'Dalit families in UP threaten conversion after permission denied to install idol in temple'.

This headline, or a slight variation of it, was recently put out by a number of news publications. This was about a case in western Uttar Pradesh's Incholi tehsil, some 100 kilometres from New Delhi.

As immediate reactions on social media suggest, this is what most readers deduced from the headline: that 'upper caste' groups, possibly Brahmins, in perpetuation of caste oppression, stopped 'lower caste' groups from exercising their rights on a place of worship that is supposed to treat all Hindus equally. That more than six decades after discrimination based on caste was made illegal, upper castes continue to do it with impunity, leaving lower castes with little option than to quit the oppressive system and embrace a caste-less religion. Right?

Wrong.

A visit to the village and conversations with both sides and other villagers reveal a picture quite contrary to what the headlines suggest.

It turns out that the tormentor - the group that allegedly stopped the installation of the idol - is also a Dalit group. In fact, both sparring sides are but one Jaatav (a Scheduled caste) clan, or kunbha as is known in local lingo. The dispute involves a piece of land and not the right to free worship. This is evident from the fact that several temple priests, including Brahmins, have offered their premises to install the idol. The threat to convert to Islam, in the family's own words, is to teach the other side a “lesson”.

Ground report:

It was Rajkumar, 54, who appeared before news channels to declare the intention of 50 families to convert to Islam if their idol of goddess Kali was not installed in the choice of their temple.

As I enter his house on Kunkura Road in village Mussoorie, several women including his mother Bedo Devi direct me to a small room that has a mound of wheat. They bury their fingers into the wheat and produce a feet-long idol of goddess Kali.