Dalit - Social Status of Dalits

Social Status of Dalits

History

In the context of traditional Hindu society, Dalit status has often been historically associated with occupations regarded as ritually impure, such as any involving leatherwork, butchering, or removal of rubbish, animal carcasses, and waste. Dalits worked as manual labourers cleaning streets, latrines, and sewers. Engaging in these activities was considered to be polluting to the individual, and this pollution was considered contagious. As a result, Dalits were commonly segregated, and banned from full participation in Hindu social life. For example, they could not enter a temple nor a school, and were required to stay outside the village. Elaborate precautions were sometimes observed to prevent incidental contact between Dalits and other castes. Discrimination against Dalits still exists in rural areas in the private sphere, in everyday matters such as access to eating places, schools, temples and water sources. It has largely disappeared in urban areas and in the public sphere. Some Dalits have successfully integrated into urban Indian society, where caste origins are less obvious and less important in public life. In rural India, however, caste origins are more readily apparent and Dalits often remain excluded from local religious life, though some qualitative evidence suggests that its severity is fast diminishing.

Modern India

Since 1950, India has enacted and implemented many laws and social initiatives to protect and improve the socio-economic conditions of its Dalit population. By 1995, of all jobs in India, 17.2 percent of the jobs were held by Dalits, greater than their proportion in Indian population. Of the highest paying, senior most jobs in government agencies and government controlled enterprises, over 10 percent of all highest paying jobs were held by members of the Dalit community, a tenfold increase in 40 years. In 1997, India democratically elected K. R. Narayanan, a Dalit, as the nation's President. In last 15 years, Indians born in historically discriminated minority castes have been elected to its highest judicial and political offices. The quality of life of Dalit population in India, in 2001, in terms of metrics such as access to health care, life expectancy, education attainability, access to drinking water, housing, etc. was statistically similar to overall population of modern India. In 2010, international attention was drawn to the Dalits by an exhibition featuring portraits depicting the lives of Dalits by Marcus Perkins.

In India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, Dalits have revolutionised politics and have elected a popular Dalit chief minister named Mayawati.

Many Hindu spiritual leaders assert that though the caste system is present in the Hindu Vedas ,it was meant to serve only as a division of labour and not meant to stratify or discriminate social groups based on caste.There are no verses present in any Hindu text that support caste based discrimination though the Manu Smriti ,a text written several years later after the various Hindu texts ,contain verses that assert superiority of certain castes over the other.In the Bhagvad Gita, Lord Krishna asserts that an individual's caste is determined by his duty on not his birth.Hindu texts however do not mention the presence or discrimination of a Dalit caste ,indicating that Dalit discrimination arose in society due to the corruption of religious practices by social hierarchy.