India Caste System Discriminates
Thursday September 6 2:27 PM ET
By NIRMALA GEORGE, Associated Press Writer
NEW DELHI, India (AP) - At the end of a network of dusty lanes in Trilokpuri, a suburb on the outskirts of the Indian capital, a scavenger lugs home a plastic bucket of water for her family. It is dusk, and Birum and her two daughters have spent the day collecting used plastic bags from rotting waste in city dumps. The mother and daughters are filthy and hungry - yet they cannot bathe or cook with water from a tap near their home.
``That's the tap for the upper castes. We are not allowed there,'' the 33-year-old Birum says as she sits on the dirt floor making bread on a coal-burning stove. Although water is supplied by municipal authorities, the few public taps in this shantytown of nearly 10,000 people are divided along caste lines. Taps for the lower castes are nearly a half-mile away, and the water barely trickles. Birum is a Dalit, the lowest rank in India's 3,000-year-old caste system, a pernicious practice that discriminates against nearly a fourth of the country's billion-plus population.
The caste system was described in Hinduism's ancient sacred text, the Rig Veda, as a social order intended to maintain harmony in society. It divides people into four main castes, but there also are those outside the system, the ``untouchables,'' who now call themselves ``Dalits,'' literally ``broken people.'' Though discrimination based on caste has been outlawed since India's constitution was adopted in 1950, the practice pervades society.
And while admitting efforts to end caste discrimination have not been implemented as rigorously as they should, the Indian government wants to keep the matter out of the international spotlight. The government sent an official delegation, including many Dalits, to the U.N. World Conference on Racism in Durban, South Africa. But India also worked to keep caste discrimination off the conference agenda. Condemning the caste system would equate ``casteism with racism, which makes India a racist country, which we are not,'' Omar Abdullah, India's minister of state for foreign affairs, said in Durban.
Ruth Manorama of the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights disagrees with government assertions that the caste system does not amount to racism. ``Discrimination against the Dalits and lower castes is similar to racism, only it's more vulgar, more horrendous,'' she said. ``No one can deny that millions of Dalits suffer the worst forms of discrimination.'' Dipankar Gupta, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, accuses India of a double standard for not wanting caste to be discussed in Durban, saying:
``India is ready to discuss racism so long as it is in other countries, but not caste in its own backyard.'' Indian officials describe caste as an internal problem that can only be cured by implementing - and strengthening - anti-discrimination laws. Ranjana Kumari, a women's rights activist, supported the Dalits' complaints but questioned the wisdom of looking to an international conference for help. ``It should not become a stick for the international community to beat India with,'' she said. Human rights activist Swami Agnivesh says much of the discrimination in the caste system results from the actions of Brahmins, the priestly caste.
``Over time, this system was corrupted by the Brahmins to preserve their superiority and to ensure that people were available to do menial jobs without rising up in revolt,'' he said. Dalits long have done onerous work for low pay. They clean out public toilets, skin dead animals or labor to pay their forefathers' debts. After independence from Britain in 1947, India launched an affirmative action plan to wipe out caste distinctions, setting aside places for Dalits in universities, government employment and legislative assembly seats.
But these moves only benefit about 3 percent of the nearly 240 million Dalits. In the cities, caste distinctions become blurred. The anonymity of urban life - taking buses and working in offices and factories - helps push caste to the background. But in rural India, where nearly 75 percent of Indians live, caste dominates where people live, who they can marry and the work they do. Dalits cannot enter temples used by high-caste Hindus.
Indian newspapers carry daily stories of atrocities against Dalits or young couples being killed, sometimes by relatives, for daring to love someone from another caste. Dalits rarely file complaints with the police. ``Who can we complain to? And what will happen when we return to the village? I tell my sons, just keep quiet. This is a curse on our lives,'' said 71-year-old Kishan Chand. Chand's son Mahesh, a road sweeper, says Dalits must organize and use their political power. ``We have the numbers, which is why the politicians come to us when elections come round,'' he said.
Dalits once were left out of India's power structure. But in the past three decades, they have gained a political voice and a share of prominent public office. India's president is a Dalit. So is the speaker of the lower house of Parliament. ``But that has no bearing on the situation of the Dalits. This is like saying Indira Gandhi was India's prime minister. Did that change the plight of Indian women?'' asked Kumari, the women's rights activist.
While the media debate rages, the Dalits in Trilokpuri shrug at the notion of change. ``My mother did scavenging. I am a scavenger. I don't see my children doing anything else, whatever the politicians may say,'' said Birum. ``This is our caste.''
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