Low-caste Indians are better off than ever—but that’s not saying much

FOR Dalits, these are the best of times. Once known as untouchables and reviled as ritually unclean, this sixth of India’s population has never been more integrated. Since the constitution banned discrimination against untouchables 70 years ago, and with quotas for state schools, jobs and elected offices giving Dalits a leg up, gaps in education, income and health have steadily shrunk.

Dalits, who in the past feared crossing certain streets, now have their own millionaire-filled chamber of commerce, scores of energetic NGOs to promote their rights and some 84 of the 545 MPs in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of parliament. In October a board that manages hundreds of Hindu temples in the southern state of Kerala for the first time broke one of the last ancient taboos, inducting six Dalits to serve as priests. Ram Nath Kovind, who was elected India’s president in July, was born into a weaver caste, making him the second Dalit to serve as head of state.

But Indian presidents hold little real power, and there has never been a Dalit prime minister. That it is the best of times for Dalits does not necessarily mean that times are very good. Reservations, as the government’s quotas are known, have indeed given once-unimagined opportunity to many Dalits. “Without them we would all be cleaning shit,” says one activist. Yet Dalits remain markedly poorer, worse educated and less healthy than average (see chart); they are 30% more likely than other Indians to end up in prison. Out of the 642 faculty members in the country’s top management schools, which are state-run, only four are Dalits. Out of 496 vice-chancellors—in effect presidents—of state universities, just six are from “scheduled” castes, as the lowest ranks of the Hindu caste hierarchy are officially known. (“Scheduled tribes” or adivasis—tribal communities traditionally excluded from the caste system altogether—constitute a further 9% of India’s 1.3bn people.)

The headlines reveal quotidian horrors. Dalit Woman Raped and Murdered, Man Poisons Well Used by Dalits, Dalits Attacked for Slaughtering Cow, Dalit Youth Killed For Watching Upper-Caste Ceremony, Dalit Forced To Shave Moustache. Protests and riots by members of higher castes typically end with politicians and officials acceding to their demands; similar actions by Dalits tend to be met with repression. Chandrashekhar Azad, a prominent Dalit activist arrested in May, was ordered to be released by a high court in November, with the judge reprimanding police for their “politically motivated” handling of his case. A day later he was rearrested under the draconian National Security Act, intended for terrorist cases, under which he may spend a year in detention without charge.

Many Dalits have broken professional barriers, but many more are stuck doing jobs no one else will take, such as disposing of dead animals and cleaning sewers. In 2017 alone some 90 sewer-cleaners, all Dalits, were fished out dead from India’s drains, an activist group reports. So much are Dalits associated with tidying up other peoples’ mess that anthropologists have identified caste attitudes as the main reason for rural India’s uniquely high rate of open defecation. It was found that many upper-caste villagers, including Dalits of higher sub-caste than the drain-cleaners, see toilets as “polluting” to their homes. Dalit parents regularly protest that schools have singled out their children to clean toilets. They also complain that state schools assign numbers to plates when handing out free lunches, lest a child whose family insists on ritual separation from Dalits be served on “polluted” crockery.

In eastern and southern parts of India the proportion of respondents who say they consider Dalits polluting can be as low as 1%. When asked more specific questions about interacting with Dalits, however, these numbers tend to rise, dramatically so in less enlightened parts of India. In the central state of Madhya Pradesh some 53% of respondents to one survey said their family tried to avoid certain forms of contact with Dalits; surveys of rural areas in nearby states found rates of 65% or more. Although 55% of Indians say they do not mind people of different castes marrying one another, only 4% say they have married someone from outside their caste.

A study in 2010 of some 1,589 villages in the western state of Gujarat identified 98 practices, from preventing access to public wells to obliging Dalits to play drums at weddings, and ranked them in order of prevalence. It found, for example, that in 91% of villages Dalits were not allowed in non-Dalit temples, and in 98% of them non-Dalits would not serve tea to Dalits in their homes. The survey also found a high prevalence of similar practices among different sub-castes of Dalits.

Yet such practices, although still widespread, are declining. Recent surveys suggest that barely a quarter of families still follow them in some form, compared with virtually all Hindus before independence. Devesh Kapur, an economist at the University of Pennsylvania, recalls visiting a rural area in the 1970s. “The kind of language that was used and the whole emphasis on purity and pollution was just nothing like as relaxed as we see now.”

Mr Kapur suggests it is just as important to consider the “intensity” of practice as the prevalence. Even among families who admit to prejudices such as refusing to let Dalits into their homes, or to use the same utensils, it is likely that the number of such taboos has diminished over time. Accelerating urbanisation, bringing with it a much wider degree of anonymity, is an important factor. “Take the fast-food industry,” says Mr Kapur. “I don’t know who has touched my food anymore, and pretty soon I stop caring.”

Martin Macwan, a Dalit activist and one of the authors of the Gujarat study, cites another example of change. When he started a service offering free legal advice 20 years ago all his clients were Dalits. Others did inquire, but at first balked when Mr Macwan told them they could have his services free of charge if they would drink a glass of water in a Dalit home. Now a third of his clients are non-Dalit.

Indians will not turn liberal overnight, says Mr Kapur. It happens in stages. The first is when people stop noticing who is Dalit; the second when they stop caring. The third is when they actively want to do away with untouchability. “I think we are now somewhere between the first and second steps,” he says.