“In our village, not even the shadow of ‘keelu jaati’ (lower caste) people like us should fall on the upper castes. When we see advancing communities feeding street dogs around their homes but keeping us in check, we wonder if we are worse than stray dogs. “
These heartbreaking words from an auto rickshaw driver in Bengaluru reflect the reality of India, where Dalits are still treated as subhumans to this day.
On Christmas Day, I happened to rent an auto rickshaw with Bible sayings painted on it. The driver announced that he was a Dalit who converted to Christianity a few years ago. How did it happen? Deeply concerned about the discrimination in his village, he once followed a nun to a nearby church out of curiosity, where he met a priest who introduced him to the teachings of Jesus.
After a few visits to the church, he was invited to a wedding that turned out to be a figurehead. “Other women wore necklaces worth hundreds of rupees, and I couldn’t even afford normal bangles for my wife. Even so, we were treated with dignity. It was then that I began to wonder why I shouldn’t convert to a religion that treats all human beings as a unit while our own community looks down on us as outcasts. “
But how had life changed for him after his conversion? “Well, I haven’t bought my wife a house, a car, or jewelry. But I am completely at peace with myself now and most of all I have got my dignity back. I don’t feel any worse treated than a dog, ”he said.
The Karnataka government passed a law in the congregation allegedly aimed at stopping what it calls “forced conversions,” but it doesn’t understand why people convert in the first place. There could be a small number of people who have been converted through threats or coercion, although the government has no statistics to support this claim, while others adopt other faiths after being influenced by their doctrines and practices, but large numbers converted by people because they are denied basic human dignity by their own communities or to escape the fate of the wretchedly poor.
The auto rickshaw driver’s case is not an isolated one. Some time ago, BJP MP A Narayanaswamy, who is a member of the SC community, was refused entry to a village in Tumkur because he is an “untouchable” person. In Koppal, a family was fined 25,000 rupees for accidentally entering a temple. In the Mysuru District, a youth was beaten for “daring” to walk on a street near the local temple. In the Chikkamagaluru District, a Dalit in police custody was forced to drink another defendant’s urine when he asked for water. Such heartless treatment of Dalits is common not only in Karnataka but across the country.
Be it denying access to temples or restaurants, serving water in coconut shells so that the utensils are not “contaminated”, denying haircuts or access to shared drinking water sources, social exclusion, the daily life of a Dalit can even be very humiliating at the present time.
This should be addressed urgently by the government, rather than enacting a law preventing the Dalits and the poor from taking the only escape route available to them from a life of indignity. The “upper castes” must earnestly seek out souls and examine themselves. The religious conversion brought about by the denial of basic rights and dignity will last as long as we do not treat our fellow human beings equally.
Check out the latest DH videos here: