The Caste System In India

The rigid Hindu system of hereditary social distinctions that is ingrained in Indian culture is known as the caste system. The four main castes based on occupation and your status at birth ranging from highest and lowest include the Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas, and the Shudras. Directly below the caste system, known as “untouchables” are individuals of the Dalit community. Dalits are discriminated many ways in the community from having separate cemetery’s and centers of worship to having individuals of higher castes refrain from eating and drinking with them to avoid the sheer possibility of touching a considered “dirty” Dalit. Forced to work the dirtiest jobs in society such as manual scavenging, subject to gross violations of human dignity,

In this research I set out to prove that the occupation of manual scavenging directly leads to dysentery throughout the lower female Dalit population. The inhumane and unsanitary conditions of manual scavenging contribute to multiple diseases among the Dalit community in India. In “Born into Bondage: Enforcing Human Rights of India’s Manual Scavengers” Varun K. Aery argues that the lower inhumane occupations in the Dalit community diminish the sense of worth of the women and directly relate to severe health problems. The argument of the author directly relates to my thesis and argument stated above that inhumane jobs such as manual scavenging in the Dalit community directly relate to major illnesses, one being dysentery. Aery mentions how Dalit women have been oppressed for centuries throughout India and how the

Manual scavengers suffer many health problems such as skin rashes, eye soreness, respiratory and liver problems, and mainly dysentery. Caused mainly by bacterial infections and poor hygiene, dysentery is commonly described as chronic diarrhea until death. The most common form, amoebic dysentery, has symptoms that include fatigue, nausea, and intermittent constipation. As cysts exit the body on human feces in areas of poor sanitation, the cysts can survive for a long time and can contaminate food, water, and infect humans (Nordqvist 1). Untreated, it can be deadly, especially with the circumstances of low availability of healthcare in many rural areas in India. Aery commented on how health risks paired with minimum pay prevents scavengers from accessing healthcare. Being from a lower class, these individuals are raised in poor and impoverished area containing scarce resources of medicine and water supply which impacts the health of the community and the overall mortality rate. If a Dalit is fortunate enough to receive healthcare for and individual of a higher caste, it would only be from a distance so there is no physical association with the Dalit. Due to the unsanitary conditions of manual scavenging, the rate at which female Dalits are falling ill to dysentery is rapidly increasing and impacting the overall mortality rates of these