On 5 February this year, in a village in Uttar Pradesh, a 16-year-old Dalit girl was attacked by three upper-caste youth. While she was returning from the fields, they dragged her away in an attempt to rape her. When she resisted and shouted for help, they fled. But before running away they chopped off her ears and part of her hand with an axe and badly injured her face. The inhumanity of this action would be unthinkable in any civilised society. But here, in India, it is hardly noticed. This is routine. In our highly patriarchal system, a girl's life is cheap; a poor Dalit girl is less than a
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