The Indian Express (Delhi Edition)
In Mirchpur, a race leads to clashes, many caste narratives
LAST DECEMBER, Shiv Kumar won the 1600m race organised in the last week of every month at the Mirchpur government school in Narnaund of Hisar in Haryana. The 17-year-old was the first Dalit from the village to win the race, which had 35 participants, mostly upper castes from 10-15 villages nearby. The victory, with a cash prize of Rs 1,500, was celebrated by the Valmiki community, to which Kumar belongs.
But the revelry didn’t last long. On January 30, Kumar and eight of his friends, all Dalits, were assaulted, allegedly by a group of upper-caste men at a cycle-stunt show. The reason, Kumar claims, was his race win. “They couldn’t stomach the fact that a Valmiki boy had won. Four Jat boys had tried to sabotage my race by taking turns to pick up the pace at each lap before dropping off. They have been mocking and abusing me since,” alleges Kumar, who completed his Class 12 last April.
On Thursday, Mirchpur, 140 km from Delhi, was turned into a fortress with close to 100 policemen in place, in scenes reminiscent of the riots that rocked the area in 2010. Back then, two Dalits — a 70-year-old and his disabled daughter — were burnt alive and the houses of 18 others were torched by upper caste men. In September 2015, the one-man Justice Iqbal Singh Commission set up by Haryana to probe the violence blamed police for acting as “mute spectators” and “failing” to prevent the rioting. Of the 100 named in FIRS, 15 were convicted and three handed life imprisonment.
The latest incident is a culmination of the tension that had been simmering for over a month, ever since paramilitary forces, who had been stationed here since 2010, were withdrawn. The village has over 8,737 residents, 17.81 per cent of whom are Dalits.
Pulling out a bunch of certificates, all for different athletics events in the NCR region, Kumar says, “I didn’t want to become a