Caste-based discrimination practices in more than 1,300 jails across India, dating back to British colonial rule, have been declared unconstitutional by the country’s supreme court.
Responding to a public interest petition filed by New Delhi-based journalist Sukanya Shantha, the court said the practice of segregating prisoners and assigning them tasks based on their caste violated India’s constitution which guarantees equality for all citizens.
“Upholding of caste differences by the British inside prisons reflected their overall support to legitimising India’s … caste system,” the court said in a ruling last week, adding that such an approach would no longer be allowed to continue in Indian jails.
The court observed that since independence 77 years ago, Indian jails had, more or less, continued to follow the colonial practice of profiling prison inmates along caste lines that perpetuated bias and social marginalisation.
The court described “menial tasks” assigned to prisoners identified as “untouchables” or those at the bottom end of the caste system, such as scavenging, sweeping floors and cleaning septic tanks and toilets, as “coercive” and “forced labour”.
Higher caste prisoners, the court observed, were assigned cooking, prison guard duty and other “less demeaning” jobs and were generally treated more humanely by prison staff. Perpetuation of such prejudice, the court said, militated against constitutional protection of equal opportunity.
India’s rigid caste system – a complex hereditary class order – has culturally, economically and politically dominated its predominantly Hindu population, defining social interaction, marriages, neighbourhood associations and even food habits, among other activities.
Believed to have originated around 1500 BC, the system divides society into four distinct categories with hundreds of complex subdivisions. And even though India’s constitution outlawed caste bigotry in 1949, two years after independence, it continues to dominate millions of people’s lives in multiple ways.
The highest or priestly caste are Brahmins, followed by the Kshatriyas or warriors, the Vaishyas or traders, and the lowest caste, Shudras, or manual labourers.
Existing outside this formalised system are the ”untouchables” or the outcasts associated with “unclean” tasks such as scavenging and who were labelled Harijans or children of God by Mahatma Gandhi, who worked for their societal, educational and economic betterment.
Redesignated Dalits thereafter, more than 300 million of these “untouchables” continue to face intolerance daily and are forced to live in ghettos in cities, towns and villages across India. In many instances they are not permitted to even draw water from local wells or enter Hindu temples.
In keeping with the tenets of Hinduism, no individual can change their caste except through the endless cycle of death and rebirth which are dependent on Karma or fate, dictated in turn by good or bad deeds performed during a lifetime.
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