by GAIL OMVEDT
Waiting for an India when caste names will have lost their meaning.
Those who deny that caste is really much of a ‘problem’ should look at the case of Chitralekha. She is a Dalit (Pulaya caste) woman in Payannur in Kerala, married to an Other Backward Caste man. In 2003, she decided to take up the profession of autorickshaw driving (as her husband does), since the nursing course she was in training for required night work, which would have impeded on her ability to care for her children. Since then, she has been constantly harassed by the ‘caste Hindus’ who dominate the Communist Party of India (Marxist) autorickshaw union. Her autorickshaw was torched; then a new one was also ruined by having salt poured into its gas tank. Finally, she herself was beaten by a mob working with the police. When we talked to the aggressive members of the union in the local CPM office, they refused to even recognise Chitralekha’s marriage, calling her a “woman who lives outside the tracks”. After all, she and husband, Sheeshkant, had committed what the ‘sacred books’ call varna-samkara, mixture of castes.
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