India’s Caste Culture is a Rape Culture

[oberliner]

This past week, the world mourned with a town called Baduan in Uttar Pradesh, India. There the raped bodies of two young girls were found hanging in a mango tree while behind them their grim families refused to leave until justice was done. And as the news cycle ran statements from International NGOs, UN Officials, and pundits, there was no denying that the rotting smell of India’s strange fruit had come front and center to the world stage.

I am a Dalit woman, I’m here to tell you that this Strange Fruit has a name and its name is caste. Just as there is no way to understand sexual violence in the history of the United States without understanding racism, there is no way to understand the frequency and lack of punishment of violence against women in India right now without understanding caste.

This system ranks human beings at birth, with your family’s caste determining the whole of your life—your job, your level of spiritual purity, and your social standing. Those at the bottom are branded “Untouchables”, untouchable because we are spiritually defiling to others and thus condemned to a life of exploitation.

We are 200 million people struggling against this unjust system. We are not a small fringe group, we are a critical mass. We reject this heinous system and call ourselves “Dalits.” Dalit meaning broken by oppression, but defined by struggle.

Since independence there has been an affirmative action policy in India that has led to a first generation of Dalit doctors, scientists, lawyers, and public officials. Yet the great majority of Dalits are still condemned to the margins of life. We live in a caste apartheid with separate villages, places of worship, and even schools. It is a lethal system where, according to India’s National Crime Records Bureau, four Dalit women are raped, two Dalits are murdered, and two Dalit homes are torched every day.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/articles/2014/06/09/india-s-caste-culture-is-a-rape-culture.html

An important story in light of current events in India.

[Hydra]

1. Caste system needed to go a LONG time ago

I don't know what it is about humans, but we seem to LOVE to mark a groups of people as expendable, exploitable, and guilty of unspecified sin so all that is done to them is acceptable.

Why can't we do better?

[LuvNewcastle]

6. Humans have a lot of insecurities about their

places in society much of the time, and they search for scapegoats to punish for their own shortcomings. I don't know how the Dalits came to be the scapegoats of Indian culture for so long, but in any system that has a specific race or class that is deemed inferior, it's really all about securing a more comfortable spot for those in the higher classes. And the higher classes come to believe that they deserve their higher status.

[Gothmog]

2. The Indian caste system is really really bad

[Rex]

3. A horrible one at that. I really don't understand the evils of flirtations of youth.

That in itself is sinister shit. Kids have to grow up and learn social interactions with the other gender. Rape culture comes from insecure men with mental issues toward women and children. You can't leave children out since most of these women are children.

Caste systems are feudal and no better than the monarchies of the ME imo. Or wherever, since there are still many places ruled by aristocrats and plutocrats.

[smirkymonkey]

4. K&R

[bemildred]

5. All class systems foster sexual exploitation of the underclasses. nt

[Facility Inspector]

7. All class systems are fundamentally exploitative

The ruling class needs untermenschen to operate.

[bemildred]

8. Correct. You can't be a big shot without some minions to fetch and do for you. nt

[davidpdx]

9. K & R

A good article that reminds us that human rights issues in India need to be shined a light upon in order to change the system.