Chapter 5 India 179to them by the untouchables, who insulted them by treating ghee as an item
of food which they ought to have known could not be theirs, consistently
with the dignity of the Hindus. This means that an untouchable must not
use ghee even if he can afford to buy it, since it is an act of arrogance
towards the Hindus. (Ambedkar 1987)
This story could be multiplied a million times over in India’s history, and
although this event took place in 1936, these attitudes still prevailed 66 years
later in the same village where untouchables were still not allowed to bathe in
the public pond. They organized a protest, demanding their rights according to
the Prevention of Atrocities Act of 1989. More than 50 of the Dalits were
injured by caste Hindus who resisted these efforts (Prakash 2003).
The framers of the Indian constitution understood that centuries of institu-
tionalized and religiously enforced inequality could not easily be mitigated,
and so it established a system of affirmative action to ensure that members of
oppressed castes and tribes would have opportunities for education, social
advancement, and representation in government. A list, or “schedule,” of his-
torically oppressed castes was created, as was another list of oppressed tribes.
Special opportunities became available to members of these Scheduled Castes
and Scheduled Tribes, such as reserved seats in universities, scholarships and
loans, and specified numbers of seats in legislative bodies. These advantages
soon became politically hot, as other castes claimed that they, too, were disad-
vantaged. To accommodate these groups, a category called “Other Backward
Castes” was created. Just how complicated, and contested, this whole issue is
can be seen in box 5.6 (on the following page), which describes a man of the
powerful Patidar caste in Gujarat who is seeking “Backward” status.
It is a good question how much these remedies have helped the groups they
were aimed to aid. Very often the reserved seats at universities go unfilled,
while qualified higher caste applicants are turned away. Poverty remains very
high, and untouchability discrimination is still very common. Perhaps the
greatest asset of Dalit communities is the voting box. They are a powerful bloc
of two hundred million voters who are wooed by both major parties, the
Bharatiya Janata Party (now in office) and the Congress Party. A member of
the Dalit Koli caste from Bihar, Ram Nath Kovind, was voted in as president
of India in June 2017. Although this is largely a ceremonial role, it is presti-
gious and indicates the political influence Dalit groups now wield.The Dharma of Women
Traditional India was a patriarchal society in which males were dominant
and played public roles while women were sheltered in domestic roles in the
home “behind the curtain,” that is, in parda (purdah). The higher the status of
the family and caste, the more extreme was the seclusion of women. Con-
versely, the lower the status of the family, the more women may leave the
home, often doing public jobs like sweeping and carrying loads. While modern