‘A lifelong nightmare’

Paswan playing with his young nephew next to a memorial with the names of the 58 Dalits who were massacred 26 years ago, including seven of his relatives, in the the northern state of Bihar, India. India’s staggeringly over­burdened judicial system, with its ever-deepening court backlogs that deprive citizens of their rights and hamper business activity, is one of the country’s longest-running and most far-reaching vexations. — ©2024 The New York Times Company

WHEN armed men stormed into a village of lower-caste Indians, fanning out through its dirt lanes and flinging open the doors of its mud homes, Binod Paswan jumped into a grain silo and peered out in horror.

Within hours, witnesses say, upper-caste landlords massacred 58 Dalits, people once known as “untouchables,” most of them farm workers in the eastern state of Bihar who had been agitating for higher wages. Seven of them were members of Paswan’s family.