The annual tribute to India's oppressed castes remains marred by the violence that broke out four years ago.
Each New Year’s Day, tens of thousands of people travel to a village in western India called Koregaon Bhima to visit a war memorial that has become a sacred monument to the country’s downtrodden castes.
“Government institutions don’t move quickly on these issues and end up protecting the perpetrators and the discriminatory caste system,” he said. Still, prejudice remains pervasive. Last year there were more than 50,000 homicides, rapes and other assaults against citizens, usually Dalits, based on their social standing — crimes the government classifies as “caste atrocities.”
Pride does not come easily for Dalits — which is why the memorial in Koregaon Bhima is so significant. Tensions were especially high in 2018. The bicentennial of the battle had drawn more pilgrims than usual, and Maratha leaders declared a strike to shut down the town and the visitors with nothing to eat or drink.
Still, even before the violence, his standing in the village had been weakened by an influential member of the Maratha community who spent years trying to buy his family’s land. Without a home, the family was essentially banished from Koregaon Bhima.Sangeeta, Jaydeep Sagat’s mother, with her grandchild.
The Maharashtra state government eventually moved him and his family into a one-bedroom apartment 25 miles from Koregaon Bhima in Pune, where they felt safer. It was supposed to be temporary, but the family remains stuck there.Sakat had little choice but to sell the family land back in the village to cover medical bills for his father, Suresh, who suffered a stroke last year and died soon after.
“We arrested people based on the video footage and other evidence,” said Abhinav Deshmukh, Pune’s superintendent of police. “In some cases, an accused has been named across complaints. Therefore, it might come across as a conservative number.”