Hot dal flung at dalit woman for defying upper castes in Bihar
A dalit woman and her infant daughter were scalded with boiling hot dal and several other women and their children were assaulted by upper caste men in the village
Why? Because a group of Musahar women had come to the defence of their children who had been roughed up for playing on the premises of the local temple and ‘dirtying the premises of the Goddess Durga temple’. Musahars, the lowest among the dalit communities, often face brutal violence and humiliation by people from the higher castes
A dalit woman and her infant daughter were scalded with boiling hot dal and several other women and their children were assaulted by upper caste men in the village of Siwalpur in Bihar for defying a custom that prohibits their entry into temples.
Ramavtar Yadav, a retired railway employee and his three sons broke into the home of a Musahar woman Gyanti Devi on the evening of August 31, pulled her hair, beat her up and then poured the dal that she was cooking onto her back, scalding her badly. The woman’s six-month-old daughter Sunita, who was on her lap at the time, also suffered burn injuries.
The men then beat up three other Musahar women and their children.
What had the women done? Their children were playing on the premises of the local temple. Yadav had objected to the dalit children ‘dirtying the premises of the Goddess Durga temple’, abused them and roughed them up. Their mothers arrived to defend them and got into an altercation with Yadav over his behaviour.
Later that day, Yadav arrived in their village to exact revenge for the lower caste women’s defiance. Gyanti Devi was his prime target as she had protested loudly when the children were being attacked by Yadav that morning.
Superintendent of Police (Rural) Upendra Kumar Sinha said a case had been registered against the attackers under the Atrocities on Scheduled Castes (Prevention) Act. Yadav had been arrested and efforts were on to apprehend the others involved in the incident, he added.
Musahars, the lowest among the dalit communities, are one of the most impoverished and backward sections of Bihar’s population. They often face brutal violence and humiliation by people from the higher castes.
In recent years, increasingly assertive dalits who have entered temples across India in defiance of ancient Hindu laws that prohibit them from doing so have provoked violent resistance from upper castes who resent the rapidly changing social equations.
