The Reality of Untouchability
The caste system outlined by ancient Indian texts is a four-fold system of labour. The people who fell outside of this system were those who did the work considered most impure. They were considered untouchable and ostracised from social life, including interaction and resources.
Dalit literally means broken or fragmented in Sanskrit and Hindi. It is the modern title claimed by those historically deemed untouchables by caste practitioners in the Indian subcontinent. While the word was initially a loose translation of the “depressed classes” category used by the British census, it was popularised by social reformer Dr. B.R. Ambedkar.
Since independence from the British, Dalits have been given Scheduled Caste status, entitling them to reservations across institutions by the state. As caste at its core is about occupation, its remedy would logically be occupational mobility. However, due to its social and psychological internalisation, it remains far from remediable.
Dalits remain locked into professions such as manual scavenging, inextricably linking them with impurity. Untouchability continues to be widely practiced. Caste discrimination and violence takes on various forms that affect all Indians with regard to housing, education, marriage and employment.
However, Dalits are disproportionately affected, placing them at the center of the anti-caste struggle. To put it into perspective, this is a problem about shit. Literally. Some people in India can not even imagine cleaning their own. Thus, the responsibility was never fully shifted back.
The reality is, every 18 minutes in India an act of violence is being committed against a human being because they were born a Dalit. By the end of one week, 13 Dalits have been murdered, five Dalit homes have been torched, six Dalits are abducted, and 21 Dalit women have been raped.
It is evident that Dalits never stopped being the outcastes of our society, their pain has simply become invisible.
