India's Outcasts

A little peek at the background and reality of India's outcasts, the Untouchables.

I spent a fair amount of time in India; especially in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, one of the states in which caste based discrimination is on the rise. With caste-based discrimination, I mean discrimination and oppression directed at India's nearly two million Untouchables. Rendered "impure" by sacred Indian texts that go back 2,000 years, they are seen as subhuman and are relentlessly exploited. National Geographic's Tom O'Neil joined some of them during their dismal days and reported on their stories in the June 2003 issue of the National Geographic. One of the stories Tom O'Neil tells in his article titled "Untouchable" is the story of Amrutbhai Sarasiya. Amrutbhai is a Bangi, which means that he belongs to the scavenger caste, the very lowest caste, at rock bottom of the hundreds of Untouchable caste categories. Depending on the state, members of this lowest caste are named Bhangis, Pakhis or Sikkaliars. Many of them earn a living by manually unclogging and cleaning sewers, latrines and gutters, and by removing dead animals from the street. Tom O'Neill describes how Amrutbhai jumps, after a moment hesitation, into a cockroach filled sewer to lift bucket after bucket of excrement over his head, onto the street. Without protective gear, many get sick or even die from the carbon dioxin gasses in the sewers, they develop lung infections or stomach problems. Many of these workers are women, who manually empty the banned but still commonly used non-flush latrines for less than a dollar a day.

There are all sorts of rules and regulations to discourage caste based discrimination, which has been illegal since 1947. But these laws are for the most part theoretical constructs, and seem only to prevent the most blatant forms of discrimination. The reality for people like Amrutbhai and the millions of Untouchables like him is that they continue to be trapped on the very bottom of a system that functions by virtue of their shameless and relentless exploitation.

Click here to read India's Outcasts. The Struggle of Untouchables.

References

Tom O'Neil (2003). Untouchable. In: National Geographic, June 2003.