India Untouched

My promise to write more about India is long overdue.. I know!

I've been displacing myself from social life to focus on school work and have been surfacing only to eat and drink. To make it this far through my Master program, I've put in so much sweat labor. Despite the looming deadlines, I'm inspired to write today after watching a movie called The Darjeeling Limited. The movie was so oddly constructed and unentertaining, yet it immediately evoked my endless thoughts and emotions as it was filmed almost entirely in India.

I went to India on a class project to assist Navsarjan Trust, a leading advocacy NGO for Dalit rights based in Gujarat, to find solutions for eradicating manual scavenging – the inhuman and dangerous practice of removing human excreta from “dry” toilets using brooms, tin plates and baskets and carrying untreated waste on the head to disposal sites. Though long outlawed, the practice still persists in various parts of India, and is performed solely by a sub-caste within the Dalit community. In 1917, Gandhi called manual scavenging “the shame of the nation”. It is then mind-boggling to know that one half a century later, in a seemingly more civilized, more technologically advanced, and more prosperous society, people are still cleaning and transporting other people’ filth and are perceived as untouchables. Dalits, mainly women and young girls who perform this work, are exposed to abysmal work conditions, serious health hazards, exploitative wages and systemic social discrimination. Manual scavenging represents human rights violation in its grossest form.

But Dalits don't choose this occupation themselves. It has been forced onto them by caste pressures. In fact, despite a litany of anti-manual scavenging laws in the book, the caste system still legitimizes and perpetuates the practice of manual scavenging, trapping Dalits in a job so undignified that no one else will do.

Caste (or Varna) is one of the oldest systems of social categorization in history. It remains until this day the basis of all types of social interactions in India. The system is broken down to four groups based on occupation, Brahman (priests, scholars and teachers), Kshatriya (warriors and rulers), Vaisya (traders and agriculturists), and Sudra (workers and service providers). The Varna is said to correspond to the various parts of the body of the divine Brahma. Brahmans come from the head, Kshtriya from the arms, Vaishya from the torso and Sudra from the legs. Outside of the Varna system, are the Dalits (also referred to as the Harijans, or the untouchables).

Caste is rooted in Hinduism, particularly Karma - a view of cosmic order based on causal connection between the past, the present and the future. According to Karma principle, the effects of past deeds actively determines present and future experiences. Karma largely explains the general acceptance of the social hierarchy by many Indians. As people take their place in society as primarily pre-determined, they don't question their hereditary social ranking or desire to elevate their status. Thus, caste has been consolidated into a system of social stratification that effectively impedes mobility.

Discrimination and biases are inherent features of the caste system. Dalits are subject to an alarming degree of violence, rape and even atrocity. They usually live in peripheral settlements on the outskirts of villages, are not allowed inside the homes that they clean, are denied access to temple, public water sources and community events, are differentiated in the job markets, etc. Although they are not always the poorest in terms of incomes, these communities are invariably kept at the margin of society as they are deemed "polluting" by the upper-caste. Those who transgress caste-based norms are socially humiliated and punished.

Manual scavenging is placed against this indestructible wall of caste, which has embedded itself intractably in the fabric of Indian society. I believe the solution to ending this pernicious practice requires that the caste system be annihilated altogether. Any driving force of change will be futile without tracing the problem back to its root: the caste system.