The boycott included a ban on the use of most common resources in the village, including wells, barbers, local transport, grocery shops, access to cattle feed, access to roads passing through the Jat areas and employment in the agricultural fields.<\/div>\n
Dharamveer, 40, a Dalit laborer, said 137 Dalit families moved into the mini secretariat in Hisar town, several miles away, on May 21, 2012, to demand action from the authorities.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Afterward, hostility against the Dalits remaining in Bhagana increased. \u00a0Many of the Dalits who remained were those employed under the practice of seeri, a contract where Dalits work on Jat fields for meager wages.\u00a0 Because the contract is renewed annually, it bypasses a land reform act passed in 1953 that grants ownership rights to tillers who have worked 12 consecutive years.<\/p>\n
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As Dalits in the village have slowly gained access to education and jobs through a government program called the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, which provides a minimum of 100 days of employment to daily wage laborers, they have increasingly abandoned seeri, adding to tensions in the village.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The tensions manifested themselves through Dalit women remaining in Bhagana. Many girls were harassed at school and chose to stay home, including three of those who reported they had been raped in March.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
On a visit to the village earlier this month, the rancor between the two communities was apparent.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThey are\u00a0
namak haraams<\/i>,\u201dsaid Kundan Panghal, a Jat farmer, using a term that in Hindi means people who cheat their bosses. And Dalits now had to go to Hisar for basic groceries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nOn March 25, the police registered an initial criminal complaint against five men in the girls\u2019 rape cases. Medical tests confirmed the four had been raped, according to documents that M. provided.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
The five suspects were arrested on March 29. In an interview, Rakesh Panghal, the uncle of two of the men, denied that the girls had been raped.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\u201cThese girls are known to have multiple love affairs,\u201d he said. \u201cHow can they be trusted?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Mr. Panghal, who is head of the village council, denied that the common land was allocated illegally and that the Jats were exercising a social boycott of the Dalits. \u201cThey have left their houses on their own to extract unjustified compensation from the government,\u201d he said.<\/div>\n
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Kaviraj, the superintendent of police in Hisar district, who goes by one name, said the police were following legal proceedings and that he could not comment on either the rape cases or the dispute over the land allocation.<\/div>\n
The issue of the land dispute is due to be heard soon by the National Commission of Scheduled Castes. The Dalits are also demanding employment, legal access to land in Bhagana and monetary compensation for the rape survivors from the state government.<\/div>\n
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The Bhagana police have 90 days within the initial report to charge the five suspects.<\/div>\n
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Meanwhile, some of the girls and their families continue to protest in Jantar Mantar in Delhi. Some returned to Hisar on Wednesday for a street protest to put pressure on the local government to file rape charges and register a complaint in the land allocation case. On Wednesday, the parents of the 16-year-old victim, S., were arrested with several others in Hisar for their protests against the state government.<\/div>\n
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Earlier in May, during the sit-in protest in Delhi, S. seemed full of purpose as she managed journalists and sifted through official documents.<\/div>\n
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\u201cIf the government has turned deaf, we will get them to hear,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Published by India Ink, The Newyork Times on May 29, 2014
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