This is a long overdue post... Ever since had I discovered this must-watch video "I am Dalit. How are You" on Shivam Vij's blog a month or two back.
("Right click/save" to download the .wmv file of this 11 minute 22mb clip)
Even though one was "aware"(?) of these 'facts', but its sheer rawness is numbing, and it is difficult not to choke... specially, the last two minutes...
Dalits - the Broken People - the Untouchables, the Outcastes, or the Harijans, as Gandhi called them. There are some 250mn of them in the world. Out of which 160mn live in India... Or one in every six Indian belongs to this "non-category"... "non-category" because they are not even part of the social classification...
According to an article in the National Geographic:
"Embedded in Indian culture for the past 1,500 years, the caste system follows a basic precept: All men are created unequal. The ranks in Hindu society come from a legend in which the main groupings, or varnas, emerge from a primordial being. From the mouth come the Brahmans — the priests and teachers. From the arms come the Kshatriyas — the rulers and soldiers. From the thighs come the Vaisyas — merchants and traders. From the feet come the Sudras — laborers. Each varna in turn contains hundreds of hereditary castes and subcastes with their own pecking orders.
A fifth group describes the people who are achuta, or untouchable. The primordial being does not claim them. Untouchables are outcasts—people considered too impure, too polluted, to rank as worthy beings... Untouchables are shunned, insulted, banned from temples and higher caste homes, made to eat and drink from separate utensils in public places, and, in extreme but not uncommon cases, are raped, burned, lynched, and gunned down."
And though the MSM did pick up the "Kherlanji Massacre" - though about a month after it had happened - the discrimination, violence, and exclusion has remained a part of the Indian society.
Incidences of killing, rape and violence, of course, stand out as isolated happenings. In some ways - or at least technically - they can be checked by the legal system.... The more frightening aspect of this phenomenon are its invisible and subliminal manifestations.
Here are some examples:
etc...
Sources & Other Readings:
2 comments:
As a South African, it's heartening to see the fight against apartheidbeing fought wherever it manifests itself.
I Am also Dalit...While Seeing This Tears Came From My Eyes..Wow Good Job...
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