The Madhya Pradesh High Court has observed that “repeated instances of caste-related violence and discriminative actions in the state are shocking”, and that if caste assertion continues unchecked, “people who call themselves Hindus will cease to exist within a century and a half”.
The court made the observation on October 14 while taking suo motu cognisance of an October 11 incident from Damoh district, where a person from the OBC community was allegedly humiliated by upper caste villagers and forced to wash a man’s feet for allegedly sharing an AI-generated meme.
The Bench, comprising Justices Atul Sreedharan and Pradeep Mittal, also took a stern view of the sections invoked by the police in the case and directed them and the district administration to invoke the National Security Act (NSA) against all those visible in the video of the incident.
“This is the same state where a person of the general category urinated on the head of a tribal person, and to placate whom, the then chief minister washed the feet of the victim. Caste identities are on the rise. Every community, frequently and shamelessly flaunts its caste identity to the detriment of the entire Hindu Society,” the court observed.
“Each caste has become vociferous and ultra conscious of its caste identity and leaves no measure unturned to demonstrate his/her pride of belonging to a particular caste,” it said. “This is giving rise to several instances of caste violence. The victims in most cases are the least literate and most impoverished economically. The incident of the shoe being thrown at the Chief Justice of India, the suicide committed by a Senior Additional Director General of Police in Haryana, are instances of such caste-related issues gaining prominence in this country,” the court observed.
The court said that if “one is unfortunate to follow social media or (if one) reads the newspaper, the Hindu is conspicuous by his absence”.
“Persons refer to themselves as Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, Shudras, each asserting their independent identity. At this stage, if things are unchecked, within a century and a half, the people who call themselves Hindus will cease to exist, fighting amongst themselves,” the court said.
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The court said it “would not usually have directed the police to proceed against these accused people under the National Security Act as that’s a matter of executive discretion”.
“However, the delay in acting in that direction and the resentment that is being caused within the people of the community from which the victim hails, if action is not taken urgently and immediately, situations may lead to violence, where police action thereafter would become ineffective with public order being disturbed,” the court said.
It observed that “before this evil symphony of caste acrimony and discrimination reaches its crescendo, the police and the administration of Damoh are directed to forthwith proceed against all those persons under the NSA (in addition to the FIR), who are visible in the video and whose identity can be ascertained, who were there in the temple surrounding the victim and compelling him to do the act”. Police have since invoked the NSA.
