Page 8 - Lesson Notes

remainsconcentrated in White hands. Empowering the Black
majority represents a continuingchallenge for the new society.

Correlation between Social Status and Economic Status

• There is a very close relation between class and caste.

• The members of the upper caste have better life chances and opportunities to
use the resources.

• Now it is changing, people from Shudra community are occupying higher

positions and vice versa e.g. K.R. Narayanan-Ex-President who was from a

Dalit community. Mira Kumar-Ex-Speaker of the Parliament.

• But it is at a micro level in urban areas where Brahmins are peons, clerks

while Dalits are doctors and are educated.

• The mindset of the people has not changed, so it is not prevalent at the micro
level.

Untouchability:

 Untouchability is the practice of discriminating various individuals and
groups based on their cast and the jobs done by them. Untouchability is
practiced for a very long time. It works on the Indian caste system
hierarchy. The untouchables usually bear inhuman treatment because they
belong to the lower caste.

 Untouchability‟ is an extreme and particularly vicious aspect of the caste
systemthat prescribes stringent social sanctions against members of castes
located atthe bottom of the purity-pollution scale.

 The „untouchable‟castes are outside the caste hierarchy – they are
considered to be so „impure‟that their mere touch severely pollutes
members of all other castes.

 The notions of „distance pollution‟ existed in many regionsof India
(particularly in the south) such that even the mere presence or theshadow
of an „untouchable‟ person is considered polluting.