Crush untouchability by changing mindset
The recent incident in Heggotara village in Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka, wherein ‘upper caste’ community members drained an entire tank because a thirsty Dalit woman drank from it, is extremely disturbing. This case of untouchability is the latest among several across India in which ‘lower caste’ people are humiliated on an inhuman scale. The humiliation not just crushes the security and confidence of those targeted but also sends India’s much-prized ‘Unity in Diversity’ tag into a nosedive.
These cases must remind us of India’s dichotomy: One, an outward, progressive stance competing with global players for the country to emerge as a world destination; the other, an inward, regressive one that nurtures deep chasms in our fractured society. They must remind us of our failure to achieve desired levels of egalitarianism espoused in our Constitution. They must remind us of how we, as a people, have failed our early visionaries who dreamed of an India brimming with progressive ideas. More significantly, they must remind us that although our literacy level had risen from 12% when India became independent in 1947 to 77.7% in 2022, education seems to have failed us in eradicating the evil of untouchability.
Untouchability may well have exited completely had education against such a practice truly begun at home. But, practised over centuries and passed down from generation to generation, there is no scope for that to happen. According to one estimate based on the India Human Development Survey, 27% of households in the country were still found practising untouchability, against which the Untouchability Offences Act (1955) lays down penalties.
We cannot wish castes away as they are the staple for the political processes in India. But the process of removing untouchability from people’s minds can be hastened. For that, it is time for governments, district authorities and taluk panchayats to organise more wide-scaled sporting events to bring people together to help diminish divisive lines. Sports can do wonders. It is time to ensure that schools across India step in actively to discourage this practice through mind-opening lessons in the early years of schooling—with a focus on children in the rural outback where it persists with a higher intensity. It is time to deliver a crushing blow to untouchability and throw the gates wide open for a truly egalitarian society.