Oppressed sections further marginalised, reveals report analysing record of 10 years of BJP-led govt. 

BengaluruBahutva Karnataka and Ambedkar Reading Circle release report on BJP's social justice promises, revealing failures and injustices.

Bahutva Karnataka and Ambedkar Reading Circle (ARC) have jointly released a ‘Guarantee Check report’ that analyses the track record of the BJP-led Union government on its promises of social justice to marginalised communities in the last 10 years.

According to the report, there has been a 48% rise in cases registered under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act during the BJP’s rule despite its 2014 election manifesto promising highest priority to ensuring the security of marginalised people.

In 2022 alone, there were 67,646 cases, amounting to 188 cases per day, the report pointed out. While there has been a 49.87% increase in the incidents of rape against Dalit women from 2015 to 2019, the report, citing an NCDHR report, noted that only a marginal allocation of ₹168 crore was made for their access to justice. 

Highlighting the plight of manual scavengers, the report showed that nearly a third of the 766 districts in the country is yet to eradicate manual scavenging practices.

The BJP manifesto of 2014 had emphasised its commitment to eliminate manual scavenging and the government had set a deadline of August 2023 to declare India manual scavenging-free.

“We have developed Chandrayaan, but we still have no technology to address this issue and remove the human element from this inhuman practice,” Prashant Bhaware from the ARC said during the launch of the report.

Between 2018 and November 2023, 443 individuals died while doing manual scavenging as per government records. However, organisations such as the Safari Karamchari Andolan pin the figure much higher at 1,760 deaths.