The Hindu : National : Orissa villagers protest against inhuman practice

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Saturday, Oct 01, 2005

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National

Orissa villagers protest against inhuman practice

Staff Reporter

Members of barber community abused

BHUBANESWAR: Members of the barber community at Bhubanpati, a coastal village in Puri district of Orissa, are scared of returning to their houses. Four women were beaten up and another was paraded naked allegedly by a group of "upper caste" men in the village on September 19.

"We are not sure when we will be able to return to our homes. We have lost everything," Sabitri Barik, one of the victims, said here on Friday.

To organise dharna

The women and their family members are here to organise a dharna outside the Raj Bhavan and submit a memorandum to GovernorRameshwar Thakur on Saturday.

The women were abused by large number of men, allegedly from the Khandayat community, because their husbands refused to wash the feet of the groom and guests during marriage ceremonies as per custom.

The women were later locked up in a room and their houses looted when the male members were away.

"I was dragged out of my house and beaten up. They also looted our house and took away all that we had saved for our daughter's marriage," Pratima Barik said.

Her husband, Hadibandhu Barik (51), has not set foot in the village since March after two men, including a 75-year-old, were beaten up and tortured for not agreeing to wash the feet of the groom and the guests during a marriage, she said. "I am scared to go to my village because the Khandayats will surely attack me," saidHadibandhu Barik. "Our children are educated and they are not willing to do the customary job of washing the feet of upper caste men, clear the left-overs after the marriage feast and wash the utensils."

Socially ostracised

Twenty-five members of the barber community, have been socially ostracised and denied access to water sources and other common assets since the March incident. There are 60 Khandayat families in the village.

Although 29 men were allegedly involved in the September 19 incident, the Brahmagiri police has arrested only four of them so far, Sanjukta (20), another victim, alleged. "All the men who tortured us should be punished."

Not an isolated case

The conflict is not an isolated case. "There have been a series of inhuman attacks on the members of our community in the past two decades," said Jalandhar Barik (40), who was tortured by Khandayats in 1992. "My father was similarly tortured in 1988."

"The local legislators and other politicians do not come to the rescue of barbersfearing the loss of the `upper caste' votes," said Baghambar Patnaik of the Odisha Gotimukti Andolan, an organisation fighting for the cause of barbers in Brahmagiri, Puri Sadar and Satyabadi blocks of Puri.

"The district administration has been treating the problem as a conflict between two castes, ignoring the fact that the job assigned to the barbers amounts to bonded labour, and that they cannot be forced to do the work," he said.

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