Joe Pitts, January 28, 2005

India is a nation of great and wonderful diversity. It is a strong ally, and the world’s largest democracy.

However, the caste system established by Hindu priests (Brahmins) 3,000 years ago, allow a powerful few to dominate the many. This system fails to recognize the worth of all people, and ignores the great diversity of a nation as large as India .

Today, there are four distinct castes of people, called "Varnas." The Brahmins are the highest caste, followed by the Kshatriyas (soldiers and administrators), the Vaisyas (artisan and commercial class), and the Sudras (farmers and the peasant class).

Not everyone has a caste. A group once called the "untouchables," have none. The 250-300 million Dalits, as the untouchables are now known, are so low on the social spectrum they are outside of the caste system. Sadly, they lack many of the basic services and legal protections available to the rest of Indian society. Often, they are treated worse than animals, denied access to water, food, health care, housing, and even clothing because they are deemed unworthy of these things.

Discrimination against Dalits is widespread. When their rights are violated there is little recourse. The Dalit Freedom Network says, "A Dalit is not considered to be part of the human society, but something, which is beyond that. The Dalits perform the most menial and degrading jobs...Dalits are seen as (pollutants) for higher caste people. If a higher caste Hindu is touched by an untouchable or even had a Dalit’s shadow across them, they consider themselves to be polluted and have to go through a rigorous series of rituals to be cleansed."

When a Dalit attempts to buy a drink from a street vendor, he or she is often forced to purchase a separate clay cup that cannot be reused. In rural India , many people rely on wells for drinking water. The rock group Caedmon’s Call describes the ordeal Dalits must endure to get water from a well:

Dalits must often wait by the well for a higher caste person to share from their jar because by strict religious custom they are ‘unclean’ and are forbidden to draw from the well themselves. Many Dalits wait all day and still no one gives them water.

The Dalit Human Rights Monitor gave one account of thirty Dalit homes being burned to the ground by a mob incensed that the government had given them land. In another account, a dispute last year over a cricket match between school children ended up as a battle between castes with upper caste landlords forcing three Dalit boys, at gunpoint, to drink their own urine.

The Dalits are attacked not only physically, but various community members, sometimes even the police, try to prevent the Dalits from building water or sanitation devices and from carrying out basic human customs such as marriage or religious worship.

In protest of their treatment by the caste system, thousands and thousands of Dalits have converted from Hinduism to Buddhism, Islam and Christianity.

India is a great friend to America . As the world’s largest democracy, it holds limitless potential. But just as slavery and the unequal treatment of African-Americans blemished our record for much of our history, so the treatment of the Dalits will hold it back.

Countries that protect the rights and freedoms of all people are more stable and more prosperous. Once we came to accept that all citizens, regardless of color, religion, race, or creed were equal and deserved equal opportunity to build a better life, we became stronger as a nation. We still struggle with the cultural scars of our past, but our calls for freedom elsewhere carry more credibility because we grant it to all of our citizens.

Freedom, stability, and prosperity do not come by simply voicing concern. We must take action. There are organizations and individuals in India working to end the age-old discrimination against the Dalits. I have seen some of this work firsthand and know the power of people coming together to heal old wounds and work for a better future.

I invite you to visit my Human Rights web page to learn more about how you can help the Dalits and other groups like them around the world.

Congressman Joe Pitts, a Republican, represents Pennsylvania's 16th Congressional District, which includes Lancaster County and parts of Chester County and Berks County.