INDIA: Government promotes the gutter of caste

INDIA: Government promotes the gutter of caste

A Joint Statement by the Asian Human Rights Commission and the Vigil
India movement

The 'Made Snana' practiced at the Kukke Subramanya temple, near
Mangalore attracts severe criticism and equal amount of support in
India. The practice involves devotees allowed to roll over plantain
leaves; reportedly after dominant caste Brahmins have eaten from the
leaves. It is believed that the ritual will cure skin diseases, in the
past leprosy, mostly of the inferior castes, in particular the Dalits.
The temple is under the Muzrai Department of the Government of
Karnataka. Dr. Vedavyas Srinivas Acharya, a senior minister of the
state cabinet, who is also responsible for higher education, planning,
statistics and information technology departments in the state
government heads the Muzrai department. Dr. Acharya is a medical
doctor turned politician. (photo source: Deccan Herald)

That a qualified medical doctor heads a government department, which
manages religious institutions and the revenue generated from such
institutions is also responsible for other important cabinet
portfolios, not only allows such inhuman practices in the country but
justifies it in the name of religious belief and centuries-old
tradition is not just a shame for the country, but illuminates the
deep-rooted nature of orthodox prejudices that benefits the dominant
castes in the caste system of India. It underscores the fact that the
liberation of the country from the cobweb of caste is impossible
should the current situations continue. It paints an appalling picture
of what modernisation means in India, that Acharya is a senior
minister in the state, which hosts the country's IT capital,
Bangalore. It reiterates the argument that neo-Dalit political leaders
like Ms Mayawati are nothing more than shrewd politicians who use
pro-Dalit sentiments to maintain power and intends no good to the
community that she allegedly represents and her newfound affinity for
Brahminical practices could justify, manual scavenging, a practice
vicious and demeaning that rolling over banana leafs.

The government had prohibited the practice of Made Snana in 1979. But
it was soon reintroduced on the justification that it is a
centuries-old religious ritual. So is untouchability, a much older
practice, which today is prohibited not only in the constitution, but
also in at least half a dozen statutes. Yet it continues openly in the
country.

The practice of manual scavenging is also prohibited, including the
construction of dry latrines. But institutions like the Indian
Railway, the municipalities, corporations and panchayats employ manual
scavengers. The Indian Railway is the largest employer of manual
scavengers, and manages some of the longest rows of open latrines in
the world. The open-hole lavatories in every railway compartment that
is in service in the country turns the largest rail network of the
world into one big lavatory that drops raw human excreta and other
waste onto the rails, and over people and vehicles - where the rail
line runs above roads. It is a common scene in every railway station
in the country, railway employees cleaning with a broom, railway
sleepers covered with human excreta. In a country that tolerates this
and accepts the practice as 'god given' to a community, a few thousand
'devotees' rolling over leftover food and plantain leaves upon which
the food was served and eaten by some of the most exploiting
communities in the world - those Brahmins who believe in the caste
hierarchy - have eaten must be a negligible incident.

That caste-based discrimination continues in India is nothing new.
There is neither news value in it, nor is there any shocking discovery
about the incident. That this year's Made Snana was widely reported in
the media can be discounted due to the news value the event attracted
since a person who protested against this was publically assaulted.
The inhuman ritual never attracted such media frenzy before, and
probably will never again until some untoward incident that has an
alleged media value than the ritual itself happens. Such is the media
vigilance in India on some important issues, and the Indian media is
not immune to caste prejudice. It is clear from the fact that many
other similar inhuman practices based on dominant caste prejudices are
of no news value for the Indian media. This includes widespread bonded
labour of Dalits, Devadasi practices, the denial of food and medicine
to the Dalit and tribal children in rural villages by the dominant
caste government servants and land grabbing by dominant castes.

The only entities that openly express discomfort regarding caste
prejudices are the government agencies that represent India in
international fora. For these institutions and the persons who work
for them representing the government, caste is an internal matter of
the country. So was apartheid an internal matter of South Africa,
holocaust a domestic affair for Nazi Germany, and slavery an in-house
labour management for the racists.

Mistakes get corrected starting from the moment defects are admitted.
Caste based prejudices in India will continue until the government
publically admits that discrimination based on caste, in all its
manifest forms, is a crime against humanity. What it requires is
honesty in polity, and it is precisely what the governments in India
lack.
Posted by :Vipul Koul
Edited by:  Ashok koul