British Untouchables by Paul Ghuman

Author:Paul Ghuman [Ghuman, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Emigration & Immigration, Education, Educational Policy & Reform, General
ISBN: 9781317171409
Google: fg0GDAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-04-15T04:06:58+00:00

Inter-caste Relations

One of the major aims of this book is to explore inter-caste relationships through protracted observations and in-depth interviews. We report here perceptions and views of Dalit and higher-caste people on this topic.

A high-caste businessman (age 67+) expressed his strongly held views of the Dalit communities:

They (Dalits) suffer from the same complex of persecution and victimization as they do in India. Many of them hold good jobs but they break the law. They abbreviate their names so that they cannot be identified. A lot of them have become Bodis (Buddhists) but do not know anything about its principles. They curse Hindu gods Rama and Krishna. … That is why high-caste people do not want to mix with them. Their young people do not make the most of the opportunities offered. A large number drift into criminal activities. Parents never go to schools when there is an open day partly because they do not know how to conduct themselves. Therefore it is their own weakness that they fall behind other castes; but they blame others.

A high-caste young professional’s (age, 25+) views are close to the above:

In India, there is no pressure on them to work in dirty jobs; it is their choice. Education is free and there is job ‘reservations’. In my judgement, 30 per cent of Dalits suffer from persecution complex. In this country, they still harp on the caste inequality. In my view, some caste consciousness may be there but younger people are free from this and are marching ahead … Marriages are within caste and so is the social mixing. That will take time to change.

It is difficult to generalize but the above two interviewees do reflect the attitude of many orthodox high-caste people. As we found in the last chapter, many Jats blame Dalits for their poor socio-economic conditions. Reasons given to support such a contention run like this: ‘They are lazy, spend time drinking and smoking, and the successive governments have spoilt them.’ This style of rationalization is termed as ‘blaming the victim’ for their predicament by negatively stereotyping the whole community. In the US, racists have argued that the segregation of African-Americans, and their all-round poor social and economic situation was because of their ‘low intelligence and poor motivation’. Some psychologists (Eysenck, 1971) supported this contention by linking it to genetic factors.

Allport (1954: 191) defines a stereotype as ‘Whether favourable or unfavourable a stereotype is an exaggerated belief associated with a category. Its function is to justify our conduct in relation to that category.’ Allport argues that stereotypes should not be confused with ‘categories’, which are there to describe our social world. However, contemporary interpretation is somewhat mixed in that they both are thought to serve the same purpose of simplifying our perception and thinking about the social world (see Leyens et al., 1994; Davey, 1983). The formation and continuance of negative stereotypes is due to prejudice in the first instance, argues Allport. Providing young people with objective information about a group (for example, caste, immigrants, and gender) can slowly change a ‘negative’ outlook into a positive one.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.