I know, it’s been quite some time since my last blog, and I apologize. This year has started off well in helping me achieve one of my resolutions of reading more books. Having read several books (ordered my fourth novel yesterday), and some very serious articles focusing on intense issues like female feticide, untouchability in India and slavery in the African nation of Mauritania--I've been wanting to write on one of these raging topics.
One of these was a video shared by my friend Sujeet on his
Facebook wall. It was a documentary which told the story of the existence of
untouchability in India. The video lasted more than an hour, at the end of
which I was baffled, shocked and angry. I was surprised at the alarming rate
at which this sick practice is still being meted out to the so-called ‘lower
castes’. Most people in cities (like you and me) think untouchability no longer
exists in India, but this documentary clearly shows the opposite.
The documentary repeatedly shows kids as young as 12 years old,
who when asked why they will not step into their friend’s house who is from a
lower-caste, reply back with a shy smile “we’ll become impure”. This was
shocking. Kids in rural India were being brought up in an environment where the
caste- system and social-injustice was being forced into them by everyone
around.
Whether we like it or not, we too have unknowingly practiced
untouchability in one of its many different forms, one of which is known as
social injustice.
Let’s take a test to see whether you have ever or are currently practicing social injustice:
Answer the following questions with a simple yes or no. I want you
to be open and honest while answering them.
1- Do you call your maid or driver/ chauffeur by their first name
?
2- Do you or does anyone in your family give her/him food in a
separate plate and make them sit
outside or on the floor when they eat?
3- Do you frown at the beggar by the lamp-post who asks for a few
measly change from your pocket just so that he can keep himself alive for one
more day?
4- Do you stare away and avoid a eunuch walking towards you?
If you have answered even one of the question with a ‘Yes’, then,
you too are guilty of practicing social-injustice. To tell you the truth, I
myself answered most of the questions with a ‘yes’. Sadly, this unjust act is
rampant in most parts of our country. I realized how our society tries to
cleverly cocoon itself from world of the less fortunate, by showing disrespect
and by making sure that they do whatever it takes, to prove that they belong to
a separate ‘class’ of people.
‘Treat the elders with respect’ is one of the first things we are
taught as children. And as far as I remember, that teaching does not come with
a * marked clause that says ‘except your drivers, maids, and anyone who looks
shabby or weird / poor’. They are human beings just like you and me. They, in
fact have faced and continue to face more hardships in life than we have or
ever will.
Treating everyone with respect, irrespective of which stratum of
the society he/she belongs to, no matter how much money the person has, no
matter what color his/her skin is, no matter how educated that person is:- is
what is needed in the world today if we are to eliminate this ugly despicable
practice, that hides in the shadows of the so called ‘upper-castes’ of our
society.
This change can start right from our very homes . We can start by
talking to our parents about this, to start treating everyone around us with
the respect that they deserve or the respect that they long to have. So go
ahead and start this small change. Take it up as a project of sorts, call it
whatever you want. Who knows, maybe someday our future generations might
actually NOT know the meaning of untouchability or social-injustice.
Think about it. Will it really hurt your self-esteem or ego or
whatever you want to call it, to treat someone who is less fortunate than you,
with the respect that he/she longs for? Will it make you any poorer if you
smile at a roadside beggar before handing him some change? It doesn’t take too much
energy or effort to treat someone right. Hope we all realize that some day and
create a just society for our future generations to live in.
