Down the centre of the village is an invisible line.
On one side, there are white-washed houses with tile roofs and flowers in pots, neatly lining a swept street. On the other is a jumble of small mud shacks with roofs of plastic sheeting and dusty palm fronds.
The people who live on either side of this invisible line do not mix. Their children do not play together. They do not share a table at the local café. The waitress will not serve them from the same plates. Even the tea glasses are segregated.
Here in India, the world’s largest democracy, caste means poverty. And for low-caste ‘dalits’ – India’s ‘broken people’, formerly known as untouchables – it means denial of the most fundamental rights.
The waitress will not serve them from the same plates. Even the tea glasses are segregated.
By custom, practice and the weight of thousands of years under the caste system, they are kept at the bottom of society.
Dalits number 167 million people – one-fifth of the Indian population. In the cities, differences of background, accent and surname are beginning to fade. Vigorous government efforts to give dalits a leg up, especially in education, are beginning to take hold.
Menial and degrading
But in the countryside caste distinctions are stubborn. Being a dalit means you cannot draw water from the same well as the rest of the village. Your cattle, if you have any, may not graze on the same pasture.
You may not enter places of worship, such as temples or churches. The only jobs you can take are menial and degrading.
Babu was 15 when he started cleaning septic tanks. ‘Sometimes the gas comes out of the tank,’ he says. ‘It can make you unconscious. We get skin diseases.’
Twenty-eight per cent of India’s population lives below the poverty line. But the nature of the deprivation and suffering of dalits sets them apart from the rest of India’s poor. They are less educated, have fewer job opportunities and higher infant-mortality rates. In some villages, custom dictates that they cannot even wear shoes.
Those who fight back are often physically attacked by higher castes. In 2000 there were hundreds of cases of murder and arson and thousands of rape and other violent offences.
Changing for the better
The situation is slowly changing. New legislation now reserves some state jobs and university places for people formerly excluded from any chance in life. It’s no longer a badge of shame to be born a dalit – thanks to campaigning work by dalit organisations.
Christian Aid’s partners are vital in this process.
The Dynamic Action Group (DAG) in Rajasthan challenges human rights abuses in Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in India. DAG’s work involves monitoring atrocities against dalits and empowering dalit communities to seek justice through the legal system. Such action puts pressure on the government to enforce the laws set up to protect dalit rights.
Safai Karmachari Andolan (SKA) is a campaign working to eradicate manual scavenging – a practice in which low-caste workers are forced to clean human excrement from dry latrines. According to SKA, an estimated 787,000 people are engaged in manual scavenging in India. More than 95% are dalits and around 80% are women.
Partners like DAG and SKA are at the forefront of what has become a national campaign to bring an end to ‘untouchability’. Sixty years after India’s independence, it’s time for this caste apartheid to end.
In 2006/07, Christian Aid gave the Dynamic Action Group a grant of £32,121 and the Centre for Dalit Rights support of £28,787