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There are no protective masks, but there are blows: reports of violence accumulate in India against members of lower castes who are supposedly unclean.
Qua birth at the bottom of the social hierarchy: A Dalit, who works as a sewer cleaner, in the city of Ghaziabad, in northern India.
The lower castes in India’s social hierarchy face harsh discrimination in the wake of the Corona crisis. The old accusation that the so-called Dalits are impure has a new appearance. Among other things, the “untouchables” are accused of failing to meet hygiene standards in the fight against the virus and of being responsible for the spread.
For many Indians, such latrine slogans reinforce old prejudices. And because some have given vent to their anger over alleged Dalits misconduct, there are now more and more cases of so-called caste violence. This refers to attacks in which upper-caste Indians use intimidation or physical violence to put lower-ranking citizens within their supposed limits.
Today’s humiliations follow known patterns. Therefore, Dalits, who represents approximately a quarter of the Indian population, should not move freely in public space so as not to contaminate it. Local Indian newspapers are full of stories like that of the town of Vijayawada in Andhra Pradesh state. There, villagers from the upper strata are supposed to prevent neighbors belonging to a lower caste from buying from local general stores because they could bring the virus with them.
Except emergency rations
Garbage collectors and workers who maintain the city’s sewers have been increasingly assaulted since the start of the Corona crisis, says Bezwada Wilson. He is the founder of the NGO Safai Karmachari Andolan, which campaigns for the rights of the castes that traditionally live by eliminating feces and garbage. “These people do important work that maintains hygiene. This is essential, especially in Crown times. But instead of thanking, men are beaten because they are considered carriers of the virus, “says Wilson.
The negative stereotypes would be reinforced by the government, said the activist. “Unlike physicians who come from high castes, health workers who come from low castes do not receive protective clothing or masks.” The government’s message is clear: Dalit life is worth less.
Incidents like the one in the Koiripur village in Uttar Pradesh show that the Dalits are still perceived as subhuman in many places, whose well-being is irrelevant. There, a journalist took a photo for a provincial newspaper that showed a group of children eating grass without other food. The local leader had excluded Dalit families from distributing emergency food rations in the state because he considered that they were of no help. The case made headlines because the village in question belongs to all places of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. But instead of the mayor, the journalist was hit in the neck. Now you are supposed to answer for “defamation” in court.
The caste system developed in the Indian subcontinent as early as the second millennium BC. It describes a multi-layered hierarchical social structure in which the social demarcation of higher groups and the marginalization of disadvantaged groups are religiously justified within the framework of the canon of Hinduism. Caste membership inevitably determines the entire life cycle.
A Dalit ghetto in every town
Although the caste system was officially abolished in 1949 in the course of India’s independence, it still shapes many aspects of life today. Government attempts to compensate for historical injustice by reserving a certain percentage of university places and civil service positions for disadvantaged castes have allowed some Dalits to advance socially. But the rethinking in minds did not materialize. In 2016, the expert group of the Delhi-based National Council for Applied Economic Research reported that 95 percent of Indians still married within their caste. Every Indian village still has a kind of ghetto in which the Dalits have to live.
Members of the priests, warriors, and merchant boxes still benefit from receiving a place at the top of society at birth. On the other hand, hundreds of millions of Indians are struggling to be sentenced to low work due to their offspring alone. Most of the 450 million day laborers in India are Dalit. According to the United Nations, about half of the lower castes are considered poor, compared to only 15 percent of the Brahmin priestly castes.
In rural areas in particular, attempts by individual Dalits to emancipate themselves and claim their civil rights, at least on paper, often end with the punishment of “upstarts” by members of the elites. According to government figures, around a thousand Dalits die each year from caste violence.
