Cry Freedom!

Of the many forms of untouchability that persist in modern India, unarguably the most unconscionable is the wide prevalence of discrimination against dalit children within schools

Harsh Mander Delhi

In a dilapidated slum shanty near the banks of the Ganga in Patna is settled a group of families whose profession is to clean dry toilets with their bare hands, and to carry human waste on their heads to throw into the forgiving waters of the mighty river. I found that not a single child studied in the government school, which, as it happened, was located literally just across the road from the scavenger colony. It took a while to coax from the guardians the reason for their steady resolve to keep their children away from school. It transpired that they had indeed sent their children to the school initially. It is a custom in many government schools for the teacher to send children on errands. The upper-caste children were assigned tasks such as to fetch tea. The children from the scavenger colony were asked to wash the toilets, or to clean up after a dog had soiled the school premises. The children could not bear the shame, and refused to return to the school.

Of the many forms of untouchability that persist in modern India, unarguably the most unconscionable is the wide prevalence of discrimination against dalit children within schools. Children in rural India, and even parts of the cities, learn early the rules of caste, which survive unremittingly through their lifetimes, even as their country races into the 21st century. A survey of practices of untouchability undertaken in 565 villages in 11 major states of India reveals shockingly that in as many as 38 per cent government schools, dalit children are made to sit separately while eating.  In 20 per cent schools, dalit children are not even permitted to drink water from the same source.

As the outcome of a major direction of the Supreme Court of India, millions of children in most government primary schools in the country are being provided hot, cooked, mid-day meals everyday. The mid-day meal programme not only strengthens the nutrition of children in government schools, many of whom are poor and do not have access to sufficient and nutritious food in their homes, it also encourages enrolment into schools, retention and regular attendance. But an equally important outcome is that since children of all castes and classes sit together and eat, it teaches them caste equality. Traditionally, caste and communal barriers are expressed most in the refusal to eat together; therefore, people of diversity sitting together gently can shatter a range of iniquitous social practices, and what better place for this to happen than the school?

However, there are disturbing field studies of caste discrimination within schools. Caste discrimination in mid-day meals is seen in various ways. The first is defiance of the Supreme Court orders to appoint cooks from dalit backgrounds. In states like Tamil Nadu only 14 per cent of the cooks are dalit.  In many places where, although, dalit cooks have been appointed, upper-caste parents retaliated by not allowing their children to eat the meal, threatening to withdraw, putting pressure to replace the cook with an upper-caste cook and so on.

The other forms of discrimination are where children are not allowed to sit together and eat. Dalit children are required to sit apart from the dominant caste children; sometimes apart within the same space, other times outside of the school building while the dominant caste children sit inside, or on a lower level than their dominant caste peers. Some studies have also shown that dalit children are required to bring their own plates and/or are given less quantity of food, refused a second serving, not allowed to drink water from the public taps and hand pump at the school and so on.