Untouchability

ABOUT UNTOUCHABILITY AND THE PROBLEMS FACED BY THEM ...
EVEN SMALL CHILDREN UNKNOWN OF THE FACT OF THE SAME CAST BEAR ALL SITUATIONS .. THE SOCIETY SHOULD KNOW IT AND SHOULD RESPECT ALL THE TYPE OF PEOPLE AND SHOULD LEARN TO KNOW IT...

1. UNTOUCHABILITY THE PROBLEMS OF UNTOUCHABILITY 1

2. ♣ UNTOUCHABILITY ♣ WHAT IS UNTOUCHABILITY? A type of social organization in which a person’s occupation and position in life is determined by the circumstances of his/her birth. Untouchability  is the practice of  exclude  a group by segregating some castes from the mainstream by social custom or legal mandate. The excluded group could be one that did not accept the norms of the excluding group and historically included foreigners, nomadic tribes, law-breakers and criminals and those suffering from a contagious disease. It could be a group, that did not accept change of customs enforced by a certain group. This exclusion was a method of punishing law-breakers and also protected traditional societies against contagion from strangers and the infected. A member of the excluded group is known as an Untouchable or the people facing the social issue of untouchability were the Untouchable. The term is commonly associated with treatment of the Dalit communities, who are considered " polluting“.

3. WHO WERE THE UNTOUCHABLES? Dalits, also known as untouchables, are members of the lowest social status group in the Hindu caste system. A Dalit is actually born below the caste system, which includes the four primary castes of Brahmins (priests), Kshatriya (warriors and princes), Vaishya (farmers and artisans) and Shudra (tenant farmers or servants ).

4. Within the Dalit community, there are many divisions into sub-castes. Dalits are divided into leather workers, street sweepers, cobblers, agricultural workers, and manual "scavengers". The latter group, considered the lowest of the low and officially estimated at one million, traditionally are responsible for digging village graves, disposing of dead animals, and cleaning human excreta. Approximately three-quarters of the Dalit workforce are in the agricultural sector of the economy. A majority of the country’s forty million people who are bonded laborers are Dalits. These jobs rarely provide enough income for Dalits to feed their families or to send their children to school. As a result, many Dalits are impoverished, uneducated, and illiterate.

5. Humans were born as untouchables as a form of punishment for misbehavior in a previous life. If a person was born in to the untouchable caste, she or he could not ascend to a higher caste within that lifetime; untouchables had to marry fellow untouchables, and could not eat in the same room or drink from the same well as a caste member. In Hindu reincarnatio-n theories, however, those who scrupulously follows these restrictions could be rewarded for their good behavior by a promotion to a caste in their next life.

6. WHY WERE THE UNTOUCHABLES CALLED SO... The untouchability feature in the caste system is one of the cruelest features of the caste system. It is seen by many as one of the strongest racist phenomenon in the world.  In the Indian society people who worked in ignominious, polluting and unclean occupations were seen as polluting peoples and were therefore considered as untouchables. The untouchables had almost no rights in the society. In different parts of India they were treated in different ways. In some regions the attitude towards the untouchables was harsh and strict. In other regions it was less strict.

7. Untouchables were seen as polluting people and their dwellings were at a distance from the settlements of the four Indian Varna communities. The untouchables were not allowed to touch people from the four Varna's. They were not allowed to enter houses of the higher Varna's. They were not allowed to enter the temples. They were not allowed to use the same wells used by the Varnas. In public occasions they were compelled to sit at a distance from the four Varnas. In regions where the attitude towards the untouchables were more severe, not only touching them was seen polluting, but also even a contact with their shadow was seen as polluting.

8. PROBLEMS FACED BY THE !!!UNTOUCHABLES !!!   A random sampling of headlines in mainstream Indian newspapers tells their story: "Dalit boy beaten to death for plucking flowers"; "Dalit tortured by cops for three days"; "Dalit 'witch' paraded naked in Bihar"; "Dalit killed in lock-up at Kurnool"; "7 Dalits burnt alive in caste clash"; "5 Dalits lynched in Haryana"; "Dalit woman gang-raped, paraded naked"; "Police egged on mob to lynch Dalits".

9. " Dalits are not allowed to drink from the same wells, attend the same temples, wear shoes in the presence of an upper caste, or drink from the same cups in tea stalls," said Smita Narula, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch, and author of  Broken People: Caste Violence Against India's "Untouchables." Human Rights Watch is a worldwide activist organization based in New York.

10. India's Untouchables are relegated to the lowest jobs, and live in constant fear of being publicly humiliated, paraded naked, beaten, and raped with impunity by upper-caste Hindus seeking to keep them in their place. Nearly 90 percent of all the poor Indians and 95 percent of all the illiterate Indians are Dalits.  Because the police, village councils, and government officials often support the caste system, which is based on the religious teachings of Hinduism, many crimes go unreported due to fear of reprisal, intimidation by police, inability to pay bribes demanded by police, or simply the knowledge that the police will do nothing .

11. ☺LEADERS WHO WORKED FOR THE ERADICATION OF UNTOUCHABILITY☺ Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar   14 April 1891 – 6 December 1956), popularly known as  Babasaheb , was an Indian lawyer, politician and academic. Born into a poor Mahar family, Ambedkar campaigned against social discrimination, the Indian caste system. He converted to Buddhism and is also credited with providing a spark for the conversion of hundreds of thousands of lower caste members to Buddhism.  Dr. Bhim Rao Ambedkar

12. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi   (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was the preeminent leader of Indian nationalism in British-ruled India. Employing  nonviolent  civil disobedience, Gandhi led India to independence and inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, but above all for achieving  Swaraj  or self-rule .

13. THANK YOU