Caste-based stigma persists violently despite formal legal abolition

Evidence

Untouchables were beaten if their shadows came in contact with someone from a higher caste. They carried buckets to spit in to avoid contaminating the ground. They wore bells to signal their approach. Although discrimination against Untouchables is now technically illegal, prejudice and ill treatment against them abounds. In 2003, after trying to exercise his legal right to use the village well, Girdharilal Maurya’s farm was looted, his house burned to the ground, and his wife and daughter beaten. “People treat animals better than us,” Maurya observed. “This is not natural…. Why did the gods let me be born in such a country?” — Sheldon Solomon, Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, The Worm at the Core, 235

Categorization

• SHARE: The detail that Untouchables wore bells and carried spit-buckets to avoid contaminating others is exactly the kind of thing a friend into caste history or ritual purity would love.