclusion is inevitable that endogamy is the only characteristic that is peculiar to caste. This is what he says. And he says that if [00:06:00] one succeeds in showing how endogamy is maintained, one can practically prove the genesis and mechanism of caste.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: In ancient times, with the Hindu social order, how it was, we had four varnas called the Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vaishya, and Shudra. You have to go through the ancient texts like the Vedas to understand where this is stemming from. One of the earliest revolutions of this, you can find it in the Vedas of the Purusha Sukta of the Rig Veda, which is one of the ancient Hindu texts. Basically it divides the society into four categories and these four categories are never to be equal socially or with regard to their rights and privileges. They must always be based on a graded scale.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: The graded inequality was the essence, very essence of it. So there must be a division of occupation according to it. And right to education was available only to the top three varnas. The Shudra, the fourth varna, and women of all varnas were denied education. So the varna system was [00:07:00] set in stone by the Brahmans, who are the priestly class, who were on top of the varna system without any cracks or loopholes. Inequality exists in every society, but the inequality preached and practiced by Brahmins, the priestly class, is an official doctrine of Brahmanism.It was opposed to the very concept of equality, and its soul lays in graded inequality.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Until untouchability came into being, the Shudras were the lowest of all. They were the lowest in terms of the Hindu social order. This was until untouchability came into being. But with the intermixture of varnas, so over time there has been, there have been very many sexual relations or intermarriages, even though it's prohibited in text, these things did happen, and these intermixtures gave rise to new castes, and castes such as Chandalas came to be known as untouchables, and they were the lowest of all. They were considered the lowest of all. Now, they were the outcastes. [00:08:00] They lived and suffered at the bottom of the Hindu caste hierarchy for centuries. They were segregated, discriminated against, and humiliated in the name of God and religion. The untouchables were forced to live in degrading environment. They were denied a life with dignity. Their values, culture, and traditions were suppressed. Having a decent education was a distant dream to these communities. They were economically deprived, socially excluded, and politically marginalized, and they were forced to live a life of surrender to the dominant caste. The untouchable women were forced to become prostitutes for dominant caste patrons and village priests as devadasis. So sexual abuse and other forms of violence against women were often used by landlords and police to crush any type of dissent.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: This untouchability you can see throughout the dark pages of Indian history, and it's been there through every [00:09:00] king's regime. And one of the harshest times were seen in the 18th century during the Peshwa regime. The Peshwas were called the Chitpavan Brahmins, the priestly class. During that time, untouchables were not allowed to use public streets lest a Hindu was coming along so that his shadow would pollute the Hindus.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: The untouchables had to identify themselves by wearing a black thread, either on their wrist or around their neck as a prevention so that Hindus do not get themselves polluted by touching them by mistake. So they had to also carry strung from their waist a broom to sweep away behind themselves the dust they trod on, lest a Hindu walking on the same dust should be polluted. So they were also required to carry an earthen pot hung around their neck wherever they went for holding their spit, lest the spit falling on the earth should pollute a Hindu who might unknowingly happen to tread on it. Such a system continued to exist [00:10:00] despite the change in the regime, and you can see how barbaric this is.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So the untouchables later came to be called as Scheduled Castes under the Indian Constitution and Dalits in common parlance, and the tribal population came to be called as Scheduled Tribes under the Constitution and Adivasis in common parlance.
Sarah Jack: Thank you. You mentioned the Constitution and also your work on the law. What protections did the 1950 Constitution give them?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So there have been a lot of protections for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes under the Constitution. One of the important provisions which our Constitution proposes is the Doctrine of Equality, where it treats everybody as equal before the law. This is particularly important, because the Indian society has accepted inequality and discrimination as an accepted value.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So the constitution was very radical in the sense [00:11:00] where it treated everybody as equal under the law. Because the Hindu system, Hindu religious texts, gave punishments to different people based on the caste they belong to. So for the same offense, punishment differed from person to person based on the caste he belonged to. But the constitution, in that sense, equalizes, saying that everybody is equal under law.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And our constitution also provides for affirmative action, which I'm sure is present in some of the other constitutions such as the U. S. and South Africa, as well, where special provisions have been made for people belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and other backward classes in terms of education and employment. And now there has been a new addition, as well for economic weaker sections who are actually people belonging to none of these communities, which means they are forward castes, but they're economically poor. There have been special provisions which have been made for their protection and betterment.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And one of the [00:12:00] important provisions with regard to Indian constitution is abolition of untouchability. So what I mentioned earlier is the practice of untouchability, which has been prevalent in India for centuries. The constitution said that untouchability is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden. The enforcement of any disability arising out of untouchability shall be an offense punishable in accordance with law.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So the principles of equality and non-discrimination are woven through the very fabric of our Indian constitution and also many other international human rights conventions, as well, which basically prohibit discrimination based on birth, descent, and social origin, to which India is also a party to.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: The laws have been there, even the conventions have been there, but the problem is how it is enforced. The enforcement is totally discriminatory. That's why there is prevalence of discrimination. That's why there is prevalence of untouchability in various forms, which is still manifesting [00:13:00] in indifferency. In the past,untouchability was mostly confined to physically touching people or physically restricting the movement of the untouchables. Say, untouchables were not allowed inside the village, or they had to remove their shoes while walking inside the village, things like that. But now it's not so prevalent in the urban milieu. Of course, it is still there in some parts in some rural areas in India.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: But in urban India, types and forms of untouchability has changed with the changing times. So now it exists mostly in the minds of the people where people say for example, one of the areas where I've researched on was caste discrimination in higher educational institutions. So this happens in universities, in higher educational institutions, where students from these marginalized communities go to study and get access to education. Instead of welcoming these students who have [00:14:00] come from these really poor backgrounds and marginalized sections, these first generation learners, instead of welcoming them, these vested interests who are mostly dominant caste people, they build hurdles to these students accessing education and in such a way, and some of the cases are so brutal that the kind of mental torture and pressure which are put on these students are so immense that they even take drastic steps like quitting institutions and even in some cases student suicides, particularly of Dalit students committing suicides in India has been very, it has beenon a rising level in the past decades or so.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So the forms of discrimination has changed over time, but yet it remains one of the most brutal forms of untouchability, which is still prevalent in independent India.
Josh Hutchinson: And how does someone get recognized as being a Dalit?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Ah, that's a very interesting [00:15:00] question, because it's not, caste is, caste is a state of mind. It's not like race, which is apparent. So there are different ways. One of the most obvious ways is surnames. So people do keep surnames of particular castes. There are surnames which denote the caste of a person. So if a person keeps that surname, it's very obvious that person belongs to a particular caste.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And otherwise, it's not so uncommon in India to ask a caste of a person, so if you meet somebody and they ask, okay, first you exchange pleasantries and everything, and then you become friends and, in a school or a college setup, I'm saying, you go out and have fun, and then it ultimately comes down to that point where they ask, 'okay, which caste do you belong to?' And when it comes to that, it's very hard for somebody to hide it. So at most times, people do say that, 'okay, I belong to [00:16:00] such and such caste, which is considered as a scheduled caste.' And that's the point where the attitude of the other person changes.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So caste is that complex phenomenon where the attitude of one person changes based on the caste of the other. So when, say, A says, I belong to this caste, B thinks, okay, where do I situate him? Is he above me or is he below me? So based on that, B gives respect to A. So it's always. It's, it's relatable, it's okay, how much respect should I give him? Is he above me or is he below me? So that kind of concept, and it's very difficult to hide somebody's caste, and when we fill applications and for jobs and foreducation, everything, we have to fill details as to which religion we belong to, which caste we belong to, and things like that. It's not so difficult to find out which caste a person belongs to.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And then in the villages it's very, and that's the [00:17:00] city part which I told you about. In the villages, it's very apparent because Dalit households are on the outskirts of the villages, always in the outside periphery of the villages, and everybody in villages, everybody knows which caste the other person belongs to. They know, okay, should we touch them or should we not? Should we use their water or not? Should they remove their shoes and come in their particular way or not? So everything is, it's sort of predetermined, everyone has to follow these set norms.
Sarah Jack: And how does the population compare between the castes? How many Dalits are there?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: 250 million. 250 million, that's 25 percent of the Indian population, so that's a huge, huge number of population. Yeah. 250 million, I'm sure it's, I don't know, it's, it might be even the size of some of the smaller countries, so it's a huge number of population, but it's a very, [00:18:00] very silent and marginalized population, which doesn't have much voice, because the provision of the constitution came, as you said, in 1950 and from then, the people started getting access to education. So it's the first generation or first or second generation learners are coming from the Dalit communities now.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So it's a huge disparity, and we have to fight against centuries of oppression. You can see how difficult it is. And now we are able to articulate our views and our thoughts, but it has not been like this before now, like in the 21st century.
Josh Hutchinson: 250 million, I think the US has a population of 330 million. So that would be almost the entire country. So just to put that in a little perspective for [00:19:00] us over here, it's a really huge, yeah, a huge number of people to be suffering this kind of abuse and discrimination. You mentioned that there's affirmative action, there's some new opportunities, but what kind of work do the Dalit perform generally?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Historically, traditionally, as per the Hindu religious texts, the Dalits are supposed to perform the so-called menial and polluting tasks, such as cleaning dry latrines, open and closed sewers, gutters, carrying human corpses, carrying dead animals, tanning leather, things like that. Butover time, Dalits have tried to come out of these occupations, but it's not so easy.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: One of the classic examples which I always give is about manual scavengers who are almost Dalits, [00:20:00] always. Manual scavenging is a, is a most visible and surviving symbols of untouchability. So manual scavenging is Dalit women and men are manually cleaning dry latrines. So they are forced to carry out human excreta with bare hands, take them into a different location away from the scavenged toilets. So this has traditionally and historically been assigned to Dalits, this task.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: There have been laws which ban manual scavenging. There is a 93 act, and there's a new act in 2013, which also banned manual scavenging. But the example which I give is, say, a manual scavenging woman, she says that she wants to give up this task. There are provisions in the Act which help people to give up this thing. So there is a one time cash assistance of 40,000 rupees. That's about it. They give 40,000 rupees and they say you have to leave this job, which is not that easy to give up a job just for 40,000 rupees. And there is a scheme of [00:21:00] loan and some scholarship for the children of the manual scavengers and things like that in the Act. And say the woman, she says that I want to leave manual scavenging and I want to open a tea stall, and she puts up a tea stall. But how many people are going to buy tea from her? It's as simple as that. She puts a tea stall. How many are going to buy tea from her? First, she's a Dalit woman. And secondly, that too, she's a manual scavenger, so she will be crumbled and crushed under the shoes of our society. It's not that easy to give up these tasks.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: I'm not propagating it in any way. It has, they have to give it up. But what I'm saying is, there has to be means, in such a way that they give it up for good. It shouldn't be that they give it up for some time, and then they go back because they can't handle the pressures which come from the society. So the government has to evolve schemes in such a way that this is a banned occupation we are talking [00:22:00] about. It shouldn't be carried out at all in the first place. So stringent punishment should be given to those people who are employing these manual scavengers.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And many manual scavengers who have gone down the drains have never come out alive. Few compensations have been paid, in few cases here and there. Butit's nothing huge, and a lot of cases have happened where these people who have gone down the drains have never come out alive, and nobody has been punished. No, these are human lives we are talking about. There's no punishment at all for, and people enjoy impunity. It's really sad and very disturbing. But that's the reality that's present at the moment, unfortunately.
Josh Hutchinson: How many manual scavengers are there estimated to be?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So the socioeconomic caste census of 2011 discloses that more than 180,657 households are being engaged in manual scavenging for their livelihood. And the [00:23:00] 2011 Census of India shows 794,000 cases of manual scavenging in India. And this number doesn't include septic tanks, sewers, and railway tracks, which are also cleaned by manual scavengers, which means the actual number is a lot higher than this.
Josh Hutchinson: And the Dalit, there are other abuses, including witch hunts, is that right?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Yeah, that's right. Yes, witch hunting is one of the very important ways in which Dalit women have been hunted down in the past so many centuries. While both Dalit men and women are subjected to various kinds of hardships and handicaps, Dalit women face a triple threat of caste, class, and gender. They are molested and raped by dominant caste men who, as I said, enjoy impunity. And witch hunting or witchcraft, because of these accusations of witchcraft, Dalit women are abused and humiliated and even murdered because of [00:24:00] this accusation. Now, witch hunting, as you know, is a very violent form of witchcraft belief. And women, Dalit women in particular, are hunted down onthe accusations of witchcraft. Now, the victims, they suffer physically, psychologically, and economically.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Now, globally, when we speak about witchcraft or witch hunting, we say the patriarchal mindset is as one of the chief reasons for witch hunting. But in India, with patriarchy, there's a combination of caste and class, with caste often emerging as a dominant reason for the practice of witchcraft and witch hunting of Dalit women, and I have heard the activists claim that the accusations of witchcraft against Dalit women are often used as a common ways to kill them.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And most of the victims of witchcraft have been old widows and single women. And common reasons for accusing a woman of witchcraft range from personal disputes [00:25:00] or enmities, even sexual desire and coveting properties. And historically, the bodies of Dalit women have always been used as a tool for suppression by the privileged caste.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Our Indian history has witnessed how Dalit women had to pay tax to cover their breasts, which was often not affordable to them. So such was the cruel and inhuman treatment of Dalit women, which has very, very few parallels in Indian history. And coming to witchcraft, the women accused of witchcraft are often blamed for calamities, epidemics, and other misfortunes which befall the societies. And victims suffer mental and physical brutality in very shocking forms like lynching, parading naked, social ostracization, and even being burnt alive by mobs. And activists often claim that accusations of witchcraft have been made [00:26:00] only on Dalit women, and privileged caste women have not been victims of, such practice.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And also vast majority of Dalit women in rural India, as I said earlier, they are poor and landless and they are daily wage laborers, and they lack access to basic amenities and entitlements. So they are subjected to patriarchal structures, both in the general community and within their own families. And, these women, they face multiple challenges, including lack of access to resources, lack of educational opportunities, land, essential services, and even justice. So in rural areas, a Dalit woman lives in terror and fear, because she knows that dominant caste people can target her anytime to seek revenge or just assert authority or just simply to suppress.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: There is an intersection of several factors here. There is caste, there is [00:27:00] class, there is gender, and there are also other issues like superstition, which we shouldn't overlook, because superstition and witchcraft goes hand in hand. And there are other things like illiteracy and poverty as well, and so these are all like these vicious factors. you know, it makes a vicious circle around Dalit women, and they are hunted down and they have been killed and so many hundreds of unreported incidents have happened, in every state in India, and, after being declared a witch, the woman is, they are tortured, harassed, they're ostracized and physically tortured, they're banished from the village, and even in some cases, they're forced to consume human excreta, and they're also subject to gang rape as a punishment for witchcraft. There are very few punishments for all this kind of crimes, which are, they are literally crimes, isn't it? There is gang [00:28:00] rape, there is murder, andjust discriminating against Dalits. It attracts so many provisions of Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act, but they are not seen as such. And because the whole structure is such that the perpetrators, they enjoy impunity.
Josh Hutchinson: A Dalit woman who's aging and has lost her husband is extraordinarily vulnerable then to witchcraft allegations.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: She is, she most certainly is. And, as I said, historically, it has been seen as, the bodies of Dalit women have been seen as a tool for oppression. So if, see, there is this famous quote which a Dalit woman said, who is called as a devadasi. Devadasi is a girl who's dedicated to the temple to serve the god, and she gets exploited by the priests and the other village men, and she's basically a temple prostitute.[00:29:00]
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So one of the devadasis famously said that Dalit men are not be touched, but Dalit women could be raped. So untouchability is where you do not touch Dalits, but the women could be raped. Such is the barbaric practice we are talking about, and Dalit women are very vulnerable, extremely vulnerable because it's very hard to, the kinds of struggle they have to fight is multifaceted. It's not just against caste or it's not just against class. There's so many struggles which she has to face and she's very vulnerable because A, she doesn't have education, B, she doesn't have anybody to support her. So it's somebody who has lost her husband or children, and if she has property in her hand, then it's very likely that somebody will accuse her of being a witch. Maybe somebody dies in the village and then the allegation directly goes to this Dalit woman who doesn't have a husband or a child and she's living alone, old [00:30:00] widow. The allegation is directly thrown to her saying that she is the reason why somebody has died in the village or some child is ill, things like that, and that she has casted an evil eye on the family, and she'll be banished from the village, even burnt alive and things like that.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: It's, it's very hard. And no matter how much we try to deny these things, these practices and these mindsets, the mindsets of the people are still rooted in these traditional beliefs. That people, even now in the cities also, people, it's easier to say that, okay, everyone's educated in the city. People do not believe in all these.These practices are confined to the villages, but people still go tie threads to the trees. They tie threads around their hands. They tie threads around their ankles as a protection from evil spirits. And who are these evil spirits we are talking about? These are the same people who are the vulnerable masses [00:31:00] whom the mainstream, the main civil, so-called civil society has targeted to be witches. These are the people, and they're the innocent, the segregated, the humiliated, the banished. These are the people against whom the so-called civil society is guarding.
Sarah Jack: Thinking about your example with the woman who would leave the scavenging and hope to sell tea, and I was thinking about the students that you mentioned. They go and there's these obstacles so much that they may not want to go on living, even with their education. So when a Dalit gets an opportunity that looks like, yes, there can be some mobility. I can get some education. I can have a choice here. What's it going to take to keep those doors open for them? Is there [00:32:00] somebody that has found a place to stand and get mobility that others can look to for hope?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Yeah, there is one and the most important success stories to use the word which you used, and that is Babasaheb Ambedkar, who is the father of the Indian constitution, the chief architect of the Indian constitution. He comes from an untouchable background. He was born as an untouchable, and he braved on against all these odds and he was discriminated, heavily, during his childhood. He suffered those kinds of discrimination, which are very difficult for us to talk about now. And he suffered all of that.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And with the help of the then kings of his state, he is from the present state of Maharashtra, so with the help of the kings who gave him scholarship, he was able to go to U. S. and U. K. a hundred [00:33:00] years ago. And he studied law, economics, political science, and a lot of other disciplines. And he came back to India, and he championed the cause of Dalits, the untouchables then, and he became a very strong voice of the untouchables in the British government, and then in the Indian government, as well. And in the 1930s, when the Roundtable Conference took place in the UK in London, he was invited as a representative of the depressed classes, and he went to London, and he spoke for the depressed classes, and he advocated strongly for affirmative action and provisions equality and non-discrimination.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So what we find in the Indian constitution, because he was the chief architect, he was the chairman of the drafting committee of the Indian constitution, because he was there, we can see his socio-political thoughts being converted into constitutional provisions which are binding on all [00:34:00] citizens today. So the abolition of untouchability, for example. So it's a huge milestone because Indian constitution has a very egalitarian spirit. And this is a constitution which was born in a soil which is essentially undemocratic. So this spirit comes from him. And of course, I have to give credits to the rest of the members of the Indian constitution, constituent assembly, who also agreed to what Babasaheb Ambedkar was propounding, and there werehuge debates which took place in the Constituent Assembly on various provisions of the Indian Constitution, particularly on these provisions of affirmative action and just basically trying to bring the marginalized sections into mainstream.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So he is the beacon of light and beacon of hope for the untouchables, for the Dalits, and for the Adavasis, for the oppressed communities in India and across the world. His life and his message is, his life itself is a message. So [00:35:00] that, that's one of the huge success stories I would say.
Josh Hutchinson: The thing with untouchability in the practice of this inherited forms of discrimination is Babasaheb Ambedkar himself remarked that when a Hindu migrates outside India, Indian caste system and the problem of untouchability will acquire a global dimension. So it has already happened. Now the Hindus from India have migrated to various countries, and there also we find problems of untouchability. And recently in California, and in another state, they have passed anti-caste laws, which makes caste a prohibited marker, or what we call is a protected marker, against discrimination on par with race, so that if you discriminate somebody based on caste, that is an offense.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Similarly, in England also, in the UK, there has been a longstanding debate and a fight to include caste as one of the protected markers alongside race in the Equality Act of 2010. It has not happened [00:36:00] yet, but there has been a longstanding demand to do so. And there has been obviously objection for this from the vested interests and dominant castes, saying it shouldn't be incorporated. I don't see why it shouldn't be incorporated. If it's incorporated, it is for victims of this discrimination to challenge it before the court. It is a protection for the victims. So what's the problem in incorporating a provision which protects the victims of discrimination? If you don't discriminate, well and good, but it's for those people who suffer discrimination, isn't it?
Josh Hutchinson: What else can the government do?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: I think the basic thing we're talking about is ensuring the most basic right to life with dignity to all, and this is a cardinal principle of the Indian Constitution, and it's a cardinal principle of all these progressive human rights conventions which we're talking about. Discrimination against anyone based on birth, [00:37:00] descent, social origin, it's prohibited. And yet, we see it in India and in some other countries as well. And I think, to root it out, firstly,there are stringent laws. I'm not saying that there aren't, but the enforcement has to be made effective. One is that. Another is to mold the minds of the children right from the beginning, right from school, incorporate it into the curriculum that everybody is equal.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: A child grows up both with the conditioning at home as well as the school. At home, the child gets the conditioning from the parents, and if, it depends again from the family backgrounds, if they are belonging to a dominant caste, they get that conditioning. If they're belonging to a lower caste, they get that conditioning.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: But the school is, should be seen as an equalizer where students can be molded, into thinking that everybody is equal and putting that [00:38:00] principle of equality and non-discrimination into their heads right from the school time. And to do that, teachers first should be trained properly.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And again, with the teachers, judges, lawyers, police officers, law enforcement officers, and all people in the government should be sensitized to the realities of Indian society, because caste is a reality in Indian society. It's not something which is in abstract. It's there, it's visible every day. It's present in every walk of life. They have to be sensitized adequately so that when, say, a case comes before, an issue of a Dalit atrocity comes before an upper caste judge, he's able to understand where it is coming from. And not just acquitting people just because of lack of evidence. They have to probe into why there is a lack of evidence. You have to see where these people are coming from, how difficult it is for them to actually get hold of evidence.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And, because I'm saying this [00:39:00] particularly because the 93 act against manual scavenging, it saw zero convictions. Absolutely no convictions in that. It's an act against manual scavenging, and there have been no convictions at all, none to this daybecause there are laws, but then there is no enforcement. So most of them go because of lack of evidence and things like that. So I think judges have to be sensitized adequately to handle cases of this. It's a different magnitude, and I think people with sufficient depth will be able to understand where these cases are coming from, why these things are happening in the first place.
Sarah Jack: If convictions started occurring, would they, would it be like a mass conviction? Would it be like these individual cases?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: No, I don't think it's going to be a mass conviction because it has not happened at all, and the atrocities against Dalits, be it rapes, murders, molestations, manual [00:40:00] scavenging are things which you find on a day to day basis on the streets, but rapes, gang rapes, and these are horrific crimes, which shock the collective conscience of this society. Even in those cases, there have been no convictions in a lot of cases. Here and there you will find one or two cases.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: And I'll give you an example where, where a dominant caste girl was gang raped, which is wrong, any rape is wrong for that matter. She died and then, against the rape, there was a huge protest,throughout the country. There were candlelight vigils and things like that. It became a huge issue in the country. Similarly, a Dalit girl was also gang raped and she also died. Even her body was not given to her family to conduct a dignified burial. Forget about candlelight vigils and no protest, nothing. If there are protests also, it's only by Dalit organizations who are protesting. But other people, the so called civil [00:41:00] society, it doesn't disturb them because it's seen as a normal thing. That is what I'm saying, because even when it comes to crimes such as gang rape and murders, which are, it is so intense and gruesome, even when it comes to crimes such as that, people still see the caste of the victim. If it is a dominant caste girl who is a victim, then it is fine, okay, let's go protest against this. But if it's a Dalit girl who is a victim, oh, she's a Dalit, so okay, maybe we shouldn't.
Josh Hutchinson: Wow.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: That's a selective kind of, fighting for justice.
Sarah Jack: And I have a question about all of this in light of when you speak of molding the children's minds and their understanding. Now, children are being raised within cultural traditions and religious traditions and then you have all of this embedded through that. What do you do with that?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: It's so difficult, isn't it? That's what I'm saying. To have a parallel system of education, which is impartial, which is [00:42:00] secular, which gives that upbringing to the child, which is based on egalitarian values. There will be a conflict in the child's mind, which is very, very evident. It will be happening. And I think the child has to grow up with that conflict and then decide which one, which path to take, because if both the values are ingrained in its mind very clearly, then I think the child will be able to pick up the right one.
Josh Hutchinson: Do the Dalit children, do they have equal access to school?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: They do. Because of our constitution, they do have equal access to education. They, we have free education until the age of 14 in government schools. So government schools are always in vernacular languages, depending on which state. In, for example, in my state of Karnataka, it's Kannada. In a neighboring state of Kerala, it is Malayalam. So in North Indian states, it is Hindi. It's vernacular, but again, Indian school system is very,I'm [00:43:00] assuming it's a subject for another time. It's a very complicated system. We have the state schools, then we have private schools. In private schools, we have mediums, English medium, and Hindi medium, Kannada medium, and things like that. Then we have these Cambridge syllabus, international schools, Oxford syllabus and things like that, ICSE and CBSE, central schools and there is a vast difference in the school system. And I feel the discrimination starts right from that time. So by the time this child comes to the higher educational institution, university, the child has already had a lot of baggage, because a child coming from a vernacular school will not be able to compete with a child coming from an international syllabus school. And then the race for the university entrance exam is the same. So there is no different exam for a child coming from vernacular school or a child coming from international [00:44:00] syllabus. It's the same thing. So who do you think will get into universities, top universities?
Josh Hutchinson: These, the four metropolitan cities, and there are top schools in these metropolitan cities. Students from those schools only end up in big universities in India.
Josh Hutchinson: Has there been enforcement of any laws against witchcraft accusations?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Internationally, there is UDHR, ICCPR, ICHS, GAN, ICRD, which speak about, roughly, about witch hunting, because they basically ban practices which are degrading human dignity. In India, at the national level, we have the Constitution of India and the Indian Penal Code, the Drugs and Magic Remedies Objectionable Advertisement Act of 1954, and the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act of 1989 and the Protection of Human Rights Act of 1993. And these all can be associated with witch-hunting [00:45:00] atrocities. Now while some states have specific local acts on preventing witch hunting and some other states are in the process of criminalizing the offense, one of the western states in India called the Maharashtra, it passed India's first anti-superstition law called the Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and Other Inhuman Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act of 2013. It actually saw a huge protest against this act because it was criminalizing some of the superstitions which people believed were not superstitions and things like that, but the prevention of witch hunting bill 2016 was framed, but it has still not become the law of the country, so there is nothing specifically on witchcraft which is binding on all the states.
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: So there are some states which have criminalized witchcraft and witch hunting as offenses. But again, [00:46:00] enforcement in those states also are huge issues. I think, if I'm not wrong, one of the northeastern states of Jharkhand has criminalized witchcraft, and I think the punishment for murder of, killing of a witch is something like three months, which is ridiculous to be honest, because it's a murder, and why is it not seen as a murder under the Indian Penal Code? It should be punished on equal grounds as 302, section 302 of IPC, which should be this exact same punishment, which should be awarded for somebody who kills a woman claiming her to be a witch. But no, it's just completely, I mean, three months, it's just absolutely ridiculous.
Sarah Jack: Does the constitution or any other doctrines state what would be humane treatment of women? What would be dignified treatment and equality?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: I don't think human dignity is defined under the Indian Constitution, only it says that right to life [00:47:00] with dignity is a fundamental right which is non negotiable under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution. It is like a basic structure of the Constitution. Fundamental rights are the basic structure of the Constitution. You can't negotiate them. They are ultimate. They are fundamental. It is inviolable. People can't take it out. Government can't take it away from people. So non-negotiable rights. I don't think anywhere it is defined as what human dignity means, but it is generally taken to understand how dignity is defined normally in common values.
Josh Hutchinson: Is there anything else that you want to be sure to share with us today?
Preethi Lolaksha Nagaveni: Thank you very much for having me. It was a lovely conversation, and, in terms of, witch hunting, because your podcast is primarily dealing with witch-hunting, I think it can be said that witch hunting is one of the most heinous forms of violence Dalit women are subjected to in India. And it has been [00:48:00] going on for centuries. But the media, civil society, legislature, and even judiciary have been mute spectators to this gross violation of human rights of a section of the most marginalized silent populace of the country. And unless and until stringent laws are enacted which show no mercy to the perpetrators of this harmful practice, which while it's a most basic right to life with dignity of Dalit women, unfortunately, I think this practice will continue to exist in modern industrialized India.
Josh Hutchinson: Thank you for learning with us. We must be aware of the oppression happening around us. We must no longer turn our backs.
Sarah Jack: Join us again next week.
Josh Hutchinson: Subscribe in your choice of podcast app.
Sarah Jack: Visit us at aboutwitchhunts.com/.
Josh Hutchinson: And remember to tell your friends and family all about Witch Hunt.
Sarah Jack: Support our efforts to [00:49:00] end witch hunts. Visit endwitchhunts.org to learn more.
Josh Hutchinson: Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
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