India prides itself in being the largest democracy of the world. 2014 General Election were paraded as the ones where the largest number of people voted for their leader in the world’s history. We boast of our Election Commission when it sends voting machines to the furthest corners of the country, even for one citizen.
We invited ASEAN leaders on Republic Day to showcase our diversity. We flag the words ’Unity in Diversity’ as our mantra. We pride that our Constitution is the best as it fully safeguards the rights of the minorities.
And all these come to little, as the UN report on Gender Equality as a facet of Sustainable Development highlights that in India Dalit women die 14.6 years younger their counterparts in other castes.
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India is truly an emerging power, but it can only achieve its potential when we shed the ancient practise of caste. The caste system is a unique tradition, particular to India, where a person’s worth is determined at his birth itself. It was an ancient belief that the Brahmans (priests) were first-born, the ruling class (Kshatriyas) came second, then the traders and lastly the ones who do menial jobs. The Untouchables or the Dalits were considered so low that they were kept outside this system. They stayed outside village bounds. Even their shadow made a high-caste born polluted.
Though we have travelled eras since those times, caste continues to be a bone of contention in India’s modern story. Gandhi tried to elevate their status by calling them Harijan, Children of God. Ambedkar tried to improve their status by adopting Buddhism, and incorporating rules in the Constitution, which would protect them. But these have been reduced to vote-bank politics, where the Dalits are given freebies for votes, but suppressed due to their secondary status. Equality of opportunity are just dreamy words on paper, and mean nothing to them in real life.
If you see the society as a venn diagram, being a Dalit and a woman at the same time means that you get the worst discrimination of the lot. Dalits are the last in the caste structure, and women are secondary in the patriarchal society. So, it is logical for the Dalit women to have been born under a curse.
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According to the UN report, a young woman in her early 20s from a poor, rural household is over five times more likely than her cohort from rich urban household to marry before the age of 18. She is also 20 times more likely to have never attended school.
With such grim chances, it does seem that an opportunity to a better life chance is never accorded her. The stats reduce the Dalit woman’s condition to a mere number, but the fact remains that of all the divisions in our society, the worst lot falls on her.
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