Ashling O'Connor in Bombay
Discrimination is still rife nationwide
Nearly a million low-caste Hindus, sporting
commemorative scarves and demanding equal rights
in the hierarchical society of India, descended
on a Bombay park yesterday to mark the 50th
anniversary of the death of Bhimrao Ambedkar,
the champion of the underclass and an architect
of the constitution. They came from all over
the country, riding on trains for as long as
three days, to pay homage to the man who campaigned
to improve the lot of the Dalits, or Untouchables,
the lowest rung on an inescapable caste system
and a social group still suffering persecution
for an accident of birth.
"We have respect in our souls for him.
He remains our god," said Lakhan Lal, a
vegetable seller from Sagar, in Madhya Pradesh.
With his wife, Hasina, and 12-year-old son,
Azad, he had travelled 36 hours to sit on a
piece of dirty black plastic under a makeshift
tent in the middle of Shivaji Park, the site
of Dr Ambedkar's cremation in 1956.
He has observed this ritual for the past ten
years, but this year was distinctive because
of the anniversary. It was also a day marked
out for special attention by the authorities
during a time of heightened social tension in
the state of Maharashtra, whose population is
one fifth Dalit.
Violent clashes broke out in Bombay last week
after the desecration of a statue of Dr Ambedkar
in Kanpur, an industrial city in Uttar Pradesh.
Several people were killed when police fired
upon mobs who were setting fire to trains, cars
and buses. The attacks occurred against a backdrop
of unrest after the murder in September of Surekha
Bhotmange, 45, her 17-year-old daughter and
two sons by fellow villagers over a land dispute.
Both women were raped.
The botched handling of the case by police
has energised the Dalit movement, reviving fears
among the higher castes of a social uprising.
Nearly 1,000 police officers were deployed
in and around the park, while the Government
drafted in special border security forces and
erected towers fitted with closed-circuit television
to spot troublemakers.
Schools and colleges were closed. The fears
proved unfounded; the day passed off peacefully,
in a carnival atmosphere. Divaya, Mirabi, Prembai
and Shanti, four women from Madhya Pradesh,
were in excitable mood as they queued for free
personal accident insurance from a consortium
of state insurance companies. Forced to endure
regular abuse, they need the 50,000 rupees (£560)
cover.
"In the villages, rapes are the norm,"
John Dayal, the president of the All India Catholic
Union and a Dalit activist, said. "Fifty
years after the death of Ambedkar, the situation
of the Dalits is only marginally improved. Even
the globalised market in India has no place
for them."
Despite a quota of government jobs reserved
for the "scheduled castes, tribes and other
backward castes", discrimination prevails,
particularly in rural areas. "Casteism
has not gone from people's hearts," Vivek
Thawal, a Dalit bank cashier, said. "Even
if you are well qualified and competent, you
will not get a job."
A centuries-old prejudice is slowly easing.
Before Dr Ambedkar, a Dalit barrister who became
the first law minister in independent India,
someone such as Sudam Gobinderao Mask, 32, could
not have gone to university and become a life
insurance salesman. He has travelled about 500km
(300 miles) from the city of Salegaon for the
rally. "He [Dr Ambedkar] gave us the right
to an education, and for that I come here every
year," he said
