'Untouchable' caste find themselves deprived of tsunami aid

[emad]

The Independent
By Justin Huggler in Delhi
22 January 2005


International aid agencies in India have been horrified to find, even amid the suffering caused by the tsunami, some survivors being refused access to basic relief because they are considered "Untouchables".

Accounts have emerged of members of the former Untouchable castes not being allowed to drink clean water from a tank provided by Unicef because other castes believed it would pollute the water in the tank. Dalits, as the former Untouchables are known today, have been thrown out of government relief camps by the other survivors staying there.

Even as people around the world have sent aid donations to tsunami survivors, members of higher castes have prevented the Dalits from using basic relief supplies, and the Indian government has been accused of not doing enough to prevent this injustice.

Dalit children were not even allowed to use the basic open latrines at relief camps, according to Janyala Srinivas, a reporter for The Indian Express. Dalits at one camp who asked for some of the food supplies intended for everyone that the fishermen were hoarding were thrown out and had to spend the rest of the night in the road.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=603453

[mordarlar]

1. What a beautiful planet we live on

Power and money :puke:

[roseBudd]

2. The poor in America are regarded with similar disdain...

Ronald Reagan made it OK to hate the poor.

[NashVegas]

4. Everyone Needs to Feel They're Better Off Than Someone Else

We have our caste system in America, it's just not officially sanctioned.

What was the last movie or tv program you watched where the main characters lived in a home that featured the same factory furnishings you see in just about any home where the bread winners make less than $60k per year? $40k? $30k?

[radric]

5. Amazing..

the post is about problems with the centuries old caste system in India and a couple of people manage to get a little America bashing in. Good job!

[VirginiaDem]

15. According to the PNAC

website, Bush is responsible for the caste system in India...

[NashVegas]

34. No, Not Really

Just pointing out one of the quirks of society. I doubt very much it's confined to either the US or India.

[SmokingJacket]

38. Humans are the same all over the planet

which is the point, I think.

Frankly, America could use a little **more** bashing, maybe get some fricking HUMILITY.

[Orangepeel]

8. the caste system is no longer sanctioned in India, either (n/t)

[NashVegas]

33. I Stand Corrected

thanks.

[Judi Lynn]

22. You're right. It's not as if it's all "over there," is it?

Anyone who denies the complete public worship of materialism at the great expense of character, personal strength, and any enduring inner experience is dishonest to the core.

I've been noticing for years and years the models being pushed on tv of "typical" homes, surroundings for average Americans.

Materialism creates a distorted view of what life is, of what other people are, and society suffers a total lack of healthy content.

[DS1]

6. That's a stretch

You're saying that the poor that have their trailers blown to splinters once a year by tornados/hurricanes aren't provided countless billions in relief money, shelter, and food?

[NNguyenMD]

7. Right on, we may have our problems but we are not totally deprived of

compassion and sympathy in these kinds of tragedies.

[0007]

10. Go talk to the homeless that lives under the bridge

[NNguyenMD]

24. Go talk to the thousands, perhaps millions, of Americans who donated money

went to blood banks, and poured their hearts out to the victims of 9/11. We may not have a european style social safety net for the unemployed and homeless, but there's a great number of us, majority I dare say, who's generosity and outpouring during times of crises make me damn proud to be an American.

[Redstone]

11. Oh, baloney!

Yes, the poor are treated poorly in America.

No, they are not treated anywhere near as badly as the "untouchables" are in India.

Many common Americans will try to help their poor brethren when they can.

Not so with the caste system in India. It ain't the same thing as poverty in America at all.

Redstone

[VirginiaDem]

14. I agree completely. n/t

[Orangepeel]

18. more similar to race than to poverty

As a poster down thread points out, it wasn't so long ago that something similar would have happened in our own country, except it would have been blacks kicked out of the relief tent. Not officially perhaps, but it wasn't official in this case in India, either. It was a group of assholes who thought they were too good to associate with particular others.

That's not to bash Americans. We've come along way since 1964 and although prejudices and racism still exist, at least most people would be too ashamed to be overt about it.

And, I'm not trying to excuse the behavior cited in the article. It is abhorrent. But it is disingenuous to pretend that such attitudes are unique to India. ALL cultures have oppressed people. ALL cultures have ingroups and outgroups. It is, unfortunately, universal.

It is immoral and needs to be stopped, but Indians are trying. It is illegal to discriminate on the basis of caste and there are affirmative action programs in place to try to rectify past wrongs. But India is a much older culture than the United States and, thus, the discrimination is more ingrained. Naturally, it will take longer to eradicate.

[forgethell]

23. Not at all similar.

The caste system is much more rigorous than anything except true old time segregation.

[Judi Lynn]

25. Just remembered one of W.'s professors came forward before the election

and said, among other things, that _{George Bush} spoke of the poor with contempt, and claimed they were poor because they were lazy and didn't have enough intelligence, self-respect, or whatever to work.

That was a future "President" of the U.S. Heart warming, isn't it?

[skylarmae]

3. if this is true, I am sickened over it.

hope the ngo's take notice of this and make sure that the Dalits get fair treatment.

[rodeodance]

9. try as I might, I can not comprehend stuff like this--although it has been

part of their culture for generations. Neither can I comprehend the widow burning -or female circumsision.. things like this that are so embedded in their psyche-yet for me---.......

[bloodyjack]

17. Female circumcision in India?

This is news to me.

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. I think it's relevant to start asking if

these privileged Indians feel the same way towards minorities when they come to America as they do to the Dalits in their own country. I wish there would be studies to determine if we're on a collision course here, because the answer might help the Dems try to figure out who will accept the Dem's Civil Right's platform, and who will not.

[FreeStateDemocrat]

20. It is a problem with Indian immigrants in his country

I use to work with a large number of South Asian immigrants and I have witnessed a case when an Indian slapped another in the face because he was a member of a ”lower” caste and had made what was deemed an inappropriate remark to a “higher" cast Indian. What was even stranger was the supervisor informed us that "no one saw anything" and it was never mentioned again without any apparent resulting disciplinary action. There were also cases where supervisory level Indians were submissive to regular employees who were apparently a higher status than they were and many other situations. While many Indians I worked with were very pleasant there were a number who seemed to present some rather arrogant attitudes. This happened while I worked for the Bechtel Corporation, a very repuke company and high on the list of Iraqi War profiteers.

[The Backlash Cometh]

27. I have had odd experiences with Indians in America.

But when I tried to describe them on DU, some of my posts were removed because I don't think that we as Americans, and especially liberal Americans, are prepared to discuss how cultural practices in foreign countries are being applied here in the states.

Thank you for sharing your experiences.

[bloodyjack]

29. Great story.

I'm very glad people are so HONEST on the internet, compelled by nothing more than a simple desire to share their experiences with one another

[Orangepeel]

31. it is a problem with SOME Indian Immigrants

bigotry and arrogance is a problem in India, just like it can be in all cultures.

But, as you rightly point out, there are plenty of Indians (in India and in the United States) who do not subscribe to these attitudes. Laws in India prohibit discrimination based on caste and there are affirmative action programs in place in an attempt to right past wrongs. Centuries old cultural norms can be difficult to quash, but such laws and programs wouldn't exist if the majority of Indians weren't anti-discrimination.

For every story that someone in the US has about arrogant, discriminatory Indian immigrants, somebody else will have at least one story about Indian immigrants who don't act that way. That's why it is bigoted to generalize based on isolated incidents.

[ima_sinnic]

13. what a wonderful species we are

--our own "caste system" as argued above, is not so much economic class as race. it wasn't so very long ago--within my lifetime--American black people were overtly treated exactly the same. and that reality didn't go away in 1964, it's just more subtle here now.

[w4rma]

16. It's about power. It's about using others as near-slave labor and/or

eliminating them for the resources they used and own.

[Dark]

19. They were forced to drink urine?

Even as Dalits were being denied tsunami aid in Tamil Nadu, at the other end of India three Dalit youths - the youngest a boy of 12 - were forced to drink urine by upper-caste landlords. The landlords urinated in the youths' shoes, then forced them to drink it, because a Dalit boy had been in a fight at school with a boy from a higher caste.



Any culture that would sanction shit like this and the other stuff mentioned in the article is fucked up.

[AngryAmish]

43. Ghandi drank his own urine

[UL_Approved]

21. Ah, yes, and the dark secret of Indian religion

The untouchable cast, India's very own underclass, gets no consideration in that area of the world. They are what Black people were in this country 50-100 years ago. They don't have any rights, and get no human treatment.

I've been posting today on the world's dark secrets of killings and oppression, and figured it would be about time this gets discussed.

[truthpusher]

26. Doesn't the caste system have more to do with social rules...

..and not religion?

[UL_Approved]

41. Its part of the Hindu religion. n/t

[pop goes the weasel]

28. about the Dalits

http://www.dalits.org/
http://www.indiatogether.org/dalit/
http://www.dalitstan.org/links/
http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/dossier/id437/pg1/

Race and religion are at the foundation of this particular caste system. The Dalits are the descendents of the conquered original inhabitants of India, while the upper castes are the descendents of the Aryan conquerors. The religious underpinnings of the Indian caste system have prompted many Dalits to embrace Christianity, Buddhism, Sikhism, or Islam, and this attempt on the part of Dalits to escape the caste system, in turn, is part of the reason why religious tension in India so often fans into violence.

A similar caste system (Aryans v. non-Aryans) can be found in other South Asian countries, such as Nepal and Sri Lanka.

(edited to add more info)

[bloodyjack]

30. The Aryan 'invasion' theory is a myth dreamt up by British colonialists

And some of the historical information on those Dalit Rights websites is, to put it kindly, MADE UP (e.g., get a load of their interesting new take on Mahatma Gandhi's attempts to abolish the caste system)

[pop goes the weasel]

35. That it's a myth is a possibility

but I can't tell who is making up what in regard to Indian pre-history (see http://www.acns.com/~mm9n/hindu/Aryan.htm for an article that says the East-to-West diffusion story is the lie). If anything, the ongoing controversy highlights the religious and ethnic tensions at the root of so much South Asian bloodshed, with apologists for different religious and ethnic groups embracing vastly different theories.

I guess I don't find the objections to Gandhi so preposterous. They seem to me to be based on differing perspectives regarding goals. For example, in the United States, white reformers concerned about the genocide against Native Americans introduced policies designed to destroy tribal culture and identity as a way of saving individual lives via forced acculturation. Needless to say, American Indians have not been very appreciative of those kind efforts. I think the Dalits rights movement's view of Gandhi is along those lines--sure, he meant well, but what he meant to do would destroy any notion of traditional solidarity.

But I'm not a South Asian scholar, so I could be completely wrong about all this quite easily.

[MichiganVote]

32. Quick! Somebody tell King George. Let's liberate them today!

[PurityOfEssence]

36. Isn't religion WONDERFUL?

I mean, really: all the ingrates who complain about religion just don't understand the joy brought by it. Apparently most people need to feel superior to something, but inherent human goodness stops us short of outright abuse if not for god. Thanks for providing the mechanism of hatred and dismissal.

[gorky]

37. "'Untouchable' caste find themselves deprived of tsunami aid"

As an Indian please allow me to provide some background on this.

1. There were a few ( maybe many, but even one is too many ) cases of dalits being discriminated in the refugee camps in Tamil Nadu. Almost in
all cases the incidents were found out and reported by Indian ( mostly hindu , castes varied ) journalists and widely reported in both regional ( tamil vernacular ) and National ( Hindi / English ) newspapers and TV programs. Almost immediately both the state administration as well as NGO's working there swung into action by widely publicizing the cases, building separate camps , making sure supplies reach these and provided police protection. < You may rightly ask whether the perpetrators should be punished and if separate relief camps isn't legitimising segregation. I will come to that later. ). The point is that the corrective mechanism build into Indian society and guaranteed by the Indian constitution viz free press, concerned citizens , judiciary and government will always rise up in these cases and take corrective action.[br />

2. From the article "The persecution of Dalit tsunami survivors has been mostly at the hands of other survivors, fishermen from the slightly higher Meenavar caste, the community in mainland India hit worst by the tsunami." This is not a case of all the upper caste hindus ganging up to screw dalits. It is a case of two locally interdependent lower castes competing for scarce resources. The fisher folk "Meenawar" caste ( jati to be accurate ) would probably be just a notch higher ( if it ever mattered ). In all cases the events were reported by hindu journalists of varied castes.The thousands of Indians who volunteered to do relief work here came from different parts of India ( as far away as Delhi & Punjab , 2000+ km ) belonged to all castes and would not even be able to tell the difference between these two jatis even if they wanted to. ( There are thousands of jatis ). The point is that these kind of incidents often happen in very rural and illiterate communities. Most attacks on Dalits are carried out by jatis which are probably slightly higher than them. It is often driven by competition for scarce resources. This is not something that is sanctioned by Hindu Dharma and any literate hindu would oppose this.

3. From the article "The Tamil Nadu government contends that the fishermen have been worst affected. And it is true that their community suffered by far the most deaths - about 10,000, while 100 Dalits are confirmed dead and another 500 missing."
The fact is that the fishermen jati lives near the ocean and was most affected ( dead, houses washed away ) while the dalits who live inland may not have been directly affected ( they would still be indirectly affected with the local economy in ruins ). The dalits who did not lose their homes probably went to the relief camps so that they could also get some of the relief material as well as compensatory payments made by the govt. This could have caused tensions between communities with the one more affected seeing the other taking their share. This is probably why the govt. tried to ameliorate the situation by having separate relief camps and not instituting punishments against the perpetrators ( who are themselves in total despair ).


4. There are lot of cases where christian missionaries refused to provide aid unless people converted or would pray to jesus with them. When a few days ago a report about catholic nuns refusing aid to a village that would not convert was posted here some people said that catholics don't do that. However in India both catholics and protestants are equally aggressive in harvesting souls and in competition with each other to convert Hindus. Some on this board said that the report was probably cooked up by hindu fundamentalists. Fact is that report, while covered by vernacular news sources and smaller Indian English media , was censored by the larger Indian English language newspapers. Most Indian English newspapers are run by Indian communists who love to bash hindus by portraying isolated cases of violence on dalits as something endemic in hindu society. However these same newspapers always censor anything done by christian missionaries or islamist terrorists.
However here is a similar report in todays Chicago Tribune written by an American journalist. I am sure some of you would give greater credibility to this than the previous report written by a brown person.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0501220303jan22,1,4612744.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed&ctrack=2&cset=true

QUOTE ::

Many children from Akkaraipettai ended up at the Believers Church orphanage, set up to care for children who lost one or both parents or for children whose parents could not handle their children after the tsunami. Biju, a Believers Church official, said church members recruited children by talking about the orphanage to people in relief camps and villages.
"We did not take the children," he said.
But the orphanage was set up without knowledge of the government, said Suriyakala, the district's social welfare officer.

Inside the orphanage, children seemed happy, playing volleyball, badminton and cricket. Several Hindu children said they were asked to recite Christian prayers six times a day.
"As soon as we get up, we pray," said Rajavalli, 13, a Hindu, adding that she had no problem with praying.
Members of the church also handed out Tamil-language Bibles, including refugees staying in a railway station. Several said they took the Bible only because it was offered.
But Mahalakshmi, 18, who had converted earlier from Hinduism to Christianity, said she was happy to get a Bible.
"I understand that to make people understand they have sinned, God has sent this tsunami," she said. "I get peace from reading the Bible and understanding this. Others who don't will continue to suffer."

End Quote

[bloodyjack]

39. Interesting post, to say the least

Welcome to DU

[Orangepeel]

40. welcome to DU, gorky!

:hi:

[VirginiaDem]

42. Thank you! n/t