The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 was framed to protect Dalits and Adivasis from discrimination and violence. It distinguishes different types of crimes like humiliation, depriving access to resources, and assault. It also prohibits practices like manual scavenging. Adivasis successfully organized and demanded land rights, leading to the 2006 Forest Rights Act recognizing their rights over forest areas. While laws exist to protect marginalized groups, ongoing struggle is needed to ensure equality in reality.

1. Confronting Marginalisation
• Prepared by:-
Pavan Kumar
Sahu
KV Bargarh
TGT(Social
Studies)

2. Introduction
• Marginalisation is the process whereby something or someone is
pushed to the edge of a group and accorded lesser importance. This
is predominantly a social phenomenon by which a minority or sub-
group is excluded, and their needs or desires ignored.
• Confronting refers to the way in which groups and individuals
challenge the existing inequalities.
• In many cases, the marginalised groups are derived from the
Fundamental Rights. In this case, they forced the government to
enforce these laws.
• The marginalised groups also influenced the government to frame
new laws. The abolition of untouchability is one of such examples.
• The Constitution always tries to ensure Social and Cultural Justice to
the marginalised groups. The government has framed many
schemes and policies for the marginalised groups and made efforts
to promote them.

3. Invoking Fundamental Rights:
• Fundamental Rights are the basic rights given to every individual of
a nation which every person is entitled to have being a human.
• Fundamental Rights are enshrined in the constitution and has been
inspires from American constitution.
• The Fundamental Constitutional Rights are equally available to all
Indians including marginalised groups.
• Adivasis, Dalits, Muslims, women and other marginal groups argue
that simply by being citizens of a democratic country, they possess
equal rights that must be respected.
• Many among them look up to the Constitution to address their
concerns.
• By insisting on their Fundamental Rights, they have drawn on these
rights in two ways:
– Forced the government to recognize the injustice done to them.
– They have insisted that the government should enforce these laws.

4. Continue…
• The struggles of the marginalized groups have influenced the
government to frame new laws, in keeping with the spirit of the
Fundamental Rights.
• Article 17 of the Constitution states that untouchability has been
abolished.
• This means that no one can henceforth prevent Dalit from
educating themselves, entering temples, using public facilities, etc.
• Article 15 of the Constitution states that no citizen of India shall be
discriminated on the basis of religion, race, caste, sex or place of
birth. This has been used by Dalits to seek equality where it has
been denied to them.
• Various other provisions under constitution prohibit the
exploitation faced by marginalised.
• Time to time, the marginalised and minority has raised their voices
and asked for equal and just treatment.

5. Laws for the Marginalised Groups:
• There are specific laws and policies for the marginalized groups in our country.
• The government makes an effort to promote such policies to give opportunities to
specific groups.
• The government tries to promote social justice by providing for free or subsidized
hostels for the students of Dalit and Adivasi communities.
• The reservation policy is significant and highly contentious.
• The laws which reserve seats in education and government employment for Dalits
and Adivasis are based or an important argument that in a society like ours, where
for centuries sections of the population have been denied opportunities to learn and
to work in order to develop new skills or assist these sections.
• Governments across India have their list of Scheduled Castes or Dalits, Scheduled
Tribes and backward and most backward castes. The central government too has its
list.
• Students applying to educational institutions and those applying for posts in
government are expected to furnish proof of their caste or tribe status, in the form of
caste and tribe certificates.
• Different kind of scholarship programmes are also run by governments.
• Laws related to wages, cultural rights, educational rights, and rights against
exploitation have been formed for Marginalised groups.

6. Protecting the Rights of Dalits and
Adivasis:
• Our country has specific laws that guard against the discrimination
and exploitation of marginalized communities.
• The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of
Atrocities) Act was framed in 1989 to protect Dalits and Adivasis
against the domination and violence of the powerful castes.
• A number of assertive Dalit groups came into being and asserted
their rights-they refused to perform their so-called caste duties and
insisted on being treated equally.
• In the 1970’s and 1980’s, Adivasi people successfully organised
themselves and demanded equal rights and for their land resources
to be returned to them.
• This Act distinguishes several levels of crimes.
• It lists-modes of humiliation that are both physically horrific and
morally reprehensible.

7. Continue..
• Actions that disposes Dalits and Adivasis of their meagre resources or which
force them into performing slave labour.
• Crime against Dalit and tribal women are of a specific kind and therefore
seeks to penalise who use force on these women.
• Manual scavenging refers to the practice of removing human and animal
water/excreta using brooms, tin plates and baskets from dry latrines and
carrying it on the head to the disposal ground some distance away.
• In 1993, the government passed the Employment of Manual Scavengers and
Construction of Dry Latrines (Prohibition) Act. This law prohibits the
employment of manual scavengers as well as the construction of Dry latrines.
• We still notice instances of atrocities against Dalits, minorities and lower
section of society. this situation really needs to be taken care of by
implementing the laws made by government.
• The recent deaths of sewage workers put a horrific picture in front of
administration and make us to think that in this advanced era of technology
we have to depend on manual scavenging.

8. The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled
Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989
• This Act was framed in response to demands
made by Dalits and others that the government
must take seriously the ill treatment and
humiliation Dalits and tribal groups face in an
everyday sense.
• The Act does not only describe terrible crimes,
but also lets people know what dreadful deeds
human beings are capable of. In this sense, laws
such as these seek to both punish as well as
influence the way we think and act.

9. The Act distinguishes several levels of
crimes
• The Act distinguishes several levels of crimes. Firstly, it lists modes of humiliation that are both
physically horrific and morally reprehensible and seeks to punish those who-
(i) force a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe to drink or eat any inedible or obnoxious
substance; …
(ii) forcibly removes clothes from the person of a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe
or parades him or her naked or with painted face or body or commits any similar act which is
derogatory to human dignity…
(iii) the Act sets out to punish anyone who wrongfully occupies or cultivates any land owned by, or
allotted to, … a member of a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe or gets the land allotted to him
transferred.
(iv) assaults or uses force on any woman belonging to a Scheduled Caste or a Scheduled Tribe with
intent to dishonour her …
In 1993, the government passed the Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry
Latrines (Prohibition) Act.
 A manual scavenger at work
 Members of the Safai Karamchari
 Andolan demolishing a dry latrine.

10. Adivasi Demands and the 1989 Act
• C.K. Janu, an Adivasi activist, has also pointed out that one of the
violators of Constitutional rights guaranteed to tribal people are
governments in the various states of India – for it is they who allow
non-tribal encroachers in the form of timber merchants, paper mills
etc, to exploit tribal land, and to forcibly evict tribal people from
their traditional forests in the process of declaring forests as
reserved or as sanctuaries.
• The central government passed the Scheduled Tribes and Other
Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006.
• This Act recognises their right to homestead, cultivable and grazing
land and to non-timber forest produce.The Act also points out that
the rights of forest dwellers includes conservation of forests and
bio-diver

11. Conclusion
• As we can see, the existence of a right or a law
or even a policy on paper does not mean that
it exists in reality.The desire for equality,
dignity and respect is not new. It has existed in
different forms throughout our history as you
have seen in this chapter.
• Similarly, even in a democratic society, similar
processes of struggle, writing, negotiation and
organising need to continue.