Behind the viral video: Caste is changing in rural Haryana – but not losing its power

Caste Relations

Upper castes have no direct control over the lower castes, yet they still feel the need to dominate.

R.G - tHe CreAtoR, YouTube

Shoaib Daniyal

Violence on video is India’s new pastime. Every day, images of public assault and in some cases even lynchings flit by on phone screens. On June 24, a short recording of two men brutally beating a young man went viral on social media. Faced up against the wall in a small room, his trousers down, the man is thrashed with a stick on his buttocks as he cries out in pain, begging for the assault to stop.

The attackers, Mohit Kadyan and Jitendra Kadyan, are Jats from Bajana Kalan, a village around two hours north of Delhi in Haryana. Ankit, the young man who was beaten, is a Dalit from the Balmiki caste, also from the same village. The immediate reason for the assault can be gauged from the angry comments in the video: the Jat men wanted the Dalit to work in their fields and bathe their buffaloes.

While forced labour based on caste might have been common in this part of Haryana once, this is hardly the case now. This incident, then, is more complex than that. At one point, the beating stops and one assaulter ask: “Why did you blacklist my number?” Strangely, Mohit and Jitendra were feeling slighted that Ankit wasn’t taking their calls.

Scroll.in travelled to Bajana Kalan and found that behind this gory video lay a tale of complex social change. Situated in a highly industrialised area, the Dalits of Bajana Kalan are now largely independent of the economic control of the village’s land-owning Jats. However, social change has been slow to catch up, leading to Jats to still feel a sense of caste-control over the Dalits, which they now have limited scope to enforce.

  

A tractor in Bajana Kalan with a message of caste pride in the Haryanvi language: "One day this Jat will buy even you". Photo Credit: Shoaib Daniyal

‘They abused me using my caste’

Still in shock, Ankit speaks slowly and needs encouragement from his father to tell his story. “Mohit asked me to come with him,” said Ankit describing events which took place on June 2. “And then he took me to a small room in the middle of the fields and beat me.”

Mohit and Jitendra wanted Ankit to leave his current job and work for them. “They asked me to sell alcohol,” said Ankit. Ankit’s refusal to leave his job at a factory nearby making mobile phone screen protectors enraged them. The fact that he blocked their number on his phone even more so.

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