We are all so grateful.

- Dana

Gina Briefs-Elgin
Professor of English
New Mexico Highlands University

The link should work now.

More than 160 million people in India are considered “Untouchable” people tainted by their birth into a caste system that deems them impure, less than human. Human rights abuses against these people, known as Dalits, are legion.

A random sampling of headlines in mainstream Indian newspapers tells their story: “Dalit boy beaten to death for plucking flowers”; “Dalit tortured by cops for three days”; “Dalit killed in lock-up at Kurnool”; “7 Dalits burnt alive in caste clash”; “5 Dalits lynched in Haryana”; “Dalit woman gang-raped, paraded naked”; “Police egged on mob to lynch Dalits”. According to Smita Narula, a senior researcher with Human Rights Watch, and author of Broken People: Caste Violence Against India’s “Untouchables”, “Dalits are not allowed to drink from the same wells, attend the same temples, wear shoes in the presence of an upper caste, or drink from the same cups in tea stalls”.

India’s Untouchables are relegated to the lowest jobs, and live in constant fear of being publicly humiliated, paraded naked, beaten, and raped with impunity by upper-caste Hindus seeking to keep them in their place. Merely walking through an upper-caste neighborhood is a life-threatening offense. Statistics compiled by India’s National Crime Records Bureau indicate that in the year 2007, the last year for which figures are available, 25,455 crimes were committed against Dalits. Every hour two Dalits are assaulted; every day three Dalit women are raped, two Dalits are murdered, and two Dalit homes are torched. Nearly 90 percent of all the poor Indians and 95 percent of all the illiterate Indians are Dalits.

No one believes these numbers are anywhere close to the reality of crimes committed against Dalits. Because the police, village councils, and government officials often support the caste system, which is based on the religious teachings of Hinduism, many crimes go unreported due to fear of reprisal, intimidation by police, inability to pay bribes demanded by police, or simply the knowledge that the police will do nothing. There have been large-scale abuses by the police, acting in collusion with upper castes, including raids, beatings in custody, failure to charge offenders or investigate reported crimes. During year 2007, 68,160 complaints were filed against the police for activities ranging from murder, torture, and collusion in acts of atrocity, to refusal to file a complaint. Sixty two percent of the cases were dismissed as unsubstantiated; 26 police officers were convicted in court.

Despite the fact that untouchability was officially banned when India adopted its constitution in 1950, discrimination against Dalits remained so pervasive that in 1989 the government passed legislation known as The Prevention of Atrocities Act. The act specifically made it illegal to parade people naked through the streets, force them to eat feces, take away their land, foul their water, interfere with their right to vote, and burn down their homes. Since then, the violence has escalated, largely as a result of the emergence of a grassroots human rights movement among Dalits to demand their rights and resist the dictates of untouchability.

You wrote many truths, including ” It’s true to say that when you start caring about yourself, you start loving somebody. But when you start caring about others, somebody will start loving you. ”

In your words you captured the essential truth of your aunty Rajan’s being and work. She loves her students as much as she loves her own best self, and they in return love her spontaneously with a love stemming from the newly-discovered goodness that lies within them, the goodness which your aunty Rajan has helped them to uncover.

Priya, your writing touched me deeply. I do hope you will be able to return to BSS to share with the children your God given ability to express one’s feelings in the language of poetry. I appreciated your sharing the depths of your heart.
Karen Kotoske

Go on with the kids

Jean and Michèle from France