Victimized twice



In early March, a farmer and local labor activist named Sachin Tukaram Bhise was headed to a nearby village to find day laborers for his wheat and sugar cane farm when he heard a village council was to be called by members of the local Gopal community, near Mauje Jawalwadi. Shivram Chavan's sons did not know the whole story but feared the worst and had ostracized their father; he was ready to confess.



The Gopals are a largely illiterate, impoverished group who were once nomads making their living as cow herders and itinerant street performers. Many have since settled down to menial jobs in the fertile farming region in the shadow of the basalt crags of the Sahyadri mountain range.



As Bhise watched, villagers from around the area gathered in the main square of the village amid tin-roofed sheds. The teenager and her father were brought to kneel before the member council.



Chavan bowed his head and admitted what he had done, Bhise recalled, and said he was ready for whatever punishment the council would give him. Then the elders turned to the teenager and began to berate her.



"They said it was the girl's fault. That the father was drunk and he was not in his senses," Bhise said. "I got angered at the whole thing. How could a girl invite such an act? The 'panch' said, 'You're useless,' 'You're the culprit.' She was crying."



Bhise took out his cellphone camera and surreptitiously began to film as the council issued its verdict - a fine of about $67 and a whipping of 15 "sticks" for the father, five "sticks" for the girl. They would be whipped until each of the thin tree branches broke.



Bhise took his evidence to the police, who later arrested all seven members of the council, charging them with conspiracy, extortion and assault. The father was held on child abuse charges.



'They beat me very lightly'



"It did not hurt me because they beat me very lightly," the teenager said quietly about a month later.



She was curled up on a tarpaulin outside the place where she now lives with her brother and his family - a hut of pieces of fabric stretched over bamboo poles, secured by rocks. It sits on a ridge overlooking a sweeping mountain vista.



As she spoke, the girl began to cry, tears slipping easily from her eyes. She touched the feet of a Marathi-speaking visitor, a gesture of respect, and says she has only herself to blame.



"I asked them to beat me because I was at fault," she said. "The fault was I did not tell anyone about this at home. I told them my father just held my hand. That was my mistake."



Her sister-in-law, Jaya, who was sitting with her on the tarpaulin, agreed that she had been wrong.



"If she had told them, the brothers would have beaten the father. There would have been no panchayat and the matter would have been resolved at home," she said. "If the brothers hadn't beaten him, then the sisters-in-law would have."



Now, the woman said, the young girl just wants to close the case and put it behind her. Since the attack, she has been interviewed by a female police officer, given a medical examination and a small amount of money from the state's victims' fund.



Last month, the state government of Maharashtra approved a measure that prohibits the gathering of village councils to impose a "social boycott," one of the most common - and devastating - punishments. It effectively banishes an individual or family, cutting them off from communal water pumps, stores or the local temple.



Some in the Indian government have called for other states to follow suit, and the government has tightened its laws to prohibit social boycott in some cases.



Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said that he had pushed through the bill because of a rising number of disturbing cases of caste panchayats acting improperly.



"We cannot allow atrocities against any individual or groups," he said. "We will not allow parallel institutions of justice by non-state actors, and we cannot compromise on the dignity and rights of individuals."



And in April, the Gopal community decided to disband the panchayat system and take criminal matters directly to the police from now on, community leader Dilip Dinkar Jadhav said.



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