Today in India, there is a group of 300 million people who face severe persecution; that’s about 25% of India’s total population (Kersey 1). These people, Untouchables, are now referred to as Dalits (Edwards 1). “In Sanskrit, the word Dalit means suppressed, smashed, broken to pieces” (“India’s Dalits Still Fighting Untouchability” 2). Even the definition of their name indicates the injustice that the Dalit people face. India passed legislation in 1950 that made the caste system illegal; additional laws were passed to give Untouchables other freedoms and legal aid (Kersey 2). Still, Untouchables remain incredibly poor, and they face persecution to this day (Kersey 1). Although the caste system in India was ended by law, life remains difficult for the country’s Untouchables.
Even the everyday tasks of daily life are not easy for Dalits. Many women are forced to make long treks to get water because they are banned from using the water sources where they live (“India’s Dalits Still Fighting Untouchability” 2). In some places, Untouchables are barred from going into temples or homes of people of higher castes (“India’s Dalits Still Fighting Untouchability” 2). One Untouchable explains that a barber will not perform his services for him (“India’s Dalits Still Fighting Untouchability” 2). This segregation indicates how hard life can be for Dalits in India, since they usually can’t even associate with people of upper castes.
Another obstacle that Dalits face is the struggle to carry a well-paying job. “Untouchability helps to lock Dalits, who traditionally do the dirtiest manual jobs, in their occupations” (“India’s Dalits Still Fighting Untouchability” 2). One example of this would be if a Dalit purchased cattle, then people of upper ca...
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...ng educated. Without an education, Dalits can’t be very successful with their lives, which makes their lives even harder.
In the end, despite efforts over 60 years ago to give Untouchables in India more rights, the inequality remains. Indians who are Dalits still face incredible adversity and violence within their home country. Even the most mundane tasks are not so straightforward for an Untouchable, and the threat of being injured is ever-present. True, India is “slowly changing” (“India’s Dalits Still Fighting Untouchability” 2). But things are far from equal, and India still has a long way to go to reach that ideal. As one Untouchable put it, “ ‘We are still Dalit, still broken, still suppressed’ ” (“India’s Dalits Still Fighting Untouchability” 3). Clearly, the Dalits struggle, even now, for the rights that they theoretically should have been given decades ago.
In an article entitled, Exciting Tales of Exotic Dark India: Aravind Adiga 's The White Tiger, author Ana Cristina Mendes describes the many attributes of the poor proletariat class of India. Mendes shows how “dark India,”
Thousands of years ago, Indian society developed into a complex system based on different classes. This system was known as the Caste System. It separated Indians into different castes based on what class were born into. As thousands of years went by, this system grew larger and became further complex (Wadley 189). This system caused frustration for the Indian citizens because they were receiving inequality. Not only did the inequality and separation of the Indian society frustrate the citizens of India, but the imperialism Britain had upon them as well. In the early 20th century, Indian nationalists wanted to take a stand against the British rule and make India independent. The British created unfair laws that created a nationalist movement
The concept of social status is vitally important in the documentary “The Real Slumdogs”. As defined in our text books, “ascribed statuses is involuntary. You do not ask for it, nor do you choose it (pg. 98).” All of the citizens of Dharavi are either ascribed their status or achieved their status in this mega-slum city. It is seen throughout the documentary that many rag-pickers are generational. This is most noted in Sheetal’s family- her grandmother is a rag-picker and so is her mother and this has become a form of a family business for many of those living in poverty in Dharavi. While some people living there generationally, some find themselves coming into Dharavi later in life, where they are taken in by other families until they can
Dictionary.com defines a caste system as “a system of rigid social stratification characterized by hereditary status, endogamy, and social barriers sanctioned by custom, law, or religion” This means someone born into a low caste cannot move up to a higher caste because of this system. Although a caste system is not a set of laws, it is almost never broken because the caste system has been in place for so long.
The Indian government is corrupted and makes promises it is unable to keep. In The White Tiger, Balram describes that the government is “...the world’s greatest democracy. What a fucking joke.” (Adiga 145). When Balram lived in Laxmangarh his right to vote for the prime minister was taken from him, due to the fact that running candidates pay the current government to make sure they are elected. The government system also enables the rich to get richer. They do this by immensely taxing the poor and enforcing the caste system on the poor. The caste system is a labeling system you were born into and of what you are expected of in life. For example Balram had the caste of Halwai, which is derived from “sweet-maker”. This meant Balram was expected to work...
Women's rights is the fight for women to have equal rights to men. In India women have a secondary status within the household and workplace. This will affect a women's health, financial status, education, and political involvement. Women are normally married young, quickly become mothers, and are then burdened by this and also financial responsibilities. Unfortunately to this present day we are still fighting for women’s rights.
... middle of paper ... ... The human condition lends itself to searching for the answer to what is ultimately right, and the caste system lays it right out for them.
It is these ideas that that sometimes promote the wrong image to Indian society. By promoting the ideas of caste people may be influenced to do the same in real life which can result in an array of situations. People may run away from home, or even commit suicide as a result of not being allowed to be with whom they please.
Conflict Perspective sees the social world as a tournament, riddled with strives that generate social conflicts and social changes, while seeks to discover the tensions behind the umbrella of order. From this point we can explain the reasons behind their behaviors In terms of inequality, in women by women is evident that Indian women are not given same rights that men, either in their marriage or in the work they do; on the contrary, women face lot of discrimination that demonstrate the superiority of men over women (Fadiman, 2001). According to India’s tradition, women are expected to live a seclusion life as care-takers of children and elderly. Therefore, having a career and contributing with family's income is unachievable to them, remarking the conflict perspective.
Aravind Adiga’s debut novel The White Tiger published in 2008, and a winner of Booker Prize examines the issues of religion, caste, loyalty, corruption, urbanization and poverty in India. The novel besides receiving critical acclaim was also lambasted by some in India for giving in to western prejudices and playing up to their image of a poverty stricken, slum governed country. Some even went to the extent of calling it a western conspiracy to deny the country’s economic progress. It seems ...
Untouchables are usually never accepted in any society, but they have their own place in which they live. According to dictionary.com, and untouchable is “a person disregarded or shunned by society or a particular group; social outcast”, or basically a person that is at the bottom of a social level. In Chinua Achebe’s book Things Fall Apart there are indeed untouchables and they are clearly mentioned in the book. Achebe describes untouchables as “A person dedicated to a God, a thing set apart-a taboo for ever and his children after him. He could neither marry nor be married by the free born. He was in fact an outcast, living in a special area of the village, close to the Great Shrine. Wherever he went he carried with him the mark of the forbidden caste – long, tangled and dirty hair. A razor was taboo to him. An OSU (Igbo word for untouchables) could not attend an assembly of the free – born, and they, in turn could not shelter under his roof. He could not take any of the four titles of the clan, and when he died he was buried by his kind in the Evil Forest.” (Achebe 156). An untouchable’s main problem is its existence. Untouchables are not permitted to be around a “normal” human. Many peopl...
India is well known to be one of the countries where gender equity is far from being reached. For specific constraints like cultural, social, economic and legal factors that will be explained later on, women are seen as secondary in the society. If one takes a look at the Declaration of Human Rights , one can see that women in India don’t fully have all their legitimate human rights: A few example we could give would be the right to safety, the right to marriage and family (and therefore, no forced marriage) and the right of a fair trial where one is innocent until proven guilty. Women’s oppression in India is deeply rooted in the cultural values and everyday actions. As one could guess, these tenacious values are an obstacle to all the multi-dimensions
The history of tribal oppression in India is an old one. “The Sanyasi Revolt”, “The Wahabi Movement”, and “The Naxalbari Rebellion”, are evidence of the tribal outcry that appropriately foregrounds their requirement for fundamental rights as citizens of the country. Even after sixty six years of independence, India’s rural poor and tribals are lamenting under the curbing effects of destitution, unemployment, undernourishment, illiteracy and human trafficking. For these people, the notions of liberty, equality and democracy have no meaning at all. Though the country is free from the bondage of foreign rule, their repression and prejudices still continue leaving them dependent on their new masters.
The Untouchables of the caste system are seen by many as outcasts, unwanted humans who are simply unworthy of being seen on earth. Members of this class are considered impure from birth, because they perform unsanitary jobs, with little pay. For example, citizens who handle items polluted by blood or human waste, a leatherworker who works with animal skins, a weaver who creates cloth, a person who cremates or buries the dead, and a manual scavenger, are all considered Untouchable. A Dalit woman describes her day-to-day job as a “sweeper,” (collecting feces on the street), “I feel very sick. I can’t breathe. I can’t bend and lift the vessel” (Dalit Freedom Network). There is no way to escape these horrific jobs, she explains, “I have been asking the supervisor to give me another job, but he wont shift me from here” (Dalit Freedom Network). The illegal job of a manual scavenger is still present in many parts of India, and is still relied upon by societies in the country. Woman, however, are usually targeted for this grueling job. Safai Karmachari Andolan, a manual scavenger describes, “ I slipped and fell into the gutter. No one would come to pick me up because the basket was so dirty and I was covered with filth.” (). These horrific jobs, which untouchables are forced to participate in, severely damage their emotional and physical health.
The current manifestations of the caste system are now far more generalized across the Indian subcontinent than was the case in former times. Caste as we now recognize has been endangered, shaped and perpetuated by comparatively recent political and social developments. This is evident even i...