The caste system

I thought this was an interesting article about the caste system that still exists in some parts of India today. We've been told we may be asked if our boys are "untouchables" while traveling with them in India. Our plan, if asked, is to say (while hugging them fiercely!) "I don't know."


Girl, 6, thrown on fire for being 'lowest class'


(CNN) -- A man, incensed that a 6-year-old girl chose to walk through
a path reserved for upper caste villagers, pushed her into burning
embers, police in north India said Wednesday. She was seriously burned.
art.untouchables.afp.gi.jpg

Dalits, or "untouchables," are victims of discrimination in India
despite laws aimed at eliminating prejudice.

The girl is a Dalit, or an "untouchable," according to India's
traditional caste system.

India's constitution outlaws caste-based discrimination, and barriers
have broken down in large cities. Prejudice, however, persists in some
rural areas of the country.

The girl was walking with her mother down a path in the city of
Mathura when she was accosted by a man in his late teens, said police
superintendent R.K. Chaturvedi.

"He scolded them both and pushed her," Chaturvedi said. The girl fell
about 3 to 4 feet into pile of burning embers by the side of the road.

The girl remained in critical condition Wednesday.

The man confessed to the crime and was charged with attempted murder,
Chaturvedi said.

The assault took place in India's Uttar Pradesh state, about 150 km
(93 miles) south of Delhi. The state is governed by Mayawati, a woman
who goes by one name and is India's most powerful Dalit politician.

Her Bahujan Samaj Party seeks to get more political representation for
Dalits, who are considered so low in the social order that they don't
even rank among the four classes that make up the caste system.

Hindus believe there are five main groups of people, four of which
sprang from the body of the first man.

The Brahmin class comes from the mouth. They are the priests and holy
men, the most elevated of the castes.

Next is the Ksatriyas, the kings, warriors and soldiers created from
the arms.

The Vaisyas come from the thighs. They are the merchants and traders
of society.

And the Sudras, or laborers, come from the feet.

The last group is the Dalits, or the "untouchables." They're
considered too impure to have come from the primordial being.
Untouchables are often forced to work in menial jobs. They drink from
separate wells. They use different entry ways, coming and going from
buildings.

They number about 250 million in India, about 25 percent of the
population, according to the Colorado, U.S.-based Dalit Freedom
Network.

"Dalits are seen to pollute higher caste people if they come in touch
with them, hence the 'untouchables,'" the group says on its Web site.
"If a higher caste Hindu is touched by, or even had a Dalit's shadow
fall across them, they consider themselves to be polluted and have to
go through a rigorous series of rituals to be cleansed."

Recent weeks has seen a rise in violence against Dalits in Uttar
Pradesh, CNN's sister network, CNN-IBN, reported Wednesday. E-mail to
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