Social Distancing: Racism, Caste System, and Sanitation!
Samit Aich
Racism and Caste discrimination are not the only two forms of social distancing that has been practiced – the list is a shamefully long one-gender, sexual orientation, economic, modern slavery, child labour…
Let’s face it. This issue always existed.
For a very large population of this world born after 1945, specifically after the Second World War or better still, after the Spanish Flu of 1918 , COVID-19 is that dreaded event that seems to have engulfed the whole world. Not many can comprehend what it means to seem like a global apocalypse which can actually stall, freeze all activities around the globe and over such long periods of time.
However, this article is not so much about COVID-19- where much has been written, is being written and will be written for sure. This is about an alternate perspective, an existence of a certain zeitgeist that has always prevailed in this world. It has existed in many parts of the world and thrived in many ugly forms. And it has also existed as much in India – and in fact it still very much thrives.
COVID-19 has interestingly led to the usage of few arrays of words that are usually not used in our daily jargon, well, until recently. Seemingly innocuous words like Quarantine and Social Distancing. Whilst the former was used in very specific situations in very select contexts- until COVID struck, of course, the term Social Distancing is a more than a little alarming.
Actually Social Distancing is not new at all, it always existed- it just is now thrown around loosely, casually, without actually understanding the potent gravitas it carries.
In today’s context, it means keeping physically apart – doh gaz doori – as it is called in Hindi. Scientists and virologists have recommended that, most governments are enforcing it and populations as a whole are expected to abide by that. So far, so good?
Social Discrimination in Democracies: USA and India
Let’s put this in the current context. Whilst the world is in the throes of dealing with the COVID crisis, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) campaign exploded in the US and many parts of Europe early May this year- bang in the middle of the pandemic. George Floyd is now the epitome of racial discrimination, of how people of colour are systematically discriminated in one of the biggest democracies of the world.
The BLM has its recent roots in 2013 after the shooting of black teen named Martin was shot dead by a white policeman who was subsequently, not surprisingly, acquitted. Soon after in 2014 two more Afro- Americans were shot dead in St. Louis and New York City, leading to wide spread protests and that even became a campaign agenda during the 2016 US presidential elections. The recent death of George Floyd on May 2020 in the hands of a white policeman at Minnesota has again triggered a massive movement across the US and spread in more than 60 countries in the world, the embers of which are still glowing as one reads this.
In India , in roughly the same timeline, in the southern state of Tamil Nadu at Thoothukudi , two local small shop businessmen Benix and Jayaraj died in police custody – allegedly after being tortured by the local police –for the enormous crime of keeping their shop open beyond the curfew hours declared by the local municipality for COVID.
All the examples above, in the two of the world’s biggest democracies currently under severe threat of erosion of democracy – USA and India – are splendid spotlights on how systemic discrimination against people of colour and people of lesser economic status ( usually both go hand in hand, given the fact that it is self-perpetuating) have led to them getting killed, maimed and silenced.
The BLM movement is still on the boil and it has spread in many ‘white’ parts of world, still singeing newer cities in the US like Portland and Chicago. Lets fact it, the world’s most powerful nation has had overt and covert forms of racial discrimination, has always been alive even in this current century and still very much thrives.
India: The Caste Based Discrimination
Let us also delve on this issue of discrimination, but from the deeply entrenched caste angle in the Indian psyche but with some historical context.
On 12 December 1935, Dr. BR Ambedkar, the father of the Indian Constitution had been asked by the Jat-Pat Todak Mondal (Society for the Abolition of Caste System), a Hindu reformist group to address the annual conference and speak about the ill-effects of caste in Hindu society. When he sent his speech, titled- the even now seminally relevant, Annihilation of Caste to the committee, they found the some of the contents against ‘Hinduism and its Shashtras’.
When he was asked to delete some if the offending sections, Dr.Amdedkar remained stoically adamant and said that he ‘would not change a comma’. When the committee withdrew its invitation, he nevertheless published the essay under the title Annihilation of Caste and it was one of the most nuanced yet brutal treatises of the long prevalent oppressive caste system.
Key excerpts from Annihilation of Caste by Dr Ambedkar – copied in verbatim:
…. “There is no doubt, in my opinion, that unless you change your social order you can achieve little by way of progress. You cannot mobilize the community either for defence or for offence. You cannot build anything on the foundations of caste. You cannot build up a nation; you cannot build up a morality. Anything that you will build on the foundations of caste will crack, and will never be a whole”.
…. “Another plan of action for the abolition of Caste is to begin with inter-caste dinners. This also, in my opinion, is an inadequate remedy. There are many castes which allow inter-dining. But it is a common experience that inter-dining has not succeeded in killing the spirit of Caste and the consciousness of Caste. I am convinced that the real remedy is inter-marriage. Fusion of blood can alone create the feeling of being kith and kin, and unless this feeling of kinship, of being kindred, becomes paramount, the separatist feeling—the feeling of being aliens—created by Caste will not vanish. Among the Hindus, inter-marriage must necessarily be a factor of greater force in social life than it need be in the life of the non-Hindus. Where society is already well-knit by other ties, marriage is an ordinary incident of life. But where society is cut asunder, marriage as a binding force becomes a matter of urgent necessity. The real remedy for breaking Caste is inter-marriage. Nothing else will serve as the solvent of Caste”.
…. “Your Jat-Pat-Todak Mandal has adopted this line of attack. It is a direct and frontal attack, and I congratulate you upon a correct diagnosis, and more upon your having shown the courage to tell the Hindus what is really wrong with them. Political tyranny is nothing compared to social tyranny, and a reformer who defies society is a much more courageous man than a politician who defies the government. You are right in holding that Caste will cease to be an operative force only when inter-dining and inter-marriage have become matters of common course. You have located the source of the disease”.
….“Caste is not a physical object like a wall of bricks or a line of barbed wire which prevents the Hindus from commingling and which has, therefore, to be pulled down. Caste is a notion; it is a state of the mind. The destruction of Caste does not therefore mean the destruction of a physical barrier. It means a notional change”.
Now, my intention is certainly not to make a political statement but an attempt to cast a sociological and philosophical perspective with these original excerpts of Dr. Ambedkar. My intention is to draw a strong line of contention under the current COVID determination of the word Social Distancing. Whilst the great statesman continued to fight against social discrimination in the most vehement manner until his death in 1956, the moot point on the basis of which he fought continues to plague India even today.
Scourge of Manual Scavenging
Consider the just one ‘ profession ‘ ( and there are numerous others) that is at the centre of the caste discrimination of 21st century India, as much it was recorded during the period of the great Maurya empire period around circa 300 BCE – the scourge of Manual Scavenging.
For many people in the western world, the term manual scavenging is lost in translation. Forget the western world; many in India simply do not even acknowledge the deplorable, dehumanizing practice from millennia, which still exists today. Or worse, many are not simply even conscious of it- as it is actually out of sight, out of mind!
The occupation of sanitation work is intrinsically integrated with caste in India: It is mainly the Dalits in India who work as sanitation workers – as manual scavengers, cleaners of drains, as garbage collectors and sweepers of roads. It was estimated in 2019 that between 40 to 60 per cent of the 6 million households of Dalit sub-castes are engaged in sanitation work.
The most common Dalit caste performing sanitation work is the Valmiki (also Balmiki) caste or the Hela caste, especially in Northern India. Likewise, in southern India, the Madiga community also is involved in manual scavenging. The Madiga community is also similarly located at the bottom of the caste hierarchy of Indian society. The community is treated as outcaste/untouchable because of the occupations the people from the community were (and many still are) engaged in like cleaning/sweeping the villages including manual scavenging (also with disposing of dead animals, processing and tanning of animal skin).
This is despite the now very stringent laws this practice flourishes in abundance in India today. Needless to say, this sick practice is exacerbated by the deep rooted caste and class divide. In fact caste discrimination is the central fulcrum through which this practice is perpetuated. And this is despite the very stringent act enacted in 2013 called the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act (PEMSR Act 2013) that aims to put an end to this activity of manual cleaning and handling of human faecal waste.
There has been also enormous body of work that is done in many parts of India by various practitioners, social activists, Government institutions and social sector players. The judiciary has also played an important role in enacting stringent laws to stop this inhuman practice. But unfortunately, much of this practice continues across India, unabated and still quite prolific. India never had a dearth of stringent laws; its insipid implementation is the root of many enervated maladies.
This comes back to the core issue of Social Distancing – the much touted terminology in this war against COVID 19. As is evident from just these two of the examples quoted in this article- Black Lives Matter and the Scourge of Manual Scavenging, social distancing has always been rampant and in fact, systematically perpetuated through aeons – philosophically, practically, socially, economically and morally.
Social Distancing, Quarantining, really? During the Plague of Justinian from 541 to 542 AD, Emperor Justinian enforced an atrocious quarantine on the Byzantine Empire, including dumping bodies into the sea; he predominantly blamed the widespread outbreak on “Jews, Samaritans, pagans, heretics, Arians, Montanists and homosexuals“. Put this in the current context and one recognizes the bizarre context in which we talk so loosely about Quarantining or Social Distancing!
Racism and Caste discrimination are not the only two forms of social distancing that has been practiced – there are many other forms of social discrimination and instances of social distancing and the list is a shamefully long one- gender, sexual orientation, economic, modern slavery, child labour et al.
Each of these forms is systemically perpetuated and is as horrific, as dehumanising and as pathetic as either caste discrimination or racial discrimination. No more and no less!
One shudders at these terminologies when it is loosely thrown around in a COVID 19 context. We do not need any more Social Distancing. In fact, we need to come closer, look at rebuilding bridges across communities, classes, castes and re- evangelise a world that is socially just , equitable, humane and morally true.
If anything, we need Social Integration. Why not just stick to the term “Physical Distancing” as opposed to “Social Distancing” which even the World Health Organization suggested in keeping with the fact that it is a physical distance which prevents COVID19 transmission? Can whoever who rediscovered these words ‘Social Distancing’ in the current context try a bit harder and think of something else and ease this shame? Maybe just listen to the WHO and keep it simple?
Sometimes, it is best to reboot such philosophical discussions, starting with the most fundamental semantics!
Samit Aich, is CEO of the Small-Scale Sustainable Infrastructure Development Fund and Ex-Executive Director of Greenpeace India, and is closely working on strategizing the options of providing alternative livelihood options for manual scavengers and livelihood options for small & marginal farmers in Karnataka, India. From the learnings from the ground, Samit has penned an article that talks about the word “social distancing” and the occupation of “manual scavenging”, that is based on caste system that is followed even today. He has touched upon how the word “social distancing” is being loosely thrown around during this pandemic, when a section of society is silently suffering from centuries because of this inhuman profession.
