"Seventy-five years after Article 17, untouchability persists in new forms, even in death." Discuss, with reference to disputes over common burial grounds.

Article 17 abolishes untouchability and forbids its practice "in any form". Yet in October 2026, dominant Backward Caste (BC) villagers in Perumbali, Erode district (Tamil Nadu), objected to burying a 90-year-old Scheduled Caste (SC) man in a cemetery the Tahsildar had declared common to all [1]. Untouchability has not ended. It has taken on new and less visible forms.

New forms of untouchability around death

• Spatial exclusion: for years, more than 100 SC residents had to carry their dead about 5 km to Thingalur [1].
• Defiance of State orders: the Tahsildar's order changed the land records but not who controlled the ground. The burial took place only under police and Revenue protection [1].
• Economic boycott: SC members were told not to approach BC villagers for work again [1]. Since the 2015 PoA Amendment, threatening a boycott is itself an offence [2].
• Ritual humiliation: two SC men reportedly fell at BC villagers' feet [1]. A crime was turned into a forced "compromise".
• Changing perpetrators: the group accused here is an intermediate dominant caste, not a traditional "upper caste".

Why it persists

• Economic dependence: landless SC labourers rely on landowning castes for wages, so the threat to withhold work is effective.
• Weak deterrence: only 33.9% of SC cases under the PoA Act that completed trial in 2024 ended in conviction [3].
• Thin judicial capacity: there are only 217 Exclusive Special Courts, spread across just 15 States/UTs [4]. Long delays give the accused time to pressure witnesses.
• Reactive administration: protection lasted one day, while the social pressure continues every day.

Signs of progress

• The 2015 Amendment made it a specific offence to obstruct SCs from using burial or cremation grounds [2].
• The number of persons convicted under the Act more than doubled between 2020 and 2024 [3].
• The State did enforce the right to burial on the ground [1].

Way forward

• Register FIRs for boycott threats instead of accepting "peace settlements" reached under pressure.
• District Vigilance and Monitoring Committees should mark such villages as sensitive and check whether SC families actually use the common grounds.
• Reduce wage dependence through MGNREGA, strengthen witness protection, and expand shared-space models such as Samathuvapuram.

Burial disputes show that untouchability has moved from open exclusion to economic coercion and enforced humiliation. Strict PoA enforcement, preventive monitoring at the district level and economic empowerment together can secure dignity in life and in death. That would realise the constitutional morality Ambedkar envisaged and advance SDG 10 (reduced inequalities).