Credit: AP Photo/Altaf Qadri
By Kavita Chowdhury / The Diplomat
A nine-year-old boy from the lower caste Dalit community died after being beaten by his teacher for drinking water from a pot meant for upper caste teachers. The death occurred on the eve of the 75th anniversary of India’s independence from British colonial rule.
The violence unleashed on the Dalit child and the resulting death serves as a reminder that independent India has brought little freedom for Dalits.
Formerly known as “Untouchables,” Dalits are in the lowest rung of India’s millennia-old caste hierarchy. So impure are they regarded by the four main castes – the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and Shudras – that Dalits are in fact looked upon as “outcastes,” those who fall outside the caste categories. They have been traditionally tasked with menial jobs like leather work and manual scavenging and are perceived to be so “unclean” that even their presence or touch is seen to be polluting.
India’s constitution abolished “Untouchability.” The practice — i.e. subjecting a Dalit to any form of social, physical, and political exclusion or violence — is, therefore, a crime in India, which is defined as an atrocity.
Yet caste atrocities are a daily occurrence with as many as five atrocities being committed against Dalits per hour. Despite attempts at social reform, the Brahmanical elite and upper caste Hindus have ensured that this ancient hierarchical structure continues to hold sway in India even today.
The Dalit boy who was killed on the eve of Independence Day this year was Indra Meghwal from Jalore district in Rajasthan in the western part of India. He had been so severely assaulted by his upper-caste teacher that he was hospitalized for several weeks, after which he succumbed to his injuries. Indra’s father, Devaram Meghwal said the drinking water pot the child had touched was used only by teachers. The distraught father alleged that the teacher had beaten his son so brutally that he became unconscious.
This, however, is not an isolated incident. According to National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, over 130,000 anti-Dalit crimes were registered between 2018 and 2020. The highest number of anti-Dalit crimes was reported from Uttar Pradesh (36,467), followed by Bihar (20,973), Rajasthan (18,418), and Madhya Pradesh (16,952).
This story was originally published in thediplomat.com . Read the full story here