Introduction

Summary

On 20 March 2018, two judges from India's Supreme Court delivered a judgment that put the legal protection of the country's historical outcastes into question. Inspired by the power of judicial review, the judges modified one provision of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act (PoA Act), 1989. They concluded that police officers should arrest accused individuals only after investigations have been conducted rather than immediately after the alleged offence has occurred. They also argued that the Act had been misused. Victims of caste-based violence are often in fear of approaching police stations, where officers could be more loyal to the perpetrators than to members of the victims’ communities. The PoA Act has considerably improved legal protections for victims and has strict consequences for the accused persons. Therefore, the judgment of 20 March 2018 provoked reactions across India, resulting in a countrywide mobilization of oppressed groups, Dalits and Adivasis, many of whom travelled to New Delhi to protest against the Supreme Court's decision. The mobilization was such that the Hindu nationalist government started responding to their demands and eventually introduced a bill in parliament in August to restore the Act and its original provisions. The decision to restore the Act proved to be contentious among the government's supporters, and some members of its vote bank took part in protests. The PoA Act, 1989, has been contested since the early 1990s, and the controversy regarding this piece of legislation reflects a larger theme – that caste and law are central to India's democratic practices.

India adopted a constitution in 1950 that included a sophisticated set of democratic rights, but caste-based oppression has endured since that time. Atrocities have occurred in the postcolonial Indian state at the same time as there has been a significant policy of equal opportunity, which has benefitted groups such as the untouchables (Dalits) and tribal people (Adivasis). This book practices political ethnography by combining case studies and historical sources to discuss what this paradox represents for law and Dalits and to conceptualize the relation between caste and law. Casteism has dehumanized certain groups who have contested its practices and distinctions. By considering the contemporary struggles against caste-based discrimination from a historical perspective, one can explain how laws have been created, institutionalized and changed as a response to questions that arise out of caste-based domination.