Pragoti presents a review of Anand Teltumbde's book by Vijay Prashad. Written originally for Himal, it is being posted here with the author's permission.
The Khairlanji Verdict, in which six persons were awarded the death penalty for the massacre of dalits, is anything but historic. In treating the massacre as a purely criminal act, it actually masks caste realities. S. Anand writes in The Hindu.
The Khairlanji case is not a private concern of Bhotmange. It is, instead a mirror of the caste-based discrimination that continues to stalk the villages across the country and a reminder that Article 17 of the Constitution abolishing untouchability and caste based discrimination is a far cry even after almost six decades after India became a Republic.
V. Krishna Ananth, assesses the Khairlanji verdict and compares it to the judicial intervention of the Supreme Court in the Sohrabuddin-Kauserbi murder case in which Sohrabuddin and his wife Kauserbi were shot dead by a team of the Gujarat Police led by DIG D.G.Vanzara and thereafter described this act of cold-blooded murder as one of an encounter.