A Dalit Man Dug His Own Well When He Was Denied Water During a Drought
For months, people in parts of rural India have been left struggling as an unusually dry monsoon season has dried up many of the wells that people rely on for water every day. However, not only is the drought making life harder for people in these communities, but it is highlighting many of the caste tensions that are still a daily part of life for many Indian people known as “Dalit.”
Dalit, who are often referred to as “Untouchables,” are traditionally considered to be the lowest in the Indian caste system. For thousands of years, Dalit were relegated to the margins of Indian society, forced to take on the worst jobs and thought of as so unclean that people born to higher castes could not drink the same water or even sit next to them, Laura Santhanam reports for PBS Newshour. But while the Indian Constitution has banned prejudice against Dalit since 1950, prejudice and discrimination against these people nevertheless persists.
Recently, a man from a rural village in the the Indian state of Maharashtra gained international attention for standing up to prejudice against Dalit in his community. Prejudice against Dalit runs deep in many parts of India, and even in the midst of one of the worst droughts the region has experienced in decades, villagers from higher castes barred Bapurao Tajne and his family from gathering water from the town well for being “Untouchables,” the Press Trust of India (PTI) reports.
"I don't want to name the well owner for I don't want bad blood in the village,” Tajne tells Ashish Roy for the Times of India. “However, I feel that he insulted us because we are poor and Dalits. I came home that day in March and almost cried.”
In response, Tajne began digging a new well in a nearby town. Tajne spent as much as six hours a day on top of his usual job as a day laborer working on the well, the location of which he chose “on instinct,” he told reporters. To the surprise of his friends and family, after 40 days of hard work Tajne struck groundwater, Roy reports.
"It is difficult to explain what I felt in those days,” Tajne tells Roy. “I just wanted to provide water for my whole locality so that we Dalits did not have to beg for water from other castes."
Tajne was lucky – he had no hydrological surveys to inform him, the local terrain is rocky, and several wells in the area had recently dried up, Roy reports. While Tajne had the good fortune to find the well in the midst of the drought, he is far from alone when it comes to the experience of being shamed and discriminated against for being Dalit.
Caste discrimination isn’t limited to rural parts of the country: Dalit make up about 16 percent of India’s 1.2 billion people, and many experience prejudice no matter where they are from. While some Dalit are able to pass themselves off as members of higher castes by changing their surnames and lying about their family histories, the constant pressure can take its toll. In one recent high-profile case, an Indian doctoral student named Rohith Vemula killed himself to protest the treatment he experienced as a Dalit during his university studies as well as the treatment of Dalit throughout India, Soutik Biswas reports for the BBC. But while this sparked waves of protests across India, it is likely that this prejudice will not go away anytime soon.
“Caste-based discrimination goes back centuries, and it is very deeply entrenched in Indian society,” Jayshree Bajoria, a New Delhi-based researcher for Human Rights Watch, tells Santhanam. “This will have to be battled at every level.”
Dalit man digs water well, because he is forbidden to use the communal town well due to his "Untouchability" status. For months, people in parts of rural India have been left struggling as an unusually dry monsoon season has dried up many of the wells that people rely on for water every day. However, not only is the drought making life harder for people in these communities, but it is highlighting many of the caste tensions that are still a daily part of life for many Indian people known as “Dalit.” Smithsonian Magazine
Link to Source: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/dalit-man-dug-his-own-well-when-he-was-denied-water-during-drought-180959051
The National Campaign Against Torture (NCAT) in its “India: Annual Report on Torture 2019” released on the occasion of the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture stated that a total of 1,731 persons died in custody during 2019 i.e. deaths of about five persons daily. These included 1,606 deaths in judicial custody and 125 deaths in police custody.
Torture is perpetrated to extract confession or bribes and torture methods used in 2019 included hammering iron nails in the body (Bihar), applying roller on legs and burning (Jammu & Kashmir), ‘falanga’ wherein the soles of the feet are beaten (Kerala), stretching legs apart in opposite side (Kerala), hitting in private parts (Haryana), electric shock (Punjab and Uttar Pradesh), pouring petrol in private parts (Uttar Pradesh), applying chilly power in private parts (Kerala) beating while being hand-cuffed (Kerala), pricking needle into body (3-Year-old minor in Tamil Nadu), branding with hot iron rod (3-Year-old minor in Tamil Nadu), beating after stripping (Haryana and Assam), urinating in mouth (Uttar Pradesh), inserting hard blunt object into anus (Bihar), beating after hanging upside down with hands and legs tied (Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh), forcing to perform oral sex (Gujarat), pressing finger nails with pliers (Assam), beating with iron rods after victim is suspended between two tables with both hands and legs tied (Madhya Pradesh), forced to do Murga pose or stress position (Haryana), and kicking in belly of pregnant woman (Assam).
Indian police officers in the town of Nagina chased a group of Muslim teenagers into an empty house. They grabbed them and took them to a makeshift jail. And then, the boys and community leaders said, the officers tortured them.
Four of the boys, who ranged in age from 13 to 17, said that police officers used wooden canes to beat them and threatened to kill them.
Indian Police officers over the course of 30 hours terrorized them.
According to two of the boys, the officers laughed during beatings, saying, “You will die in this prison.”
More accounts are emerging of abuse meted out by police officers.
Almost all the violence has been directed toward Muslim residents. More people — at least 19 — have been killed!
Witnesses said that police officers opened fire on demonstrators with live ammunition, broke into houses and stole money, and threatened to rape women.
Police officers were encouraged by their superiors to kill protesters.
The Indian police have become a lynch mob! Inidan police officers having been given the green light by senior officials to use harsh measures against Muslims.
A 20-year-old Dalit man was allegedly burnt alive over his relationship with a woman from another caste, the killing causing his mother to die of shock.
The victim was beaten up, kept hostage in a house and set ablaze.
Locals rushed to the spot on hearing his cries and took him to a local hospital. He was referred to a Lucknow hospital but succumbed to injuries on the way.
India : Hyderabad : Andhra Pradesh Telangana2018-09-20
A father attacked his 20-year-old daughter and her newlywed husband in the heart of the city on Wednesday, chopping off her left forearm and slashing her jaw. The incident comes days after a Dalit youth was mercilessly murdered in front his pregnant wife in Nalgonda district.
Police said the father was upset over the inter-caste marriage — the woman an OBC (Other Backward Class), her husband, B Sandeep (22), a Dalit. Sandeep and Madhavi Chary, in a relationship for five years, secretly got married on September 12, despite stiff opposition from her father.
Madhavi was left with a 12-inch gash on her neck and jawline and her left forearm barely hung by the skin. She was in a 10-hour surgery at the time of going to print. Sandeep, in another hospital, received 10 stitches to close the deep wound at the angle of his mouth; the attending doctors said he was in deep shock.
