To Study The Impact of Untouchability on Dalits

Abstract

Colonialism had racial undertones which implied a control that people of one race exerted over the ‘other' in the name of superiority. The ‘Non-whites’ were considered inferior in every respect and were continuously othered and marginalized by the ‘Whites’. Challenging both White superiority and Black inferiority imposed by unjust systems during the colonial era, Said opines that “whites must be made to realize that they are only human, not superior. Same with Blacks. They must be made to realize that they are also human, not inferior.” (…    ) Hence colonialism exerted a detrimental impact on the physical as well as mental wellbeing of the ‘Orientals’ leaving them broken, shattered, and displaced with a fluid and hybrid identity. It is interesting to note that this oppression and its consequences did not end with the end of British rule in India, rather it continued in the form of economic and social policies framed and adopted by the dominant section of the society in an independent India, free from the British rule. “Many of the international principles and instruments guided the behavior and response of the so-called superior section of the society [In independent India] which aggravated the internal feuds within the country” (…) While the distinction based on the race and color of the skin was of no consequence in post-independence India, the equation between the superior and the inferior persisted and became an elemental part of the ‘free’ society.