Accessibility of Water (H2O) and Untouchability in India

Abstract

Caste has always played an imperative role in shaping and reshaping the trajectories of any development in India. Scheduled Castes, or the lower castes, signify the categories devoid of resources generally confined to the upper caste in the social structure of Indian society. Due to the role of Dr B. R. Ambedkar in drafting the Indian Constitution, some rights and safeguards were granted to the lower castes, which comprise 16.6% of the total Indian population. From the 2001 census to 2011, the Scheduled Castes population increased by 20.8% (Express News Service, 2013). Through their policies, science, technology and innovation have often brought societal transformation by generating various avenues. The opportunity has remarkably influenced people’s habits and way of life. The hate and hate crime associated with the caste identity are practised explicitly and implicitly depending upon the circumstances. The so-called lower caste people are aware of the situation and cannot do anything to change the mindset of the so-called upper caste people. The paper is not suggestive but engages primarily by referring to the context of discrimination meted out to the Scheduled Castes people for accessibility of water (H2O- two molecules of hydrogen and one molecule of oxygen). The untouchables, or the untouchability associated with them, have been subjected to and made to amalgamate with cultural, social and political status and interaction. Lower caste people are humiliated and killed for touching, entering temples, drawing water (H2O) from upper caste people’s wells, or, for that matter, lower caste children being segregated from other children in the school for the Mid-Day Meals have become so functional and way of life that it does not allow the society to come together and address barbaric mindsets and practices. The paper is based on secondary sources.