A note from Asghar Vasanwala:
“When I was growing up in Dahod, teashops kept separate broken cups for Bhangis who are now classified as Dalit. Even Muslims would not touch them. With support from government and courts, their status has changed. Please read the following article about how a Dalit girl ridiculed by her own family, with her determination became a billionaire. it only needs individual courage for achieving almost anything; because God says in Poet/Philosopher Mohammad Iqbal’s poem Jawab-e-Shikwa:
To those who are capable, we give them multifaceted glory; To those who search, we give them even a new world.
by MARK MAGNIER
Kalpana Saroj. PHOTO/Mark Magnier/Los Angeles Times
Dalits still face discrimination in India’s caste system, but Kalpana Saroj has worked her way up from poverty, becoming a manufacturing tycoon.
She was called dirty, ugly, a “little packet of poison,” the offspring of donkeys. These days, Kalpana Saroj is called something else: a millionaire.
Saroj, a dalit, or “untouchable,” epitomizes what was once unthinkable in India: upward mobility for someone whose caste long meant she would die as she was born: uneducated, dirt-poor, doomed to a life of dangerous and filthy work.
Los Angeles Times for more