Untouchability is the practice of excluding a group of people on the basis of their caste. This excluded group are called untouchables. The ‘untouchability’ word is often associated with the communities known as Dalits in India. This heinous practice is done by the privileged caste people on untouchables. The privileged caste consider untouchables as inferior, resulting in the persecution of the latter.
It is still a debated issue how this practice came into being. According to ethnologist Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf, this practice has its roots in Indus Valley Civilization. B.R. Ambedkar, a dalit and social reformer, theorized that this practice originated because of the Brahmins. As per scholar Vivekanand Jha, the development of this cruel practice had occurred after 600 AD. Historian R.S. Sharma said aboriginal tribes who were associated with leather work, manual labour etc. considered as impure by the higher caste people.
This practice has adverse affects on our society. Untouchables face rampant discrimination in India despite the ban on the practice of untouchability in 1950, especially in the villages of India where 70% of population lives in. They are prohibited from entering religious places, public toilets and using common village paths. A survey conducted by National Council of Applied Economic Research and the university of Maryland, US in 2011-12. 42,000 households participated in this survey across India and 27% of the participants admitted that they did practise untouchability in some form. According to the latest National Crime Record Bureau's report, on an average 10 cases of rape of dalit women daily reported in 2019, in the decade 2009-19 the crimes against the excluded group have risen by 37%. Manual scavenging banned in 2013, due to discrimination and poverty people still doing this sort of work and many die due to the diseases associated with this work, as per the sixth edition of Indian Exclusion Report, an estimated 1.2 million workers associated in manual scavenging, sewer cleaning are from lower caste people. People from this marginalized group who do well in their career also face wrath of higher and middle caste people, they are basically bullied for the job they get through affirmative action. And the majority of people from privileged class doesn't want to have marital relationship with the untouchables. In India, they are children of a lesser god.
It is the curse to the Indian society that we are still afflicted with mental disease of casteism in the 21st century. This curse is hurting us socially and economically. We are not a civilized society if we consider our own people as sub-human.
