Chapter 10 Discrimination in between untouchable castes
Discrimination between low castes
The competition between near ranked caste was strong down at the bottom of the caste ladder. Therefore untouchable castes discriminated against each others, in the hope of raising, or at least maintaining, their rank position. For example, comparatively high ranked untouchable castes such as Dakot and Gadolia Lohar tried to keep aloof from the bottom ranked Bhambis and Bhangis in such a way that the savarn Hindus could see it.
Such behaviour and attitudes made all feelings of brotherhood and solidarity among the untouchables very difficult to achieve and easy to break. Dominating groups in the village could prevent unity among the lower castes by showing one untouchable group more favours than the other, thus creating jealousy. Being together with friends of high caste raised the esteem among all villagers.
The desire to avoid ritual pollution was strong also among untouchables, imitating the Brahmins and other high caste Hindus. Degrading others by boycot and exclusion works very effectively in the case of the Brahmins, as ordinary Hindus strongly believed that the cooperation of the Brahmin priest was necessary for their well-being. Most villagers thought they would face misfortunes both in this life and the next, if they did not follow the instructions of the Brahmins. Low caste people might have less success in boycotting others, as they had less necessities to offer others, but that kind of discrimination is very easy to use, and not very risky, if used against social groups with few means to retaliate.
The Bhangis, Ram Devra temple and discrimination
The Bhambi caste of the former leather workers were in charge of the Ramdevra temple at Chelana. The Bhambis were untouchable in the eyes of the savarn Hindus, so the Ram Devra temple and priest were not much in demand for worshippers of high castes. All the same, at the temple the Bhambis discriminated against Bhangis, feeling their own caste was higher. The Bhangis were only allowed to come up to the barlo chawk, the outer half of the temple yard, towards the temple gate. No Bhangi was allowed to step on the inner half of the temple yard or come close to the shrine situated there. The nijmandir, as the inner shrine place is called in Marvari called .
From childhood those of the Bhangi caste in western Rajasthani villages were used to such discrimination. At Chelana it was considered the normal order.
In 1980 there were more than 800 families in the village out of which only ten or twelve were Bhangi families. They were completely in the hands of the village majority. The Bhangis had long ago realized, it was in their own interest to suppress all feelings of self respect and resentment in the company of upper castes.
Bhangis also tried the untouchability weapon
With boycot and discrimination all around, it is not surprising that also Bhangis tried that kind of behaviour against other groups.
Tan Dan has seen Bhangis treat the two castes of Dhobis and Dholis as their untouchables in many villages and towns of western Rajasthan. It was their practice to throw away their food in case the shadow of a Dhobi or a Dholi falls on it. That is what Madhobhai of the Chelana Bhangis told Tan Dan, who also had seen it himself.
Evidently it is an effort to try to improve their status in the eyes of others by imitiating those who discriminate against Bhangis.
The Bhangi sweepers might feel that the Dhobis have a questionable enough profession for being a suitable victime in the game of discrimination, as Dhobis are washermen. They wash dirty clothes for others. To the Bhangis it may look like a valid reason for discrimination, as they themselves always hear, that they pollute others due to their work with filth.
Most villagers think that the Bhangi caste has a lower rank than the Dhobi and Doli castes in spite of this attempt.
Why the Bhangis thought that Dholis are untouchables
The Dholis are by tradition the drummers in the village, and that has nothing to do with dirt. But a myth was created, according to which the Dholis hail from a man, who had sex, after he had died. His son was the first Dholi. Therefore, the Bhangis call the Dholis the progeny of the dead, murda ri ker ra.
The whole story with all its incredible details Tan Dan has heard from Bhangis living in various places of western Rajasthan such as Merta, Jodhpur, and Ajmer. It was also told by Madhobhai of the Bhangi mohalla at Chelana.
Hence, the Bhangis discriminated against the Dholis, as they thought the Dholi caste had been created in an unacceptable way.
Chelana Muslims observe untouchability towards Bhangis
Chelana Muslims observed untouchability towards untouchable Hindu castes, including the Bhangis. They denied them water and food, although the Muslims themselves got the same treatment from savarn Hindus. Bhangis swept houses, or rather buvaro places, also for Muslims. They gave the Bhangi the customary roti, and also the Muslims had the habit of throwing the bread into the basket of the Bhangi, or into her lap, rather than giving the roti to her in the normal way. Often the jajman client threw the roti from some distance, standing inside the angan, while the Bhangi stood outside the open gate.
Two friends
In December 1979 Tan Dan met two women who worked at an exhibition ground in New Delhi. They worked as unskilled labourers. The two women worked together and were very good friends. They belonged to different castes, but that did not disturb their friendship. They were married women in their twenties and their husbands also worked at the exhibition ground. One of them came from Rohtak in Haryana and wore a tailored dress of textile mill cloth and a thin green chunni veil in a style of Muslim influence common in Haryana. She was a Bhangi by caste and her name was Prem. Her friend Gulabi was a Bhambi girl from a village of Ajmer District in the middle of Rajasthan. Both her odhni and her traditional dress were of reddish orange colours. They had worked together every day for three years, and knew each others very well. In Gulabi's home village near Ajmer discrimination against Bhangis was as common as at Chelana. There Prem would have been treated as an untouchable by the Bhambi family to whom Gulabi belonged.
In Delhi they lived in a slum area with no special caste identity, a too disorderly and anonymous environment for maintaining the caste rules of their home villages. Three years of friendship in Delhi had changed their attitudes to castes and untouchability. There they were just two human beings, trying to live as well as they could. They were nothing more than Prem and Gulabi to each others.
No educational efforts of social reformers or Government propaganda against untouchability had influenced them. Such preachings never reached their ears, in spite of living in the middle of the Indian capital within walking distance of a large number of social thinkers and the intellectual cream of the whole nation. Politicians and scholars held lectures about Mahatma Gandhi and his approach at the exhibition ground, where Prem and Gulabi had worked as labourers since 1975.
In the beginning each of them got four Rupees per day. In 1979 their wage had increased to six Rupees thirty Payse per day. In 1981 Prem and her husband still worked at the exhibition ground, but Gulabi had moved back to her home village in Rajasthan, as her husband had managed to get a job as a mason in a rich Gulf country in West Asia.
Their life style and meek manners were in a most effectful contrast to the style of the Director of the Craft Museum of the All India Handicraft Board, a Muslim lady who drew a four figure salary each month in 1979, according to Tan Dan. She was an alert and confident lady, well dressed and beautiful, also in her own eyes. She drove her car back and forth between the exhibition ground, her office at Connaught Place and her pleasant home in one of New Delhi's welloff housing colonies.
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