The Communist Party of India takes a very critical view of the recent Supreme Court judgment restricting the applicability of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act to instances where casteist abuse takes place тАЬwithin public viewтАЭ. Such an interpretation risks invisiblising the lived realities of caste oppression in India. Caste discrimination and violence do not occur only in public spaces. Verbal humiliation, social exclusion, untouchability practices and even physical violence often take place within homes, workplaces and other private spaces shaped by entrenched caste hierarchies. A crime does not cease to be a crime merely because it occurred away from public gaze.
The judgment appears to overlook the spirit of the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, which criminalised untouchability and all forms of disabilities and discrimination arising out of casteist practices. The struggle against caste oppression requires recognition of how caste power operates in everyday life, including in private domains where victims are most vulnerable and isolated. At a time when atrocities against Dalits and tribals are increasing across the country, legal interpretations must strengthen constitutional protections and the fight for dignity, equality and social justice, not narrow them.