On a summer’s day in 2012, Rahul Yelange who hailed from a remote hamlet in Maharashtra’s verdant Raigad district, looked down the snowy world below Mount Everest with pride. Mr. Yelange was part of Pune’s first civilian expedition to conquer the world’s tallest mountain.
With dreams in his head and hope in his heart, an elated Rahul, a veteran mountain climber, went back to his village in 2014, determined to train youngsters in rock-climbing.
It was to be a rude homecoming. A few months later, Rahul and his advocate wife, Pournima, discovered they were facing a malicious ostracization campaign by the residents of Bhogaon Budruk.
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“Initially, it was bewildering. My wife was taunted for wearing Western clothes and not putting a bindi or wearing a mangalsutra. We were routinely excluded from religious functions. They even cast aspersions on our court marriage,” said Mr. Yelange.
They have been enduring a humiliating boycott and leading an increasingly bleak existence since March 2014. This ‘silent treatment’ has caused the young couple no end of trouble.
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Mr. Rahul’s attempts at instructing youngsters on mountain climbing were rudely thwarted by villagers. When they attempted dairy farming on their ancestral property, the villagers refused to allow them to fetch water from the village tap for their buffaloes.
Mr. Yelange was forced to an arduous 30-minute uphill trek daily to fill water from a reservoir for his cattle.
While the incident has drawn the censure of local media and a prominent English daily, matters came to a head on Thursday after some villagers, ostensibly incensed at the ‘tarnishing of the good name’ of their village, burnt Mr. Yelange’s cattle shed, injuring two of his animals.
“What was shocking was that a few months back, some 30-odd families actually wrote a warning note to the gram panchayat that they should not be held responsible if our buffalo shed catches fire. Despite filing an FIR, the worst has happened,” remarked Pournima, who specializes in cyber law.
“Should we be isolated just because we are an educated couple with a modern outlook?” she asks.
The incident has drawn the outrage among a group of Pune-based lawyers.
“This is nothing but pervasive bullying. Mr. Yelange’s case is just one of the better highlighted ones among scores of similar others gnawing at Maharashtra’s social fabric,” said noted lawyer and human rights activist Asim Sarode, speaking to The Hindu .
To urgently counter this social blight, Mr. Sarode has come up with a draft of a Prevention and Protection from Social Boycott and Jatpanchayat Act, 2015. The draft, which is being viewed favourably by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, proposes a punishment of three to five years with the levying of a heavy fine on any person or a group practicing social boycott or discrimination.
“The police shall be trained to deal with the victims sensitively in these cases. The media will also be allowed to document the punishment being meted out to the offenders, especially where it is constructive like cleaning of latrines, or engaging in compulsory blood donation,” Mr. Sarode said, stating that the victim or his/ her family ought to be able to file the complaint directly with the police or the Magistrate.
The document provides for oversight by probation officers in the Women and Child Welfare Department to ensure that implementation and monitoring of the social punishment imposed.