15 rupees
In Uttar Pradesh yesterday a shopkeeper murdered a Dalit couple because they owed him 15 rupees – 22 cents.
Police told the Press Trust of India news agency the incident took place in Mainpuri district early on Thursday as the couple were on their way to work.
They were stopped by Ashok Mishra, the owner of a village grocery, who demanded that the couple pay the money for three packets of biscuits that they had bought for their three children a few days ago, reports say.
The couple reportedly told him they would pay after they received their daily wages later in the evening.
“While Mishra kept shouting for the money, the couple started walking towards the fields. Mishra then ran to his house nearby and returned with an axe. He hacked Bharat repeatedly and then attacked Mamta who was trying to rescue her husband. The couple died on the spot,” Nadeem, a local villager, told The Indian Express newspaper.
I hope those three children have somewhere to go.
In most Western countries, Mishra would get a life sentence. In India, who knows, they were Dalits and they owed him 22 cents. Mitigating circumstances perhaps?
The caste system must be the most morally repugnant institution ever conceived.
RJW: Eh, that writes off too much of human history (just off the top of my head, the Holocaust, the Japanese Imperialist system during that same time period, and of course, the “unique institution” of American slavery). Now, if you meant the most morally repugnant extant system conceived, it’s a bit more solid a claim.
Freemage,
“…if you meant the most morally repugnant extant system conceived, it’s a bit more solid a claim”
That’s a reasonable comment, I wasn’t attempting to ‘write off’ other atrocities in human history. Yes, the Caste system still exists and has probably endured since the Bronze Age. Caste condemns generation after generation of people to the same menial and despised positions in Hindu society, there is no escape and of course, it’s sanctioned by religion.
Slave-owning societies in antiquity, particularly Rome freed many slaves, individuals could escape from their positions at the bottom of society. The factor that distinguishes Caste from other oppressive slave systems is its remarkable continuity and rigidity.
Btw, why is US slavery described as a ‘unique institution’. It seems essentially the same as slavery in the rest of the Americas, Asia and Europe?