 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. On 6 December, India remembers one of its most iconic figures, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, also known fondly as Babasavambedkar, or the writer or the father of India's constitution. The day is significant as the most important aspect of Ambedkar's life was his struggles for the equal rights and dignity and respect of the members of India's feudal caste and feudal tribes. What are the status of those communities today in India? Did they get the justice and rights that Ambedkar and others had envisioned? Today we speak with someone who has analyzed one of the most basic features of a just society, equal protection under the law. They have it as researcher and analyst Edwin, who's with the Citizens, Vigilance and Monitoring Committee, the CVMC. It recently released a report based entirely on government data that examines the performance of the scheduled caste and scheduled tribes prevention of atrocities act 1989. This law was enacted to prevent hate crimes and atrocities. So let us see how far India has come in living up to its vision. And to that of Ambedkar, whom we dutifully remember every year on 6th December. Edwin, thanks very much for joining us. I understand that you're sort of traveling multiple cities talking about the report that you just come out. Can you begin by just telling us what CVMC does and why this report? The scheduled caste and scheduled tribes prevention of atrocities act does have the government and state mechanisms called the DVMCs, the vigilance and monitoring committees at the subdivision level, the district level, the state level. And we also have a parliamentary committee and coordination committee between both the tribal ministry, ministry of tribal affairs and ministry of social justice. But we felt that there's a lot of things that the citizens should also do in a similar way. And that's why the citizens vigilance and monitoring came in. So that's why the CVMC. You know, one of the things that always happens is 6th December rolls around. We remember the framework of our constitution. We remember everything he stood for. But if you look at even a cursory look at your report would indicate that we're not living up to the standards that the constitution and Dr. Ambedkar had perhaps hoped we would. The rate of crime, as we all know, constantly increases every year. But the rhetoric that we see is about how the Dalits, the scheduled caste, the scheduled tribes. And in fact, even the poor in general are referred to, but most of the victims of these crimes do not seem to have, you know, even the basic legal structure in place to address, to even register a complaint. That's what your report seems to say. Now, I wanted to, before, you know, after you take us through the bare bones of the data, why is this so? I think Ambedkar was very prescient in many ways. And that's why he said we now have a political democracy. We need to have a social democracy. And by definition, that means Indian society as such, all of us, it needs to be a whole of society approach, not just a political approach. And this law in itself is a social democratic kind of legislation which brings together different arms of the government. And unfortunately, like most other things that civil society human rights defenders propose to the government, whether it's a right to work or right to food or now social justice, the government tries to reduce it into the only two things that it knows. One is a budget line and the other one is a law and order problem. So that's the whole issue. Ah, okay, so you're saying that there are problems or issues that underline certain crimes, especially crimes against the most disadvantage of our society, the SREs, the SREs. And that aspect is never looked into. So the structural changes are never actually addressed. Yes. All right, so now one of the things that's very starkly represented in your report is the inverted structure of the crimes that are registered when it comes to the schedule cast and the schedule tribes. For example, and you and I have actually discussed this before that when it comes to an attempt to do a crime then that attempt should be higher in frequency than the actual crime, which applies for murder, which applies for rape and other crimes. Now, what does the inverted structure can explain to our viewers and also explain why the situation might have come about, what it means? Yeah, so our report is only based on the recorded crime. So we don't go into the larger social issues of is crime recorded, is it not recorded, all those kind of things, which are a social issue. But this is all from government sources, right from recording the crime to convictions and judgments, yeah. So normally there would always be less number of the most serious crimes recorded and much more of the less serious crimes. So there will always be less murders recorded than attempt to murder. There will always be less attempt to murder than a grievous injury and less grievous injury than simple hurt. But in the case of crimes against the schedule cast and the schedule tribes, it's the other way round. It's there are more murders than attempt to murders. So from this recording itself from the state mechanisms and none, this is not complaints. These are FIRs registered. So we know that there is separation. There is no way in which rape will be less than attempt to rape and assault on a woman. And the unfortunate thing is in 14 states, rape is the highest recorded crime against when it comes to rape against schedule tribes and in 10 states against schedule cast woman. And that's the highest crime. It's like saying murder is the highest recorded crime in all the physical injuries. It's just not possible. So this is evidence from government statistics itself that there is a lot of separation and trivialization. Some argument is that women do not come forward to report. Now that is simply doesn't hold good because a woman comes into report. It is the policeman or the police woman there who records it under that particular section. So unless there is a cement test that comes out positive and therefore is recorded as rape, we know that everything else is recorded only as assault on women. And your report actually doesn't pertain to just one year. You're looking at the scenario from 1992 onwards. Yeah. So this trend has consistently remained or are there swings, are there ups and downs? No, this has been consistent. We have the rape and attempt to rape figures only for the last seven years and it has held consistently for scheduled tribe women showing that they are actually at the bottom of the social hierarchy in India. And last three years, that is 19, 20, 21. So for the last three years, it is holds good for scheduled caste women as well. Right. Now this brings me to the difficult and perhaps so many people boring aspect, but the most important aspect of any law is the implementation, the procedure. Law is, I guess, nine-tenths, just procedure. So walk us through some of the findings. You see, the most important part, I think, is how a case gets registered under these rape guards and shoe tribes prevention of atrocities act. Is the procedure markedly different today than it is for any other crime? And is that procedure being followed? See, in this case, it is a little different because unlike other crimes, the standards for this crime, registration and investigation are much higher. It is not lower. The case itself has to be, once a complaint is given, the inquiry happens first and it is by a deputy superintendent of police or a subdivision magistrate. And ongoing for the inquiry, they have to give a written report under Rule 6-2 to the superintendent of police, the district magistrate and the special court. And so that is the top civilian executive and the judicial officers in the district. So this kind of standards are not there for any other crime. Which means this kind of standard is not there means that even before a crime is registered, there is actually someone at the district level, at the ground level who goes and sees whether this complaint might hold true or not. And primarily what they're trying to investigate is whether this particular act, the SCSD prevention of atrocities act applies or not. Exactly. Because there might be a murder which doesn't fall under this act because this act says very clearly it has to be by somebody from a non-scheduled community or somebody from a scheduled community. So there might be a murder, there might be a civil conflict which is between two communities, both of which are scheduled, it wouldn't come in. But once it is confirmed and it is in confirmed in writing or not, then both the district magistrate and the superintendent of police must visit the spot and conduct a spot inspection. And then the superintendent of police ensures that the correct sections of the act are put into the FIR. And that's a very clear, plain, simple English in the rule. Rule 12, one, both of them go. Rule 12, two, this is what is done. And again, this is written down and sent to the special court. So at every stage, there is judicial monitoring of this. Yeah, so the standards for registering a case in this are much higher. What is the outcome of having these multiple layers of checks? This is where the second part of your question comes in. Is it implemented? We know for sure that it is not. Very often, this kind of procedure is not followed. And unfortunately, what happens is that this reflects in the conviction rate. And even the judges of the Supreme Court, instead of holding the officials accountable for not following these procedures, they say that the victims are filing false cases. And this is by a person who went on to become the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Yu-Yu Lalit and Gual. They said that innocent citizens are being terrorized by the Schedule Cards and Schedule Tribes. When this is a standard that is supposed to be there, and I would be very surprised if the Schedule Cards and Schedule Tribes communities can actually influence the district magistrate, the Subnanur Police and the judge of the Supreme Court to file false cases. What you're saying essentially is that since there are so many layers of checks which continue from the commission of the crime, the alleged crime, to the point where the government authorities accept that this particular act would apply to that crime, to the filing of a charge sheet and taking the case to court, considering all these checks in place, the low conviction rate is inexplicable. Can you tell us what is the conviction rate in some of the crimes and why it seems too low? Why it seems too low? Yeah, it's inexplicable if they follow this procedure. Yeah, because there is an inquiry, there is an inspection by the SP and the district magistrate and then the investigation is by a DSP again at every stage it is being monitored by this special court judge. And yet there is, and the prosecution is done by a special public prosecutor who is specialized in this act and has got minimum of seven years experience and is paid higher than the other advocates. And yet this is so low, yeah. So that we really, it's absolutely inexplicable. But the other part of it is that we had, the civil society did a study in 2007, 2009, showing that if the case drags on for more than six months, the victims will step back. And after one year, even the, I mean the witnesses will step back in six months and even the victims and their families, including in case of murder and rape, will step back after a year. That's where the act is very clear that the judgment should be within two months of filing the chart sheet. And the rules are very clear that the investigation will be done within 60 days. You are referring to what we ordinarily call as the witness turning hostile. Exactly, yeah. Because they are surrounded by the hostile communities, the perpetrator communities as a class and they're dependent on them for life and livelihood. And therefore they will need to, I mean they will be pressurized in any case. In the annual reports submitted by the states under rule 18, witnesses turning hostile comes as no reason number one. For the case not reaching a conclusion or for the lack of conviction. For the lack of conviction. All right. They say that this is turn hostile. And is this consistent across states or is there a regional? Across states. All right. Across states and the other parties that is courts who are supposed to enforce the law, they themselves do not follow the law. And in many cases, they are ignorant of the law because section 15A rights of victims and witnesses. Subsection six very clearly makes the special court responsible for providing protection, for providing relief, rehabilitation and if necessary relocation. So we can see the police can provide protection for maximum six months. They're not going to provide protection for six years. So when we have cases that are pending since 1992, 1992 we have cases pending. And then these people are not given the rehabilitation or the relief. They become dependent again on the same hostile communities. How can we expect them to stand on stand diagram? So the courts themselves by delay and by not fulfilling their duties, both other main culprits. And now we have almost three lack cases that are pending for more than a year. I was just searching for that number because I knew it was in your report. Now the thing is that we need to sum up some of what we've discussed so far. We have a special law. There is a procedure defined under the law which is not in effect, not implemented across states, across the country. We have people who are becoming victims of crimes, serious crimes, disproportionate to the general population, the inverted structure which we discussed. And then when people pass through the various checks and balances, they find that they still do not end up getting the justice that they might feel to deserve. On top of that, when it comes to the appeal stage, there is a reluctance to go and contest a verdict in a lower court. Isn't that also what you find? Actually you put your finger on one of the major giveaways that the whole thing is actually an elaborate drama and a fraud perpetrated on the scheduled communities. Because if this really did take place, the inquiry, the investigation, the inspection and the monitoring by the special courts, when there is such a high rate of acquittals, then the courts or the state missionary would have stepped in and said, let us appeal. Because any father, any mother knows that if their children get less marks than expected, they will always go in for the evaluation. But most states have a 0% appeal rate. The all India appeal rate is 3%. So we know that it's an elaborate charade, a fraud on the scheduled communities by precisely this. When the elite officials are found to be wanting and they don't go in for appeal, we know that it is a fraud. Well, even since you used a very strong word over there, I'm bound to ask you, how sure are you in your report about the numbers that you cite? Every number that we cite is either from the National Crime Records Bureau. Every fact is from the annual report sent by the state to the union government under rule 18. Or it is from the annual report placed by the union government in parliament under section 21.4. Or it is from the annual report of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment. None of the primary data is generated by us. So if the government believes in figures, it is accurate. All right. Now, one of the other aspects of crime and crime prevention is also giving some sort of relief to the victims or the other survivors and the family members. Let's discuss what is happening over there. Your report seems to highlight that funds are basically lying around unused and reverting back to the parent ministry or the central government or wherever they came from. And they're not being used. Can you give us some figures and facts for this? Yeah. So to go back to section 15A, subsection six, this is also supposed to be ensured by the court. And unfortunately it is not. So at the top level, it is a failure of the judicial system directly, the special court judges for not ensuring this. The rehabilitation part. So there is something called the Instant Monetary Relief which is directly administered by the Union Ministry of Social Justice, an empowerment to their 100% owned subsidiary, the Dr. Ambedkar Foundation. It's a Instant Monetary Relief. In 2020, close to 6,000 cases and were eligible for this Instant Monetary Relief. And these are from the most heinous crimes, murder, rape, arson and permanent physical disability, 5,800 cases. The Dr. Ambedkar Foundation directly administered by the Union Ministry gave just six people, just six. So what was forfeited by the scheduled communities facing the most heinous crimes was about 170 crores, worth of Instant Monetary Relief was forfeited. And about in the past four, five years, it is over 770 crores. There's supposed to be, and I'm talking only about the heinous crimes. Again, for rape, murder, decoyty and permanent disability, the families of the survivors and victims are supposed to get a pension, a job, a house and education for children up to graduation. The last five years alone, it comes to almost 30,000, 28,000. No ministry has got the figures, how much is being given. Now we know that if even a single paisa has to move out from the government, you have to fill up a form and duplicate or what duplicate or what? Surely. There are no figures. Where there are figures, again, it is in single digits. So these things can be done by the government directly. The third one is the maintenance expense, travel allowance and maintenance expense, almost never given, supposed to be given by the state administration, the district level, the district magistrate or the special officer, not given. The special court never monitors that. And the maintenance expense, which is one day's wages for rural agriculture labor, not given in any state. In the heinous crimes, when there is supposed to be relief given for three months, we have states like Gujarat, which gives 15 rupees per person per day for three months and 10 rupees for a cow for three months. Yeah, it's as ridiculous as that. 10 rupees per cow, if the person is displaced because of a heinous crime. All right. So if there's a murder, if there's a rape, if I'm chased out of my house, then every adult will get 15 rupees per day for three months and every cow will get 10 rupees. So this is in the Gujarat contingency plan. And then we come to the courts themselves. Relief is given in stages. 25% of the relief is given only at the time of conviction or end of the trial when it comes to heinous crimes against women. Now, three lakh cases in court means about 1,000 crores to maybe 3,000 crores worth of relief is being held up just because the courts are not doing their job. And we have shown very clearly, and it's from the government data, there were more cases being heard, completed and convicted when there were no special courts or special police. Now that we have special courts, we have exclusive special courts are on average in 2021, the latest year for which figures are available is 18 cases per court per annum. So the courts are holding up minimum of 1,000 to about 3,000 crores worth of relief. And this is not relief that can be given after 10 years. Right, absolutely. So I'm wondering, are there states which we can hold as an example, as exemplary in terms of this act, are there states which in your court turn out to be better off than other states? I would say each case, each state is a case study in what should not be done, every single one of them. Because compliance even at, I give you one example of compliance at the union level, which is directly under the control of the minister. Every state, if you look at it, there are certain things that directly under the chief minister, directly at the state secretariat level, which is just conducting a meeting every January and July. Compliance of that, just that statutory meeting is 6.5% across all states and right from 1995 onwards. So no state. Compliance for the meeting. This should you to hold a meeting? Do we not hold the meeting at all? No, most of the states have not even conducted one meeting. Uttar Pradesh, that is the highest number of recorded atrocities has conducted just one meeting in the last 28 years. One. And that would include the term of the BSP as well in power. It was Mayavati who conducted one meeting. Never been held before, never been held later. Only 25% of all the chief ministers have ever conducted even one meeting. All right. And of course that would mean chief ministers across the political spectrum, across the real world. There is no pattern here. The pattern is that all are complicit and all are case studies and what should not be done. Well, then I'm going to ask you a very cynical question as we come towards the end of this interview. Why do we mark a maker's anniversary? Is it a habit? Is it something we feel we have to do? Is our political class unable to come to a consensus like it did when the atrocities act was actually passed? Why do we mark this anniversary if the people he struggled for all his life do not get a modicum of justice? I think Ambedkar is somebody who cannot be wished away and that's why the political class celebrates him. But even today, on the sixth, when he passed away or on Vijay Dasami Day or October 14th, whichever day, which of the political class will actually have the courage to take out his 22 wows and read it out. Not take it as a pledge. Just read it out. They cannot. Fine. That was meant for Ambedkar and his followers. But then to move towards his vision also needs a lot of courage. And unfortunately, that is the courage that neither the political class has. And therefore, the political will does not translate into the execution by the police or the judiciary. Because... I'm sorry, but the people who are affected by these crimes and do not get justice, perhaps they can do something? Yes. Unfortunately, they are the ones who should be doing it. And those with privilege like us who are not affected, we should be the ones to support and ensure that it happens. Now, there's a very specific rule, rule 39. It says very clearly that the government is supposed to make the communities aware of these provisions and they are supposed to fund NGOs to make the communities aware of these provisions by running awareness centers and conducting workshops. No government has given funding for NGOs for this work. And that's why the communities are ignorant. That's why the Dr. Ambedkar Foundation can give just six out of, you know, 6,000. And because the collector, the district magistrate who's supposed to apply for this incident monitoring relief doesn't do it, the community doesn't know to demand that. So there is no incentive. In fact, that's a perverse incentive for not doing it. Though it is 100% funded by the union government. So unless the lawyer is very actively pursuing a case and trying to help the petitioners out, there's not going to be... Maybe people do not know that they are entitled to certain benefits. Yes, and this keeping the communities ignorant is a deliberate action because according to the law, we are allowed to have our own lawyers paid by the state. But in most of the states, that is not even permitted. And it's very, very rare that it is there, that these special prosecutors are private lawyers. One of the things mentioned in the event at the Constitution Club was that, you know, there should be before the 2024 looks of election, a sort of draft of a manifesto representing what the demands of the scheduled cast and scheduled traffic law. Is that a process already underway? Manifesto is a very broad and much more comprehensive one in which we're looking at. But no, ours is much more narrower. It is on this act. And most people forget that this act is for the prevention of atrocities. So where is the preventive aspects coming in? Yeah, and that is something that the government can do. So let's put it this way. How the lack of courage, yeah? If there is prosecution, yes, there will be backlash from the dominant communities. But there's even lack of courage in extending the relief and rehabilitation. So why can't the government do that? Why can't the government ensure that the infrastructure that we make is inclusive? So those are things that we want to go. So it would probably mean, yes, this is a comprehensive act. It is also developmental rather than just curative and punitive. So in that sense, yes, it will be a manifesto and we are working towards that. But it is in the context of one prevention of atrocities so that the development of the nation and the fruits of that, the benefits of that will also be by the scheduled communities. And number two, the healing process when atrocity happens, that should also be done. That is what the list of demands the manifesto would be looking at. All right, and thank you very much for joining us Edwin. It's been highly informative, very educative. Thanks a lot again. Thanks very much for watching this news click interview. We'll keep bringing you more interviews and insights into the most pressing topics of the day. Do keep watching. Thank you again.