Because He was…

Just as Model, I don’t know what he is. And I am glad of it.

He stood first in the class,
Yet he could hear whispers
He became a Scientist,
The murmurs didn’t stop..
He ran and ran and climbed Mt. Everest
He could still hear them in echoes
He made a company and met many Presidents,
The co-workers still laughed
and talked behind his back,
There he lies dead now,
yet,you can hear the sounds in the air,
Someone speaks and someone nods
‘he could do all this because he was
An Untouchable ”

 

A bit of explanation– India is a country of diverse culture,religions and castes and has the biggest political system in the whole world. So,the elections are fought on many basis like progress,education etc etc but the biggest agenda is ‘RESERVATION’. While the caste system is an ancient burden on the society(atleast I feel so), the increase demand/supply of reservations based on religion,castes has created a bigger rift among people than before.

How did it all started ?? In ancient era(lets say when Indian civilization started),caste systems did exist but people were defined on the basis of  profession. For example a teacher was deemed as Brahmin and a businessman was taken as Vaishya. However,if  the son of the teacher was warrior, he will belong top the class ‘Kshatriya’. Slowly,these class systems were manipulated for personal gains,and class became a birthright. And began the era of ignorance,arrogance and suppression. Brahmins were deemed the highest irrespective of what they did and ‘Shudras’ became the lowest as they did dirty works like cleaning drains etc etc.

The Suppression played a major role in deteriorating the lifestyle in lower castes and the upper classes established dominance and refused to touch the lower class thus the term ‘Untouchables’ or ‘Dalits’. Even seeing a an untouchable while you are stepping out of home was considered to be ominous. The Untochables were not allowed to visit public baths or any such places. They were to keep distance from temples while walking by,let alone ever visiting. The efforts by some brave people throughout the history were futile as the upper classes who were powerful in every respect quelled those attempts. During Indian Independence moment, Mahatma Gandhi brought into light the plight of untouchables.He renamed them as ‘Harijan’ or ‘The kin of God’. He worked with them and so did a few more. A temporary unison to thwart the foreign suppression.

The Freedom movement ended with India becoming Independent on 15th Aug 1947. Now, Political reforms were made to raise the wretched lifestyle of the backward classes and release them from the clasps of Upper class. ‘Reservation’ was born. It would have worked fine if it didn’t become a game of power. Personally,I feel every society whichever class they belong to has people who are greedy of power,want to grab as much and by any means. Very less classes in India are considered to be Forward classes(a subtler name for Upper Class), naturally the society will not change easily with this difference.

Later on, those power hungry among the backward classes demanded more attention and more reservations. And the initial motive of freedom of backward classes changed into grabbing the opportunities just because they belong to backward class. The government jobs and education system saw that reservations brought in more ineligible candidates. Naturally,people started hating the system and insulted the candidates. If out of 20 backward candidates, 5 were truly deserving class or no class,they will suffer the wrath because of this and whatever they do they will still be called undeserving. And the irony is these 5 never wanted reservation in first place !

The mentality of people is getting worse and worse and the education system has got the biggest blow in all this. Its full of arrogant of upper class, non-deserving reserved students/workers and some deserving students from both the parties and the middle classes who have worked hard for who they are, with  no privileges as they are normal class but they will never be acknowledged by the upper. Now,more different types of reservations have popped as as political moves to woo voters. And I begin to wonder, If I should proudly say ‘India is a country of Unity in Diversity’ a slogan which I used to give as a child in Republic Day speech.

Thank you for reading. 🙂 A bit hurriedly written because I was having Anger management issues after seeing the recent clashes because of reservations. Am I hating Humankind? may be a bit… What do you think of all this ? Say something or anything ….