Today I woke up to several shocking news stories. A 9 year old girl was raped and murdered by a priest in the nation's capital. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/8/4/dalit-girl-raped-forcibly-cremated-india-new-delhi

Two men died cleaning a manhole in Hyderabad.https://www.thenewsminute.com/article/two-dalit-men-die-cleaning-manhole-hyderabad-where-s-ghmc-sewer-jets-153453

A man was beaten to death while in police custody. https://thewire.in/caste/dalit-man-beaten-to-death-while-in-uttar-pradesh-polices-custody

An Olympian hockey player was targeted and her family home attacked because her team had lost. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/dehradun/casteist-slurs-abuses-thrown-at-oly-stars-family/articleshow/85055970.cms

What do all these stories have in common? The victims were all Dalit.

As someone with caste privilege, I grew up believing in the lie of the Indian elite: that caste discrimination is over in India. Like white people in America or the UK who deny racism ("you're the real racist for bringing up race!"), I was blind to the fact that caste is the invisible network under which everything runs. In fact, it’s even taboo to mention caste because we are so invested in the illusion of our egalitarian society.

When we so-called upper castes maintain our caste blindness, when we decry reservations, when we say caste is taboo because "yaar casteism is over", we are denying the glaring evidence.

Type "Dalit killed" into Google and you get stories about Dalit men and women murdered because they rode horses on their wedding day, because they ate food on the same utensils as uppercaste people, because they bathed in the village pool. As barbaric as these stories are, they stand testament to the fact that casteism in India is alive and well. The least we can do as privileged caste people is to talk about it.


[cover image taken from: https://www.google.co.in/amp/s/www.indiatoday.in/amp/india/story/delhi-rape-murder-dont-deny-childs-caste-says-sc-lawyer-mihira-sood-1836876-2021-08-04]