See also: Untouchable (homonymy)

The untouchable ones form, in India, a Caste excludes from the company (Strictly speaking, they is even regarded as strictly speaking except caste ). They represent approximately 250 million people and can also be called Harijan ( Enfant of god , politically correct form used by Gandhi), but prefer the term of dalit which means oppressed . The membership of a caste is hereditary, which limits the social advancement.

The untouchable ones and the system of the castes

The Indian company is traditionally divided into four castes, who are (by decreasing order):

• the brâhmanes (brāhmaṇa, ब्राह्मण, related to crowned), priests, teachers, engineers and professors;

• the kshatriyas (kṣatriya, क्षत्रिय, which has the temporal power, also - râjanya), king, princes, administrators and soldiers;
• the vaisyas (vaiśya, वैश्य, related to the clan, also - ârya), craftsmen, tradesmen, business men, farmers and shepherds;
• will sudras them (will śūdra, शूद्र, servant), servants.

Untouchable, out-castes, form fifth class of people which have no position in ones of these four varnas (or castes), and which, without protection of caste, has access only to work that the others are not reserved, therefore less gratifiants. The higher castes, who are supposed to maintain the purity ritual and body, came from there to regard the latter as the untouchable ones, whose contact constiturait a stain.

The system of the castes being abolished in India since the independence of the country in 1947, it has there no more in the legal country of inequality and all the Indians are equal in front of the law. Néammoins, most of the population remains attached so that she regards as forming integral part of the Hindouisme and of the Indian culture.

Situation since independence

Until the middle of the 20th century, the simple sight or the contact with the shade of untouchable caused impurity for a Brahmane. In the case of a physical contact, that could end in the setting with dead outcast. Nowadays, in the campaigns, they still undergo all kinds of humiliations: the dalits do not use the same well as the other villagers; they reside apart from the village, must remove their shoes in the streets and remain upright in public transport, even if places remain empty. Sometimes, of the planes do not take off, the passengers refusing to travel with an outcast. More serious, they are victims of violence whose recent statistics reveal the width: each day, two untouchable is killed and three women dalits violated on average. In 2000,43% lived under the poverty line, whereas this proportion is of 23% for the whole of the Indian population.

The situation of untouchable in Burj Jhabber is the same one as in the remainder of India. As in the majority of the other villages, not only one of them does not have grounds there. The governmental funds intended to improve their fate are usurped by the members of the council of the village, all of higher caste. They live in small thatch and clay huts. They are employed as days laborer in the fields or achieve drudgeries for starvation wages. Involved in debt, much of women owe trimer during years to refund small sums. In this relatively prosperous village, Dalits are relegated in a zone where there is neither health center, neither school, neither running water, nor toilets.

Education was prohibited to them before independence, which obliterated any social advancement. Since, they have access there, can practice all the professions and even become president of the country like Kocheril Raman Narayanan, which should not make believe that the condition of untouchable has changé  basically;: the religious traditions are stronger than the laws of the country.

To try to leave their condition, the dalits often make conversions into mass often towards the Bouddhisme, sometimes towards the Christianisme, but prefer the first with the second, on the one hand because first has roots in the Indian culture, and on the other hand because the second perpetuated a long time in the churches the segregation between caste and outcast.

Improvements

The situation of the dalits in spite of very improved during the XXe century. Those which, at the beginning of last century, could lose the life under pretext that them shade came to touch the body of a Brahman, thanks to the benefit of the Alphabétisation and with the mechanism of positive discriminations, find today their force in the political organization.

All the Indians are equal in front of the law under the terms of article 15 of the Indian consitution which prohibits any discrimination based on the caste, the sex, the birthplace or the religion; and of article 16 which abolishes the intouchability. The father of this constitution, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, was itself dalit.

The policy of Positive discrimination of the quotas - 24,5  % of the stations in the public office, the colleges and the universities are reserved for the untouchable ones - their a political weight because of their number gave. Thus, in Uttar Pradesh, the Bahujan Samaj Party , the political party of the dalits arrived at the capacity and was maintained there one year and half, allowing the integration of senior officials dalits in the administration of the state. The school, which is in India free and opened with all, makes it possible certain untouchable to reach a social situation that it would have been difficult to them - even impossible - to obtain before independence. However, from many dalits, especially the girls, do not go to school…

Personalities dalits

• Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, dalit, is the principal writer of the Indian constitution.
• In 1997, Kocheril Raman Narayanan became the first untouchable one with becoming President of the Republic of India, posts - honorary - that it occupied until 2002.

See too

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