The Supreme Court of India had on 20 March banned automatic arrests and registration of criminal cases under the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
Following the order, various Dalit groups, backed by political outfits, on Monday, 4 April, called for a Bharat Bandh (India Shutdown) to demand restoration of the Act to its original form.
The violence during the protests has sparked the debate on Dalit atrocities, reservation and rights of the SC/ST. Here are some quick facts about the Scheduled Castes and Tribes of India.
With nearly 16.6 crore people belonging to Scheduled Castes and 8.4 crore to Scheduled Tribes, the two communities constitute 24.4 percent of the nation’s population, as per latest census data.
The Constitution lists 1,108 castes and 744 tribes across India in its First Schedule.
Scheduled Castes have poor sex ratio at 933, compared to Scheduled Tribes that have 957 women for every 1,000 men.
The literacy rate among the SC/STs is well below the rest of India's population, but the gap has closed significantly in the last decade.
The literacy rate of SC women went from 42% in 2001 to 56.5% in 2011. In case of ST women, the rate rocketed from 34.8% in 2001 from to almost 50%. Among SC males literacy rate went up from 66.6% to 75.2% in the same period and for ST males, it went from 59.2% to 68.5% by 2011.
Punjab, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh have the highest share of SC population. While, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha have the largest ST population.
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