I felt shame on my society and culture with an incident that happened with me. A friend of mine blonging to schedule caste who is a section engineer in Indian railway came with me to attend a marriage function in my village. He left the function in between and went back without saying anything. After long enquiry from my other friend’s I came to know that one of a village person asked him his caste during the PRITI BHOJ and when he answered that he belongs to schedule caste, the villager asked him to get up from his side and go sit next to the other schedule caste’s member who were eating in a corner on the ground carrying their own utencils and drinking water. I wonder why our society dont care for the person’s value instead of asking his caste and colour.
You all must have heard about the recent news where A khap panchayat in Uttar Pradesh has issued a diktat that a Dalit woman and her sister should be raped and paraded naked in their village as revenge for their brother’s action of eloping with a married girl from the Jat community. Not only this when under threat, victim’s family moved to Delhi their house in the native place was allegedly ransacked and taken over by the Jat community.
An affluent educated dalit is still a dalit..Its a social septicaemia following septic foci theory in the society and not based on economy. It can be addressed only by changing of perspectives or a paradigm shift which can be expected to occur after long run of time or even not after an indefinite period.
If I ask you to name an influential Dalit academic. You can't. A big name journalist? There isn't one, You will say. A Supreme Court judge? Two out of hundreds appointed in the last 65 years. According to National crime records bureau of india, a crime is committed against a dalit every sixteen minutes;everyday, more than four dalit women are raped by the caste hindus,every week, thirteen dalits are murdered and six dalits kidnapped. In 2012 the year of delhi gang rape and murder, 1574 dalit women were raped and 651 dalits murdered.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, father of Indian Constitution dedicated his life for the upliftment of untouchable’s , fought against hindu code of beliefs and dogmas. He strived for their liberation, as Mr. Martin Luther King Jr. did for the African Americans, as Mr. Nelson Mandela for the blacks in South Africa .
Abraham Maslow presented a hierarchy of human needs as:
1. Need for self-actualization.
2. Esteem need, such as need for prestige, success and self- respect.
3. Belonging-ness and love needs, such as need for affection, affiliation and identification.
4. Safety need, such as need for security, stability and order.
5. Physiological needs, such as hunger, thirst and sex.
In this hierarchy it has clearly been indicated that a person in the society may get the 1, 2, 3, 4 or may have to wait to get them, but no. 5 is what is most essential and imperative and comes as the first priority. One can do without the first-four but one cannot do without the last one. This need having been met, other needs would follow in due course – sometimes automatically. If ‘Life’ is assured one can strive to achieve the other through his efforts. But a hungry, thirsty person—not getting food or water—is already a ‘living dead’.
The attitude between the high and low caste gradually developed in to the worst form of untouchability which pushed a major section of population to a state of lower than of an animal. In 2006, our then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called untouchability India’s “Hidden Apartheid”. Dr. S. Radhakrishanan had once remarked: “Unfortunately caste system , the device to prevent the social organisation from decay ultimately prevented it from growing”
You all must have heard about the recent news where A khap panchayat in Uttar Pradesh has issued a diktat that a Dalit woman and her sister should be raped and paraded naked in their village as revenge for their brother’s action of eloping with a married girl from the Jat community. Not only this when under threat, victim’s family moved to Delhi their house in the native place was allegedly ransacked and taken over by the Jat community.
An affluent educated dalit is still a dalit..Its a social septicaemia following septic foci theory in the society and not based on economy. It can be addressed only by changing of perspectives or a paradigm shift which can be expected to occur after long run of time or even not after an indefinite period.
If I ask you to name an influential Dalit academic. You can't. A big name journalist? There isn't one, You will say. A Supreme Court judge? Two out of hundreds appointed in the last 65 years. According to National crime records bureau of india, a crime is committed against a dalit every sixteen minutes;everyday, more than four dalit women are raped by the caste hindus,every week, thirteen dalits are murdered and six dalits kidnapped. In 2012 the year of delhi gang rape and murder, 1574 dalit women were raped and 651 dalits murdered.
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, father of Indian Constitution dedicated his life for the upliftment of untouchable’s , fought against hindu code of beliefs and dogmas. He strived for their liberation, as Mr. Martin Luther King Jr. did for the African Americans, as Mr. Nelson Mandela for the blacks in South Africa .
Abraham Maslow presented a hierarchy of human needs as:
1. Need for self-actualization.
2. Esteem need, such as need for prestige, success and self- respect.
3. Belonging-ness and love needs, such as need for affection, affiliation and identification.
4. Safety need, such as need for security, stability and order.
5. Physiological needs, such as hunger, thirst and sex.
In this hierarchy it has clearly been indicated that a person in the society may get the 1, 2, 3, 4 or may have to wait to get them, but no. 5 is what is most essential and imperative and comes as the first priority. One can do without the first-four but one cannot do without the last one. This need having been met, other needs would follow in due course – sometimes automatically. If ‘Life’ is assured one can strive to achieve the other through his efforts. But a hungry, thirsty person—not getting food or water—is already a ‘living dead’.
The attitude between the high and low caste gradually developed in to the worst form of untouchability which pushed a major section of population to a state of lower than of an animal. In 2006, our then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called untouchability India’s “Hidden Apartheid”. Dr. S. Radhakrishanan had once remarked: “Unfortunately caste system , the device to prevent the social organisation from decay ultimately prevented it from growing”
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