“I began to realise the need to go beyond this manifest violence to understand how different functionaries of the Indian state – investigators, prosecutors, trial judges and appellate judges – could get away with blatant displays of caste prejudice, over and over again.” His conclusion is stark, simple and sad. When caste killings and, even, caste massacres happen, we, as individuals but also as a system, deny the caste causation almost each time.

India, Mitta writes, “has remained steadfast, across decades and across regions, in denying the caste angle to some of the most blatant caste atrocities.”

This book recounts how caste disputes or atrocities have been handled from 1816 to 2019. In the process you discover “the abolition of untouchability in 1950, if anything, escalated the violence against the formerly emancipated untouchables. One of the new forms of atrocities that followed as a pushback from dominant castes was mass killings.” The first was in 1968 at Kilvenmani.

Of the atrocities Mitta writes about, the one I read most closely was Belchi. I was 22 when it happened. What I remember is not the horror – The Spectator in London called it ‘The Hunting of the Harijan’ – but Indira Gandhi’s bravura response. Late at night, seated on an elephant, drenched by the blinding monsoon rain but shining a torch on her face so she could be seen and recognised, she arrived in Belchi. As Mitta puts it, she “captured the popular imagination”.

What I didn’t know and was astonished to discover is that Indira Gandhi “earned the distinction of being the first – and perhaps the only – national leader to have ever visited a caste-atrocity site”. What a dreadful comment on our politicians. Indeed, on our democracy. And, definitely, on how our rulers respond to the tragedies that afflict us.

However, Mitta’s account isn’t about Indira Gandhi. It’s about how the system didn’t want to accept Belchi as a caste atrocity. Charan Singh, who was home minister, told Parliament “This incident has no caste, communal, agrarian or political overtones and has nothing to do with atrocities on weaker sections of the society as reported in certain sections of the press”. A parliamentary committee, chaired by the general secretary of his Janata Party, Ram Dhan, disagreed vehemently but couldn’t convince him.

Mitta argues Charan Singh-like denial vitiates our response almost every time. It’s the upper castes who deliberately deny the truth. It happens at every level – the complicit police response and investigation, the weak prosecution, the judgments and verdicts that follow and, even, the way appeals are handled in the Supreme Court.

Finally, Mitta’s comments on the great men we look up to will surprise you. Of Gandhi: “In this specific context, he does not always come across as a Mahatma.” Of Nehru: “he neither resisted caste reform nor did he engage much with it … his role is limited to a cameo.” Even of Ambedkar – and I won’t give away too much – his story is “not one without its share of surprises”. Mitta concludes: “Freedom fighters were not necessarily equality champions.”

My only criticism is this should have been an easier book to read. The details it offers are overwhelming and often bury its core message. But it’s still a message we should listen to and reflect upon.

Karan Thapar is the author of Devil’s Advocate: The Untold Story. The views expressed are personal