Dalits and Indian Politics

Continuing his visits to Dalit households, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi spent a night at a Dalit's house in a village in Shravasti district on 24^th September 2009 while he was on a surprise visit to Uttar Pradesh.  He visited Ram Nagar area in Barabanki district and then arrived to Shravasti district in the evening and drove straight to Chutkaideh village under Rampur Devman Gram Panchayat area where, after mingling with the locals, he spent the night in the house of a Dalit Gram Pradhan Chedi Pasi. This is not the first instance but the Amethi MP and the AICC General Secretary had spent a night in the house of a Dalit in Kansapur in Amethi district and had food with locals earlier too on 6^th August 2009.

Given this fact, does one think that Dalits are no longer considered ‘untouchable’ or they are being played with?  Despite the fact that "untouchability" was constitutionally abolished in 1950 the practice of "untouchability" - the imposition of social disabilities on persons by reason of their birth in certain castes - remains very much a part of rural India. "Untouchables" may not cross the line dividing their part of the village from that occupied by higher castes. They may not use the same wells, visit the same temples, drink from the same cups in tea stalls, or lay claim to land that is legally theirs. Dalit children are frequently made to sit in the back of classrooms, and communities as a whole are made to perform degrading rituals in the name of caste.

Most Dalits continue to live in extreme poverty, without land or opportunities for better employment or education. With the exception of a minority who have benefited from India’s policy of quotas in education and government jobs, Dalits are relegated to the most menial of tasks, as manual scavengers, removers of human waste and dead animals, leather workers, street sweepers, and cobblers.

Even in these modern times, all over India the Dalits are still treated as Untouchables in the eyes of the elite and even of the ordinary people. Having undergone three thousand years of slavery and discrimination, the Dalits find it nearly impossible to get out of this terrible trauma. The general situation of Untouchables is miserable but it is all the more wretched in the case of those Untouchables who have become Christians and are identified as Dalit Christians.

I wonder whether Mr. Gandhi and other politicians have these as findings from their visits to the Dalit families otherwise their visits are nothing but political gimmicks.

Kasta Dip