'Lockdown' and 'Unlock' made centuries old stratifications of the caste system visible
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| | Unlike America’s black people, we were not brought into this city as slaves, My mother says hunger brought us to Nagpur; landlessness and poverty forced my parents to leave their village in the neighbouring district of Bhandara, and untouchability barricaded us within Dhammadeep Nagar’s boundaries.
One could say migration is a universal phenomenon that exists in developed as well as developing nations, but the meaning and causes of migration differ: My father and his untouchable friends left their villages to serve the city and become its obedient servants. They migrated to Nagpur to pull cycle rickshaws, to construct buildings, to carry luggage loads, to guard bungalows — the list is endless. Savarna caste men from his village moved to Nagpur for education, business, and white-collar employment.
When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced India’s sudden, and punitive lockdown it quickly became clear who had moved to where, and for what purpose. Even those opposed to the manner of the lockdown criticised it on the grounds of the effect on the economy, and the visible human suffering, but very few uttered what was glaringly obvious: Caste. |
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