I wrote a blog as soon as Slumdog came out, before it became an Oscar-winning and award-winning movie. I knew there would be controversy. In the blog, I wrote that this was an accurate description of life in India for the 70% majority, especially for the Dalits and for the tribals.
I can tell you about a case that has had national attention, that has taken the country by storm in terms of stirring up the national conscience. Eighteen months ago in Nithari, just outside of Delhi, a business-caste person was kidnapping children and then, if they were girls, sexually abusing them. They were also sexually abusing boys. Later on, they took some of the boys and sold their body parts, killing the whole lot and dumping them into a well, which the police discovered by accident.
Then you had parents coming on national television, saying, “I came to the police 18 months ago, when my child disappeared. The police wouldn't do anything. They wouldn't register the case. Now they are telling me that my child was one of those kidnapped and killed.”
This is, sadly, highly prevalent. Because of the Nithari case, which is now so much in the public eye, there was a recent report that in the capital city of New Delhi--in New Delhi--six children go missing daily. Two years ago, when the Nithari story burst out, national non-governmental organizations came up with the figure that India possibly has one million missing children--one million missing children who were kidnapped, abducted, blinded, amputated, and sold into the market.
At the Dalit Freedom Network, we wanted to look at the caste background of all of the children kidnapped in the Nithari case. We knew who the primary victims were. I'm disappointed to report to you that we have it on record that 70% of all of those children came from Dalit families. The rest came from what is called low-caste, or backward-caste, families. One family was a Muslim family. There was not a single upper-caste victim there.