Dear Editor:
It is unfair to classify a majority of population as something below human dignity. South Africa’s racist regime has been perpetrating such heinous crimes as to hold blacks as unworthy of sharing the birth right of equality and liberty.
Apartheid regime in Pretoria has been subject of acute criticism and attack from all forums of public opinion in the world.
But another sort of “apartheid” is being practiced in India for ages at the hands of Hindus who have inflicted unprecedented segregation upon Indian natives. The natives were classed by the northern Indian fair complexioned Aryans, as untouchables (Darawars, Koals, Shoodars, Harijans). The natives have no right to have even the lowest level of human existence. If an untouchable passes by and his shadow falls on a Brahmin, the superior class, the untouchable is deemed to have committed the greatest crime and he is punished with the gravest punishments. Accidental physical touch of a person of superior class by an untouchable invites even worse punishment with red hot iron bars. Paradoxically touch by a dirty cattle even monkeys goes without notice, even adored. The untouchable are even prevented from coming in contact with any religion, let alone following one of their “choice”. The practice has been that if an untouchable is caught listening to recital form religious books, molten metal is poured in to the ears of the aboriginal. Recently, there have been cases whereby certain Harijans accepted Islam with the result that their villages were burnt. Entering a place of worship is simply unthinkable for the untouchable of India. They also cannot take water from wells, taps, watersheds, which are used by Hindus. And this is happening in the twentieth century when humanity thinks itself to be at the height of knowledge, learning, emancipation, civil liberties, human equality and justice.
Zahir Mohammad New York.
Article extracted from this publication >> July 24, 1987
