The death of nine-year-old Inder Meghwal had turned the nondescript Surana village in Rajasthan’s Jalore district into a hotbed for caste politics.
On Thursday, members of the Dalit rights organisation Bhim Army gathered at the house of the Dalit child who was allegedly beaten to death. On the other hand, members of 36 communities gathered in Jalore in support of teacher Chhail Singh, who allegedly hit the child.
Bhim Army chief Chandra Shekhar Azad was supposed to join the agitation on Thursday in Jalore, but he was arrested by the police and sent back to Delhi. However, that didn’t deter the confidence of the Bhim Army supporters as hundreds of people gathered at Surana village to fight for justice for the family members of the deceased Dalit boy, Inder Meghwal.
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A relative of the child, Gopal Parmad, addressed the gathering of hundreds of people at the house. “We need to fight for the justice of this nine-year-old child who was brutally murdered by the upper caste school headmaster,” Parmad said.
“There are a lot of fake videos making the rounds on social media that say this is not a caste act, but we need answers about the centuries of suppression due to which our children are not safe in school,” he said.
“We have been fighting for centuries for our rights, but no one in the administration is listening to us. Our women are not safe, our children are not safe and our men are not safe. They want our vote but don’t want to give us security,” a community leader from Banswara said.
“We need to fight together against the oppression of people. And we need to show the government that SC/ST/OBC are very well capable of fighting for their rights,” he added.
READ MORE: Dalit Student’s Death: Is School Under Pressure To Deny Caste Angle?
A group of Bhim Army members even protested in front of the Jalore collectorate demanding justice. The father of Inder Meghwal, Devram Meghwal told The New Indian that there is a need to give justice to their family as they have lost their son and also to remove caste discrimination or people who spread caste discrimination in the country.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people from 36 different upper caste communities gathered at Jalore on Thursday in support of Chhail Singh, the headmaster of the school.
They also reached the Collectorate in the afternoon, demanding justice and a fair investigation. The members of different upper caste communities said that Singh, if found guilty, should be punished. But if there is no caste angle, then there should not be any persecutory measures.
While the Jalore district administration had received the post-mortem report, they were yet to reveal its content.