Untouchability and India’s (D)urban Elite

Untouchability is abolished now and its practice under any form is prohibited. (Constitution of India, Article 17) Despite the constitutional mandate, untouchability is prevalent in 12 states—Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tamilnadu, Uttar Pradesh and Pondicherry. It is prevalent in a mild form in 6 states—Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Goa and Delhi and in the Union Territories. (Maneka Gandhi in Parliament, July 1998)

To those aware of the the scourge of untouchability in India, details of the kind furnished by Maneka Gandhi before Parliament are not shocking. But judging from recent developments it appears that there are many, particularly among the more influential sections of the intelligentsia, who either do not know or do not particularly care about the persistence of such a nauseatingly undemocratic practice. There is no denying the fact that despite half-a-century of constitutional measures untouchability continues in myriad ways and forms. In many places Dalits, to date, are denied entry into temples or served tea in 'special' glasses in hotels and restaurants or are not allowed to draw water from government wells situated in areas where dominant castes reside. Dalit women are driven to prostitution through religious customs like the Devadasi system or are forced to do menial and 'polluting' jobs like scavenging as a hereditary duty enjoined on them by lowly birth. And it is a sign of the durability of this system that despite many superficial changes, partly under constitutional duress and partly induced by the compulsions of modernity, it has managed to maintain intact the core function of insulating caste purity from caste pollution.