People of Value

New Delhi

They call him a Dalit revolutionary. And his demeanour lives up to this lionised reputation. He spews venom against social injustice and has a voice that is heard. Another matter altogether that two men have to carry him on their`0 shoulders, much like a sack, and his wife has to feed him.

Other than that, his daily chores are the responsibility of his eight children, one of who was brutally raped by Jat landlords and now beard a child from the incident.

Any normal man would have been a mess after this gruesome life. But not Bant. Not only did he stand up and fight for a crime that is commonly forgotten in India’s many villages and got justice for his daughter but he also rose to become a moving force of Dalit identity in and around the villages of Punjab which, otherwise, reel under an oppressive, even fatal caste mould.

As for Bant, life was not always so limited at least not till that unforgettable night of January 5, 2006, when he was cycling back to his village from a neighbouring one after collecting membership for organization he head.

Little did he know that the goon of the rapist landlords whom he had sent to jail for his daughter’s rape in 2000, were waiting to take revenge.

Just when he was traversing a lonely stretch, they appeared from nowhere and waylaid him. What followed was a nightmare that would shame the conscience of the nation for a very long time. Amid abuses, the goons broke his bicycle and charged at him as he tried to run into the fields to escape the inhuman assault.

But it was not to be. The goods followed him on a scooter and in on time his life changed forever. As he yelled for help, the assailants dragged him back and with hand pump handles started beating him up. They first smashed both his legs so that he would not run.

As he yelled helplessly in pain, they almost blew off his lower limbs with savage hits with the iron handles and in minutes that seemed like hellish hours, his legs resembled a mass of mangled, bombed body parts.

But Band did not faint. His wails diminished into agonizing hissings as the men swiched over to their next target his arms. Soon, he was begging for death though from God and not his assailants. In some minutes, his arms were torn to shreds and the blood shlattered all around.

“Not even once did I pass out and the beating became more brutal with each blow,” he recalls more as shuddering moment.

Bleeding profusely and unable to even a finger, a torn to shreds Bant was left in the deserted filed where no one could even hear his cries in the dead of night. He does not remember how long it took for his rescuers to chance upon him.

The sight of Bant’s body lying in a pool of blood with flesh all around terrified his rescuers so much that one of them even fainted. But not Bant. He was conscious enough to say “either take me to hospital or kill me. In the haze of pain, I remember wishing fervently that someone from my family would pick me up,” he says at a Dailit conference in Delhi a year after the incident.

Surprisingly, it was one of the assailants who, while feeling, decided to ring up former sarpanch Beant Singh Sidhu of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) and inform him of Bant’s condition, fearing that the beating may like the man.

Bant, by then a heap of deranged flesh, was rushed to Mansa hospital by farmhands. The bleeding was so profuse that the car in which he was carried left a train of blood behind it.

At the hospital, the doctors refused to stitch him up, either because they did not know how to deal with his condition or because of the clout of the culprits.

For 36 hours, the injuried Bant lay helplessly in the hospital corridor, losing blood and the hope of life.

He was then taken to the SGPGI in Chandigarh where both his arms and one leg had to be amputated because gangarene had set into his crushed bones. His other leg is supported with a wooden structure “Which is hardly of any help”.

It’s almost a year now but when one meets Bant Singh, there’s not a single glimpse of sadness or depression in a man who lost so much in life. “The assailants took away my limbs, but not my spirit,” he says as you sit there marveling at his indomitable spirit.

“I have my voice, they can’t stop my songs,” says the singer revolutionary who has made quite a difference in the villages of Punjab through his work on the uplift of Dalit bonded labourers.

Through his organization, meetings and songs, he continues to encourage fellow Dalits with his revolutionary songs which centre around the them of encouraging villages in not being exploited by landlords.

Bant tells you that his revolutionary journey started when the decided to fight to the core the rape of his daughter and it was through his unprecedented efforts that he managed to get the rapists behind bars a happening unheard of in villages of Punjab where money and upper caste rules the roost for ages.

But he says the daughter’s plight may have triggered his hunt for justice but the entire campaign got a fresh lease of life when bonded labour Sat Singh was mistreated by his master to work for a few days due to illness, Malkeet thrashed and abused him, asking back the loaned money. When Sat and his against this, they were arrested and put behind bars.

Though they were released later, Bant was not ready to forget. Therein began the protracted struggle for the restoration of Dalit dignity and human rights against the landlords who control land and political power.

Bant’s spirit infused unending courage in his bretheren, who supported him and his family in all possible ways. Bant, who was in Delhi to attend ‘Public Hearing on untouchability and Dalit attrocities,’ says: “I am now ready to give my life first if there is any kind of oppression.”

He condemns people who give in to the malpractice of bonded labour and asks them to search for some sort of self-employment through they can maintain their honour.

And this search for dignified co-existence was the purpose behind holding this national public hearing where Dalits from across the country converged to tell their tales and there are many. From the Khairlanji massacre of a family to even allegations of Dalit prejudice against All India Institute of Medical Science director Dr Venugopal, there was a lot to share at the conference.

“The SC/ST medical students are mistreated on the campus, but after the reservation row it got worst. General category students wrote abuses outside our rooms which were locked with students inside,” said Ajay, a final year Dalit student at AIIMS who insists his career hangs in balance because he raised his voice against this discrimination.

Ajay, who claims a big support base on the campus, blames “director Venugopal” for the mess. “Even the Thorat Committee set up to look into the issue, has criticized Venugopal’s role,” he said.

As the Venugopal case brews, another far away student and what happened with him in his school highlights the plights of the Dalits. Nine-year-old Gautam Ravidas from Bihar was dragged out of his class while the other children abused him for daring to sitting in the front row of his, despite being a Dalit.

Source: Fighter of the last. The Pioneer, Daily, New Delhi, 20 May 2007.