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| Sisters Savitri and Sarita learn the alphabet together. They are Musahars, a community of two million known as the Dalits of the Dalits. The Musahars are a landless people, 99 per cent illiterate and often close to starving. Their diet has earned them the name of 'rat-eaters'.The Indian press has often highlighted their plight, but they face ridicule and derision from others around them. In a nearby Musahar community, 'high' caste villagers disrupted our visit and told the Dalits that this photography would be used to mock them. Bhojpur District, Bihar. |
I have watched a documentary that I really enjoyed called "India Untouched".
The first time I read about the Caste system in India, spelling out clearly the limitations of the 'Untouchables' within society. it was in a book by Arundhati Roy called 'The God of Small things, where she told a story of "Bygone India' and how the 'Untouchables would have had to leave a room walking backward with a broom in their hands to make sure they would brush their footprints clean, least the LandLord would step on them and get 'polluted' by sharing the space with such a lesser being.
In some ways in my Mind I put that image back into the Past, as something that we have overcome.
This is because in our Minds we don't like to admit that there is something very wrong still going on with the world, even less having to admit the fact that is getting worse by the day as that would be a clear sign of our failures and we would have to abandon all ideas and beliefs about our evolutionary process, to come to face with the fact that we have in fact gone no where but deeper into deceiving each other about how well we have -pro-gressed, just because we made our phones smaller and our TVs flatter.
When I went to India over 10 years ago and read the local Newspaper I saw many Marriage ads where the Caste of the one proposing was not only specified but the caste of the one they were looking for was clearly openly indicated, it was not hinted or left for guessing, still I brushed that off as just some people who didn't want to let go of their old tradition, we were over the Caste system, now Untouchability was Illegal based on the New Indian Constitution so what I read was a quirk, not the rule, not the norm.
Watching this documentary shot in 2011 I had to realize what a load of crap I have been telling myself about the Caste system, I don't want to be part of a world divided in Caste, I was born in The World that resolved Apartheid, the separation of Black from Whites, the taboo of interracial or inter-religious marriages and we were the ones that were going to Change the World, we were above such pettiness as we were the children of the Flower Children, we could not be any further from World Injustices by birthright, having been born from people who themselves fought injustices.
In India the caste system is alive and kicking, you can make something
'Illegal' but the point is that the Caste system works for the Rich and
Powerful and they have the means to enforce what works for them with the
Power of Money, through the Power of fear, by making sure they teach
the children their place in the world, passing on to the children their
Mental Dis-eases in the form of knowledge, strengthening their arguments with ridiculous, preposterous claims based on books written by 'Gods' who were equally demented if they ever existed, disowning the Constitution
for what serves their interest best, while they pretend to be devout to
some Higher Power, that gave them The Right to Abuse others in the name
of God.
"There are an estimated 170 million Dalits or ‘Untouchables’ in India,
despite the fact that the country’s constitution prohibits the
formalised discrimination inherent in India’s traditional caste system.
Even the British tried in vain to overcome this situation during the
Raj.The current Indian government has endeavoured to advance Dalit
rights, including giving them quotas for university places. And indeed
some Dalits hold high public office or are MPs. Yet the everyday reality
of most of their fellows is miserable, even disgusting. One task
performed by many is so-called ‘manual scavenging’, whereby Dalit women,
usually, have to clean public toilets with their hands, taking away
human excrement in baskets on their heads. Dalits are also often the
victims of violence. A powerful small exhibition of photographs by
Marcus Perkins – which opened this evening in St Paul’s Cathedral,
London – documents the suffering of those who have been beaten,
abused or had their pitiful homes burned down or who live with leprosy.
There is one particularly striking image of a seven-year-old girl,
Kamlesh, who received horrendous burns to her right arm and leg when she
was pushed into a burning pile of rubbish for daring to walk along a
path reserved for higher castes. No wonder some Dalits have
rejected Hinduism, which they feel has rejected them, instead turning to
Christianity or, more recently, Buddhism." Jonathan Fryer
Unfortunately, when you land back on Earth the reality you face is quite different. No matter what I did to escape reality, one thing we can count on is that reality is going nowhere and it has time and patience to wait for All to Real-Eyes the Truth of this Existence of Abuse, there is nowhere to go, reality sayd' 'you'll come around soon or later, and I will be Here'.
The separation between races has not ended, ever, South Africa is still plagued by the aftermath of years of abuses and has not found successful solutions for integration of all the members of its society, the USA has taken away the 'White Only' signs, but still has a White only policies, a black man is transiting to reinforce the delusion of Change, yet he sits in a WHITE house that has not changed its colour just because he lives there.
Blacks in America are still segregated in projects, in neighborhoods where whites fear to go, they are discriminated through the Education system, in the working force, in the weight they have as political voices, they have the highest chances to go to jail and end their lives in despair.
While the Indian caste system or Slavery are blatantly in-your-face-abusive, we are not doing better.
We have divided the world in Classes, we'll soon need to add a 4th Class, a 4th World, because as we dump the middle class down, we'll have to squeeze the ones already down lower and the third world won't be enough anymore, we are expanding down, we are progressing in a downward spiral in repression and abuse.
Our Caste system is more devious, more subtle, because we don't have the balls to face our own abuses, we call our sceptre for abuse 'Money' and we move it around, bestowing Power on Some through Money and taking it from Other through Lack and then justify what we do in the name of 'Economy', we write 'Sciences' to prove the whys some have it harder while some pile up disgraceful amounts of Money they'll never need in many lifetimes, to prove why some have to leave a Fear-FULL live of misery, why they have no rights to health care, an education, a Life of Dignity.
We turned Economics into the Jack of All Trades to design Models of Explanations of what is clearly a system of Exploitation, and we expanded it and keep doing so to explain the increasing number of lawless things we set out to do, such as create Imaginary Debt and through it push people out of their homes, out of a chance to access food, water, some security for themselves and their families, we talk about Poverty and Famine as if they were a Natural Disaster, while we hide our hands behind our backs to avoid to see the blood we are all responsible for, for having allowed this system we created to go so far as to delete the Right to Life for All to replace it with The Right to Profit, meanwhile we set up divisive distractions that keep people occupied, battles for which who is in power couldn't care less 'Gay Rights' 'Women Rights' 'Right to religious Freedom - an oxymoron in terms' 'Right to our Free Choice (?)' while we hold on tightly to the Right to exist as Slaves of an Invisible deceitful system we have lost the ability to see, as we shun away from our own deceit and dishonesty as the abdication of our individual self responsibility as those who could do something about it, but do nothing at all.
The Indians were religiously duped, they may not be clear on Whom to blame, they had an interfering God meddling with the businesses of Humans - apparently. the God of Small Things.
The Capitalist Caste System was not created by Gods, we were the ones who let it go so far.
What's our Excuse?
Inform yourself on a New System that will change the World we live in, we created this Caste system as a result of our illusion of Separation, we exist as Separation and Self Interest only in our Minds, so we'll have to overcome our Fears and Limitations, our Self Interest and Greed to move on.
The World belongs Equally to All and we all belong to it, Equally, Cast your Vote for Life vs the Caste System of separation and Abuse.
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