Dalit Social Movement

Dalit, meaning "broken/scattered" in Sanskrit and Hindi, is a term mostly used for the ethnic groups in India and
Nepal that have been kept repressed (often termed backward castes). Dalits were excluded from the four-fold varna
system of Hinduism and were seen as forming a fifth varna, also known by the name of Panchama. Dalits now
profess various religious beliefs, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism, Christianity and various folk religions.
The 2011 Census of India recorded their numbers at over 200 million people, representing 16 percent of India's
population.

The term dalits was in use as a translation for the British Raj census classification of Depressed Classes prior to
1935. It was popularised by the economist and reformer B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956), who included all depressed
people irrespective of their caste into the definition of dalits.[3] Hence the first group he made was called the
"Labour Party" and included as its members all people of the society who were kept depressed, including women,
small scale farmers and people from backward castes. Ambedkar himself was a Mahar, and in the 1970s the use of
the word "dalit" was invigorated when it was adopted by the Dalit Panthers activist group. Gradually, political
parties used it to gain mileage. New leaders like Kanhaiya Kumar subscribe to this definition of "dalits", thus a
Brahmin marginal farmer trying to eke out a living, but unable to do so also falls in the "dalit" category.

India's National Commission for Scheduled Castes considers official use of dalit as a label to be "unconstitutional"
because modern legislation prefers Scheduled Castes; however, some sources say that Dalit has encompassed more
communities than the official term of Scheduled Castes and is sometimes used to refer to all of India's oppressed
peoples. A similar all-encompassing situation prevails in Nepal.

Scheduled Caste communities exist across India, although they are mostly concentrated in four states; they do not
share a single language or religion. They comprise 16.6 per cent of India's population, according to the 2011 Census
of India. Similar communities are found throughout the rest of South Asia, in Nepal, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri
Lanka, and are part of the global Indian diaspora.

In 1932, the British Raj recommended separate electorates to select leaders for Dalits in the Communal Award. This
was favoured by Ambedkar but when Mahatma Gandhi opposed the proposal it resulted in the Poona Pact. That in
turn influenced the Government of India Act, 1935, which introduced the reservation of seats for the Depressed
Classes, now renamed as Scheduled Castes.

From soon after its independence in 1947, India introduced a reservation system to enhance the ability of Dalits to
have political representation and to obtain government jobs and education.[clarification needed] In 1997, India
elected its first Dalit President, K. R. Narayanan. Many social organisations have promoted better conditions for
Dalits through education, healthcare and employment. Nonetheless, while caste-based discrimination was prohibited
and untouchability abolished by the Constitution of India, such practices are still widespread. To prevent
harassment, assault, discrimination and similar acts against these groups, the Government of India enacted the
Prevention of Atrocities Act, also called the SC/ST Act, on 31 March 1995.
In accordance with the order of the Bombay High Court, the Information and Broadcasting Ministry (I&B Ministry)
of the Government of India issued an advisory to all media channels in September 2018, asking them to use
"Scheduled Castes" instead of the word "Dalit".

The word dalit is a vernacular form of the Sanskrit (dalita). In Classical Sanskrit, this means "divided, split, broken,
scattered". This word was repurposed in 19th-century Sanskrit to mean "(a person) not belonging to one of the four
Brahminic castes". It was perhaps first used in this sense by Pune-based social reformer Jyotirao Phule, in the
context of the oppression faced by the erstwhile "untouchable" castes from other Hindus.

Dalit is mostly used to describe communities that have been subjected to untouchability. Such people were excluded
from the four-fold varna system of Hinduism and thought of themselves as forming a fifth varna, describing
themselves as Panchama.

The term was in use as a translation for the British Raj census classification of Depressed Classes prior to 1935. It
was popularised by the economist and reformer B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956), himself a Dalit, and in the 1970s its
use was invigorated when it was adopted by the Dalit Panthers activist group.

Dalit has become a political identity, similar to how the LGBTQ community reclaimed queer from its pejorative use
as a neutral or positive self-identifier and as a political identity. Socio-legal scholar Oliver Mendelsohn and political
economist Marika Vicziany wrote in 1998 that the term had become "intensely political ... While use of the term
might seem to express an appropriate solidarity with the contemporary face of Untouchable politics, there remain
major problems in adopting it as a generic term. Although the word is now quite widespread, it still has deep roots in
a tradition of political radicalism inspired by the figure of B. R. Ambedkar." They suggested its use risked
erroneously labelling the entire population of untouchables in India as being united by a radical politics. Anand
Teltumbde also detects a trend towards denial of the politicised identity, for example among educated middle-class
people who have converted to Buddhism and argue that, as Buddhists, they cannot be Dalits. This may be due to
their improved circumstances giving rise to a desire not to be associated with the what they perceive to be the
demeaning Dalit masses.

Official term

Scheduled Castes is the official term for Dalits in the opinion of India's National Commissions for Scheduled Castes
(NCSC), who took legal advice that indicated modern legislation does not refer to Dalit and that therefore, it says, it
is "unconstitutional" for official documents to do so. In 2004, the NCSC noted that some state governments used
Dalits rather than Scheduled Castes in documentation and asked them to desist.

Some sources say that Dalit encompasses a broader range of communities than the official Scheduled Caste
definition. It can include nomadic tribes and another official classification that also originated with the British Raj
positive discrimination efforts in 1935, being the Scheduled Tribes. It is also sometimes used to refer to the entirety
of India's oppressed peoples, which is the context that applies to its use in Nepalese society. An example of the
limitations of the Scheduled Caste category is that, under Indian law, such people can only be followers of
Buddhism, Hinduism or Sikhism, yet there are communities who claim to be Dalit Christians and Muslims, and the
tribal communities often practise folk religions.

Harijan

Mahatma Gandhi coined the word Harijan, translated roughly as people of God, to identify untouchables in 1933.
The name was disliked by Ambedkar as it emphasised the Dalits as belonging to the Greater Hindu Nation rather
than being an independent community like Muslims. In addition, many Dalits saw the term to be patronizing and
derogatory. Some have even claimed that the term really refers to children of devadasis, South Indian girls who were
married to a temple and served as concubines and prostitutes for upper-caste Hindus, but this claim cannot be
verified. When untouchability was outlawed after Indian independence, the use of the word Harijan to describe the
ex-untouchables was more common among other castes than the Dalits themselves.

Harijan (Hindustani: Devanagari, translation: "person of Hari/Vishnu") was a term popularized by Indian political
leader Mohandas Gandhi for referring communities traditionally considered so-called "Untouchable" (formerly
called "acchoot" in Hindi. The term was later considered derogatory and patronising; hence the term Harijan is no
longer used by people belonging to the castes that were kept back in medieval and modern India.

They are now called Dalits, though even this term is banned in some states of India such as Kerala. The term Harijan
is regarded as condescending by many, with some Dalit activists calling it insulting. As a result, the Government of
India and several state governments forbid or discourage its use for official purposes.

Though Gandhi popularized the term harijan, which literally meant children of god, some contested that as per
certain religious texts, brahmins are said to be children of God. The term may have been suggested to Gandhi based
on the term used in the works by the Gujarati Bhakti era poet-saint Narsi Mehta. It has been claimed that in Narsi's
work, the term refers to the children of Devadasis. Others state that the claim cannot be verified. According to other
source the medieval devotional poet Gangasati used the term to refer to herself during the Bhakti movement, a
period in India that gave greater status and voice to women while challenging the legitimacy of caste. Gangasati
lived around the 12th-14th centuries and wrote in the Gujarati language.

Mohandas Gandhi's publication

Gandhi started publishing a weekly journal called "Harijan" on 11 February 1933 from Yerwada Jail during British
rule. He created three publications: Harijan in English (from 1933 to 1948), Harijan Bandu in Gujarati, and Harijan
Sevak in Hindi. These newspapers found Gandhi concentrating on social and economic problems, much as his
earlier English newspaper, Young India, had done from 1919 to 1932.

Regional terms

In Southern India, Dalits are sometimes known as Adi Dravida, Adi Karnataka, and Adi Andhra. This practice began
around 1917, when the Adi- prefix was appropriated by Southern Dalit leaders, who believed that they were the
indigenous inhabitants of India. The terms are used in the states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Andhra Pradesh
respectively, to identify Dalits in official documents.

In the Indian state of Maharashtra, according to historian and women's studies academic Shailaja Paik, Dalit is a
term mostly used by members of the Mahar caste, into which Ambedkar was born. Most other communities prefer to
use their own caste name.

In Nepal, aside from Harijan and, most commonly, Dalit, terms such as Haris (among Muslims), Achhoot, outcastes
and neech jati are used.

Social status

Dalits have had lowest social status in the traditional Hindu social structure but James Lochtefeld, a professor of
religion and Asian studies, said in 2002 that the "adoption and popularization of [the term Dalit] reflects their
growing awareness of the situation, and their greater assertiveness in demanding their legal and constitutional
rights".

In the past, they were believed to be so impure that caste Hindus considered their presence to be polluting. The
impure status was related to their historic hereditary occupations that caste Hindus considered to be "polluting" or
debased, such as working with leather, working with feces and other dirty work.

History

Dharavi is a slum in Mumbai, founded in the 1880s during the British colonial era. The colonial government
expelled Dalits, along with their traditional profession of leather and tannery work, from Mumbai (Bombay)
peninsula to create Dharavi. Currently, about 20 per cent of the Dharavi population are Dalits, compared to 16 per
cent nationwide. Dalits live together with Muslims (who constitute about a third of Dharavi's population) and other
castes and tribes.

Gopal Baba Walangkar (ca. 1840–1900) is generally considered to be the pioneer of the Dalit movement, seeking a
society in which they were not discriminated against. Another pioneer was Harichand Thakur (ca. 1812–1878) with
his Matua organisation that involved the Namasudra (Chandala) community in the Bengal Presidency. Ambedkar
himself believed Walangkar to be the progenitor. Another early social reformer who worked to improve conditions
for Dalits was Jyotirao Phule (1827-1890).

The 1950 Constitution of India, introduced after the country gained independence, included measures to improve the
socioeconomic conditions of Dalits. Aside from banning untouchability, these included the reservation system, a
means of positive discrimination that created the classifications of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other
Backward Classes (OBCs). Communities that were categorised as being one of those groups were guaranteed a
percentage of the seats in the national and state legislatures, as well as in government jobs and places of education.
The system has its origins in the 1932 Poona Pact between Ambedkar and Gandhi, when Ambedkar conceded his
demand that the Dalits should have an electorate separate from the caste Hindus in return for Gandhi accepting
measures along these lines. The notion of a separate electorate had been proposed in the Communal Award made by
the British Raj authorities, and the outcome of the Pact - the Government of India Act of 1935 - both introduced the
new term of Scheduled Castes in replacement for Depressed Classes and reserved seats for them in the legislatures.

By 1995, of all federal government jobs in India - 10.1 per cent of Class I, 12.7 per cent of Class II, 16.2 per cent of
Class III, and 27.2 per cent of Class IV jobs were held by Dalits. Of the most senior jobs in government agencies
and government-controlled enterprises, only 1 per cent were held by Dalits, not much change in 40 years. In the 21st
century, Dalits have been elected to India's highest judicial and political offices.

In 2001, the quality of life of the Dalit population in India was worse than that of the overall Indian population on
metrics such as access to health care, life expectancy, education attainability, access to drinking water and housing.
In 2010, Dalits received international attention due to a portrait exhibition by Marcus Perkins that depicted Dalits.

According to a 2007 report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), the treatment of Dalits has been like a hidden
apartheid and that they endure segregation in housing, schools, and access to public services. HRW noted that
Manmohan Singh, then Prime Minister of India, saw a parallel between the apartheid system and untouchability.
Eleanor Zelliot also notes Singh's 2006 comment but says that, despite the obvious similarities, race prejudice and
the situation of Dalits have a different basis and perhaps a different solution. Though the Indian Constitution
abolished untouchability, the oppressed status of Dalits remains a reality. In rural India, stated Klaus Klostermaier in
2010, "they still live in secluded quarters, do the dirtiest work, and are not allowed to use the village well and other
common facilities". In the same year, Zelliot noted that in spite of much progress over the last sixty years, Dalits are
still at the social and economic bottom of society.

Economic Status

According to a 2014 report to the Ministry of Minority Affairs, over 44.8 per cent of Scheduled Tribe (ST) and 33.8
per cent of Scheduled Caste (SC) populations in rural India were living below the poverty line in 2011–12. In urban
areas, 27.3 per cent of ST and 21.8 per cent of SC populations were below the poverty line.

Some Dalits have achieved affluence, although most remain poor. Some intellectuals, such as Chandra Bhan Prasad,
have argued that the living standards of many Dalits have improved since the economic system became more
liberalized starting in 1991 and have supported their claims through large surveys. According to the Socio Economic
and Caste Census 2011, nearly 79 per cent of Adivasi households and 73 per cent of Dalit households were the most
deprived among rural households in India. While 45 per cent of SC households are landless and earn a living by
manual casual labour, the figure is 30 per cent for Adivasis.

A 2012 survey by Mangalore University in Karnataka found that 93 per cent of Dalit families in the state of
Karnataka live below the poverty line.
Discrimination

Education

According to an analysis by The IndiaGoverns Research Institute, Dalits constituted nearly half of primary school
dropouts in Karnataka during the period 2012–14.

A sample survey in 2014, conducted by Dalit Adhikar Abhiyan and funded by ActionAid, found that among state
schools in Madhya Pradesh, 88 percent discriminated against Dalit children. In 79 percent of the schools studied,
Dalit children are forbidden from touching mid-day meals. They are required to sit separately at lunch in 35 percent
of schools, and are required to eat with specially marked plates in 28 percent.

There have been incidents and allegations of SC and ST teachers and professors being discriminated against and
harassed by authorities, upper castes colleagues and upper caste students in different education institutes of India. In
some cases, such as in Gujarat, state governments have argued that, far from being discriminatory, their rejection
when applying for jobs in education has been because there are no suitably qualified candidates from those
classifications.

Healthcare and nutrition

Discrimination can also exist in access to healthcare and nutrition. A sample survey of Dalits, conducted over
several months in Madhya Pradesh and funded by ActionAid in 2014, found that health field workers did not visit
65 percent of Dalit settlements. 47 percent of Dalits were not allowed entry into ration shops; and 64 percent were
given less grains than non-Dalits. In Haryana state, 49 percent of Dalit children under five years were underweight
and malnourished while 80 per cent of those in the 6–59 months age group were anaemic in 2015.

Crime

Dalits comprise a slightly disproportionate number of India's prison inmates.[82] While Dalits (including both SCs
and STs) constitute 25 per cent of the Indian population, they account for 33.2 per cent of prisoners. About 24.5 per
cent of death row inmates in India are from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes which is proportionate to their
population. The percentage is highest in Maharashtra (50 percent), Karnataka (36.4 percent) and Madhya Pradesh
(36 percent).

Caste-related violence between Dalit and non-Dalits allegedly stems from Dalit's economic success amidst ongoing
prejudice. The Bhagana rape case, which arose out of a dispute of allocation of land, is an example of atrocities
against Dalit girls and women. In August 2015, due to continued alleged discrimination from upper castes of the
village, about 100 Dalit inhabitants converted to Islam in a ceremony at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi. Inter-caste
marriage has been proposed as a remedy, but according to a 2014 survey of 42,000 households by the New Delhi-
based National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) and the University of Maryland, it was estimated
that only 5 per cent of Indian marriages cross caste boundaries.
A 2006 article reported incidents of violence, disputes and discrimination against Dalits in Maharashtra. The article
noted that non-Dalit families claimed they do not treat Dalits differently. A carpenter caste person said, "We tell
them anything and they tell us you are pointing fingers at us because of our caste; we all live together, and there are
bound to be fights, but they think we target them."

There have been reports of Dalits being forced to eat human faeces and drink urine by Christian Thevars, an OBC.
In one such instance, a 17-year-old girl was set on fire by Yadav (an OBC) youth, allegedly because she was
allowed school-education. In September 2015, a 45-year-old dalit woman was allegedly stripped naked and was
forced to drink urine by perpetrators from the Yadav community in Madhya Pradesh.

Prevention of Atrocities Act

The Government of India has attempted on several occasions to legislate specifically to address the issue of caste-
related violence that affects SCs and STs. Aside from the Constitutional abolition of untouchability, there has been
the Untouchability (Offences) Act of 1955, which was amended in the same year to become the Protection of Civil
Rights Act. It was determined that neither of those Acts were effective, so the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe
(Prevention of Atrocities) Act of 1989 (POA) came into force.

The POA designated specific crimes against SCs and STs as "atrocities" – a criminal act that has "the quality of
being shockingly cruel and inhumane" – which should be prosecuted under its terms rather than existing criminal
law. It created corresponding punishments. Its purpose was to curb and punish violence against Dalits, including
humiliations such as the forced consumption of noxious substances. Other atrocities included forced labour, denial
of access to water and other public amenities, and sexual abuse. The Act permitted Special Courts exclusively to try
POA cases. The Act called on states with high levels of caste violence (said to be "atrocity-prone") to appoint
qualified officers to monitor and maintain law and order.

In 2015, the Parliament of India passed the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities)
Amendment Act to address issues regarding implementation of the POA, including instances where the police put
procedural obstacles in the way of alleged victims or indeed outright colluded with the accused. It also extended the
number of acts that were deemed to be atrocities. One of those remedies, in an attempt to address the slow process of
cases, was to make it mandatory for states to set up the exclusive Special Courts that the POA had delineated.
Progress in doing so, however, was reported in April 2017 to be unimpressive. P. L. Punia, a former chairman of the
NCSC, said that the number of pending cases was high because most of the extant Special Courts were in fact not
exclusive but rather being used to process some non-POA cases, and because "The special prosecutors are not
bothered and the cases filed under this Act are as neglected as the victims". While Dalit rights organisations were
cautiously optimistic that the amended Act would improve the situation, legal experts were pessimistic.

Segregation

Fa Xian, a Chinese Buddhist pilgrim who recorded his visit to India in the early 5th century, mentioned segregation
in the context of the untouchable Chandala community.
Throughout the country the people kill no living thing nor drink wine, nor do they eat garlic or onions, with the
exception of Chandalas only. The Chandalas are named 'evil men', and dwell apart from others; if they enter a town
or market, they sound a piece of wood in order to separate themselves; then men, knowing who they are, avoid
coming in contact with them.

— Fa Xian, 399–414 CE

While discrimination against Dalits has declined in urban areas and in the public sphere, it still exists in rural areas
and in the private sphere, in everyday matters such as access to eating places, schools, temples and water sources.
Some Dalits successfully integrated into urban Indian society, where caste origins are less obvious. In rural India,
however, caste origins are more readily apparent and Dalits often remain excluded from local religious life, though
some qualitative evidence suggests that exclusion is diminishing.

According to the 2014 NCAER/University of Maryland survey, 27 percent of the Indian population still practices
untouchability. The figure may be higher because many people refuse to acknowledge doing so when questioned,
although the methodology of the survey was also criticised for potentially inflating the figure. Across India,
Untouchability was practised among 52 percent of Brahmins, 33 percent of Other Backward Classes and 24 percent
of non-Brahmin forward castes. Untouchability was also practiced by people of minority religions – 23 percent of
Sikhs, 18 percent of Muslims and 5 percent of Christians. According to statewide data, Untouchability is most
commonly practiced in Madhya Pradesh (53 percent), followed by Himachal Pradesh (50 percent), Chhattisgarh (48
percent), Rajasthan and Bihar (47 percent), Uttar Pradesh (43 percent), and Uttarakhand (40 percent).

Examples of segregation have included the Madhya Pradesh village of Ghatwani, where the Scheduled Tribe
population of Bhilala do not allow Dalit villagers to use public borewell for fetching water and thus they are forced
to drink dirty water. In metropolitan areas around New Delhi and Bangalore, Dalits and Muslims face discrimination
from upper caste landlords when seeking places to rent.

Social persecution by caste Hindus

In several incidents if dalits were found burning holika for Holika Dahan ceremony, they are tonsured and paraded
naked in the villages. Also in some parts of India, there have been allegations that Dalit grooms riding horses for
wedding ceremonies have been beaten up and ostracised by upper caste people. In August 2015, upper caste people
burned houses and vehicles belonging to Dalit families and slaughtered their livestock in reaction to Dalits daring to
hold a temple car procession at a village in Tamil Nadu. In August 2015, it was claimed that a Jat Khap Panchayat
ordered the rape of two Dalit sisters because their brother eloped with a married Jat girl of the same village.

Political involvement

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is an Indian Dalit party.

Dalit political parties include:

Republican Party of India factions, active in Maharashtra

Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi and Puthiya Tamilagam are the two major dalit parties in Tamil Nadu

Bharipa Bahujan Mahasangh, led by Prakash Yashwant Ambedkar, Ambedkar's grandson

Lok Janshakti Party, Bihar

Bahujan Shakti Party, Nepal

Dalit Janajati Party, Nepal

Anti-Dalit prejudices exist in groups such as the extremist militia Ranvir Sena, largely run by upper-caste landlords
in Bihar. They oppose equal treatment of Dalits and have resorted to violence. The Ranvir Sena is considered a
terrorist organisation by the government of India. In 2015, Cobrapost exposed many leaders especially like C. P.
Thakur alongside former PM Chandra Shekhar associated with Ranvir Sena in Bihar Dalit massacres while
governments of Nitish Kumar (under pressure from BJP), Lalu Prasad Yadav and Rabri Devi did nothing to get
justice for Dalits.

The rise of Hindutva's (Hindu nationalism) role in Indian politics has accompanied allegations that religious
conversions of Dalits are due to allurements like education and jobs rather than faith. Critics, who argue that laws
banning conversion and limiting social relief for converts mean that conversion impedes economic success.
However, Bangaru Laxman, a Dalit politician, was a prominent member of the Hindutva movement.

Another political issue is Dalit affirmative-action quotas in government jobs and university admissions. About 8
percent of the seats in the National and State Parliaments are reserved for Scheduled Caste and Tribe candidates.

Jagjivan Ram(1908–1986) was the first scheduled caste leader to emerge at the national level from Bihar. He was
member of the Constituent assembly that drafted India's constitution. Ram also served in the interim national
government of 1946 He served in the cabinets of Congress party Prime ministers Jawaharlal Nehru, Lal Bahadur
Shastri and Indira Gandhi. His last position in government was as Deputy Prime Minister of India in the Janata Party
government of 1977–1979.

In modern times several Bharatiya Janata Party leaders were Dalits, including Dinanath Bhaskar, Ramchandra
Veerappa and Dr. Suraj Bhan.

In India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh, Dalits have had a major political impact. The Dalit-led Bahujan Samaj
Party (BSP) had previously run the government and that party's leader, Mayawati, served several times as chief
minister. Regarding her election in 2007, some reports claimed her victory was due to her ability to win support
from both 17 percent of Muslims and nearly 17 percent Brahmins alongside 80 percent of Dalits. However, surveys
of voters on the eve of elections, indicated that caste loyalties were not the voters' principal concern. Instead,
inflation and other issues of social and economic development dictated the outcome. Mayawati's success in reaching
across castes has led to speculation about her as a potential future Prime Minister of India.

Aside from Mayawati in Uttar Pradesh, Damodaram Sanjivayya was chief minister of Andhra Pradesh (from 11
January 1960 – 12 March 1962) and Jitan Ram Manjhi was chief minister of Bihar for just less than a year. In 1997,
K. R. Narayanan, who was a Dalit, was elected as President of India.