Public hearing throws light on discrimination, violence When Norti Bai, sarpanch of Harmara in Rajasthan, refused to give in to the demands of upper caste men in her village, her daughter-in-law Ram Peari was branded a “witch.” The villagers called for Peari's “Social Boycott” and excommunication. In Alwar district in the State, Sunita Bairwa of Bahedakhah was assaulted because the upper castes were unhappy about a Dalit being elevated to sarpanch. These...

Mohammad Aamir had just turned 18, when one February day in 1998, he was ambushed by a police van. A month later, he found himself thrown against the cold, forbidding walls of a prison cell in the capital's Tihar jail. The charges were murder, terrorism and waging war against the nation. Aamir, released in January this year after 14 years, was named the main accused in 20 low-intensity bomb blasts executed...

On a wall on Station Road, among posters of Khoonkar Darinde and The Dirty Picture, Amitabh Bachchan looks out of a row of yellow-and-red posters and says, “Do boond har baar.” Here in Moradabad, the town in western Uttar Pradesh that till recently exported, besides its intricate brassware, strains of the deadly polio virus, the posters have been around for long. The writing on the wall was clear: this was...

Notwithstanding the rising trend of growing paddy in the state, it will not be easy now for the farmers of the Salhavaas region here to grow the paddy crop as the Jakhar khap panchayat, which is active in 36 villages of the region, has clamped a ban on cultivating the paddy crop in the villages. If any one dares to violate the verdict of the panchayat, he may be boycotted socially...

-The Indian Express Tribals generally impose Social Boycott as punishment for those suspected of practising sorcery. The tradition is strong in Uttnoor, Narnoor, Jainoor and Indravelli mandals in Adilabad district . The Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) officials, though aware of it, could not do much as tribals go by the word of the village head rather than the advice of an ITDA officer. In Kolamguda village under Bersiahpet panchayat of...