The Untouchables

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The Untouchables

• By Nabila Wadwani

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What is an Untouchable?

• Untouchables are members from a large variety of
  Hindu groups.
• An Untouchable, now called harijan, in
  traditional Indian society, is a person outside
  the caste system.
• These outcasts were greatly discriminated against
  until 1949 in India, when the use of the term
  Untouchable, and the social disabilities that
  were perceived along with the term were declared
  illegal.

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"Caste System"

• The four Caste
• 1st) Consisted of Brahmans, which are teachers
  and priests
• 2nd) Consisted of Kshatriyas, which are rulers
  and warriors
• 3rd) Members were merchants and traders, and were
  known as Vaishyas
• 4th) The last and lowest caste, which consisted
  of a great mass of peasants and workers, were
  known as Sudras.
• Definition of Caste System
• The caste system is a many layered social
  hierarchy developed several millenniums ago to
  which a person belongs by birth

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What Went Wrong

• The Untouchables fell below the fourth caste
• As many as three thousand caste exist today,
  which is different from the original idea of four
  caste.
• The Untouchables were considered the extreme
  lowest social class in India. The total number of
  Untouchables in India is approximately 60
  million, or 13.7 percent of Indias population.

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What makes an Untouchable

• Occupation
• Manual scavenger
• Remover of human waste, dead animals,
• Leather workers
• Street sweepers, and cobblers

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What Happens

• Deprived of many rights and activities
• Forbidden to enter temples, most schools, and
  were not even allowed to draw water from the same
  well where higher caste drew water
• Untouchable were subservient, almost always
  illiterate, and usually poverty stricken

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High CastesHigher castes had more social power,
and were usually richer than lower caste

• High Caste would become polluted if
• Untouchable touched them
• Entered their house
• Sat at a close distance from them
• In stricter parts of India, the site of an
  Untouchable, or even the contact with ones
  shadow could be considered polluting

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Continued

• If polluted
• Must become purified
• Most of the times they rinse or wash in water.
  However, for stricter people, some must pass
  through religious ceremonies. If the untouchable
  entered the high caste member must wash the place
  where the Untouchable touched or stepped.

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Untouchability Act

• 1955
• Banned Untouchability
• Provides penalties for preventing anyone from
  enjoying a wide variety of religious,
  occupational, and social rights.
• It also provides specific educational and
  vocational right to untouchables.

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• Despite the fact that untouchability was
  abolished under Indias consitituion the practice
  of untouchability the imposition of social
  disabilities on persons by reason of their birth
  in certain castes remain very much part of rural
  India.

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Untouchable Children

• Untouchable children are frequently made to sit
  in the back of the classroom
• Communities as a whole are made to perform
  degrading rituals in the name of caste.

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Untouchable Women

• Untouchable women face the triple burden of
  caste, class, and gender.
• Untouchable girls have been forced to become
  prostitutes for the upper-caste patrons and
  village priest.
• Sexual abuse and other forms of violence against
  women are used by landlords and the police to
  inflict political lessons and crush dissent
  within the community.

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WAGES

• Untouchable men, women and children numbering in
  the ten of millions work as agricultural
  laborers for a few kilograms of rice or
• Rs.15 to Rs 35 us 0.38 to 0.88
• Their upper caste employers frequently use caste
  as a cover for exploitative economic
  arrangements social sanction of their status as
  lesser beings allow their impoverishments to
  continue.

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Untouchables who want to change the system What
Happens

• Untouchable who are to challenge the social order
  have been subject to abuse by their higher-caste
  neighbors
• Villages are collectively penalized for
  individual transgressions through social
  boycott including loss of employment, access to
  water, grazing land, and ration shops

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