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By NIRMALA GEORGE of Associated Press
Bottom of the pile: A young boy scavenges for food and items to recycle at one of the rubbish dumps near the thousands of shantytowns in India's cities. Most scavengers are Dalit, the lowest caste in India's 3,000-year-old Hindu caste system. The Indian Government says the discriminatory caste-system is an 'Internal problem'. Associated Press photo
At the end of a network of dusty lanes in Trilokpuri, a suburb on the outskirts of the Indian capital New Delhi, a scavenger lugs home a plastic bucket of water for her family. It is dusk, and Birum, who uses only one name, and her two daughters have spent the day collecting used plastic bags from rotting waste in the city dumps. They are filthy and hungry - yet they cannot bathe or cook with the water that comes from the tap in the lane next to their home.
"That's the tap for the upper castes. We are not allowed there," said Ms Birum, 33, matter of factly as she sits on the dirt floor making chapatti bread on a coal-burning stove.
Although the water is supplied by New Delhi's municipal authorities, the few public taps in this shantytown that houses nearly 10,000 poor migrants are sharply divided along caste lines. The taps for the lower castes are nearly a kilometre away, and the water barely trickles.
Ms Birum is a Dalit, the lowest in the heap in India's 3,000-year-old Hindu caste system, a pernicious practice that discriminates against nearly a quarter 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 that was supposed 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 most corners of Indian society. Though admitting efforts to end caste discrimination have not been implemented as rigorously as they should have been, the Indian Government wants to keep the matter out of the international spotlight.
The Indian Government has sent an official delegation, including many Dalit members of Parliament, to the week-long United Nations World Conference Against Racism that opens in Durban, South Africa, today. But it is also trying to keep caste discrimination off the conference agenda.
Unlike apartheid in South Africa, which was a state-sponsored policy, the Indian Government insists it is committed to wiping out caste discrimination. But officials have said a mind-set going back 3,000 years cannot be changed overnight.
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. We want the fear of international condemnation to force the Government to renew its commitment to remove this gross injustice. No one can deny that millions of Dalits suffer the worst forms of discrimination."
Ms Manorama and other Dalits will go to a parallel conference on racism in Durban organised by non-governmental organisations.
Dipankar Gupta, a professor of sociology at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University, accused India of having double standards for not wanting the caste system to be discussed in Durban. "India is ready to discuss racism as long as it is in other countries, but not caste in its own backyard," Professor Gupta said.
Indian officials describe caste as an internal problem that can only be cured by implementing - and improving - anti-discrimination laws. A senior government official, who agreed to discuss the caste system subject to anonymity, said a few paragraphs in the racism conference's report would have no effect on the ground.
Ranjana Kumari, a women's rights activist, supports the Dalits' complaints but questioned the wisdom of rushing to an international conference. "It should not become a stick with which the international community can beat India."
Human-rights activist Swami Agnivesh said much of the discrimination in the caste system resulted from the actions of Brahmins, the priestly caste. "Over time, this system was corrupted by the Brahmins to preserve their superiority and to ensure people were available to do menial jobs without rising up in revolt," he said.
Dalits have been forced to do the most unclean and degrading jobs, many for a pittance. They clean public toilets, skin dead animals or work as bonded labourers for wealthy landlords to pay off the debts incurred by their forefathers.
After independence from Britain in 1947, India launched an ambitious affirmative-action plan to wipe out caste distinctions, setting aside places for Dalits in universities and providing government employment and legislative-assembly seats. But these moves only benefit about three per cent 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 per cent of the population lives, caste dominates where people settle, who they can marry and the work they do. Dalits cannot use the same water wells and must not enter the temples used by high-caste Hindus.
Indian newspapers carry daily stories of atrocities against Dalits or young couples being killed, sometimes by their own families, for daring to fall in love with someone from another caste.
Dalits rarely file complaints with the police for fear of reprisals. "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, who has retired after 35 years of cleaning toilets in railway carriages.
Mr. Chand’s son, who is barely literate and works as a road sweeper in the public-works department is more outspoken. Like many younger Dalits, Mahesh feels they 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.
Historically, Dalits were left out of India’s power structure. But in the past three decades they have become a powerful political force lured by politicians. India’s President Kocheril Raman Narayan is a Dalit, as is Ganti Mohan Chandra Balayogi, the speaker of the lower house of Parliament.
“But that has no bearing on the situation of the Dalits,” said Ms Kumari, the women’s rights activist. “Indira Gandhi was India’s primer minister. Did that change the plight of Indian women?”
As the debate rages on the editorial pages and television talk shows, the Dalits in Trilokpuri shrug at the notion of change. “My mother did scavenging,” said Ms Birum. “I am a scavenger. I don’t see my children doing anything else, whatever the politicians might say. This is our caste.”
Associated Press
Posted on 2001-08-31
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