Caste System Intact Even in the Midst of Tragedy

The following articles tell some disturbing stories of how the caste system remains intact even in the midst of tragedy.

Caste antagonism in providing relief?
Shankar Raghuraman, Times News Network
Saturday, January 1, 2005

CHENNAI/CUDDALORE: The aftermath of the tsunami in Tamil Nadu has thrown up some touching examples of communal amity, but it has also revealed how deep caste antagonism runs.

Travelling across the affected areas, one regularly hears of examples of communal amity. One example that keeps cropping up in conversation with NGO activists working in the area is of the Jamaath, a Muslim organisation, which has been running four relief camps in the Parangipettai area of Cuddalore district.

The overwhelming majority of the victims are non-Muslims but that has not prevented the Jamaath from giving them three meals a day for over three days. Considering there are an estimated 40,000 people in these camps, that's quite an achievement.

The same NGO activists also tell stories which are depressing, stories of how Dalits are losing out in the relief effort. Some claim they have come across cases where others have prevented Dalits from entering relief camps. I did not personally come across any such case, but I did hear fisherwomen in several places talking dismissively of the food being provided by relief workers as "stuff that may be good enough for some of the others, but is beneath our dignity to eat". The veiled reference to the Dalits is hard to miss.

Caste is in its new avataar in India
Star of My Sore

A sea-change has taken place in society, according to one perception. 'Nothing much has changed', is another viewpoint. That difference and debate on the issue are quite fascinating. Anthropologist Dr. P.K. Misra presented his analysis in his talk on the topic 'Living on a revolution in Indian society'? In the monthly lecture programme sponsored by Rangsons Group in Ranga Jnana Vinimaya Kendra on Vani Vilas Road, Mysore, on Wednesday, Dec. 22, 2004. Highlights are published here. — Ed.

Indian scenario represented by society nowadays is quite different from what it was before independence in many ways. Discrimination among people on the basis of class and caste have led to ill feelings. The wounds are perhaps healed, but the scars persist. It is neither easy nor right to make any generalisations about India because of wide diversity of its people and their culture.

Travel across the country provides an excellent means of educating oneself about the people of India and their life. India's history is long and piquant. It has been distorted by many. We still seem to live in our history. Value system Evaluation of value system in a society is often done by the factors of good, bad, auspicious, happy or otherwise. Quite often the factor of manners displayed towards one another becomes the tool of evaluation. We always hear that the value systems have changed. The foremost harbinger of change in our value system was adopting of the egalitarian Constitution, guaranteeing equality and adult franchise, forcing the people's representatives to go to them with folded hands once every five years. Reservation for jobs, school admissions and seats in the Assemblies of States, Parliament and Panchayats not only set apart a place for the backward classes but also enlarged the social base of the country.

Changes
Joint family system has virtually disappeared. Marriage age of girls, literacy, life expectancy have risen. The housewife is a virtual dynamo in the family. The child is more computer-literate than adults in the family.

Landlordism that prevailed all over the country was got rid of by land reforms, bringing to end the exploitation of the client by the patrons.

In certain pockets, movements were launched to protest the discrimination based on castes. Development activities were undertaken towards providing shelter for the economically weaker sections, education for all and healthcare measures.

Tremendous manpower with higher learning is now available. Advances have been made in communication and transport making connectivity among people and networking of regions quite easy. Structural changes are taking place resulting in much churning, raising the aspiration level of the people at large.

Hostility
Some sort of hostility, openly in some pockets, has emerged between the erstwhile exploiting and the exploited. Traditional occupations of the rural populations have either disappeared or moved to urban areas, leading to large scale migration. Tension in society is also coming
to the forefront.

Loyalty, submission, respectful behaviour towards the male head of the family have diminished. He is challenged for his viewpoint about life and all issues. Decision-making has become more consultative, with women exerting influence. Men have accepted women as bosses.

Network of relationships on the lines of the joint family system continues during special events such as wedding, religious functions and death ceremonies. These relationships reflect caste loyalties.

Marriages are mostly settled on caste basis everywhere in India. They are also performed as per tradition. Dowry — both giving and receiving — is rampant, across all communities and religions. It is even blessed by the clergy in some religions. Begetting of sons is still considered important.

Millions of people are still below poverty line. Gap between the rich and the poor has become enormous. Exploitation is unabated but disguised. The factor of caste has remained alive and is in its new avataar. The concept of inequality pervades. Inter-caste differences have led to
exclusiveness in society. Even those who belong to weaker sections have not accepted the concept of equality.

Unless the value of inequality based on class and caste is frontally attacked, the Indian social revolution will not be complete. One of the reasons for that not to happen is adherence to rituals, tied down to the caste system. This, in spite of tremendous changes that have taken place in Indian society.

Body hunt left to the low caste
Reuters, January 04, 2005

NAGAPATTINUM, India: They are the "untouchables", the lowest of the low in India's ancient caste system. No job is too dirty or too nasty. So, now they are the ones cleaning up the rotting corpses from last week's tsunami.

The vast majority of the 1000 or so men sweating away in the tropical heat to clear the poor south Indian fishing town of Nagapattinum, which bore the brunt of the giant wave, are lower-caste dalits from neighbouring villages.

Locals too afraid of disease and too sickened by the smell refuse to join the grim task of digging friends and neighbours out of the sand and debris. They just stand and watch the dalits work.

Although it has been a week since the tsunami hit, and the destruction was confined to a tiny strip by the beach and port, the devastation was so fierce that bodies -- located by the stench and flies -- are still being discovered daily.

"I am only doing what I would do for my own wife and child," says M. Mohan, a dalit municipal cleaner as he takes a break to wash off some of the grime of the day's work. "It is our duty. If a dog is dead, or a person, we have to clean it up."

Mohan and other sanitation workers from neighbouring municipalities are working around the clock to clear Nagapattinum, for an extra 64c a day and a meal.

The smell of death still hangs heavily, mixing with the sea breeze and the almost refreshingly tart smell of the antiseptic lime powder that has turned some streets and paths white.

More than 5525 people -- close to 40 per cent of India's estimated 14,488 fatalities -- died along this small stretch of pure white beach, where the huts of poor fishermen were built down to the sand at the top of the beach.

Caste still plays a defining role in much of Indian society. More than 16 per cent of India's billion-plus people are dalits. Despite laws banning caste discrimination, they are still routinely abused, mistreated and even killed.

They do the jobs others will not: toilet cleaning, garbage collection, cow skinning. For Mohan, illiterate, uneducated and low caste, the only way to get a government job and the security and pension that come with it, was as a municipal sanitation worker.

In the early hours of the tsunami disaster, he and his colleagues worked feverishly to clear the thousands of bodies without gloves, masks or even shoes in some cases. Now, they are better equipped. But no mask ever stops the gagging smell of rotting human flesh, which becomes almost overpowering as the body is dug out, lodging deep in the back of the mouth. Each new body discovered is painstakingly prised free of the wet sand, torn palm thatch and debris, mostly by hand.

It is sweaty, backbreaking work. Shifting sand and rubble make just standing hard. It is done slowly, carefully and patiently with a delicate respect for the victim.

But there is no dignity.

The almost unrecognisable body of a naked woman, one foot still surprisingly wet, clean and white as if she had just stepped from a bath, is carried on a mat to the beach. There, a small bonfire is lit with a tyre and palm leaves. She is heaved on top. Another mat provides a pitiful attempt at modesty. Acrid, pitch-black smoke drifts to the sky. No one knows who she was. With the fear of an epidemic, there is no time to find out.