Tear down systems that uphold caste bias
It’s been nearly two months since human excrement was found mixed in a 10,000-litre capacity overhead tank at Vengaivayal village in Tamil Nadu’s Pudukkottai district that serves over 50 families belonging to a scheduled caste community. Even after days of a probe by an SIT, a special CB-CID team, and multiple protests by Dalit associations, a breakthrough in the case has been elusive, and the culprits are still at large. A petition seeking urgent action is pending with the Madras High Court.
The horrifying incident, which came to light after children fell sick and doctors flagged possible water contamination, is symbolic of the deep malice that ensnared our society for a long time. Despite centuries of entrenched caste hierarchy and social discrimination, governments have failed to dismantle the social structures that institutionalise, aid and reinforce such social prejudices. For instance, even after 75 years of Independence, community assets such as water tanks and crematoriums are built and operated by popular governments that have sworn allegiance to the Constitution and assumed office with the vow to not discriminate based on religion, caste, etc.
While individuals are punished by law for practising a two-tumbler system where people belonging to upper and lower castes are served beverages in different sets of utensils and stringent action is initiated for the use of casteist slurs under the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, what is the justification for the state to operate separate community assets such as water tanks for upper castes and lower castes? Why should the government build and maintain separate crematoria and water tanks for different communities and perpetuate and institutionalise historic discrimination? Death is a great leveller that annihilates differences among men, but mortality, too, fails to fill the chasm in people’s hearts in India.
Governments have been reluctant to the point of failure to make places of worship equally accessible to all. Reports still abound about Dalits entering temples for the first time in their living memory, even in areas where they have lived for centuries. Recently, a senior politician in the state faced public ire after a video went viral in which he was seen scolding a Dalit boy for entering the temple. Unless the state acts proactively to tear down the steel frame that supports and internalises the differences, the caste cauldron will continue to singe humanity.