TN police arrests 300 for caste discrimination

New delhi, Jun 24: Though discrimination against India's lowest Hindu castes are technically illegal, this notion is not yet completely accepted by all the Indian states.More than 300 people have been arrested in Tamil Nadu's Thondamutur town for caste discrimination. All the members who have been taken into custody belonged to higher caste 'Gounder' community and were trying to stop a bus from entering a low caste village, that houses about 500 Dalit families.

One of the dalit family members complained,"When we travel in buses we are forced to get up from our seats and the upper community orders us to get up and says that they (Gounder community) should be the only ones who can sit." "This kind of discrimination existed only at the school level, but this has begun to spread in villages and buses as well,"he added.

They have been demanding for buses to become operational in their village, but the Gounder community did not allow it. Many school children were also taken into custody. Hundreds of policemen have been deployed to avoid any communal clash between the two communities.

Such kind of harsh treatment towards the lower community by the highr class still prevails in the country. The dalits are branded impure since the time they are born. Untouchables are shunned, insulted, banned from temples and higher caste homes, made to eat and drink from separate utensils in public places and in extreme cases, are raped, burned, lynched, and gunned down. This is the reality of strict caste system that is being followed since decades.

OneIndia News