The wall between the Hindu castes comes down

An extraordinary story from the BBC's South Asia service.  In Tamil Nadu state, in a village called Uthapurum,   there has for some time been a wall - a physical wall, part of it electrified - to segregage higher caste Hindus from Dalits, the "untouchables".  Now the wall has been partly demolished, and some 800 high-caste Hindus are threatening to leave the village because it leaves them open to attacks from "antisocial elements'.  An interesting and humane discussion of the matter in The Hindu newspaper.
      Before we get all superior, though, let us remember that from 1934 to 1959 in Oxford, the famous "Cutteslowe Wall" stood - put up by a developer, across a road, to stop council tenants invading the space of private owners..here it is.  In all its dubious glory.

Comments

[Lord Truth]

How extraordinary the ways that the modern media can present stories...
The Wall Between The Hindu Castes Comes Down is the imperious title...
Not exactly...A wall - electrified no less- in a small village has partly come down - 800people are apparently affected...In fact there are about 600 million lower caste Hindus in India..
Purves refers us to a 'sympathetic article in The Hindu newspaper.
The brief article talks in typical horrified Middle class Indian terms about the idea that there can be such a wall as do the dozen letters following,all hypocritically horrified ,elegantly sanctimonious ..
Purves says 'We must not feel superior' because there was a wall separating council tenants from middle class home owners in England up to 1959-a perfectly reasonable situation and one very popular today-
In the last few years everyone has learnt of the huge economic success of Communist China.To reduce the impact of that there has been an equal obssesion with Indias economic progress created by the British Empire that meant English was the natural language for the middle classes and British legal and busines systems prevailed .The arrival of broadband has opened up British India to the world.
In fact India may develop into a prosperous society of 300 million or so.
What of the other 900 million-500 million with no clean drinking water education or healthcare?
These people are not living in the poverty of Victorian England.They are living in a condition prescribed by their religion-they did bad things in a previous life and are being punished now. Raising the living standards of these lower castes goes to the heart of the Hindu religion and makes it difficult to see how any change can take place ,if ever .
In many ways India is the most evil nation on earth because of this.
If you want to write about the caste system in India do so properly .Writing a cheap paragraph like this is a disgraceful way to cheapen something that represents unbelievable misery for half a billion people