Dearer Caste and Cheaper Lives: The SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and the Double Violence of Law in India

The Constitution of India prescribes provisions to safeguard the lives of the Scheduled Castes. Special Acts are designed to address the existing challenges related to discriminatory practices and brutal violence against them by the dominant communities. However, the protective legislations have seldom acted to restrain the increasing display of cruelty against the historically marginalised. Mundane normalised violence compels us to question the authority of caste and the functioning of the legal system in India. The persistence of caste-based violence highlights the inability of state and bureaucracy to create order in society. It is, therefore, necessary to understand the nature of the social dynamic, causes of violence against Dalits, and the working of administrative and judicial machinery. This article presents a detailed analysis of a caste violence that occurred in 2006 in the Bura Bartara village in Uttar Pradesh. It examines the usage of violence by the dominant Lodhi caste to maintain and reproduce the caste-based social order. Simultaneously, it attempts to theorise caste atrocity as a form of violence.