Word: hindus
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...sting of Untouchability has softened somewhat. No longer, for example, are any harijans expected to use earthen spittoons hung round the neck because their spitting on the ground might "pollute" barefoot Brahmans. Until the 1930s, the lowliest Untouchables were virtually "unseeable" as well in some parts of India; caste Hindus believed even an Untouchable's shadow was defiling. Though such attitudes no longer prevail, a special government inquiry commission recently concluded that despite decades of legislation, discrimination is still "virulent all over India...
Untouchables are regular victims of brutality. In remote villages, "uppity" harijan women are sometimes paraded nude through the streets and then raped. A scuffle between an Untouchable laborer and some caste Hindus in Tamil Nadu State on Christmas Day in 1968 led to an arson attack on an Untouchable ghetto: 42 men, women and children were burned alive...