Word: dalit
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...among Austria's Indian diaspora. Disgruntled lower-caste youths from an increasingly prosperous Punjab - where the landed castes have been reaping the benefits of the Green Revolution since the 1950s and 1960s - were making their way to Europe in droves. "What we see now is a result of rising Dalit assertion," says Vinayak. "The lower castes set up their own gurdwara, splitting the congregation and the [revenue from the] offerings. The pro-Khalistanis (those supporting a separate Sikh nation) at the older gurdwara felt threatened." Those tensions came to a head this Sunday when management of the new gurdwara invited...
...away in Austria - point to a broader problem: the dangerous mix of inequitable development and enduring caste-based resentment. The northern state has a higher than national average population of Scheduled Castes, an umbrella term for various lower castes, with 28.95% in Punjab against India's average of 16%. "Dalit Sikhs and Ravidasias, especially in the fertile Doaba belt which sends out a large number of immigrants, have seen immense prosperity lately, and with it, a rising Dalit consciousness and assertion," says Dr. Ronki Ram, reader in the Department of Political Science at Panjab University in Chandigarh, who has recently...
...aftermath of the recent Mumbai terror attacks, the city did not erupt in sectarian riots as some had feared it would. Back in 1949, B.R. Ambedkar, the low-caste architect of India's constitution, called democracy "topdressing on Indian soil." Yet today, Mayawati Kumari, a member of a Dalit, or untouchable, caste is one of the nation's biggest political stars - albeit one with a penchant for accepting lavish gifts. "The fact that a leader like Mayawati can rise, that a Dalit woman can have a shot at becoming the Prime Minister of India," says historian Ramachandra Guha...
...acknowledgement of the poisonous disaffection among Indian Muslims, widespread corruption among local police and the other ugly realities under the surface of India's much heralded economic boom. "Deep down, there is this pervasive feeling of massive government failure," says Mujibur Rehman, a political scientist at the Centre for Dalit and Minorities Studies at the Jamia Millia Islamia university in New Delhi. The attacks on Mumbai have forced India to confront those issues on an unprecedented scale. This is the first attack that has made a significant impact on India's wealthy and middle classes, those who have...
...what lingers after you finish reading The Big Necessity is characters like Champaben, an outcast woman from the untouchable Dalit caste in India whose job is to clean the country's dry, filthy latrines. She regularly contracts dysentery, giardiasis and brain fever from her exposure to human waste. No one deserves that fate, and as George makes clear, the very least we can do for every person on this planet is to give them a place...