This refers to the editorial, “Undermining One India” (January 5). To translate the ideals of one India into reality, we must wipe out hatred towards the Dalits. That caste hatred is still prevalent in our country is an open secret. lower caste students are forced to sit separately from upper caste for their mid-day meal in a Government school in Junagadh, Gujarat.
Such ugly practices prevail elsewhere too. It has been reported that if children of all castes are made to sit together, many upper caste parents would withdraw their wards from school. Such incidents confirm the survey on untouchability in India in 2016. Researchers from Jawaharlal Nehru University and University of Maryland covered 42,152 households across our country. A whopping 27 per cent of the members of those households shamelessly declared that they practice untouchability. There must be some more people who cling to such inhuman prejudices without categorically declaring it to a study team for the fear of legal actions against them. This shows that a large section of our people are still carrying almost same horrifying apathy against Dalits as our ancestors.
It is time to tame the snake called untouchability that is pouring poison into our society. We must listen to Swami Vivekananda who once said, “There is an old superstition in Bengal that if the cobra that bites, sucks out his own poison from the victim, the man must survive. Well then, the Brahmin must suck out his own poison.”