Mari Marcel Thekaekara reports from India on the stink of untouchability and how those most affected are trying to remove it.
Sweeping shit: this woman in Gujarat is one of India’s 800,000 toilet cleaners. Stan Thekaekara
‘In the rainy season,’ the woman began, ‘it is really bad. Water mixes with the shit and when we carry it (on our heads) it drips from the baskets, on to our clothes, our bodies, our faces. When I return home I find it difficult to eat food sometimes. The smell never gets out of my clothes, my hair. But this is our fate. To feed my children I have no option but to do this work.’
Narayanamma began cleaning human excrement at 13. She is now 35. The stench is nauseating, overpowering. First, she sweeps the shit into piles. Then, using two flat pieces of tin, she scoops it up and drops it into a bamboo basket which she carries to a spot where a tractor will arrive to pick it up. No gloves. No water to wash with. She hitches up her sari tightly so that it does not trail on the ground or touch the shit. Still, it is almost impossible to go through a whole day’s work without some of it inadvertently getting onto her clothes and person.
After 20-odd years of cleaning toilets, Narayanamma clings to a dignity which is markedly at variance with the work she does. She is dressed neatly, immaculately clean. Jasmine adorns her oiled and well-groomed hair.
Narayanamma and 800,000 other toilet cleaners are on the lowest rung of the caste system in India. They are despised by everyone. They experience absolute exclusion from the cradle to the grave. They are the other face of India; the one that nobody likes to see. It is in sharp contrast to the progressive, technological, we-have-the-bomb-and-are-no-longer-the-Third-World face.
Chennai railway station says it all. It has a hot spot for laptops to download mail, mobile phone chargers, international food counters offering burgers, chocolate mousse and chow mein next to hot dosas and chicken tikka. Yet, a few metres away, sweeper women clean shit in the most primitive manner possible, lifting it out of the railway track with a stick, broom and pieces of tin. Why does this unacceptable, utterly obscene dichotomy exist? Because hardly anyone wants it to change.
Caste permeates every pore of Indian society in hidden, insidious ways. It is so complex, few Indians begin to understand it completely, although it is present in our lives in subtle and not-so subtle ways. Even though the caste hierarchy is a Hindu construct, conversion does not always help: Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs and Muslims often still cling to their caste identities when searching for marriage partners.
In the beginning...
Many sociologists believe the caste system in India originated as a way of dividing labour, as well as a method of exercising social control and maintaining order. Its power – and almost absolute acceptance – stems from the fact that caste derives religious sanction for India’s majority from the 4,000-year-old Manu Sashtra or laws of Manu. According to this, society was divided into four broad social orders, or varnas, each arising from a certain part of the Creator’s body. From the head came the Brahmins, a priestly class, who are the most pure. From the arms came the Kshatriyas, the warriors and rulers. From the lower limbs were born the Vaishyas, the traders. And from the feet the Sudras, the lowest caste, destined to serve the other three. Apart from these four varnas, there are over 3,000 sub-castes, or jatis. Each of these practises exclusion of varying degrees against each other. An orthodox Brahmin family will not accept a marriage with another Brahmin of a slightly different sub-caste. Nor will most people eat food cooked by someone from a caste lower than their own.
Below all these, ‘Untouchables’ were considered so impure and polluting that they were not even included in the system by Manu. This translated into complete exclusion from society. Their hamlets were outside the village, and they could not even talk to or walk on the same path as the other castes, much less touch them. When the British ruled in India, they left caste well alone to avoid unrest. In some ways they even reinforced it, finding Brahmins useful as an army of clerks and administrators who served the British Empire faithfully.
Today, in India, the Untouchables call themselves ‘Dalits’, which means ‘Broken People’
Today, in India, the Untouchables call themselves ‘Dalits’, which means ‘Broken People’. There are almost 180 million Dalits in India alone and at least another 60 million around the world who face caste discrimination of various kinds.
On a daily basis, Dalits have to deal with the fact that they will not be served food in many eateries. They must sit outside and drink their tea at a distance from the other customers. Special ‘Untouchable’ cups are placed on the shelf outside. The Dalit customer has to take his or her cup, place it on a counter carefully without touching the waiter. The tea will then be poured from a safe, non polluting distance and the Dalit must pick up the cup, drink the tea, wash the cup and place it back on the secluded Dalit shelf outside. This is known as the ‘two-glass’ system.
In one recent survey of 22 villages in Tamil Nadu, 16 practised the ‘two glass system’; 14 villages had the ‘chappal’ system where Dalits have to remove their footwear when they enter the caste part of the village; and in 17 villages Dalits were forbidden to enter the village temples. In four villages Dalits had come together to combat these practices and they have largely been abolished.1
‘In the rainy season,’ the woman began, ‘it is really bad. Water mixes with the shit and when we carry it (on our heads) it drips from the baskets, on to our clothes, our bodies, our faces. When I return home I find it difficult to eat food sometimes. The smell never gets out of my clothes, my hair. But this is our fate. To feed my children I have no option but to do this work.’
Narayanamma began cleaning human excrement at 13. She is now 35. The stench is nauseating, overpowering. First, she sweeps the shit into piles. Then, using two flat pieces of tin, she scoops it up and drops it into a bamboo basket which she carries to a spot where a tractor will arrive to pick it up. No gloves. No water to wash with. She hitches up her sari tightly so that it does not trail on the ground or touch the shit. Still, it is almost impossible to go through a whole day’s work without some of it inadvertently getting onto her clothes and person.
After 20-odd years of cleaning toilets, Narayanamma clings to a dignity which is markedly at variance with the work she does. She is dressed neatly, immaculately clean. Jasmine adorns her oiled and well-groomed hair.
Narayanamma and 800,000 other toilet cleaners are on the lowest rung of the caste system in India. They are despised by everyone. They experience absolute exclusion from the cradle to the grave. They are the other face of India; the one that nobody likes to see. It is in sharp contrast to the progressive, technological, we-have-the-bomb-and-are-no-longer-the-Third-World face.
Chennai railway station says it all. It has a hot spot for laptops to download mail, mobile phone chargers, international food counters offering burgers, chocolate mousse and chow mein next to hot dosas and chicken tikka. Yet, a few metres away, sweeper women clean shit in the most primitive manner possible, lifting it out of the railway track with a stick, broom and pieces of tin. Why does this unacceptable, utterly obscene dichotomy exist? Because hardly anyone wants it to change.
Caste permeates every pore of Indian society in hidden, insidious ways. It is so complex, few Indians begin to understand it completely, although it is present in our lives in subtle and not-so subtle ways. Even though the caste hierarchy is a Hindu construct, conversion does not always help: Buddhists, Christians, Sikhs and Muslims often still cling to their caste identities when searching for marriage partners.
In the beginning...
Many sociologists believe the caste system in India originated as a way of dividing labour, as well as a method of exercising social control and maintaining order. Its power – and almost absolute acceptance – stems from the fact that caste derives religious sanction for India’s majority from the 4,000-year-old Manu Sashtra or laws of Manu. According to this, society was divided into four broad social orders, or varnas, each arising from a certain part of the Creator’s body. From the head came the Brahmins, a priestly class, who are the most pure. From the arms came the Kshatriyas, the warriors and rulers. From the lower limbs were born the Vaishyas, the traders. And from the feet the Sudras, the lowest caste, destined to serve the other three. Apart from these four varnas, there are over 3,000 sub-castes, or jatis. Each of these practises exclusion of varying degrees against each other. An orthodox Brahmin family will not accept a marriage with another Brahmin of a slightly different sub-caste. Nor will most people eat food cooked by someone from a caste lower than their own.
Below all these, ‘Untouchables’ were considered so impure and polluting that they were not even included in the system by Manu. This translated into complete exclusion from society. Their hamlets were outside the village, and they could not even talk to or walk on the same path as the other castes, much less touch them. When the British ruled in India, they left caste well alone to avoid unrest. In some ways they even reinforced it, finding Brahmins useful as an army of clerks and administrators who served the British Empire faithfully.
Today, in India, the Untouchables call themselves ‘Dalits’, which means ‘Broken People’
Today, in India, the Untouchables call themselves ‘Dalits’, which means ‘Broken People’. There are almost 180 million Dalits in India alone and at least another 60 million around the world who face caste discrimination of various kinds.
On a daily basis, Dalits have to deal with the fact that they will not be served food in many eateries. They must sit outside and drink their tea at a distance from the other customers. Special ‘Untouchable’ cups are placed on the shelf outside. The Dalit customer has to take his or her cup, place it on a counter carefully without touching the waiter. The tea will then be poured from a safe, non polluting distance and the Dalit must pick up the cup, drink the tea, wash the cup and place it back on the secluded Dalit shelf outside. This is known as the ‘two-glass’ system.
In one recent survey of 22 villages in Tamil Nadu, 16 practised the ‘two glass system’; 14 villages had the ‘chappal’ system where Dalits have to remove their footwear when they enter the caste part of the village; and in 17 villages Dalits were forbidden to enter the village temples. In four villages Dalits had come together to combat these practices and they have largely been abolished.1
