35 Years After Tsunduru: Are We Still Living With the Conditions That Killed Eight Dalits?

— ✍️ Adala Anvith Reddy & Dr. Karamala Areesh Kumar

As we remember the Tsunduru Massacre (6th August 1991), an important question arises: are we really free from the conditions and causes which caused the massacre? Even after eight decades of independence, whenever Dalits attempted to access the public resources like land, water, temples, educational institutions and government offices, they faced violence and massacres. The incidents such as Karamchedu (1985), Laxmanpur Bathe Massacre (1997), Khairlanji Massacre (2005) and Dangawas Massacre (2015) expose the failure of the state, judiciary and constitutional bodies. To understand the violence of Tsunduru, one must understand its physical and socio-economic landscape.

Background

Located in the fertile coastal belt of the Krishna-Godavari delta in Andhra Pradesh, Tsunduru is a classic caste-hierarchy-dominated, primarily agrarian society. The economy of this region underwent significant shifts following the Green Revolution, during which landowning families belonging to the dominant caste (Reddy in this case) gained immense wealth due to the surplus agricultural produce generated. This further consolidated their power hierarchy and helped them emerge as a major stakeholder in the socio-cultural power hierarchy, since they had access to both the means of production and the products derived from production. The village reproduced the caste divide through strict segregation, dividing the village into the main area (Ooru), inhabited by dominant Reddy and other caste-Hindu families, and the segregated Dalit colonies (Wada), primarily comprising the Mala community.

This geographic division reinforced a notion of exclusionary measures, as key public institutions, high-yield agricultural lands, village temples, clean drinking water sources, and the local administration offices were historically situated within or strictly controlled by the Ooru, while the Malas were relegated to the Wadas wherein they suffered from dilapidated conditions, lack of access to proper basic facilities like sanitation and clean water amongst many other essential resources.

Historically, this exclusion maintained a rigid labour dependency, in which the Mala community comprised most of the landless agricultural labour force and relied entirely on Reddy landlords for daily wages and basic survival. However, by the late 1980s, as the Mala youth made significant strides in accessing educational institutions and, coupled with growing mobility into urban wage labour and public sector employment, began disrupting this traditional feudalistic alliance system. This transition in the socio-cultural dynamics of the village directly challenged long-standing indentured labour systems, generating deep-seated resentment among dominant-caste landowners who perceived Dalit educational and economic mobility not as democratic progress, but as a threat to their systemic privilege system, which they have firmly established for years.

Although this was the daily life of the Mala community, things reached a boiling point in July 1991, when a local Mala man by the name of Ravi accidentally grazed the foot of a Reddy woman during a cinema show at a theatre. Upon seeing this, Ravi immediately apologised to the women in question. However, certain Reddy youth at the theatre roughed him up due to this incident. After the show got over, Ravi was found and forced to drink brandy by some Reddy youth, and the Reddy youth brought Ravi to a police station and demanded that he be arrested for allegedly misbehaving with women while drunk.

Another incident happened across similar lines wherein a Mala boy was accused of grazing his body against two Reddy girls outside of a cinema hall. Both of these events had a profound impact on the Mala community's socio-economic space, wherein the Reddy caste boycotted the entire community and were effectively speaking, excommunicated from the village since they couldn't find any work in their village, owing to a social boycott by the dominant caste, since most of the Mala community depended on daily wage agricultural labor that was primarily done on Reddy owned lands. Due to this boycott, they were forced to seek their provisions and employment opportunities in the nearby town of Tenali. These incidents increased the preexisting caste divide between the two communities, wherein the Reddy community saw the Mala Community as essentially overstepping their required roles in society, and the Mala community saw education as a means through which their community could prosper and break the shackles of indentured labour under the Reddy caste.

The Massacre

All the above incidents and divisions culminated in the fateful day of 6^th August 1991, wherein the police raided the homes of the Mala community without a clear modus operandi or reasoning. Fearing the police, the women encouraged the mala men to run out of their home and seek shelter elsewhere, away from the police. As the Mala men ran towards the fields, a mob of Reddy men were ready in the fields, armed with axes, sickles and various other weapons to kill the oncoming victims. In total, 8 Dalits lost their lives in this attack (7 Mala and 1 Madiga men). On August 7^th, many of the women and children of the village took refuge at the Salvation Army church situated at Tenali due to the discourse at the village following the aftermath of the attacks.

Role of Judiciary and State

After the reports emerged of the massacre from Tsunduru, the police were slow to react. When the villagers asked for security, following the aftermath of the attack, the police denied a major event that took place and brushed it off as a small altercation between different caste groups. Even when it came to recovering the bodies, the villagers recovered the bodies from the fields and canals due to the non-cooperation of the police to involve themselves in this case whatsoever.

After many protests initiated by the Dalits of the village, a chargesheet was filed wherein 219 individuals were accused of committing murder (Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code) and various offences under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. Seeing that this event was primarily perpetrated based on caste and had a scope for judicial bias, the Andhra government set up a Special Sessions Court in 1993 to expedite the proceedings. However, the case was marred by an inefficient police investigation wherein the police could not adequately get proper evidence, such as forensic evidence, because when the bodies were recovered, they were in a dilapidated state. There were reports of procedural delays and intimidation of witnesses in the case when they came to give their testimony. Out of the 212 arrested suspects, 33 died before the trial made substantial progress. Following years of constant struggle, the landmark judgment was delivered by the Special Court for SC/ST Atrocities Cases in Guntur on July 31, 2007. The court heard from 71 witnesses and convicted 56 people. Thirty-five defendants were given one-year jail terms for minor charges like rioting and promoting enmity, while 21 defendants were jailed for life for murder. At the same time, the court acquitted 123 defendants for lack of sufficient evidence directly linking them to the crime.

However, on April 23rd, 2014, the Andhra High Court, chaired by M. Narasimha Reddy and M. Ashwin Kumar, acquitted the 56 individuals who the special session court had convicted on account of trivial matters such as a lack of exact time wherein the event took place and inconsistencies with the witness testimonies and a lapsed police investigation, amongst similar things. Later, the Supreme Court stayed in this order, wherein it directed that the state cannot take any more appeals regarding the Tsunduru massacre. At present, the case is stuck in legal limbo, with no progress due to the stay order, which has been in place for almost 12 years.

Conclusion

As the anniversary of the 1991 Tsunduru massacre befalls us, it reminds us of a grim reality wherein caste atrocities and the state-biased legal systems go hand in hand. Even after the introduction of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, this case demonstrates lapses in its effective implementation. This event also catalyses many other caste-based events in Andhra, such as the Laxmipeta Massacre, amongst many others. To properly address issues such as these, there needs to be active involvement of the state's apparatus to bring out certain social programs aimed at educating the masses about caste atrocities. The ongoing legal process for Tsunduru highlights that the state needs to implement more than just legal laws on paper; the state and the legal machinery should be fundamentally committed to the swift dispersal of justice and the dismantling of the entrenched caste system existing within society and institutions in the following manner:

· The state should establish a digital application wherein individuals have the facilities to report any caste-based hate crimes and incidents involving caste-based disputes. Similarly, the state should also implement a digital dashboard wherein caste-based incidents can be mapped on a district basis, for the government to see which areas are more prone towards caste-based violence and alleviate them.

· The state should have separate institutions, such as police and judiciary, whose sole purpose is to register and prosecute cases regarding the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

· The state should also make sure that victims of caste-based violence get adequate aid in terms of legal expenses, compensation, mental health support, etc.

· There needs to be a sensitisation session implemented in educational institutions regarding caste-based discrimination and atrocities committed in the name of caste to ensure that the population at an early age gets sensitised towards the issue of caste-based violence.

The Authors

-Adala Anvith Reddy, is a student of International Relations and Peace Studies at St Joseph’s University, Bengaluru, Karnataka.

-Dr. Karamala Areesh Kumar, is Head, Department of International Relations, Peace and Public Policy (IRP and PP), St Joseph’s University, Bengaluru, Karnataka.