: Rewind: In search of freedom from caste #IndiaNEWS #News By Dr Rehnamol P R Inder Meghwal, a 9-year-old Dalit boy from Jalore, Rajasthan, was allegedly beaten to death by his upper-caste teacher

Rewind: In search of freedom from caste #IndiaNEWS #News
By Dr Rehnamol P R
Inder Meghwal, a 9-year-old Dalit boy from Jalore, Rajasthan, was allegedly beaten to death by his upper-caste teacher for drinking water from a pot that was exclusively kept for the upper castes on the school premises. The culprit belongs to the Rajput community.
The Dalit child was denied his constitutional right to life and personal liberty as enshrined in Article 21 when India was all set to celebrate her 75 years of independence. Not surprisingly, the celebration day of independence also became a day of contemplation for Dalits on their freedom and caged lives meshed with caste, like any other day of their daily battle with caste discrimination.
A few months ago, Jitendra Meghwal, another young Dalit boy from the Pali district of Rajasthan, was stabbed to death by upper caste men for sporting a moustache. What irked the assailants was that Jitendra Meghwal was leading a stylish and sumptuous life despite being a Dalit. At a time when India is celebrating her one-dimensional freedom from the colonial oppressors, it is significant to extrapolate the resistance of Dalits against multiple forms of oppression and their unabated struggle against the exploitation of their internal caste oppressors.
The fight for the basic right, ie, access to water, has been the core of the Dalit struggle. The Mahad satyagraha on 20 March 1927 led by Dr B R Ambedkar to allow Dalits to draw drinking water from the Cavdar tank at Mahad faced a violent reaction
Pre-Independent India
The fight for the basic right, ie, access to water, has been at the core of the Dalit struggle. The Mahad satyagraha on 20 March 1927 where Dr B R Ambedkar’s attempt to access water faced a violent reaction was an example of the psychological sickness pervading the upper castes’ mindset. Inder Meghwal‘s case is more gut-wrenching as we are rudely awakened to the reality that all the efforts of Dr Ambedkar and those who fought to abolish untouchability and bring in legal structures against the practice of untouchability have disappeared into thin air.
The idea of opposing untouchability came after the 1911 Census. The Census Commissioner in 1911 listed 10 tests for identifying untouchables. These were: those who are denied the supremacy of the Brahmins; did not receive the Mantra from a Brahmin or other recognised Hindu Guru; denied the authority of the Vedas; did not worship the Hindu gods; were not served by good Brahmins; have no Brahmin priests at all; are denied access to the interior of the Hindu temples; cause pollution (a) by touch, or (b) within a certain distance; bury their dead, and eat beef and do no reverence to the cow. This was the first ever method of identification of untouchables and resulted in a census figure which made Ambedkar and other Dalit leaders, who emerged in the 1920s, use the census data to highlight the inhuman treatment of a vast majority of people and the need for provisions for rights and representation.

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