Carrying household supplies, Badlu Ram and his fellow villagers are on their way back from a weekly market in Bareilly, a city in Uttar Pradesh, India. It has been a hot day and the villagers have covered a long distance on foot. They are thirsty.
Close to their home in Sahasa village, they spot a hand pump on the premises of a temple. When they begin walk towards it, though, the temple priest warns them against drinking its water. He tells Badlu Ram that he and the other villagers are from a low caste; if they touch the hand pump, it will become polluted and unfit for use for people of higher castes. Bad Ram and co continue their journey, their thirst still unquenched.
The centuries-old custom in India of treating people of “low caste” as untouchables and subjecting them to other forms of discrimination are very much in place even today, notwithstanding that the Constitution prohibits these practices.
“As long as the caste system remains the basic tenet of Hindu religion, people of low castes will be treated as untouchables and with contempt,’ says K. Nath, a 67-year-old Dalit who has written 25 books on the issue.
Nath is considered a Dalit litterateur — a not very old genre of writers who oppose untouchability and discrimination through their works.
Hindus are divided into four castes, Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras, in that order of hierarchy.
The Brahmins used to be considered the learned as they were well versed in ancient religious Hindu texts. Kshatriyas were the warriors and their duty was to protect people of other castes. Vaishyas were the traders and merchants. Shudras were supposed to serve the people of higher castes and perform duties considered dirty and unhygienic, such as cremating the dead and cleaning the houses.
This caste system remained unchallenged until the twentieth century. Mahatma Gandhi, the architect of India’s independence movement, criticised the caste system and discrimination of the Shudras. He rechristened the Shudras
Harijans, which means “children of God”.
Nowadays they are known as Dalits, meaning “oppressed or downtrodden”, and scheduled castes (as the eighth schedule of the Indian Constitution lists those low castes, entitling them to privileges in education and employment).
Nath says he has faced discrimination throughout his life for being a Dalit. He grew up in Duari, a village close to Kanpur, in north India. Nath recalls that as a student he, like his classmates, used to carry snacks to school in a piece of cloth.
“Students of different castes hung food bundles on separate trees,” he says.
Nath says his best friend in school was a Brahmin boy named Luxman Prasad Mishra. “Despite being my best friend he made sure that I neither touched his food nor entered his home,” he says.
As Nath grew, he moved to Kanpur for higher education. “I spent several days in Kanpur without a shelter for being a Dalit. Landlords would ask me my caste. Once they came to know I was a Dalit, they would refuse me accommodation. Some would be polite in their refusal, make some excuse, while others would be blunt,’ he says.
On graduating from college, Nath was able to get a job as a clerk in the district administration office of Kanpur from among a percentage of government positions reserved for the scheduled castes.
A government job in India means social and financial security, and once Nath got the job, he thought that he would no longer face discrimination and humiliation.
Nath was wrong. He became sound financially but he soon realised that socially he was still a pariah.
“Once I went to a tea stall. Before serving me tea, the owner asked me my caste. When I told him I was a Dalit, he gave me tea in a disposable earthen cup while others were being served tea in glasses,” Nath says.
The humiliation did not end there. “As I was leaving the tea stall, I saw the owner washing the wooden bench where I had sat,’ he said.
Nath started writing books, as he sought solace from the pain he was suffering for being a Dalit.
In his house in Loknayak Nagar, a straggling residential neighbourhood of Kanpur, Nath’s first-floor study is sparsely furnished. The only shelf is stacked with copies of the books he has written. Most of them are hardbound and costly by Indian standards.
The space on the top shelf is occupied by two large black-and-white portraits — one of Dr B. R. Ambedkar and the other of Lord Buddha. Both portraits have turned yellow with age. Dr Ambedkar, who galvanised low-caste Hindus against discrimination, is considered the greatest Dalit leader of India.
Born on April 14, 1891, Dr Ambedkar was the first Dalit in modern India to get higher education. He attended University of Bombay, Columbia University and London School of Economics. He was the chairman of the committee that drafted the Constitution and also the first law minister of independent India.
Finding Hinduism too oppressive, Dr Ambedkar became a Buddhist on October 14, 1956, at a ceremony in Nagpur, a city in central India.
“Dr Ambedkar used to say that if you see your path is strewn with thorns, find a new path. Buddhism was his new path,” Nath says.
Ever since Dr Ambedkar adopted Buddhism, millions of low-caste Hindus have followed in his footsteps. Nath also became a Buddhist in 1990.
The portraits of Dr Ambedkar and Lord Buddha can be commonly seen in the homes and offices of Dalit converts to Buddhism.
Every year, around mid-October, functions are held throughout India in which Dalits become Buddhists.
Dhaniram Panther, a 45-year-old Dalit leader and activist, organises such functions every year in different parts of Uttar Pradesh. Panther is a leader of an organisation called Indian Dalit Panther. It was formed in the 1980s and borrows its name from the Black Panthers of the United States.
Panther claims he has converted at least 1,00,000 Dalits to Buddhism.
Every day, in the morning itself, a low-caste Hindu begins facing humiliation, he says.
“Fetching water from a public tap or hand pump is the first morning chore of a majority of Indians,” Panther says. “Dalits have to wait until people of upper castes have filled their pots and vessels. An upper-caste person washes a tap or hand pump several times in case he has to use it after a Dalit.”
For the thousands of Dalits, the conversion to Buddhism hasn’t helped.
“An upper-caste Hindu considers a Dalit an untouchable even if he or she has adopted a new religion,’ Panther says.
Dalits have occupied some of the top public offices in India in the past. They do so even today.
Badri Narayan, a professor of Social History and Cultural Anthropology at G.B. Pant Social Science Institute, Uttar Pradesh, says untouchability will end if the structure of the Indian society changes and Dalits are economically empowered.
Appointing a few Dalits to high public offices, though, will not end the humiliation that millions of low-caste people face every day, Panther says. “Political parties want Dalit votes and hence they appoint a few Dalits to high offices,” he says.
Dalit votes matter. The scheduled castes make up around 16 percent of the 1.21 billion Indians.
“The structure of the society has to change. Brahmins should swap their places with Dalits,” Panther says. “Dalits, instead of Brahmins, should be made priests at temples.”
Hinduism is governed by the four religious heads known as Shankaracharyas. The four Shankaracharyas are based in the four corners of India. Only a Brahmin can become a Shankaracharya.
“Hinduism has four castes and four Shankaracharyas. Why not a make a person of each caste a Shankaracharya?” Panther asks, adding marriages between persons of different castes can also check untouchability.
Nath says when K.R. Narayanan became the president, people did not say a highly learned man has occupied the highest public office of India but they said “an untouchable has been made the president. Giving high posts to Dalits will not end untouchability.”
Like Panther, Nath also says Dalits have been given high posts to lure Dalit voters. He feels writers can play a more important role in ending untouchability. “You can change the thinking of the people through literature,” he says. “History has proved that writers play an important role in revolutions.
“But first and foremost, the caste system in Hinduism has to be abolished to end untouchability. That is an almost impossible task. Any religion has a set of codes, and the caste system is the backbone of Hinduism. It’s almost impossible to end the caste system.”
Rohit Ghosh is a writer based in Kanpur, India.
Box
Dalits in high office
K.R. Narayanan: Indian president from 1997 to 2002: vice-president from 1992 to 1997
K.G. Balakrishnan: chief justice of the Supreme Court from January 2007 to May 2010
Mayawati: a four-time chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state, and now a Rajya Sabha (Upper House of the Parliament) member
Meira Kumar: speaker in the Lower House of the Indian Parliament,
Sushil Kumar Shinde: union home minister
