India -The Untouchables(Dalits): Breaking the barriers/silence

Over one-sixth of India's population, some 170 million people, live a precarious existence, shunned by much of Indian society because of their rank as "untouchables" or Dalits—literally meaning "broken" people—at the bottom of India's caste system. Dalits are discriminated against, denied access to land and basic resources, forced to work in degrading conditions, and routinely abused at the hands of police and dominant-caste groups that enjoy the state's protection.

Despite the fact that "untouchability" was abolished under India's constitution in 1950, the practice of "untouchability"—the imposition of social disabilities on persons by reason of their birth in certain castes— remains very much a part of rural India. "Untouchables" may not use the same wells, visit the same temples, drink from the same cups in tea stalls, or lay claim to land that is legally theirs. Dalit children are frequently made to sit in the back of classrooms, and communities as a whole are made to perform degrading rituals in the name of caste. Most Dalits continue to live in extreme poverty, without land or opportunities for better employment or education. With the exception of a small minority who have benefited from India's policy of quotas in education and government jobs, Dalits are relegated to the most menial of tasks, as manual scavengers, removers of human waste and dead animals, leather workers, street sweepers, and cobblers. Dalit children make up the majority of those sold into bondage to pay off debts to dominant-caste creditors.

For more information go to: (https://www.dalitchild.com/php/index.php) and (http://www.ncdhr.org.in/)

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Nonprofits & Activism

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• Human Rights
• india
• Dalits
• India's Untouchables

[4thAugust1932]

Economic mobility and social mobility are mutually exclusive in India.

Hence India must comply with 4th August 1932 Round Table Conference resolutions and give Homeland/Independence to 300 million SC/ST community.