Stigma plagues India 'Untouchables'

[Cheetah786]

Huddled in the shadow cast by his makeshift mud hut, Mahilal explains how three months ago he was forced to watch his daughter die in his arms.

She had been bitten by a scorpion but Mahilal couldn't afford the medicine that would have saved her life.

"I took her to the hospital, but I didn't have any money. The doctor just gave up," he tells us, in a matter-of-fact tone.

"I brought her back home and she died in the night."

Stories like Mahilal's are common in this part of Uttar Pradesh, where Dalits, or "untouchables", at the bottom of India's rigid social hierarchy are still struggling to survive, more than six decades after the caste system was outlawed at the time of India's independence from Britain.

And they are difficult to understand unless you dig beneath the bucolic surface of life in these rural villages.

In fields a stone's throw from Mahilal's home, a bumper crop is ripening. Farm workers lumber past as we speak, their faces half-hidden by the sixty kilogram bundles of wheat they’re carrying on their heads. How could poverty exist amongst such plenty, I asked.

"That wheat belongs to the upper caste people," Mahilal says, gesturing to the nearby cluster of brick homes of his neighbours.

"They own the land and we get half a dollar a day to work in their fields."

Landowners in control

The land reforms introduced in this country in the 1950s were supposed to have ensured that the Dalits here received small plots from the large fields owned by upper caste landlords.

But like many grand plans launched by India's government, implementation on the ground has proved difficult because the powerful landowners have simply refused to surrender any land.

"We're still too poor to even imagine having proper homes with plumbing," Mahilal says.

"When we need to go to the toilet, we have to have their permission to use the fields."

In another corner of this village, we find an angry meeting.

Locals seated crosslegged on a tarpaulin are berating their leader Kalawati, who convinced them that voting for the low caste Bahujan Samaj Party and its colourful and controversial Dalit leader Mayawati in the last elections would ensure that the long-delayed land reforms went ahead and that electricity would be supplied by government authorities.

Neither had happened, and Kalawati was having a tough time convincing people that it was worthwhile bothering to vote at all this time.

"The government listens to everyone but us," she tells us later, as tears stream down her face.

"Everywhere else people have land and power, but we don't. I cry whenever I look at our problems. Our life is a mess."

Wages withheld

One of the few initiatives aimed at helping landless Dalits has failed here because of corruption.

Mahilal and other village men signed up enthusiastically for work after the government passed the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act a few years ago.

They worked the required 100 days, building local roads, but never got paid. The area administrator kept the money, they say.
Mahilal now finds occasional work as a manual labourer, enough for one decent meal a day for his remaining family of five.

"Sometimes there's enough for salt and oil, but not medicines," he says, glancing worriedly at his youngest daughter, who has had a persistent fever for several days.

He is hopeful that things would change for the better if the Dalit hero Mayawati would only visit his village.

"If she comes here then she will see our misery," he says.

After finishing our filming, we pack up and prepare to leave. It is always an uncomfortable moment for me. We come and listen to these terrible tales of woe, duly record them on tape and then get back in our air-conditioned truck and drive away.

On many occasions, we reach into our own wallets and press a few bills discreetly in an interview subject's hand.

This time, our producer Nilanjan Chowdhury has an inspired idea when he spots an ice cream vendor cycling past.

He offers to buy an ice cream bar for everyone in the village. Mild chaos ensues, but a lineup is soon organised and there are enough bars for everyone.

When we leave, there is a smile on every face. At least, that is, for today.
Al Jazeera English - 2009 - Stigma plagues India 'Untouchables'

I am interested to hear from my Indian friends who wont let go of any opportunity to tell us about how they have the money and Pakistan is suffering.

 

[Kharian_Beast]

Saw this on Al Jazeera and was waiting for it to pop up on here. What is not quoted on here is when the journalists went to a Brahmin landowner not far from Mahilal's village and they told her of the complaints of the Dalits. She said something along the lines of, ''They would never dare complain in front of my face'', just proving that the caste system is still in full swing in most of India.

From my point of view, the downtrodden are being used for votes and once election season is over, it's back to forced labour like always. Bahujan Samaj Party is nothing but another scam.

 

[Communist]

I bet, Indian Hindus, as they follow hypocrisy as secularist ideology, are going to discredit the news source by calling it Islamic or will show the bogus claim from the wikipedia that even South Asian Muslims practice caste system.

 

[godsavetheworld]

How is this even mildly related to India's defence?

 

[Communist]

Mari Marcel Thekaekara reports from India on the stink of untouchability and how those most affected are trying to remove it.

http://www.newint.org/features/2005/07/01/sweeping-****.jpg
A Dalit hunger stricken aged woman is forced to clean Hindu toilets.
(Must have been forced at gun point as the photo shows)
If you want to see the pic, write 'sh*t' in place of ****, before which 'sweeping'.

‘In the rainy season,’ the woman began, ‘it is really bad. Water mixes with the **** and when we carry it (on our heads) it drips from the baskets, on to our clothes, our bodies, our faces. When I return home I find it difficult to eat food sometimes. The smell never gets out of my clothes, my hair. But this is our fate. To feed my children I have no option but to do this work.’

Narayanamma began cleaning human excrement at 13. She is now 35. The stench is nauseating, overpowering. First, she sweeps the **** into piles. Then, using two flat pieces of tin, she scoops it up and drops it into a bamboo basket which she carries to a spot where a tractor will arrive to pick it up. No gloves. No water to wash with. She hitches up her sari tightly so that it does not trail on the ground or touch the ****. Still, it is almost impossible to go through a whole day’s work without some of it inadvertently getting onto her clothes and person.

After 20-odd years of cleaning toilets, Narayanamma clings to a dignity which is markedly at variance with the work she does. She is dressed neatly, immaculately clean. Jasmine adorns her oiled and well-groomed hair.

Narayanamma and 800,000 other toilet cleaners are on the lowest rung of the caste system in India. They are despised by everyone. They experience absolute exclusion from the cradle to the grave. They are the other face of India; the one that nobody likes to see. It is in sharp contrast to the progressive, technological, we-have-the-bomb-and-are-no-longer-the-Third-World face.

Chennai railway station says it all. It has a hot spot for laptops to download mail, mobile phone chargers, international food counters offering burgers, chocolate mousse and chow mein next to hot dosas and chicken tikka. Yet, a few metres away, sweeper women clean **** in the most primitive manner possible, lifting it out of the railway track with a stick, broom and pieces of tin. Why does this unacceptable, utterly obscene dichotomy exist? Because hardly anyone wants it to change.

Caste permeates every pore of Indian society in hidden, insidious ways. It is so complex, few Indians begin to understand it completely, although it is present in our lives in subtle and not-so subtle ways. Even though the caste hierarchy is a Hindu construct, conversion does not always help: Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs and Muslims often still cling to their caste identities when searching for marriage partners.

In the beginning...

Many sociologists believe the caste system in India originated as a way of dividing labour, as well as a method of exercising social control and maintaining order. Its power – and almost absolute acceptance – stems from the fact that caste derives religious sanction for India’s majority from the 4,000-year-old Manu Sashtra or laws of Manu. According to this, society was divided into four broad social orders, or varnas, each arising from a certain part of the Creator’s body. From the head came the Brahmins, a priestly class, who are the most pure. From the arms came the Kshatriyas, the warriors and rulers. From the lower limbs were born the Vaishyas, the traders. And from the feet the Sudras, the lowest caste, destined to serve the other three. Apart from these four varnas, there are over 3,000 sub-castes, or jatis. Each of these practises exclusion of varying degrees against each other. An orthodox Brahmin family will not accept a marriage with another Brahmin of a slightly different sub-caste. Nor will most people eat food cooked by someone from a caste lower than their own.

Below all these, ‘Untouchables’ were considered so impure and polluting that they were not even included in the system by Manu. This translated into complete exclusion from society. Their hamlets were outside the village, and they could not even talk to or walk on the same path as the other castes, much less touch them. When the British ruled in India, they left caste well alone to avoid unrest. In some ways they even reinforced it, finding Brahmins useful as an army of clerks and administrators who served the British Empire faithfully.

Today, in India, the Untouchables call themselves ‘Dalits’, which means ‘Broken People’

Today, in India, the Untouchables call themselves ‘Dalits’, which means ‘Broken People’. There are almost 180 million Dalits in India alone and at least another 60 million around the world who face caste discrimination of various kinds.

On a daily basis, Dalits have to deal with the fact that they will not be served food in many eateries. They must sit outside and drink their tea at a distance from the other customers. Special ‘Untouchable’ cups are placed on the shelf outside. The Dalit customer has to take his or her cup, place it on a counter carefully without touching the waiter. The tea will then be poured from a safe, non polluting distance and the Dalit must pick up the cup, drink the tea, wash the cup and place it back on the secluded Dalit shelf outside. This is known as the ‘two-glass’ system.

In one recent survey of 22 villages in Tamil Nadu, 16 practised the ‘two glass system’; 14 villages had the ‘chappal’ system where Dalits have to remove their footwear when they enter the caste part of the village; and in 17 villages Dalits were forbidden to enter the village temples. In four villages Dalits had come together to combat these practices and they have largely been abolished.


ANJAMMA: A SERVANT OF THE GODS

http://www.newint.org/features/2005/07/01/anjamma.jpg

Anjamma is a jogini or devdasi (servant of the gods). This is a system by which Dalit girls are offered to the goddess Yellamma just before they attain puberty. These girls are raped by the temple priests. Then other men take over. They are forced into prostitution in the name of religion.

My mother died when I was three. When I was seven, my brother got polio and was paralyzed. My father had to take out a loan and I went to work rolling bidis (cigarettes) to help pay it back. But it was not enough and the landlord to whom my father owed the money said that he should send me to be dedicated to the goddess to earn more money. I didn’t want to go. I felt very bad. My father said: ‘If you don’t obey me, I will die.’ So I went to the temple. All my relatives came. I had a new sari and many jasmine garlands. The priest called a man to tie the wedding tali [necklace] around my neck. The man was Rangasamy and he was 25 years old. I was eight.

Three times a year we joginis used to go to the temple for important festivals. Everyone worshipped us and treated us well. We danced and went into a trance. Everyone fell at our feet and called us goddess. On those days we became very important. The rest of the time they made fun of us.

When I was 12, I came of age (puberty). Rangasamy kept coming and telling me: ‘I tied tali on you, why don’t you sleep with me?’ I said no. But everyone in the village said: ‘Child, you are a jogini. It is your duty. You have to sleep with him.’

He had a wife and two kids. He gave me money and rice. After one year I had a child, a baby boy. Soon after that, he abandoned me. I went to Bombay for construction work to support my child. When I returned to the village another fellow called Raghav was very nice to me. He said to my father: ‘I will protect her.’ He also had kids. I became pregnant again and had a girl. But he left me after six years.

I joined the joginis’ organization. I decided to fight the system. To prevent my sisters from suffering like me. I go to temples now and stop the jogini dedication. People said: ‘After sleeping with so many men, what’s your problem?’ The upper caste men started saying we spread AIDS. I said: ‘You sons of bitches, motherfuckers, bastards, go tell that to your wives and mothers. I’ll get the government to do DNA tests on all jogini kids and you can take them. I’ll take the joginis away and look after them. I’ll expose each of you who sleep with us and then abuse us.’ Yes. They’ll shut their mouths and run when they see me now.

Interview by Mari Marcel Thekaekara.

India's curse

India’s real curse lies in the fact that, 57 years after Independence, Dalits continue not only to face daily injustices, but they can be murdered, raped and viciously humiliated merely because they have tried to break out of the caste trap to assert their rights as equal beings. Often the supposed transgression is something as ludicrous (to the outside world) as wearing footwear when walking through the dominant caste’s village, riding a bicycle or daring to wear clothes considered uppity, above their station, by the neighbourhood bullies. Often the punishment has the tacit approval of the entire village with a sizable number joining in, making the beating, rape, humiliation, a public spectacle to teach the entire caste a lesson, to remind them of their place in society. This is caste in its ugly, undisguised form. Such incidents are so common that Indian newspapers often don’t even bother reporting them.

The big question is: why has so little changed for so long? Immed-iately after Independence, there were visionaries who dreamed of equality, justice and freedom for all Indians. Mahatma Gandhi led this movement. However, it required retributive justice, the distribution of land to the landless, special privileges for those who had been oppressed and neglected for millennia. The brilliant, pro-poor Indian Constitution envisioned all this. Bhim Rao Ambedkar, Dalit leader and intellectual, was its architect. It identified all the marginalized castes and tribes of India (officially termed Scheduled Castes and Tribes) and issued directives for positive discrimination, commonly called the ‘reservation system’, to ensure that these communities would be brought out of bondage and poverty.

Subsequent Acts also sought to protect them, but the situation has only marginally improved because the Acts, like the Constitution, are ignored or violated. Today, Dalits remain the poorest of the poor; they are the majority of child workers, illiterates, bonded labourers, and have the worst health, the worst education and the worst jobs. Dalit women like Narayanamma easily qualify for the worst-off women in the world.

 

[Rajkumar]

I bet, Indian Hindus, as they follow hypocrisy as secularist ideology, are going to discredit the news source by calling it Islamic or will show the bogus claim from the wikipedia that even South Asian Muslims practice caste system.

unfortunately it is true but these problems do not disappear overnight. These incidents happened bcoz of old system of Hindus but its fading day by day. Dalits remained poor bcoz of it and this poverty lead to death of his daughter.

Man you need get a life or need to look for another job n leave your current job as a full time hater of india and hindus