LIFE OF DALIT IN CURRENT INDIA
The oppression of Dalits has been going on for over 3000 years. They are segregated in all spheres of social life: places of worship, education, housing, land ownership, use of common wells, roads, busses, etc. They are the people who have to do the menial and degrading jobs. They are considered to be untouchable. In their daily life untouchability results in, among others, the following consequences (For more day to day examples also go through the press releases).
In a lot of the upper caste (rich) families the servants are Dalits. After the servant has cleaned the rooms, pots and pans, one of the family members will sprinkle ‘holy’ water to purify all that has been touched by the servant.
Dalits are not allowed to wear shoes; if they wear them, Dalits will have to take off their shoes at times they meet a higher caste person.
In the rural areas, Dalits are not allowed to cycle through the village streets in which the higher caste people live.
The Dalits mainly live in separate communities, outside the actual village.
In general, Dalits are not allowed to sit at the bus stop; they have to stand and wait till upper caste people have entered the bus.
Dalits are also not allowed to sit on the seats, even though they are vacant.
After seventy five years of Independence even the educated among the Dalits are not free to get a house for rent of their choice to live in.
Most Hindus will avoid having a Dalit to prepare their food, because they fear becoming polluted.
The government has made reservations for Dalits, so that they can enter into jobs in the public sector, parliamentary State Assemblies and universities. This reservation, however, makes them even more vulnerable in the society.
It said “untouchables,” commonly known as “Dalits” or “broken” people, suffered from a “hidden apartheid,” with caste violence “since the early 1990s escalating dramatically in response to the growing Dalit rights movement.”
Between 1994 and 1996, a total of 98,349 cases were registered with the police nationwide as crimes and atrocities against Dalits.
Human Rights Watch said that figure was the tip of the iceberg “given that Dalits are both reluctant and unable, for lack of police cooperation, to report crimes against themselves.”
Mira Saroj: Daughter of a toddy tapper in Uttar Pradesh, she is enrolled at Delhi University but jumps in with manual labour at home when she is free from studies. ‘Sadly, an educated Dalit women is almost a contradiction in terms’, says Mira. (Outlook Magazine, November 16, 1998)
‘We may touch a cat, we may touch a dog, we may touch any other animal, but the touch of these human beings is pollution.’ (G.K. Gokhale, in Jesus the Dalit by M.R. Arulraja, 1996. Volunteer Centre, 7-1-30/6, Ameerpet, Hyderabad – 16)