Description
This anthology speaks of lived realities of violence that unfold in the bastis and villages wherever Vimukta people live. The draconian Criminal Tribes Act was scrapped in 1952, but the everyday torture and criminalization of marginalized members within a society which permits caste apartheid, continues to be justified in police stations and other state institutions – dehumanizing people, damaging families, and direly devastating communities.
Through the fact-finding reports in the custodial violence of Sheru, Amar, Soyna, Shankar, and Tulsidas and the pelting of bricks on eight year old Rihana, we realize how the structural denial of justice in these murders is equally an institutional crime as is the direct torture by the people in uniform.
Supplemented with notes from those who have lived these realities and by those who have engaged deeply with the community, one gets a historical, sociological and a psychological insight into these lives. These voices open up the painful layers of this colonial legacy while also bringing forth the valour, resilience, and strength for survival against odds.
