Caste systems in Africa
Caste systems in Africa refer to forms of social stratification based on hereditary, endogamous (marriage within the group) groups tied to specific occupations, often with concepts of ritual pollution or impurity that limit social interactions like shared meals (commensality). These are found in numerous ethnic groups across more than 15 countries, especially in the Sahel and West Africa, but also in parts of East and North Africa. They differ from the Indian caste system in origins, religious basis (often not tied to Hinduism), and structure—African versions are typically less pan-societal and more focused on artisan/musician groups alongside noble, freeborn, and slave-descended strata.
Key Features of African Caste Systems
- Hereditary and Endogamous: Membership is by birth; marriage outside the caste is traditionally taboo or rare.
- Occupational Specialization: Lower or "casted" groups often handle crafts like blacksmithing, leatherworking, pottery, weaving, or roles as bards/griots (praise-singers and historians).
- Hierarchy with Ambivalence: "Casted" people may be respected for their skills (e.g., blacksmiths linked to spiritual power or fire) but stigmatized as "impure" due to myths of ancestral transgressions or polluting work.
- Social Restrictions: Limits on land ownership, political roles, burial practices, and participation in initiation societies or cultural events. Some systems include embedded slavery or slave descendants.
- Scale: These are usually pockets within ethnic groups (e.g., 10-30% of the population in affected societies), not a rigid all-encompassing system like varna in classical India. Estimates suggest they affect tens of millions, particularly in West Africa.
Caste-like discrimination persists in modern times despite legal abolitions in some countries, affecting employment, marriage, education, and political representation. Urbanization, Islam/Christianity, and modernization have weakened but not eliminated them—endogamy and subtle stigma often continue.
West Africa (Most Prominent Region)
Caste systems are well-documented among Mande-speaking peoples (Mali, Senegal, Guinea, etc.) and others like Wolof, Soninke, Fulani, Songhay, and Tuareg. They likely developed between the 9th-15th centuries, possibly linked to empire-building, slavery, and craft specialization.
Common structure (varies by group):
- Nobles/Freeborn (e.g., horon or garmi among Wolof/Mande): Highest status, warriors, rulers, or farmers.
- Occupational Castes (nyamakala or niégno): Artisans and specialists.
- Blacksmiths (numu): Metalworkers, often revered yet feared for mastery of fire/sorcery; endogamous and sometimes linguistically distinct.
- Griots/Jeli (bards/musicians): Oral historians, praise-singers; ambivalent status—powerful through words but socially separate.
- Leatherworkers, potters, weavers, etc.
- Slave Descendants (diaam or similar): Lowest, with ongoing marginalization.
Examples:
- Wolof (Senegal): Nobles, peasants (geer), occupational castes, and slave descendants. Stigma includes beliefs that contact with certain castes causes physical issues (e.g., pimples).
- Tuareg (Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso): Includes artisan castes (blacksmiths) and Bellah (slave caste) facing servitude-like conditions.
- Discrimination: Housing segregation, refusal of intermarriage, exclusion from leadership. Surveys show persistent effects on social tolerance and support for government intervention.
These systems affect an estimated 90 million people across at least 15 ethnic groups in the region.
East and Horn of Africa
- Somalia: "Sab" (low-caste) groups (blacksmiths, leatherworkers, hunters) face pollution myths, denial of land/cattle ownership, no diya (blood money) rights, and enforced endogamy. Patron-client relationships with dominant clans persist, even in diaspora.
- Ethiopia: Among Amhara and southern groups, occupational castes (tanners, potters, weavers) and slave-like strata exist with similar pollution concepts and restrictions. Marginalized groups like Manja face daily exclusion.
- Other: Limited reports in parts of Kenya or among certain groups.
Other Regions
- Madagascar: Highly stratified among Merina people, with slave castes (andevo) facing severe ongoing discrimination and exploitation despite historical abolition. UN reports highlight this as descent-based marginalization.
- Nigeria: The Osu system among Igbo involves ritual dedication leading to segregation, endogamy taboos, and violence against integration attempts.
- Mauritania and Sahel: Haratin (former slave descendants) and artisan castes endure economic and social exclusion; slavery-like practices persist in isolated areas.
Indian Diaspora and Caste in Africa
In countries with significant Indian communities (e.g., South Africa, East Africa like Kenya/Tanzania/Uganda, Mauritius), elements of the South Asian caste system were imported via indentured labor and trade migration (19th-20th centuries). Upper-caste Indians sometimes reproduced hierarchies, viewing local Africans through a caste-like lens (e.g., derogatory terms or social distance in homes). However, colonial racial categories and anti-apartheid struggles often blurred or compromised strict caste practices. Many South African Indians today report that traditional caste (Brahmin/Kshatriya etc.) is weak or irrelevant in daily life and marriage, though endogamy within broader cultural/linguistic groups persists in some families. Dalit-like consciousness or discrimination within the diaspora is less documented but exists in pockets.
Comparison to Indian SC/ST Contexts
African systems share traits with South Asian ones (endogamy, heredity, pollution, occupational links, discrimination against "low" groups) but lack a unified religious sanction like varna/jati or legal recognition akin to India's SC/ST reservations. African "casted" groups are often skilled artisans rather than purely landless laborers, and mobility has increased more through Islam, Christianity, education, and urbanization. Stigma attaches to descent-based groups (including slave descendants), leading to similar issues of social exclusion as faced by disadvantaged communities elsewhere. International bodies like the UN and Dalit Solidarity Network note parallels in descent-based discrimination.
These practices are declining in urban, educated, or migrant contexts but remain resilient in rural or traditional settings, reinforced by family names, myths, and social pressure. Many affected individuals advocate for greater awareness and integration.
Balinese caste system
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The island of Bali has a system of social organization similar to the Indian caste system.
The four castes of Bali are:
Sudras (Shudras) – peasants making up more than 90% of Bali's population. They constitute close to 93% of the population.
Satrias (Kshatriyas) – the warriors caste, it also included some nobility and kings
Note the similarity of the castes to the four varnas (shudra, vaishya, kshatriya, brahmin) of India.
Pre-modern Bali had four castes, as Jeff Lewis and Belinda Lewis state, but with a "very strong tradition of communal decision-making and interdependence". The four castes have been classified as Sudra (Shudra), Wesia (Vaishyas), Satria (Kshatriyas) and Brahmana (Brahmin).
The 19th-century scholars such as Crawfurd and Friederich suggested that the Balinese caste system had Indian origins, but Helen Creese states that scholars such as Brumund who had visited and stayed on the island of Bali suggested that his field observations conflicted with the "received understandings concerning its Indian origins". In Bali, the Shudra (locally spelled Soedra) have typically been the temple priests, though depending on the demographics, a temple priest may also be from the other three castes.
In most regions, it has been the Shudra who typically make offerings to the gods on behalf of the Hindu devotees, chant prayers, recite meweda (Vedas), and set the course of Balinese temple festivals.
The members of the four castes use different levels of the Balinese language to address members of a different caste. Middle Balinese is generally used to speak to people whose caste is unknown in an encounter. Once the caste status of the participants are established, the proper language is used to address each other.
Nowadays, the caste system is used more in religious settings where the members of the lower caste would ask the members of the Brahman caste (the Pedandas) to conduct ceremonies. Since the Dutch colonial years and more recently after the Indonesian independence, the differences in the economic roles of the members of the caste system are slowly eroding as the government prohibits treatments based on the caste system.
Most of the Kshatriya families in Java and Bali became extinct during the fall of the Majapahit and the numerous Javanese wars. Almost all of the Balinese Kshatriyas trace their origin to the royal family of King Deva Agung, who ruled 500 years before. Some of the original Kshatriyas, such as those claiming descent from Arya Damar, were relegated to Wesia status, so only those claiming descent from Deva Agung are recognized as proper Kshatriya in Bali.
During the 1950s and 1960s, there were conflicts between supporters of the traditional caste system in Bali and its opponents. Many of the latter were affiliated with the PKI, the Communist Party of Indonesia, which was violently suppressed during the Indonesian killings of 1965–1966.
UNTOUCHABLE
paria
DEFINITION
NOUN
During a recent visit, I found liberals and intellectuals, jet-setters and slum dwellers, men and women, Brahmins and untouchables expressing this Hindu pride.
a member of the lowest-caste Hindu group or a person outside the caste system. Contact with untouchables is traditionally held to defile members of higher castes.
ADJECTIVE
a receptionist looking gorgeous and untouchable
not able or allowing to be touched or affected.
of or belonging to the lowest-caste Hindu group or the people outside the caste system.
TRANSLATION OF 'UNTOUCHABLE'
NOUN
orang hina dina,
paria
ADJECTIVE
hina dina
EXAMPLE
While they were 'untouchable' last year, there may be four or five teams chasing Kilkenny's tail this year, each giving their fans a reason to feel optimistic about the summer.
Cast in the role of liberation movement valiantly fighting multiple evils of the apartheid system, the ANC is able to situate itself on the virtually 'untouchable' high moral ground.
A month or so ago, Arsenal, 49 matches without defeat, looked 'untouchable' .
He said: ‘Many offenders think that they are 'untouchable' and above the law.’
It looked ethereal, almost 'untouchable' , and I fingered the silk, let it run between my fingers like water, then folded it up with the rest of my stuff that I would need.
The outcome was ‘diversity training’, which made self-designated victim groups such as women, gays or travellers virtually 'untouchable' .
The life that can never be recreated is the invisible, 'untouchable' inner one, which cannot be reproduced even by the most psychoanalytical detective.
If the government really wanted to restore the public trust they should go after execs like those at Adelphia and Enron that betray the public trust by acting like they are above the law, that corporate crime is 'untouchable' .
The match started promisingly for Oxford, as Hannah of Oriel was 'untouchable' in the hammer throw, achieving a match record of 37. 24m.
In the streets, they are almost 'untouchable' , but their property is not.
Although there was no certainty as to the overall winner, at the time of going to press it looked like it would be the midland's day, as deputy presidential candidate, Derek from Carlow was already 'untouchable' .
If marriage is invincible, indelibly written on the human heart, 'untouchable' or only slightly touched by culture, where do all these fatherless families come from?
From his days as a small-time fence selling stolen goods from Boston's second-hand shop in Leith to the years running guns and stolen vehicles up the coast of east Africa, it appeared that he was 'untouchable' .
The health service is very politicised in this country which makes it almost 'untouchable' .
They think they are 'untouchable' because excuses are made for their appalling behaviour.
Police were today still hunting the weapon used to kill the 6ft, 20-stone criminal, who boasted in a TV documentary that he was 'untouchable' .
They were arrogant enough to think they were 'untouchable' , but they have been arrested.
They are 'untouchable' - nobody is prepared to go to court because they are too intimidated.
These three Lebanese designers have not attempted to become the disembodied and 'untouchable' master architect.
He is one of Cincinnati's top prospects, and was deemed 'untouchable' when the team was negotiating the trade.
‘It was kind of a wake-up call that we're not 'untouchable' ,’ said Logan, who lives in the District.
Indeed, the citizenry's incentive to finger such bad guys isn't particularly strong when the word on the street is that the these people are 'untouchable' .
Agreed, Danny was 'untouchable' last year with his Yakumbuyo album to the extent that fans still talk about the title-track at his shows the moment he finishes performing Kaya.
The classical epic was born in the silent era of Chaplin and Dietrich, and its success was synonymous with the golden age of Hollywood, a time of lavish productions and an exotic world of 'untouchable' screen icons.
The trio was under the impression that they were 'untouchable' and would beat the rap and began to transfer their assets to relatives' modern-day off-shore accounts.
They would at the very least hold on to their 13-point lead and with a game in hand over most of their rivals they would be virtually 'untouchable' with just four matches still to play.
Protected by his alleged status as a police informer, and until recently by two bodyguards, he has become a Scottish Don Corleone, the feared head of an 'untouchable' empire.
Are we now to assume the England rugby team is officially 'untouchable' in the prize-giving context by all except an elite comprising members of the Royal Family, knights of the realm and fellow World Cup winners?
We all know that youths are 'untouchable' , that we're not allowed to defend ourselves and that authority is ridiculed.
The order should show that no one is 'untouchable' .
Credits: Google Translate
Dalits in the Caribbean
It is estimated that in 1883, about one-third of the immigrants who arrived in the Caribbean were Dalits. The shared experience of being exploited in a foreign land gradually broke down caste barriers in the Caribbean Hindu communities.
Caribbean countries
Bahmas
Cuba
Jamaica
Saint Lucia
Dominical Repblic
Haiti
Barbados
Grenada
Saint kitts and Nevis
Dominica
Cent Vicet and the Grenadines
Antigua and Barbuda
Trinad and Tobago
Caman Islands
United States Virgin Islands
Turk and Caicos Islands
British Virgin Islands
Belize
Maxico
Nicaragua
Combodia
Guyana
Venezuela
Honduras
Costa Rica
Panama
Racial Classifications in Latin America
In the history of Latin America over the last 500 years or so, the relationships among three races have been a key factor. In the beginning, there were the various indigenous groups. Then came the European colonizers, who later brought black slaves from Africa. The relationships among these racial groups have at times been tumultuous --- war, slaughter, subjugation, slavery, exploitation, miscegenation, ...
The administration of the vast colonies was placed in the hands of nationals of the European empires. These administrators were rewarded estates for their efforts, and naturally inheritance rights became a significant issue. As a male may have multiple children with multiple women, the rights of these apparent heirs have to be defined, particularly when some of the mothers were not pure Europeans. Under Spanish rule, the following detailed caste system was instituted in Mexico at one time.
Mestizo: Spanish father and Indian mother
Castizo: Spanish father and Mestizo mother
Espomolo: Spanish mother and Castizo father
Mulatto: Spanish and black African
Moor: Spanish and Mulatto
Albino: Spanish father and Moor mother
Throwback: Spanish father and Albino mother
Wolf: Throwback father and Indian mother
Zambiago: Wolf father and Indian mother
Cambujo: Zambiago father and Indian mother
Alvarazado: Cambujo father and Mulatto mother
Borquino: Alvarazado father and Mulatto mother
Coyote: Borquino father and Mulatto mother
Chamizo: Coyote father and Mulatto mother
Coyote-Mestizo: Cahmizo father and Mestizo mother
Ahi Tan Estas: Coyote-Mestizo father and Mulatto mother
To us, this does seem to be a obsessive-compulsive behavior of an extreme sort. Today, the overt caste systems have been overturned by legislation, but that does not mean that social prejudices and economic exploitation are not present. Even though overt racial oppression is no longer permissible by law, people may still hold personal opinions about members of other races based upon preconceived notions.
Now much of this is premised upon one's ability to classify people into the appropriate racial categories based upon physical appearances. Unfortunately, this is difficult as there is not a clear-cut situation when any individual can be unambiguously classified into one (and only one) of a short list of racial classes. A simple classification scheme based upon color --- white, black, brown and yellow --- ignores the various shades.
One way to derive a classification system is through self-definition, which presumably applies to others too. In 1976, the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) conducted a study to ask people to identify their own skin color. Here are the 134 terms, listed in alphabetical order:
Acastanhada (cashewlike tint; caramel colored)
Agalegada
Alva (pure white)
Alva-escura (dark or off-white)
Alverenta (or aliviero, "shadow in the water")
Alvarinta (tinted or bleached white)
Alva-rosada (or jamote, roseate, white with pink highlights)
Alvinha (bleached; white-washed)
Amarela (yellow)
Amarelada (yellowish)
Amarela-quemada (burnt yellow or ochre)
Amarelosa (yellowed)
Amorenada (tannish)
Avermelhada (reddish, with blood vessels showing through the skin)
Azul (bluish)
Azul-marinho (deep bluish)
Baiano (ebony)
Bem-branca (very white)
Bem-clara (translucent)
Bem-morena (very dusky)
Branca (white)
Branca-avermelhada (peach white)
Branca-melada (honey toned)
Branca-morena (darkish white)
Branca-pálida (pallid)
Branca-queimada (sunburned white)
Branca-sardenta (white with brown spots)
Branca-suja (dirty white)
Branquiça (a white variation)
Branquinha (whitish)
Bronze (bronze)
Bronzeada (bronzed tan)
Bugrezinha-escura (Indian characteristics)
Burro-quanto-foge ("burro running away," implying racial mixture of unknown origin)
Cabocla (mixture of white, Negro and Indian)
Cabo-Verde (black; Cape Verdean)
Café (coffee)
Café-com-leite (coffee with milk)
Canela (cinnamon)
Canelada (tawny)
Castão (thistle colored)
Castanha (cashew)
Castanha-clara (clear, cashewlike)
Castanha-escura (dark, cashewlike)
Chocolate (chocolate brown)
Clara (light)
Clarinha (very light)
Cobre (copper hued)
Corado (ruddy)
Cor-de-café (tint of coffee)
Cor-de-canela (tint of cinnamon)
Cor-de-cuia (tea colored)
Cor-de-leite (milky)
Cor-de-oro (golden)
Cor-de-rosa (pink)
Cor-firma ("no doubt about it")
Crioula (little servant or slave; African)
Encerada (waxy)
Enxofrada (pallid yellow; jaundiced)
Esbranquecimento (mostly white)
Escura (dark)
Escurinha (semidark)
Fogoio (florid; flushed)
Galega (see agalegada above)
Galegada (see agalegada above)
Jambo (like a fruit the deep-red color of a blood orange)
Laranja (orange)
Lilás (lily)
Loira (blond hair and white skin)
Loira-clara (pale blond)
Loura (blond)
Lourinha (flaxen)
Malaia (from Malabar)
Marinheira (dark greyish)
Marrom (brown)
Meio-amerela (mid-yellow)
Meio-branca (mid-white)
Meio-morena (mid-tan)
Meio-preta (mid-Negro)
Melada (honey colored)
Mestiça (mixture of white and Indian)
Miscigenação (mixed --- literally "miscegenated")
Mista (mixed)
Morena (tan)
Morena-bem-chegada (very tan)
Morena-bronzeada (bronzed tan)
Morena-canelada (cinnamonlike brunette)
Morena-castanha (cashewlike tan)
Morena clara (light tan)
Morena-cor-de-canela (cinnamon-hued brunette)
Morena-jambo (dark red)
Morenada (mocha)
Morena-escura (dark tan)
Morena-fechada (very dark, almost mulatta)
Morenão (very dusky tan)
Morena-parda (brown-hued tan)
Morena-roxa (purplish-tan)
Morena-ruiva (reddish-tan)
Morena-trigueira (wheat colored)
Moreninha (toffeelike)
Mulatta (mixture of white and Negro)
Mulatinha (lighter-skinned white-Negro)
Negra (negro)
Negrota (Negro with a corpulent vody)
Pálida (pale)
Paraíba (like the color of marupa wood)
Parda (dark brown)
Parda-clara (lighter-skinned person of mixed race)
Polaca (Polish features; prostitute)
Pouco-clara (not very clear)
Pouco-morena (dusky)
Preta (black)
Pretinha (black of a lighter hue)
Puxa-para-branca (more like a white than a mulatta)
Quase-negra (almost Negro)
Queimada (burnt)
Queimada-de-praia (suntanned)
Queimada-de-sol (sunburned)
Regular (regular; nondescript)
Retinta ("layered" dark skin)
Rosa (roseate)
Rosada (high pink)
Rosa-queimada (burnished rose)
Roxa (purplish)
Ruiva (strawberry blond)
Russo (Russian; see also polaca)
Sapecada (burnished red)
Sarará (mulatta with reddish kinky hair, aquiline nose)
Saraúba (or saraiva: like a white meringue)
Tostada (toasted)
Trigueira (wheat colored)
Turva (opaque)
Verde (greenish)
Vermelha (reddish)
This scheme is unusable for practical purposes, since it is highly subjective and contains far too many classes. We have printed this list precisely to demonstrate how absurd this is.
If we cannot let people classify themselves, then the alternative is to let others do it. The Los Medios y Mercados de Latinoamérica study is a pan-Latin American survey in which interviewers are sent to interview a representative sample of people in their homes. As part of the interviewing process, the interviewer is required to classify the respondents into one (and only one) of seven racial categories: white, black, indigenous, mulatto, mestizo, asian and "Don't know". Of course, this is not an exact science since there is no way to train people to classify 'correctly' (whatever that means) and/or 'reliably' (in the sense that different interviewers should come up with the same result). For example, the difference between 'Indigenous' and 'Indian' may be less of a genetic issue than one about dress code. That is to say, we freely admit that the results that we will present in the following are 'junk' science.
The following table shows the distributions of racial categories by geographical region in Latin America (the rows sum up to 100%)
White
Black
Indigenous
Mulatto
Mestizo
Asian
Don't Know
Argentina
89%
0%
1%
1%
6%
0%
4%
Brazil
51%
9%
1%
28%
10%
1%
1%
Chile
34%
0%
2%
5%
54%
1%
4%
Colombia
7%
4%
1%
22%
66%
0%
1%
Mexico
10%
0%
1%
3%
77%
0%
9%
Venezuela
30%
9%
1%
38%
19%
0%
3%
Balance of Cen. Amer.
13%
3%
1%
22%
58%
1%
4%
Balance of South Amer.
8%
0%
9%
3%
77%
1%
2%
TOTAL
34%
4%
2%
17%
40%
0%
3%
(source: Los Medios y Mercados de Latinoamérica 1998)
There are significant differences in the distributions of the racial categories by geographical region. The uneven distributions are the result of the varied historical factors: such as the size of the indigenous populations (e.g. Aztec empire in Mexico, Incan empire in Peru, etc), the importation of black slaves from Africa to work in the agricultural fields (e.g. high in Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, Dominican Republic and Venezuela), the mass immigration from Europe (e.g. high in Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Uruguay), etc.
The next table shows the distribution of Socio-Economic Level within each racial category (the columns sum up to 100%).
White
Black
Indigenous
Mulatto
Mestizo
Asian
Level A
19%
3%
0%
4%
7%
10%
Level B
29%
7%
6%
19%
18%
34%
Level C
29%
26%
19%
29%
30%
35%
Level D
23%
64%
75%
64%
46%
21%
(source: Los Medios y Mercados de Latinoamérica 1998)
The interpretation of such socio-economic data is highly problematic and controversial. The data made it clear that the persons of white european descent have the best socio-economic conditions. The big question is, Why? Are they still reaping the benefits of five hundred years of exploitation, using their superior positions (in matters of government, military, business, religion and so on) to protect their interests? Or are they inherently superior? We don't pretend that we have the bullet-proof answer, and arguments about this issue are too often settled by bullets ..
Centuries Of Discrimination:
European Roma Linked To India’s ‘Untouchables’
By Palash Ghosh
Roma in France
Europe’s Roma community – better known around the world by the pejorative ‘Gypsy’ – descended from India’s Dalit, i.e., ‘Untouchable’ caste, according to research by Indian academics.
While the Roma’s links to India have long been established, particularly due to physical similarities and the existence of Sanskrit words in the Romany language, this study, published in the scientific journal ‘Nature,’ explicitly posits their connection to the Dalits -- the most oppressed and marginalized peoples in India – through the evaluation of 10,000 DNA samples taken on men across India and Roma males in Europe.
Researchers at Hyderabad's Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology – in collaboration with colleagues in Estonia and Switzerland -- found that the closest genetic match to European Roma men was discovered among Dalits living in present-day northwestern India.
If true, the assessment would suggest that the Roma have endured nothing but discrimination and persecution -- in both India and Europe -- for thousands of years.
Roma are believed to have migrated westward from India sometime in the early Middle Ages -- or perhaps as early as 600 AD -- moving through Persia, the near East and ultimately into Eastern and Central Europe. Along the way, they picked up words and customs from the various cultures they encountered.
However, what prompted them to leave India remains a mystery -- perhaps a desire to escape the oppressive Hindu caste system; or, conversely, a fear of the spread of Islam in India.
In contemporary Europe, the long nomadic Roma are principally ‘settled’ in eastern Europe, where they make up a sizable minority. But smaller Roma communities are also found as far north as Scandinavia and as far west as Britain and Ireland; and as far south as North Africa.
Ironically, the German word for Roma, "Zigeuner," derives from a Greek root which means "untouchable."
Dr. Toomas Kivisild of Cambridge University, who participated in the study, told the Daily Telegraph, that the study offers "evidence for the further interpretation of history of what kind of processes were triggering these [westward] movements [by Roma]".
Britain's Gypsy Council praised the study.
"We are Britain's first Non-Resident Indian community," said Joseph Jones, council spokesman.
"We're not outcasts here. I don't care if we are associated with Dalits -- I don't live in a community where caste exists. I do feel a bit Indian, I've always felt an affinity with Indians.”
Jones also urged Britain’s Indian-Pakistani immigrant community to embrace the Roma as their own.
Although well established in Europe for centuries, many Roma remain trapped in grinding poverty and face widespread prejudice.
According to Dr. Nidhi Trehan, an independent scholar and an expert on Roma, there are now somewhere between 6 to 7 million Roma in Europe (excluding Russia), with large populations in Slovakia, Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria and Hungary, where over 5 percent of the population is Roma.
In Slovakia, she said, almost 10 percent of the population in Roma (although many Hungarian-speaking Roma declare themselves as “ethnic Hungarians” in the census). Similarly, many Romanian-speaking Roma declare themselves as “Romanians” in the census, likewise with Bulgaria and Hungary.
In Western Europe, Spain has the largest percentage of Roma -- comprising its indigenous Gitano community and the ‘Hungaros‘ -- the later arrivals who came from eastern Europe in the late 18th century after emancipation from slavery.
Italy's Untouchable Caste
LA CASTA: COSÌ I POLITICI ITALIANI SONO DIVENTATI INTOCCABILI(THE CASTE: HOW ITALIAN POLITICIANS HAVE BECOME UNTOUCHABLE)ITALY IS A MOUNTAINOUS COUNTRY. AND, WITH TROUBLESOME TRANSPORTATION, DIFFICULT AGRICULTURE, AND LITTLE INTEREST FROM INDUSTRY, THE TOWNS AND VILLAGES IN THE ITALIAN HIGHLANDS MOVE AT A SLOWER PACE THAN COMMUNITIES AT LOWER ELEVATIONS. THE RESULT? PER CAPITA INCOMES IN ITALY'S MOUNTAINS ARE GENERALLY MUCH LOWER THAN THE NATIONAL AVERAGE.
But Italy is also a country where a sense of community and solidarity play huge roles both in interpersonal relations and in the central government's policies. So, in the 1970s, the Italian government created le comunità montane, or "mountain communities." They were designed to be marked-off areas in the Italian highlands that would receive tax cuts, easy credit, and subsidies to alleviate the hardships of mountain life. In 2005, these communities received contributions of more than $240 million, or $28 per resident.
Rather than hand out the subsidies as prescribed, though, Italian politicians have applied the rather vague "mountain community" designation to any city, town, or village where political favor is for sale. As a result, the mountains have reached all the way to the sea. For example, in Palagiano, a small town in southern Italy that sits just 128 feet above sea level, those earmarked funds haven't ended up in the citizens' pockets; they've been used almost entirely to pay for new public offices and a small army of state bureaucrats called to "represent" the mountain communities.
The story of Palagiano opens the new book of two well-respected political journalists, Sergio Rizzo and Gian Antonio Stella: La Casta: Così i politici italiani sono diventati intoccabili (The Caste: How Italian Politicians Have Become Untouchable). According to Rizzo and Stella, veterans at Italy'sCorriere della Sera newspaper, Italian political life has been hijacked by what they have termed "the Caste," a political class of thousands of lawmakers who have devised rules that enrich themselves at public expense with little fear of oversight, accountability, or, in some cases, prosecution. The Caste, they claim, extends all the way to the president of the republic. But the breadth of the Caste is far greater than any one person or office. Rizzo and Stella report that members of Parliament continue to belong to the Caste even after they have resigned from office; that at least 16 of them have criminal records; and that Italy's presidential palace costs more than four times as much to operate as Buckingham Palace. The Caste is full of such charges, which the authors unearthed from hundreds of pages of official, unclassified documents. It is a stunning indictment of the privileges, costs, abuses, and waste in Italian politics.
Unsurprisingly, The Caste has become the center of political debate in Italy. For many, it is a conversation about Italian politics that began in 1992 with the criminal investigation of leading politicians on bribery and corruption charges, called Mani Pulite, or "Clean Hands." After the investigation, two of the main political parties -- the Christian Democrats and the Socialists -- collapsed and disappeared. Until The Caste came along, though, there had been no real catalyst for widespread public dissent about Italy's lawmakers. It has sold almost 1 million copies, an unthinkable number for this kind of political work, and has become, without a doubt, the book of the year in Italy.
Italians are fed up with the way their country has been run -- and, in flocking to bookstores in droves, they're expressing real disappointment in a way that's more immediate and effective than at the voting booth. In Italy, political leadership is not generated through a free competition of ideas, with parties presenting lists of candidates from which the most appealing can be chosen. Instead, the Caste decides who will be part of it and who will not. In the voting booth, people are faced with symbols of the parties and blocked lists of names: When a voter chooses Party A or Party B, he or she is not deciding who will be elected, because this choice is -- by law -- a prerogative of the heads of Parties A and B. For years, a standard reply was issued to anyone criticizing Italian parties and politicians' infinite generosity toward no one but themselves: "Politics has its costs, and that is the price of democracy." To be fair, a debate over the costs of politics is happening throughout Europe -- over how much the state ought to finance parties and what compensation should be given to those who handle public matters. But Italy's case is profoundly different from the rest of the European Union, because Italians simply do not have the chance to change the politicians they don’t like.
Rizzo and Stella chalk up Italian politicians' unique status partly to the economic guarantees that the Caste extends to its members. Every month, a senator receives somewhere between $16,800 and $18,200, which includes both a basic salary of $5,600 and a variety of immunities and privileges large and small, everything from free rides on trains and airplanes, to reserved seats at soccer games, movies, and plays. In theory, these are not astronomical stipends. The problem, however, becomes disturbingly evident once the level of compensation is compared with the perennially dismal state of Italy's public finances. For more than 20 years, Italian governments of all political persuasions have had to confront a public debt well above 100 percent of gross domestic product. That means that in 2007, Italy will have to pay $98 billion as interest on its debt, or almost 80 percent of what it spends to finance one of the best universal healthcare systems in Europe.
In so many other democracies, corrupt and wasteful politicians would simply be thrown out of office with the next election cycle. But adding to the resentment among Italians is the fact that the Caste doesn’t simply occupy a building in Rome or belong to a single party; politicians on both the left and the right belong to this self-perpetuating political class. Of course, there are exceptions. But the few ethical politicians face an almost hopeless struggle against this nomenklaturawhose roots permeate the entire country, from north to south, creating smaller Castes at the local and regional level.
Notably, the Caste has offered up very little in response to Rizzo and Stella's charges. In late July, the presidents of the Senate and Chamber of Deputies announced -- in grand style -- their intention to one day reform the parliamentary pension system and recall a $4,200 annual allowance for themselves, as measures to cut politicians’ benefits. Of course, it didn't help that members of Parliament were granted an automatic salary hike amounting to more than $280 a month just a few weeks later.
Indeed, the Caste's response has been so muted that it may have aggravated the problem. In September, public discontent was funneled into a protest led by a popular comedian, Beppe Grillo. Riding on the coattails of a recent Supreme Court ruling, in which it was decided that gracing someone with the supreme insult is not in fact punishable by law, Grillo organized a "F@#k You Day" throughout Italy, collecting signatures to present a popular-initiative law that would prohibit the election of politicians who have been convicted for criminal behavior and set a maximum of two five-year terms for parliamentarians. In one afternoon, he collected 300,000 signatures.
To this, the Caste reacted immediately, labeling the ballot initiative as the usual apathy and populist mistrust toward politics. Although the irony may have been lost on them, those politicians reacting with irritation toward the comedian’s petition only confirmed the perception that the Caste believes it alone should participate in Italian politics. But, with a million copies of Rizzo and Stella's damning indictment sold, the odds that Italians will simply stay put and watch have never been so low. Today, the Caste has never seemed less untouchable.
Casteism in Canada
A study by Canadian academics has shown that “right-wing ideology forms a ‘pathway’ for people with low reasoning ability to become prejudiced against groups such as other races and gay people”. In my experience, you can add class to this list as well. All you people out there with low reasoning ability, who think Clive Palmer is untouchable because he is rich, and think that by being derogatory about Port Adelaide you are embedding yourself in a higher class, perhaps it’s time you had a think about what is motivating your prejudice.
‘We are zero’: Immigrant says she can't escape sting of India's caste system, even in Canada
To an outsider, Kamlesh Ahir is no different than the thousands of Canadians of South Asian heritage. Among her own people, her last name brands her as a dalit
Author of the article:Postmedia News
Publishing date:Oct 10, 2013 • January 25, 2015 • 4 minute read • Join the conversation
Arlen Redekop/Postmedia News/Files
VANCOUVER — For most of her life, Kamlesh Ahir has been trying to escape the caste system that’s defined her from birth.
She went to university, abandoned her religion and, in 1994, left India for Canada, a new land offering a fresh start.
Rosebud Motel from Schitt's Creek up for sale for $2 million in Ontario town
Or so she thought.
To an outsider, Ms. Ahir is no different than the more than 200,000 people of South Asian heritage who call Metro Vancouver home.
Yet among her own people, her last name brands her as a dalit, the people formerly called untouchables.
Dalits occupy the lowest rung in the Indian caste system, a rigid class structure rooted in Hinduism that dictated occupation and social status.
Condemned to live on the margins of society, they used to be denied access to schools and temples. They were confined to jobs deemed unclean, such as handling human waste or dead animals, and could be punished for letting their shadow fall on someone of an upper caste.
The Indian government banned castes more than 60 years ago and gave dalits substantial rights. But discrimination remains widespread, especially in rural areas. Even in Canada, ingrained attitudes, centuries old, are not easy to change.
“They think we are bulls–t. We are zero. We are a dog, less than a dog,” says Ms. Ahir, who was born into the chamar caste, whose members traditionally worked as tanners.
“They think we are nothing. It doesn’t matter if we are a doctor, teacher, because we belong to the lower castes.
“I’m in Canada … But the bulls–t castes are still here. We live it every day.”
Arlen Redekop/Postmedia News/Files
New immigrants can face as much discrimination in their own ethnic communities as they do from mainstream society.
It’s a discrimination based not on race, but on a variety of factors such as class, colour, caste, economic status, politics or region of origin.
It’s manifested in the stereotypes traded between Hong Kong Chinese and mainland Chinese immigrants; or when Canadian-born descendants of immigrants look down on newcomers as “FOBs,” or “fresh off the boat;” or when new immigrants call their Canadian-born brethren arguably derogatory names like “banana” or “coconut.”
For the estimated 25,000 dalits in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland, the barbs are often subtle.
They come in seemingly innocuous questions about your family village or last name — two markers that can identify a person’s caste.
They show up in careless conversation, among friends, behind closed doors. A messy house is referred to as a chamar house. An upper-caste woman might tell her unkempt daughter to tidy herself up so she doesn’t look like a chura, another dalit group.
‘I’m in Canada … But the bulls–t castes are still here. We live it every day’
Some dalits interviewed, including Ms. Ahir’s husband Sutey, shared stories of how they were called slur words by fellow Indo-Canadians.
One man recounted listening to colleagues, who did not know he was dalit, exchanging crude jokes about dalit women and rape.
Another woman recounted how her best friend, a woman from what was considered a higher caste, was divorced by her husband who couldn’t stomach their friendship.
Activists say some dalits who own businesses are scared of being outed in case customers stop patronizing them. Many change their names.
Divisions on the basis of castes are visible in Hindu temples and Sikh gurdwaras. Ironically, Sikhism recognizes all people as equal. Officially, there are no castes. But reality is different.
The dalit gurdwara in Burnaby was founded in 1982 after dalit worshippers felt unwelcome in an upper-caste gurdwara.
In between preparing samosas with mint chutney and piping-hot cups of chai tea, Ms. Ahir explains why she abandoned Hinduism and converted to Buddhism.
The Hindu gods kept her people down, she says scornfully.
The only reason she was able to go to school, get a passport and immigrate was because of Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar, the chief architect of India’s constitution, revered by dalits as a hero.
Racism is something she can understand, she says, because people look different.
“But god, my colour is the same. My language is the same. My living standard is the same. But still they are discriminatory to me.”
Arrival Survival Canada
Arrival Survival CanadaDalit activists say casteism is worse than racism — and harder to eradicate.
“It is not easy to identify. But you feel it,” said Varinder Dabri, a Surrey, B.C., veterinarian born a chamar.
“When you are working with mainstream society, no one asks you your caste. But when you are working with people from India, the first thing they want to know is the caste.”
Jai Birdi of the Chetna Association, which seeks to raise awareness of casteism in British Columbia, said it is difficult to identify the scope of the problem.
“It’s like any other invisible disability. If you can’t see it, it’s hard to do anything about it,” he said.
Nowhere is caste bias more pronounced than in marriage. Many parents still prefer their children to marry within their own castes; matrimonial ads in Punjabi-language publications still specify castes among the must-haves in prospective spouses.
Mr. Birdi believes there are more interracial marriages than inter-caste unions among Indo-Canadians.
‘My colour is the same. My language is the same. My living standard is the same. But still they are discriminatory to me’
Many upper-caste Indo-Canadians Postmedia News talked to — mostly Jat Sikhs, who are traditionally farmers and landowners — say there is still prejudice against dalits, but its existence and depth vary among families.
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Some say they use caste only as a marker of their roots, but not to judge other people.
Many emphasize caste bias is more prevalent among their elders and is dying out among the younger generation.
Others say education and wealth can sometimes smooth out any differences in caste.
Such an attitude is Ms. Ahir’s hope. She and her husband did not tell their two children about the caste system.
They are, they tell them, simply Canadian.
Their son, who is going into his first year at university, says he has only felt “a little bit” of discrimination against him because of his caste.
Adds Ms. Ahir, “Maybe our grandkids and our great-grandkids, they won’t know what it is about anymore.”
Casteism to UK and USA
Word Caste is derived from the Portuguese word “Casta”, which means lineage, breed, or race. Few years back, very interestingly few major cases of discrimination came into light from the developed nations such as USA and UK. (In one case an Indian millionaire couple was caught for exploiting a maid”, “in another case a Hindu father set on fires his daughter’s house in USA because she married a lower caste person”, one another news was “A Boston graduate was molested and sexually abused by a Hindu Priest of a Hindu temple in Moshi, Tanzania”). Today again, I read one another news from the newspaper – The Tribune – which reported “Indian couple in UK alleges caste discrimination”
Apart from all these there was news few days back that fanatic Hindus are strengthening their base in USA, UK universities through the Hindu students studying there. The mentality of these Hindus is if we can’t become like USA then what? We can make USA like India. I think one the same lines they have started working for! Around one in 25 people in the world experiences some form of caste discrimination. About 300 million people suffer caste discrimination throughout the world. More than half of these are in India.
Castes which earlier used to exist in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh etc countries, now these incidents show that caste has been exported from India to the many other developed countries. This rising trend should be the area of concern of all the governments & all those who are concerned about the basic human rights and good community relationships. Despite India’s objection, first time in 2001 Caste Discrimination was brought in front of whole world (by the people working for Dalit Rights) at the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) held at Durban. But still we see no change in the system, people those were suffering, still are suffering under the blot of caste system. When the darkness of casteism shed, no-body knows!
These incidents are not new, reports (July, 2006) of “Dalit Solidarity Network UK (DSN)” clearly showed Caste Discrimination prevailing in UK. When asked by DSN “Do you believe that Indian people in the UK follow the caste system?84.67% people said YES. 80% agreed that caste divide people. Even in UK, USA, Canada and many other countries there are separate Gurudawaras (Temples of Sikhs) i.e. Ramgarhia, Jat (upper caste in Punjab), and Ravidasi (followers of Guru Ravidas) people can be seen visiting different Gurudawaras same as it happens in Punjab (India). Where Sikhism is heading? Sikh Gurus have treated everyone with equality and worked to abolish caste system but today’s Sikh leaders have lost that track.
Credit: http://www.sikhnet.com
Another research by Mark Juergensmeyer from UK states that, “Caste relationships between caste groups seem to be upheld to a great extent…the rules of endogamy (marrying within the caste group) are still strictly followed”. People face discrimination in political, education, employment & health sector mainly (as it happens in India), though may be somewhat lesser or to the same extant. The former Mayor of Coventry, Ram Lakha, a Labour Councillor who is a Dalit, faced intense discrimination from ‘upper castes’ when he stood for election in a largely Indian ward. ‘During campaigning he was often told that he would not get people’s vote as he was a “chamar”. So he filed his nomination in a non-Asian constituency and was able to win.
Few other past incidents reported are as follows:
A shopkeeper in Wolverhampton, England, tells of an incident where a customer insisted that their change be placed on the counter to avoid contact with someone from a lower caste.
On a factory floor, in Wolverhampton, England, women from so-called upper castes will not take water from the same tap as a lower caste person.
“Caste has caused division and it does cause social devastation. The problem is that nobody has accepted the problem within this country (UK). Caste is one area which is totally swept under the carpet”. — “The Caste Divide,” BBC Radio 4, April 2003
Rodiya community of Sri Lanka is considered as lower caste people, similarly Buraku community of Japan also have suffered same as Dalits are still suffering in India, but because of the Buddhism in Sri Lanka & Japan the condition of Buraku & Rodiya people is now somewhat better than the Dalits of India. It was considered that globalization will destroy the Caste but caste system is so deeply rooted in Hindu religious practices that there seems no such scope, wherever these Hindus will go, they will carry caste discrimination with themselves & will stop the development & harmony of that country. Is there any scope for human development if we continue to live with Caste Discrimination? As said by Dr Ambedkar that only escape is conversion from Hinduism, as such there is no use of living in the religion which teaches you discrimination & where there is no value of human & humanity.
Untouchables (Dalits) are made Religious, Economic and Political Slaves by means of Hindu Caste System. Noticing the new cases of caste discrimination in developed countries, I think it’s a hard time for the international leaders at UN to again rework on the present policies related to the “Caste Discrimination”. Also people who believed in “Basic Human Rights” from all over the world have to come forward to destroy “Hindu Caste System” and give justice to millions of people suffering since last thousands of years.
Class Warfare – Australia’s Untouchables
Yesterday I saw the movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. I give it five stars. This is not why I’m mentioning it in my post. One small part of the film got me thinking about the Australian class system, and why it is the way it is.
In the movie, there is a servant working at the hotel who is from the Indian ‘untouchable’ caste. I’ve always hated hearing about the caste system in India. Such entrenched disadvantage and discrimination is terrible for a society. That train of thought got me thinking about whether Australia has an ‘untouchable’ class, and, influenced by this article I read in the SMH by Peter Hartcher, I’ve decided we do. But unlike India, where the untouchables are poverty stricken, Australia’s ‘untouchable’ class is the richest people in our society. It seems to be that this sub-set can do or say anything they like, and remain completely untouched by criticism or scrutiny.
As an example, apparently Clive Palmer, mining billionaire, can get away with saying that the Greens are financed by the CIA in a conspiracy to bring down the Australian coal industry (WTF!), and can then days later joke that he only said it to help the LNP’s chances in the QLD election that weekend. A party to which he has donated millions of dollars. Australian journalists report this all as if Palmer has every right to ‘play’ the media and the public in this way. Supposedly because he’s rich. So why does his wealth make him so untouchable? Why can he say and do anything he likes and the media will report it as genuine news, when anyone with half a brain can see that his only motivation in life is to further his own wealth? He’s not fighting against the carbon tax because he doesn’t believe in climate change. He just doesn’t give a shit that the climate is changing. As long as his wealth is growing, his needs are met.
In Hartcher’s article, Greens leader Bob Brown was quoted as saying: “This (Clive Palmer’s comments) has generated more publicity in Queensland than the whole Greens campaign. Our campaign launch had zero coverage.” This situation is completely beyond ridiculous. Every time Palmer, or fellow mining billionaires, Rinehart and Twiggy open their mouths to let out a belch of tax hating, wealth loving, greed promoting, self-interested gibberish, the media report it as fact and such very important fact at that. Wake up people!
The Australian public on the whole have a very strange attitude towards class. I assume it’s similar in most western societies, where a large proportion of the middle class would like to think of themselves as upper class, and do their best to espouse this belonging by being derogatory about the working class. I see this attitude a lot through two of my passions – football and politics. I’m a passionate supporter of my football club, Port Adelaide. My club has a long and proud history of success (even if we are going though a bit of a dry period at the moment). I support this club because my grandpa did, and my dad and now my whole family. The club has working class roots and these days has a huge mixture of supporters from the very poor, to the very rich. Having been back in Adelaide for a couple of months now, I am reacquainting myself with the way that many in this city use snobbery about Port Adelaide to make themselves feel like they belong to a higher class. Basically, by being derogatory and rude about Port supporters, in most cases to our faces, they are making themselves feel like they must have achieved some sort of status in the world, as only those who aren’t working class could be in a position to degrade the ‘bogan ugg boot wearers’ from Port Adelaide. If I didn’t find it so offensive and downright annoying, it would be amusing. Similarly, I believe many people in this country vote for the Liberal party because they believe that this signals that they are not working class, and have thus achieved something in life. Little do they care, or try to understand, that the Liberal party doesn’t exist to support middle class Australia.
Perhaps the division between left and right wing in this country is much simpler than I am making it out.
“Aborigines of Australia, like Dalits, are victims of neglect”
D. KARTHIKEYAN
Aborigines of Australia, like the Tribals and Dalits of India, are victims of neglect and callousness and dispossessed of their land and other means of livelihood by non-aboriginals. The community, especially the children, is in the midst of major problems, according to Howard Bath, Children's Commissioner, Northern Territory, Australia.
A well-known clinical psychologist, 58-year-old Dr. Bath has a long history of providing consultancy, clinical and training services relating to the needs of disadvantaged children and young people. His particular clinical interests include work with young people who have experienced developmental trauma and those with problems around aggression and sexuality.
He was in Madurai for a short trip to look at the programmes organised by Nanban, an organisation working among children hailing from marginalised sections of society.
Asked about the situation in Australia on child rights, he said that child rights issues are very important and always find a prominent place in the public discourse. In Northern Territory, the child rights issue becomes significant as more than 40 per cent of the people are Aborigines and three quarters of all the children abused are also from that community of Indigenous People. Neglect by not recognising their rights and their status as citizens were the major problems the community face, he said.
“In Australia, the biggest problem is not money but history; yes Aboriginals do not believe the non-Aboriginals and do not trust them because they dispossessed them of their lands, their culture and history. So, as far as child rights are concerned we are making Aboriginals to become representatives of their own cause.”
To the rescue
Urbanisation has somewhat helped the Aborigines as one could not find any tangible differences in their socio-economic status when compared with fellow inhabitants. However the problems remain in the countryside where they find it difficult to accustom with the changing environment and they do not want to come to cities but cities are going to them. On the similarities and differences with the Indian experience, he said that poverty is still a major link with neglect and abuse. Alcohol is another major contributor to the condition and this could be the similarity.
He also pointed out that there are very few social workers and psychologists working for child rights in India whereas in Australia even a small city like Darwin has close to 300 social workers and psychologists.
Axes of Words: Poetry of the Australian
Aborigines and Indian Dalits
by Rajnish Mishra
Many things have changed with the passage of time but the power that words have over human minds remains unaltered and undiminished. Poetry communicates the living, pulsating life-experiences and aims at bringing about change. This is more applicable to it when it is committed to a cause. Aboriginal Australian and Dalit Indian poets and poems take a stance that is predominantly committed. “In a wholly racialized society, there is no escape from racially inflected language, and the work writers do to unhobble the imagination from the demands of the language is complicated, interesting and definitive” (Paul 60). They are driven by the dominant current of reactions against an exploitative system. They assert an individual, caste or racial-ethnic pride same as the various movements of the coloured peoples of the United States, South Africa or many other parts of the world. Australian blacks and Indian Dalits, who sometimes refer to their blackness too, have a core resemblance: they have been and are being very heavily discriminated against. These peoples, whose voices had been suppressed for a long time, and who had been marginalized completely, had a Blakean choice before them. They can either create their own system or be enslaved by that made by others. Instead of choosing to live as branded “infra” humans in a malevolent and maleficent system, they opt for liberty(limited initially but finally full) and equality, if not fraternity with amity, to begin with.
Only God has the hypothetical power of creating matter ex nihilo. He is the only exception to the law: “Nothing will come out of nothing.” All human products of imagination are definitely the outcome of the creative processes of human mind, but that site of creation (the subject as an entity) is itself the point where various intersecting lines of effect meet. It is a very interesting thing when two peoples separated by several hundred miles of oceans, without any definite and prominent socio-cultural exchange, produce literature that has themes that may be called mirror images, albeit with unique features of their own. This paper focuses only on the poems of the Australian Aborigines and Indian Dalits in English or translated into it from various Indian languages.
The history of oppression by the fair skinned man – although differing in details and extent – is shared by the Australian black and Indian brown-black peoples. Officially, India gained independence in 1947, so did the Dalits, in theory. Officially Australia changed its governmental assimilationist stance to the multicultural one in the 1970’s, so its indigenous people were recognized as equal humans with rights to dignity and liberty, in theory. The ground reality is different in both the countries. Untouchability was decreed unconstitutional in India on paper but the people of that caste were never freed of the stigma in practice. They continued being the unpurchased slaves of the upper castes because of the monolithic social structure of India. There is an uncanny parallel between the courses of the history of subjugation and exploitation of the two peoples. The responding voices are a legion, but their core concerns are conspicuous and clear, as is evident from an analysis of the poetry of the Australian Aborigine and the Indian Dalit. The hitherto dormant volcano of their heart erupts and the lava of their anger, discontent, frustration and angst flows out with force as in J. V. Pawar’s “Birds in prison”:
Shouting slogans to condemn or uphold
a blaze of fire marches forth
And forest fires take birth
in oceans that seek to oppose.
What obstacle shall now withhold
Our turning volcanic vein by vein
digging trenches
every inch of the terrain?
The age old system of oppression and discrimination finds staunch opposition. Just like the Dalits, the Australian Aborigines too had been silenced by the forces far beyond their control because “just as the Crown’s acquisition of 1770 had made sovereign Aboriginal land terra nullius, it also made aboriginal people vox nullius” (Heiss and Minter 8). They resist in various ways and literature is one of them. Their poems assert their identity and the pride they take in it. They also emphasize their right to be treated as equals to their fellow mortals who claim themselves to be the more equals among the equals.
The dispossessed, those whose dignity was snatched away, reclaim it and don’t hesitate to snatch it back from the usurpers even violently, if the occasion demands it. Women, the doubly dispossessed, the subaltern among the subalterns, the invisible, yet irritatingly present entities of this discourse, have been subjected to the worse kind of oppression. Be they the subaltern of Australia or India, their voice is heard amid the tumultuous uproar of multitudinous voices. In fact, it has never been silenced completely, e.g. the Dalit women have never been so effectively silenced as their middle class counterparts from Hindu upper castes. The oral and performative aspects of their expressions cannot be discounted as they have had a strong tradition of lavanis and tamashas where they have presented their thoughts candidly, although they are new to the expression in the form of printed words.
History is theirs who have the power and means to write it. The ever silenced subaltern never gets the centre stage. Where all action is shown in progress they remain “invisible” as always. As Fanon or Malcolm X proclaimed, these voices assert that violence must be employed if needed, against the exploiters whose best interest is in maintaining the status quo through perpetuation of their hegemony. It is the process of maintaining the hegemony that has taken a lot of ideological support and practical methods that have congealed into policies. The policy of assimilation by dilution of the black racial traits through repeated exogamy was a matter of central concern for the white man, but it destabilized the identity of the watered down Australian Aborigine: “When two half-castes bred and bore a son or daughter, / The Koori connection was cut to a quarter” (Smith, B qtd. in Heiss 45). The same process also generated protest and assertion of the self-identity and pride:
I have no problem with who I am –
Not black, not white – a quarter-caste as they say-
I cannot choose a side, I will not be made to, my life is not a game.
Not black, not white, that’s why I write – I am not ashamed. (Carr qtd. in Heiss 46)
Like the Australian Aborigine, the Indian Dalit too had to face a challenge to his caste identity and responded in various manners. There are differences in the themes and concerns of the poetry of the two peoples as there are differences in their specific individual conditions in their countries. The Indian Dalit hadn’t had to face the curse of the stolen children, the risk of extermination (simply not a viable alternative, economically, for the upper caste people, as they lose those who do their free and dirtiest jobs), or that of assimilation (it would mean the dilution of the much valued pure blood). Therefore their poetry does not have the scars of those traumas. Specificities notwithstanding, the insults, wounds and scars these peoples do share give their voices the same intensity of pain and poignancy. Internalization of the prejudices of the dominant group and their assertion and perpetuation by the very people against whom the prejudices were held, is a common mechanism for survival. It creates a set of alienated people who neither belong to their people nor are accepted as equal by the others. Racial and social mobilization are excruciatingly slow and very unsure processes whose rate or outcome can never be controlled or predicted with certainty. Moreover, black skin with white mask (or Dalit skin with upper caste mask) is not a psychologically healthy combination. Neither is it right, ethico-politically and socially. The subaltern – dispossessed and silenced – belong to one mass. Their resistance to the phallogocentric social structure and their attempts at critiquing or deconstructing are very logical ends to the centuries old process of planned dehumanization. Multiculturalism, postmodern questioning of grand narratives and trends in upward social mobility have brought about many changes in the mind set of the people. How deep these changes have percolated and how fundamental in nature they are, has yet to be seen and tested. In the meanwhile, the longest march for a yet unreached goal must not stop.
The themes of hatred and resistance against the exploiters are very common in their poems. The voices of the subaltern, freshly raised, rising from the soil, raise disturbing issues. They prove that the grand narrative of the Enlightenment – the great ideals of “liberty, equality and fraternity” as the rational end of all social systems and the attainable or desirable state of existence – is only there to beguile the masses. In reality, for an Indian Dalit or an Australian Aborigine there is neither liberty nor equality, and fraternity is nowhere to be seen. Reason has been proven powerless in redressing the wrongs perpetrated by an iniquitous system of institutionalized exploitation. Therefore, the subaltern must catapult themselves to the stage of power play using any means whatsoever. Their language is charged with the power to burn the social customs and the desiccated traditions that have given them a life worse than that of animals.
The voices resisting exploitation are fully aware of their own strength and dignity. They take pride in their being what they are. Their identity and self-image are affirmed in their poems again and again, as Smith Taylor affirms:
We blackfellas are trying
To stand tall.
Our enemy the media
are always making us fall.
We have been stripped
of our pride.
…
We blackfellas must stand
as one
as the fight still goes on. (qtd. in Heiss 55)
Of course, hatred and anger are not the only things present in their poems. There is love too, as is seen in the following lines about a mother:
On her head, a burden. Her legs a-totter.
Thin, dark of body… my mother.
All day she combs the forest for fire wood
We await her return.
Mother is gone…
Even now my eyes search fro mother. (Nimbalkar 36)
Subjection and subjugation for generations turns an individual’s existence into an everlasting hell: a hell that is so unshakably embedded, so deeply programmed into the existence that it is assimilated and naturalized. Socio-political and psychological repressions of the most debilitating kind, stretched over centuries, take the form of the hands of unseen fate or karma for those who are hopelessly trapped in prisons called their own existence. They have been sentenced to death in life, day after day, every day of their life. A time eventually arrives – later, if not as soon as it should have come – nearly at the threshold level of tolerance, when life becomes unbearable and the blood boiling in the veins can simply not be contained any more. If revolutionary blood bath and anti revolutionary purges don’t follow, the blood takes the form of words and flows out as a cry of anger, anguish, anger, resistance, pride and a series of various human emotions that were repressed till then. The ideological apparatuses of the modern hegemonic states have tilted the balance of power so much towards the agencies that run nation states that any challenge seems at lest ineffectual in the last count, if not practically impossible. The intellectual pessimism arising out of this situation has generated theories galore. The petits recits (mini narratives) are the one that seem to be valid in the discourse the present paper is concerned with. The war against the structure that has successfully interpellated the thinking subject appears to be a contradiction in itself. The Dalit or the Aborigine is under a lot of socio-economic pressure for assimilation, if possible, with the dominant culture. The range of choices available to them is broad. They may identify with the dominant mastering discourse and internalize it to propagate it themselves later. They may remain neutral observers, or they may become active in resistance, raising their own voices in the public sphere, creating their own mini narratives. A stream of resistance, strong, conspicuous and continuous, can be seen originating from among the repressed. The war against an internalized and inherently exploitative system can only be fought with innovative tools, applying a series of methods available for the purpose. As Gene Sharpe recommends, the struggle has the best chances to be effective finally if it is peaceful and democratically committed. He speaks about action against repressive non-democratic regimes. Both Australia and India are democracies. Therefore, the insistence on peaceful and democratic methods seems to be more relevant as the pressure it builds will generate voices – both nationally and internationally – against the institutionalized exploitation and repression of the subaltern. Literature has always been a part of the move to persuade at the levels of both the state propaganda and that of the resistance. Although newly acquired as a weapon and it serves the same age old purpose for the cause of the subaltern whom everyone else has failed, and gives them hope, not false, but true:
In our colony-
Reforms get confused
Paths are bruised, schemes stumble
Now- only now have boys started learning.
They write poems- stories- Indian Literature
The axes of words fall upon the trees of tradition (Meshram 10)
Works Cited
Heiss Anita. “Writing aboriginality: Authors on ‘Being Aboriginal’”. A Comapnion to Australian Literature Since 1900. Ed. Nicholas Birns and Rebecca Mcneer. Camden House: New York, 2007. Print.
Heiss, Anita and Minter Peter. “Aboriginal Literature”. Macquarie Pen Anthology of Australian Literature. Ed. Nicholas Jose. Allen and Unwin: NSW, 2009. Print.
Meshram, Keshav. “In Our Colony”. Tr. V. G. Nand. Poisoned Bread: Translations from Modern Marathi Dalit Literature. Ed. Arjun Dangle. Orient Longman: Bombay, 1994. Print.
Nimbalkar, Waman. “Mother”. Tr. Priya Adarkar. Poisoned Bread: Translations from Modern Marathi Dalit Literature. Ed. Arjun Dangle. Orient Longman: Bombay, 1994. Print.
Paul, S. K. “Dalit Literature and Dalit Poetry: A Brief Survey”. Dalit Literature: A Critical Exploration.. Ed. Amar Nath Prasad and M. B. Gaijan. Sarup & Sons: New Delhi, 2007. Print.
Pawar, J.V. A Corpse in the Well: Translations from Modern Marathi Dalit Autobiographies. Ed. Arjun Dangle. Orient Longman: Bombay, 1992. Print.
Casteism in Pakistan
Published in The Friday Times, Pakistan
It is a cliché now to say that Pakistan is a country in transition – on a highway to somewhere. The direction remains unclear but the speed of transformation is visibly defying its traditionally overbearing, and now cracking postcolonial state. Globalisation, the communications revolution and a growing middle class have altered the contours of a society beset by the baggage and layers of confusing history.
What has however emerged despite the affinity with jeans, FM radios and McDonalds is the visible trumpeting of caste-based identities. In Lahore, one finds hundreds of cars with the owner’s caste or tribe displayed as a marker of pride and distinctiveness. As an urbanite, I always found it difficult to comprehend the relevance of zaat-paat (casteism) until I experienced living in the peri-urban and sometimes rural areas of the Punjab as a public servant.
I recall the days when in a central Punjab district, I was mistaken for a Kakayzai (a Punjabi caste that claims to have originated from the Caucasus) so I started getting correspondence from the Anjuman-i-Kakayzai professionals who were supposed to hold each other’s hands in the manner of the Free Masons. I enjoyed the game and pretended that I was one of them for a while, until it became unbearable for its sheer silliness and mercenary objectives.
It was also here that a subordinate told me in chaste Punjabi how the Gujjar caste was not a social group but a ‘religion’ in itself. Or that the Rajputs were superior to everyone else, second only to the Syeds. All else was the junk that had converted from the lowly Hindus (of course this included my family). My first name is also a matter of sectarian interpretation. Another subordinate in my younger days lectured me on the importance of sticking together as the ‘victims’ of the Sunni majoritarian violence of Pakistani society. Mistaken as a Momin I also got a chance to know intra-group dynamics better, and also how closely knit such groups are and what they think of others. This reminds me of the horrific tales our domestic helper used to tell us about the Shi’ites, and as children we were scared to even go near a Moharram procession, until one day my Sunni parents fired her for poisoning their children’s minds.
My personal inclinations aside, for in the footsteps of the great Urdu poet Ghalib, I view myself as half a Shia, this has been a matter of concern. Can I not exist as a human being without being part of a herd? Obedience to hierarchies, conformity and identification with groups are central tenets of existing in Pakistan.
At a training institution fifteen years ago, where a group of us were being taught how to become ‘officers’, a colleague cooked up a fanciful story about me. In the lecture hall, I had argued for a secular state, quoting Jinnah’s August 11, 1947 speech and had highlighted the shoddy treatment of the minorities in Pakistan as a betrayal of the Quaid’s vision. This imaginative colleague circulated the rumour that the reason for my political views was that I belonged to the Ahmaddiya Jamaat. One could of course talk of the marginalised only if one was a part of that group. Otherwise why should we care, semi-citizens that we are!
In the twenty first century, Punjab’s entire electoral landscape is still defined by caste and biradari loyalties. In the 1980s, General Zia ul Haq’s machinations spearheaded a second social engineering in the Punjab by resuscitating the demons of clan, caste and tribe.
Party-less elections helped Zia to undermine the PPP but it also gave enormous leeway to the state agencies to pick and choose loyalties when election was all about the elders of a biradari. His Arain (a non-land tilling caste) background became a topic of discussion as many Arains used this card to great personal and commercial advantage during his tenure. This is similar to what the Kashmiris have perceived under the multiple reigns of the now rechristened (in a democratic sense) Sharifs of the Punjab, who are proud Kashmiris.
Why blame the Punjabis only? In the early years of Pakistan, the migrants from India had set the ground for the politics of patronage along ethnic and group-lines. Karachi became divided into little Lucknows, Delhis and other centres of nostalgia. Employment opportunities and claims of property, as several personal accounts and autobiographies reveal, were doled out on the basis of affiliation to pre-partition networks – Aligarh, Delhi, UP qasbaas and Hyderabadi neighbourhoods. The same goes for the smaller units of Pakistan. Small wonder that the Bengalis ran away from the Pakistan project, despite being its original initiators.
We pride ourselves on being a nuclear armed Islamic state that broke away from the prejudiced Baniyas whose abominable caste system was inhuman. But what do we practice? Who said casteism was extinct in Pakistan? My friends have not been allowed to marry outside their caste or sect, Christian servants in Pakistani households are not permitted to touch kitchen utensils, and the word ‘choora’ is the ultimate insult after the ritualistic out-of wedlock sex and incestuous abuses involving mothers and sisters or their unmentionable anatomical parts. A Sindhi acquaintance told me how easy it was to exploit the Hindu girls at his workplace or at home. And what about the many blasphemy cases in the Punjabi villages, the roots of which are located in social hierarchies and chains of obedience.
The untouchables of the cities and the villages are called something else but they remain the underbelly of our existence. Admittedly these incidences are on a lesser scale than in India. That simply is a function of demographics. Even Mohammad Iqbal, the great reformist poet, lamented in one of his couplets:
Youn tau Syed bhi ho, Mirza bhi ho, Afghan bhi ho
Tum sabhi kuch ho, batao tau Mussalman bhi ho!
(You are Syeds, Mirzas and Afghans / You are everything but Muslims).
Enter into a seemingly educated Punjabi setting and the conversation will not shy away from references to caste characteristics. For instance, I once heard a lawyer make a remark about a high-ranking public official, calling him a nai (barber) and therefore branding him as the lowest of the low. One of the reasons for Zardari-bashing in Sindh, has to do with the Zardari tribe’s historical moorings. They were camel herders as opposed to the ruling classes with fiefs.
When the young motorists playing FM radio, mast music, arranging dates on mastee chats, display the primordial caste characteristic on their windscreens, one worries if the ongoing change process can deliver a better society. Superficial signs of change cannot make up for the need for a secular educational system, equality of opportunity and accountability of political elites and their patron-state that use casteism as an instrument of gaining and sustaining power.
More bewildered, I wonder where I belong. Bulleh Shah has taught me that shedding categorisations is the first step towards self-knowledge. But I live in a society where branding and group labels are essential, if not unavoidable.
For this reason I am peeved that I still don’t know who I am.
Raza Rumi blogs at www.razarumi.com and edits Pak Tea
With Pakistan’s Hindu Dalits facing increasing violence
KARACHI, Pakistan – Long accustomed to discrimination, Pakistani Hindu Dalits in the Sindh Province of Pakistan, located in the southern part of the country, are fighting discrimination on two fronts due to their status as non-Muslims in a Muslim state and their low caste standing.
Dalits have also been traditionally regarded as “untouchable” in the Hindu religion.
By Zia Ur Rehman
A recent incident involving the violent exhumation of a Dalit from a Muslim graveyard underscores the discrimination that Dalits face in Pakistan. On October 6, a group of Pakistani Dalits buried Dalit artist Bhooro Bheel, who was killed in a traffic accident, in a Muslim graveyard in the Pangrio area in central Sindh, which has a long tradition of burying Hindus from Dalit communities. After the funeral, an Islamist group meeting at a nearby mosque called for the corpse to be removed. Shortly afterwards, a mob dug up the body and desecrated the grave.
In another incident, a young Dalit woman, Kakoo Kohli, was shot dead on November 28 in the Umarkot district, in northern Sindh. Kohli’s family members and the Pakistan Dalit Solidarity Network (PDSN), a network of over 30 organizations supporting the rights of marginalized groups, particularly minorities and lower castes, claimed that she was killed by the same suspects who had allegedly gang-raped her six weeks ago. They also claimed that the suspects were still roaming freely in the area despite an ongoing criminal case against the perpetrators.
“Although marginalized groups generally belonging to minority communities are threatened in many areas in Pakistan, Dalits, who are officially known as ‘scheduled castes,’ are the worst victims of the violence and discrimination, particularly in lower districts of Sindh province,” said Zulfiqar Shah, Secretary General of the PDSN.
According to the country’s 1998 census, there are approximately 333,000 Dalits in Pakistan. However, interviews with Dalit activists and minority rights groups suggest that today, the country’s Dalit population could be as high as two million. There is no formal way of knowing the Dalit population, however, since Pakistan has not taken a population census since 1998. Still, many of the country’s Dalits are concentrated in the Sindh Province, with smaller numbers in the western province of Balochistan and the southern part of the Punjab province.
“Dalits are basically a cluster of 42 castes. The most popular are Bheels, Kohlis, Meghwals, Bagdis and Odhs, with low incomes and low purchasing power. They comprise 85 percent of the total Hindu population,” said Sanjesh Dhanja, the president of the Pakistan Hindu Seva Welfare Trust (PHSWT), a Hindu rights group.
The Dalits’ “untouchability” also prohibits them from accessing public places. ”Neither Hindu nor Muslim barbers will shave Dalits or give them a haircut,” said a Dalit engineer who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Hindus and Muslims won’t eat food prepared by the Dalits, either,” said the engineer. “Such practices concerning untouchability are very common in Sindh.”
Many Dalit women in Pakistan are also victims of sexual abuse, kidnapping and forced religious conversions. During the last few months alone, local newspapers have published over a dozen news stories about sexual violence against Dalit women in the Sindh province. The majority of Dalit families in Pakistan even avoid sending their daughters to school out of fear that they will be abducted and subjected to forced religious conversions, said Dhanja.
According to a survey conducted by the PHSWT, Dalit parents prefer that their daughters work as farmhands, tending to livestock instead of getting an education – even at the primary school level – out of the fear that they will be harassed or worse. Dhanja added that many Dalit women have been victimized not only by Muslims, but also by a small population of upper caste Hindus.
Bonded labor in Pakistan is widespread, particularly in the agricultural and brick-kiln sectors, with the majority of laborers in these sectors coming from the country’s Dalit communities. According to a report from the Pakistan Institute of Labor Education and Research (PILER), a labor rights organization based in Karachi, the combination of poverty, belonging to a low caste and being non-Muslim are the main factors contributing to the harsh conditions and treatment of Dalit laborers in Pakistan.
Dalit activists also complain that Pakistan’s Dalit population suffers for not having any political leadership to vouch on its behalf. Rather, Hindu politics in Pakistan are dominated by Hindus from upper castes, with most elections to the country’s parliament being based on wealth. “Upper class Hindus do not raise their voices against the atrocities of the majority Dalit community in the parliament because in many cases, they are themselves involved in it,” said Faqira Bheel, a resident of Tharparkar, located in the southeastern part of the Sindh Province. Also to their detriment, there are few temples in Pakistan in which Dalits can worship, and they are prohibited from praying in temples that cater primarily to Hindus from upper classes.
However, the recent desecration of a Dalit corpse and the killing of a Dalit woman have sparked a massive campaign by Sindh’s civil society organizations and rights groups to raise awareness of the problems plaguing Pakistani Dalits.
Political parties, civil societies and minority organizations in Sindh have organized protest rallies, denounced the incidents and visited the locations where they occurred in a show of solidarity with the Dalit community and the families of the deceased.
After the incident where Bheel’s corpse was desecrated, Aksaryati Hindu Panchayat, a Hindu rights organization, organized a march against religious militancy in October with the support of Sindh’s political parties and civil society groups. According to local media reports, participants in the march walked from the Mirpur Khas district to Hyderabad district, a distance of approximately 70 kilometers.
Expressing concern over the atrocities against the Dalit community, participants in a December 7 protest held outside the Karachi Press Club said that Dalits were the indigenous inhabitants of Sindh but were being treated as untouchables, harassed because of their religious beliefs.
“Unfortunately, the rape of Dalit women is considered as an act ‘for granted’ because of their low social status in Pakistani society,” said Mahnaz Rehman, the leader of the Aurat Foundation, a women’s rights group that operates throughout the country. “Government is unable to take action against the influential and wealthy landlords involved in raping and other atrocities,” Rehman added.
Experts say that the situation the Dalit community faces is not much different than that facing minorities in other South Asian countries, particularly India. However, two years ago, Nepal adopted the Caste-based Discrimination and Untouchability Bill, a landmark law protecting the rights of Dalits. In a similar move, the British government decided in April that the Equality Act, a set of anti-discrimination laws first enacted in 2010, would protect against caste discrimination to ensure the safety of Dalits in Diaspora communities.
Pakistani rights groups also demanded that Pakistan’s government form a National Commission on Scheduled Castes to hear the complaints of caste and racial discrimination, following up these complaints with the necessary and required action.
There are many steps that the Pakistani government needs to take to alleviate the suffering of Dalits in the country. Unfortunately, it has taken very public and gruesome attacks on Dalits to launch discussion of initiatives designed to improve their living conditions.
A first step towards doing so would be to hold a caste-wide census to enumerate the different groups in the caste system. This should be followed up by providing these groups with proper representation in Pakistani Parliament based on population ratios. Such a move would ensure that the voices of all Pakistanis are heard at the national level, and see that the injustices facing minority groups are acknowleged and properly addressed.
Zia Ur Rehman is an award-winning journalist and researcher based in Karachi, Pakistan. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The National, Central Asia Online, The Friday Times and The News, among other publications.
DALITS IN PAKISTAN
(MALJI MEGHWAL)
In Pakistan Dalits are known as Scheduled castes which are 40 in Nos. (Presidential Ordinance to declare certain non-Muslim castes to be scheduled castes, issued on Nov.12, 1957 by Ministry of Law). Mostly in majority, Meghwar [(Meghwal) also known as Harijan in District Tharparkar], Kolhi, Bhil, Walmikis (Bhang’s), Oadhs, Bagri’s etc; these communities are most depressed class poorest of poor class in Pakistan society. Generally their story is not much different from what is told about them in SAARC region. The social and cultural history of this disadvantaged/neglected community.
In Pakistan movement for emancipation of this depressed class is not existent as compared with India and other SAARC countries. In Sindh Province of Pakistan these Dalits / Scheduled caste are concentrated in Mirpurkhas Division , i.e. Mirpurkhas, Umerkot, Sanghar, Tharparkar, Badin, however they are living in other parts Upper & lower Sindh and Southern Punjab (mostly Rahim yar khan Division (Cholistan) Siraiki belt), Lahore city and also scattered in other parts of Pakistan.
The list of Scheduled castes gazette issued on 12-11-1957.
1. Ad.Dharmi 2.Bangali 3.Barar 4.Bawaria 5.Bazigar 6.Bhangi 7.Bhanjara 8.Bhil 9.Chamar 10.Chandal 11.Charan 12.Chuhra or Balmiki 13.Dagi and Kolhi 14.Dhanak 15.Dhed 16.Dumna 17.Gagra 18.Gandhila 19.Halal-Khor 20.Jatia 21.Kalal 22.Khatik 23.Kolhi 24.Kori 25.Kuchria 26.Mareja or Marecha 27.Megh (war) 28.Menghwar 29.Nat 30.Odh 31.Pasi 32.Perna 33.Ramdasi 34.Sansi 35.Sapela 36.Sarera 37.Shikari 38.Sirkiband 39.Sochi 40.Wagri
It can be said that in Pakistan problems of Scheduled castes are not identified nor basic data about them is collected and tabulated at the Government level but approximately the Dalits are 1.7499% of total population i.e. [ 2842349 out of 162419946 ( about 3 million) ].
No legislative measures have been considered by the Government.Althgough UN declaration of HR (1948) and fundamental rights and principles of policy are listed in Part II of the Pakistan constitution of 1973 provide both for recognition and eradication of discrimination and legal measures has been taken.
The untouchability is the major problem and exists in all over world. We find untouchability, forced labour, (Beggar), Servitude, Slavery, Bonded Labour, to be too evident. About 80% of non proprietor agriculture tenants in Sindh province are from Dalits (Scheduled caste).
Since last 20 years servitude of bonded tenants has surfaced and for whom the HRCP has fought and continue to fight and thousands have achieved freedom from forced Labour. They found in chains while foreign journalists have accompanied the police, Magistrate and Human Rights activist. There are about 700 thousands families such scheduled caste families are engaged on forms owned by feudals and Zamindars.
In many parts of Pakistan these Scheduled castes peoples are treated as Untouchables and no law has been paid punishing practice of untouchability. No seats are exclusively reserved for them in National Assembly, Senate, Provincial Assemblies and nor any newly established District Government (Local Government System)
In Pakistan roughly 3 millions are Dalits
population, belonging to various castes, and are
scattered in all over Pakistan.
In the speech Mr. Muhammad Ali Jinnah the founder of Pakistan assured / declared that Muslim League would protect the rights of Dalits and he assured them of full security. Accordingly Jogendra Nath Mandal a Dalit from East Pakistan was appointed as the leader of the constituent Assembly of Pakistan and first law minister of the country. It means that Jinnah was genuine in his concern (Jinnah was Khwaja by profession the businessman Skins of halal or dead animals). [The Quaid had also give 6% job quota in the Federal services to the scheduled castes. But in 1998 Nawaz Sharif Government converted the Scheduled caste job quota into Minorities Quota due to the influence of Upper caste Hindu and Christian MNA’s in National Assembly session.] However things begin to change after Jinnah’s death and in 1953 Mandal resigned from cabinet and migrated To India. This was an indication of the growing intolerance towards minorities/dalits in the post Jinnah Pakistan . Now days minorities lead a bleak existence in Pakistan , the worst sufferers among them, being the country’s Dalit Dalits of Pakistan are the unfortunate people having no political leadership.
About 90% of Pakistan Dalits work as land less agriculture (means on ½ or 3/4 share), laborers and sweepers in urban areas. In the urban areas the huts of sweepers (valmiki) are located in separate settlement. In rural areas the huts of Dalits are located in separate settlements outside the main village and they generally lack even basic amenities like water supply, drainage, telephone, road, transport facility etc. Large number of Dalits also led a nomadic existence, traveling from village to village in search of job. Many Dalits live in temporary structure in the lands of landlords for whom they work and they can be expelled from there when ever the landlords wish, having no little to the land. They generally earn a pittance and often forced into free labour by powerful (police patella or supported) upper caste Hindus (Thakurs) and also Muslim feudal lords. Many Dalits eke out a miserable existence as bonded laborers, being heavily indebted to landlords and money lenders (Banias). If they protest against false indebt ness or refuse to give the free labour, the false fictitious police cases lodged against them and the police don’t protect them. Local Administration (police, Revenue and Judiciary) get bribe from them and routinely harass them and supports to Upper caste and even forcibly take away their cattle and other such belongings. This type of practice is exists in all over Pakistan but mostly in practice in Chachro, Nagar parkar, Diplo, Mithi, Tehsils District Tharparkar and now a days it is on peak point because Arbab Ghulam Rahim is Chief Minister of Sindh Province whose mother is Thakurs family and he is Sardar of Nohrio Brotheris and alliance with all other castes like as Sameja, Sama, Khosa, Nareja, Dohat, Rahooman, Sangrasi, Thakurs and other Baloch tribes who are settled in Tharparkar and follows him and he or his relatives give the protection through police and Administration.
Land mafia in big cities like Hyderabad, Karachi, Lahore, Sukkur, Jaccobabad often forcibly grab the land on which Dalits setup their huts and in other rural areas of Tharparkar the land of upper caste Hindus who have been migrated to India in war 1971 & 1965 cultivating Dalits since last 40 years with the collision of land revenue official (Patwari).
In most places Dalits have no temples and are not allowed to pray in the temples of upper caste Hindus. Dalits have no/little places for burns the dead bodies. In big cities some parts were reserved for Dalits now they have been come into centre and many of these (graveyards & Temples) illegally occupied by local influential Muslims.
In Primary Schools in the villages, dalit students discriminated from the first day when he enrolled, the Muslim or upper caste Hindu teacher writes his half name with his fathers name and routinely faces discrimination and not allowed to sit on the wooden bench and to use utensils that are used by other students. Dalit students are often badly treated by upper caste Muslim teachers up to college level from where branches divide to Professional Education. If a one dalit student is more intelligent he gets nice marks in theory then he will be pushed back in practical/viva voce and he can’t be successful in his aim. Despite being the poorest of the poor, they don’t receive any scholarships from Government in the name of Scheduled caste scholarship. Further, owing to desperate poverty few % of Dalits can afford to send their children for higher education, and generally, children withdrawn from schools at an early age to engage in manual work to help supplement the family’s meager income. In many cases Dalits don’t send their girls to school/College/University fearing that they might be kidnapped, rapped, or forcibly convert to Islam.
In towns and cities Dalits generally live in the poorest / non-developed / in squalid slums. There are no organizations working among them for their welfare, and lacking a strong political leadership of their own, they are not able to effectively assert their voice in demanding their rights from the state or from the upper castes dominated society. Many of Dalits have no Computerized National Identity Card (CNIC) and could not get due to complicated method or bribe, so that can not access various Government Development/support schemes or programmes. Government facilities for religious minorities are almost monopolized by the country more powerful and organized Christian and upper caste Hindu communities leaving the Dalits Untouched.
Because of acute poverty, rampant illiteracy, discrimination, and the absence of Dalit movements as in India, Dalits in Pakistan have no political influence at all. Mostly Dalits are not allowed to freely vote for candidate of their own choice or contest in election freely. They are often forced by powerful upper caste Hindus (Thakurs, Brahmins, Lohana.) and Muslims of any caste land lords to vote for particular candidates, and if they refused they are pressurized into leaving their homes or beaten up or false / fictitious police cases lodged against them.
The problem of Dalit political marginalization is complicated by the acute division among the Dalits, with various Dalit castes practicing untouchability among them themselves. For its part, the Pakistan state prefers to promote the economically and socially more influential upper caste Hindus as leader of the Hindus instead of trying to promote an alternate Dalit Leadership which is high % in population of other upper caste Hindus. In new parliament System President of Pakistan has announced the joint Electoral system and seats reserved for Non Muslims (0/100) in Senate, (10/342) in National Assembly, Provincial Assemblies 1.Punjab (8/371), 2.Sindh (9/168), 3.NWFP (3/124), 4.Balochistan (3/65). The selection Methodology of Non Muslims was the nomination by Election contesting Political parties. In Pakistan there are 3 big parties, Pakistan Peoples Party Parliamentarian (PPPP), Muslim League (Nawaz), Muslim League (Q), out of these only one ML (N) given ticket to dalit Mr.Kirshan lal Bhil in National Assembly, and in Sindh (PA) MQM has given ticket to Mr.Poonjo mal Bhil, but both are crippled they can not support to their dalit brothers.
In Pakistan Dalits like other minorities are also victims of religious discrimination by both i.e. upper caste Hindus as well as Muslims. In eateries matters in the rural areas of Sindh owned by both upper castes Hindus as well as Muslims, Dalits are forced to use separate utensils marked on word dalit caste (Kolhi, Meghwar, Bhil),broken and are expected to wash them themselves after use. When they visit hospitals, for treatment they generally left unattended and being considered as untouchables, are not allowed to touch utensils meant for public use there.
In District Tharparkar and other parts of Sindh untouchability is at par even Hindu or Muslim Barbour (Naie / Hajam) doesn’t shaving/tonsure of Dalits.such type of practice is still remains in rural area and small towns of Sindh. In district Tharparkar near to border line of India in villages Dalits have no right to fetch the water from well of upper caste Hindus/Muslims they can’t graze their cattle in the land without their permission, they can’t wear any good quality cloth, turban, their females cannot wear golden/silver ornaments they cant ride on horse/camel at the time of wedding ceremony they cannot sit on cot in their homes, though in the Otaque/houses of upper caste Hindus / Muslims gives/allows no any chair, cot, Farasi, Dari. In some cases they are not allowed to sit on the open space without any carpet (Farasi) where dogs and donkeys move and excrete without any restriction.
RECOMMENDATIONS
1. The Government of Pakistan should try to insert “Treatment towards Dalits” in SAARC countries as one of the barometers to judge SAARC members’ commitment to human rights and its International Reputation as a nation.
2. The Government of Pakistan should launch a caste wise and even sub caste wise census operation to enumerate the different castes and sub caste of the different Scheduled Caste / ST/Backward Castes.
3. The Government of Pakistan should allocate separate seats in the Parliament for Scheduled Castes as per their population ratio to ensure their voice is heard at the National level. Four seats in National Assembly, Four in Sindh Assembly, two in Punjab Assembly and one each in NWFP and Balochistan Assemblies exclusively for Scheduled Castes.
4. The Government of Pakistan should constitute a National Commission on Scheduled Castes to hear the complaints of caste and racial discrimination and take necessary and required action.
5. The Government of Pakistan should ensure justifiable representation of Dalits in National institutions and Departments like PIAC, Banks, DFIs, Pakistan Steel, etc. and jobs in both Federal, Provincial and District governments.
6. The Government of Pakistan should allot land to landless Dalit peasants on priority basis and get vacated their ancestral lands fraudulently occupied by upper caste Hindu / Muslims people in Tharparker district or where ever they have.
7. The Government of Pakistan should create a separate fund for helping the destitute, orphans, widows and poor individuals of Scheduled Castes under the Pakistan Bait-ul-Mal / Social Welfare as per their population ratio, and Scholarships to the Scheduled caste students.
8. The Government of Pakistan should protect the Scheduled Castes from being threatened, exploited, victimized, and dislodged from their ancestral abodes by the other caste people on any pretext, which is directly or indirectly connected to caste prejudice, by providing them easy access to legal remed
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MALJI MEGHWAR,
SOCIAL WORKER & DALIT HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST
SLAVERY IN THE ‘LAND OF THE PURE’: PAKISTAN’S TWO MILLION DALITS
Yoginder Sikand
In the previous part of this article I had summarized some of the findings of probably the first-ever in-depth study about Pakistan’s Dalits, the country’s most dispossessed and vulnerable religious minority. Zulfiqar Shah’s alarming report, titled ‘Long Behind Schedule: A Study on the Plight of Scheduled Caste Hindus in Pakistan’, strikingly summarizes the harrowing conditions of Hindu Dalits in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. If caste and religious prejudice account in large measure for their harrowing plight, Shah argues that the attitude of the Pakistani state towards the Dalits is no less responsible.
Shah notes that the Pakistani state continues to refuse to recognize the very existence of caste and caste-based discrimination, which makes it virtually impossible to compel it to address the specific problems of Dalits. Ironically, he argues, caste is alive and thriving in Pakistan, even among the country’s overwhelming majority Muslims. Most Pakistani Muslims, he says, belong to and identify with one or the other caste and are acutely conscious of caste differences and hierarchies among them. Often, even entirely Muslim localities are specific to a particular caste group. The vast majority of poor Muslims in Pakistan belong to ‘low’ caste groups, and it is rare, almost impossible, he says, to find ‘high’ caste Muslims among the poorest of the poor. Yet, the reality of caste and caste-based discrimination, even among the country’s Muslims, are denied by the Pakistani state by regularly invoking the claim that caste is un-Islamic, and that, therefore, it simply does not exist in Islamic Pakistan, which, it rhetorically insists, is a society based on ‘Islamic values’. Consequently, the Pakistani state has made no legal provisions to empower the oppressed ‘low’ castes, whether Muslim or Hindu or to criminalize caste-based discrimination and untouchability, that remain widespread, the report says, across Pakistan.
Being Hindu and ‘low’ caste, Pakistan’s Dalits have been most badly hit by this denial by the state of caste. Since caste-based discrimination is not recognized by the state, the report says, there is no legislation against it. Nor is it possible to take legal proceedings against discrimination based on caste. ‘And, as a consequence’, the report adds, ‘impunity is widespread. Abuse of Dalits, from forced labour to rape, is considered a free-for-all.’
Being pathetically poor and illiterate, relatively small in number, divided into various castes, and, moreover, non-Muslim, the report explains that the Dalits of Pakistan are politically powerless. They have almost no presence in the country’s parliament or state legislatures. In any case, their acute poverty rules out the possibility of Dalit candidates standing for elections, which is expensive business in Pakistan, as in India. Additionally, it is unlikely that political parties would offer tickets to non-Muslim candidates, especially Dalits, for that is a sure way to lose elections. Since political parties rely heavily on the support of powerful landlords, mostly Muslims but also, in some places ‘upper’ caste Hindus, whom they cannot dare displease, and most Dalits work as landless laborers for such landlords, they are reluctant to address Dalit issues, many of which have to do with the oppression that they are subjected to by their masters. Addressing Dalit concerns such as forcible conversions to Islam is also politically risky for political parties who fear a violent backlash from mullahs and their supporters.
Pakistan’s Dalits have no effective organizations to lobby for their rights. Political parties do not take them seriously, and their minority wings are dominated by Christians and ‘upper’ caste Hindus. Hindu organizations in the country are dominated by rich ‘upper’ castes, who are indifferent, if not hostile, to Dalit advancement, and so Hindu political representatives rarely, if ever, take up Dalit concerns. Another reason for their political marginalization is that the population of the country’s Dalits, so the report says, has been grossly under-estimated in the census records, which put their numerical strength under 400,000 while their actual population may be more than two million. Hence, the report argues, nine-tenths of Pakistan’s Dalits have either been ignored in the census or else wrongly marked as ‘upper’ caste Hindus or put into other categories, thus further marginalizing them in a system where access to development schemes and political power is determined by a community’s population. This deliberate downplaying of their numbers, the report says, owes, in part, to discriminatory attitudes of Muslim and ‘upper’ caste Hindu census enumerators who wish to underestimate Dalit numbers. Additionally, due to neglect or deliberately, vast numbers of Dalits are denied voter identity-cards, and so elected representatives simply ignore them. This also leaves them unable to access the few government-funded development projects that exist.
The extreme political disempowerment of Pakistan’s Dalits, added to deep-rooted prejudices against Hindus, account, in large measure, for the virtual absence of any state-sponsored development programs for Dalits, the report contends. Unlike in India, there are no specific development schemes for ‘low’ castes (whether Muslim or Hindu) in Pakistan, nor is a share of government jobs reserved for them. The Pakistani state, the report laments, has undertaken no affirmative action measure to address the pathetic lives of the Dalits, the country’s most vulnerable minority. Indeed, it alleges, Dalits are ‘being discriminated against in [the] government’s development policies.’ Money given to elected representatives to spend on development activities in their constituencies rarely, if ever, reaches the Dalits. This neglect is also replicated in international donor-sponsored poverty-alleviation schemes in the country. The report notes that in various parts of southern Pakistan, where the bulk of the country’s Dalits live, Dalits, far from gaining at all from the development process, have turned into victims of development schemes, being displaced from their lands as a result of mega projects.
Like other religious minorities in the Islamic Republic, Pakistan’s Dalits, who are additionally discriminated against on account of their extreme poverty and ‘low’ caste status, suffer the pangs of being non-Muslim. The country’s Constitution itself discriminates against all non-Muslims, as it does against women, the report stresses. The Constitution, the report contends, provides no protection to minorities in general, and to Dalits in particular. Basic rights, including protection of minorities and the promotion of social and economic well-being of citizens, are included in the non-binding ‘principles of policy’, rather than the legally enforceable section on fundamental rights, and, moreover, are overshadowed by religious provisions that call for all laws to be in conformity with Islam. The Federal Shariat or Islamic Law Court has the right to turn down any law it considers repugnant to Islam. This, the report says, ‘has further weakened chances of seeking justice against any discrimination’, particularly if the victims are non-Muslims. All these discriminatory provisions, the report insists, are a complete violation of various international human rights agreements to which Pakistan is a signatory.
Like other non-Muslim minorities in Pakistan, Dalits are sometimes targeted by Muslims under the country’s draconian blasphemy laws, being falsely accused of traducing Islam and its prophet (an act punishable with death or life imprisonment) in order to settle personal scores, the report reveals. Even trivial acts, leave alone major forms of defiance or protest, can lead to hapless Dalits being hounded under these laws. The report cites some such cases, including one involving a Dalit man who was threatened with trial under the blasphemy law if he did not beg an apology from the entire village for having slept with his feet pointed westwards, in the direction of the Muslim holy city of Mecca!
Although many of the forms of dispossession and discrimination that Pakistani Dalits suffer from are similar to those faced by their brethren in India, there are no legal mechanisms in Pakistan to address them. Thus, untouchability is not regarded as a punishable offence, and there is no legislation at the provincial level to protect the rights of Dalits who are routinely denied entry to public places, and access to water sources or common utensils in eateries on account of their caste and religion, which remains a pervasive practice.
The report concludes with a long list of recommendations, directed particularly at the Pakistani state, to act on to address the manifold problems of its Dalit citizens. These include proper and accurate enumeration of the country’s Dalit population; recording data broken down by caste and other relevant categories gathered by the government; criminalizing caste-based discrimination through a law that allows prosecution of perpetrators and banning untouchability by law; instituting programs to economically empower Dalits, including through a quota system in jobs and educational institutions; providing Dalits legal possession of their homes and arranging interest-free loans for them; distributing state land to landless Dalits; providing scholarships and other forms of assistance to Dalit students; ensuring that all political parties involve Dalits in decision-making, possibly through a law making representation of Dalits mandatory; reserving seats in all levels of government, including the judiciary and law enforcement departments, for Dalits; eliminating all religious biases from school textbooks; implementing the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act and ensuring immediate rehabilitation of released bonded laborers; instituting a commission to investigate incidents of rape, kidnapping and forced conversion to Islam of Dalits and punishing their perpetrators, including Islamic clerics who abet such cases; ratifying relevant international human rights treaties, complying with reporting obligations and inviting international rapperteurs; and taking effective measures to stop targeting Dalits as ‘Indian agents’.
In all, an impressive list of what seem absolutely necessary demands, but given ground-level realities in the ‘Land of the Pure’, we may be sure that this well-meaning report and the recommendations that it proffers will meet with deafeningly loud silence, if not thunderous opposition.
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Daughters of another god
by Amar Guriro
It is a story of fear and helplessness, unending torment and unrelenting tribulations: Dalit parents are left without a voice or access to justice while their daughters are kidnapped and converted
Neelam Kolhi outside her home located near Samaro town in Umerkot district. She was kidnapped and forcibly converted but later a court ordered her return home. The family is impoverished as can be seen by their makeshift hut. -Photos by Amar GuriroFear makes perfectly good people provide perfectly valid justifications for ultimately vile practices.
Dalit communities settled in Sindh have adopted the practice of early marriages: girls as young as 11 are forcibly married off with the rationalisation that they’ll be kidnapped or even raped if they are single. If she is kidnapped, then she is converted and married off to a Muslim man. In most cases, despite protests by parents and Hindu rights activists, the family will never see the girl again.
Frightened parents, therefore, wed their daughter at an early age to reduce the risks of their daughters being kidnapped. It is, after all, a matter of continuing lineage, faith and culture.
Thirteen-year-old Neelam Kohli could also have fallen prey to the same vicious cycle but she has been the exception to the rule: kidnapped and converted about two years ago, she was able to return to her family on the directives of a court.
She is alive and well today, her conversion has not been deemed legal, and she is not burdened with pregnancy either since she couldn’t bear children when she was raped. But her parents are now unable to find a suitor for her, since their community says Neelam was in the kidnappers’ custody for a month or so.
Neelam Kohli used to be a resident of a slum settlement called the Bheel Colony, situated near Kot Ghulam Muhammad town of Mirpurkhas district. She was kidnapped in September 2014, while her peasant parents were tilling the land. In her testimony later on, she named a local influential, Akbar Khokhar, and his two friends, Javed Kokhar and Dalho Kohli, as the kidnappers. The accused took her to a local madressah, where she was converted.
Her parents approached the police and lodged an FIR against her kidnapping. The case was reported in the Sindhi media and also found traction on social media. Local Hindu groups protested in favour of her recovery and ultimately, she was brought to a local court, where her parents proved her age. She was 11 at the time. The court issued directives to free her and allowed the parents to take her home, but no action was taken against the accused and they were allowed to walk free.
After Neelam’s return, her father Nemoon decided to migrate from their colony: the three influential predators were still out and around, and they could kidnap Neelam once again. The family left Bheel Colony and moved to Samaro Town of Umerkot district, where they live now.
Despite around two years having passed since Neelam’s return, the family is still living in fear. The place where they live now is owned by a local landlord and is in close proximity to the native village of Pir Ayub Jan Sarhandi, a Sindhi cleric, famous for forced conversion cases.
“A section of the [Hindu Marriage Bill] says that if any Hindu woman, even if she is married and has children, has converted to Islam, her Hindu marriage will be considered illegal. Many influential people will exploit this section
“We are frightened that someone will again come and kidnap her, and maybe this time around, we will not be able to bring her back,” says Neelam’s mother, Hanjoo Kohli. Her house comprises two smallsized makeshift huts surrounded by a thorn fence. They rarely leave their village.
Sitting with her is Hanjoo Kolhi, her mother. -Photos by Amar GuriroThe fear of girls being taken away and converted has only been reinforced by the new Hindu marriage legislation that was passed by the provincial assembly in February, 2016. Although the Hindu Marriage Bill codifies marriage laws for an estimated 7.5 million Hindus living in Sindh, the question of kidnapping-for-conversion has been evaded by lawmakers.
“A section of the bill says that if any Hindu woman, even if she is married and has children, has converted to Islam, her Hindu marriage will be considered illegal. Many influential people will exploit this section,” explains social worker from Lyari Town, Karachi, Seema Rana.
“We were very happy about finally getting a law that will help reduce forced conversion cases, especially of lower-caste Hindus, but we were wrong. This bill has many flaws, and we demand that certain sections of the bill might be amended, so the Hindus may get some legal protection against forced conversion,” says Seema Rana.
In recent years, the number of kidnappings-for-conversion cases has been increasing in Sindh. Most of these cases go unreported in the mainstream media; there isn’t much interest in the state machinery to solve such cases either, as the majority of them belong to lower caste communities or ‘untouchables’ as they are more commonly known.
“Every year, around 1,000 to 1,200 Dalits girls — approximately 100 every month —are kidnapped and forcibly converted. The numbers could be more but there is no any mechanism to calculate the actual figure,” says renowned Dalit activist Surendar Valasai, who is also the advisor on minority affairs to Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, Patron-in-Chief of the PPP.
Most areas where lower caste Hindus live have no basic facilities, and women have to walk miles everyday to fetch water for their families.Valasai explains that when a Dalit girl is kidnapped, her parents, instead of lodging a case in any police station, are forced to sit with the opponent while local feudal lords sweep the matter under the rug in the name of Jirga. He says most of these Dalits are very poor and are unable to highlight their plight.
Abdul Hai of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s (HRCP) Sindh chapter agrees that a large number of forced conversion cases of lower caste Hindus is taking place but is going unreported. “We haven’t been receiving forced conversation cases as rich Hindus deal with these cases on their own; poor Dalits are also unable to reach us,” he says.
According to official estimates in 2011, with a 7.5 million-strong population, Hindus are the biggest religious minority of Pakistan and the majority lives in Sindh. Unofficial estimates put the number higher. But various Hindu rights organisations estimate that around 6.8m or 90 pc of them are lower caste or ‘untouchables’.
Some of these lower caste Hindus are scattered in southern Punjab as well as the northern districts of upper Sindh (including Sukkur, Ghotki and Jacobabad), but the vast majority of them are in different districts of lower Sindh, particularly in Mirpurkhas division (Tharparkar, Sanghar, Umerkot and Mirpurkhas).
They are poor, uneducated and have no access to basic facilities such as drinking water, sanitation and even schools. Most of them are either living on a local influential’s land or that of the government. In most of these districts, the Sindh government has been unable to provide land ownership to these vulnerable communities.
In Tharparkar district, around 700,000 or almost half the total 1.6m population are Hindus; around 80pc of those Hindus are lower caste communities, such as Meghwars, Kohlis and Bheels. Whenever there is drought, which has now become frequent, these lower caste Hindus travel to nearby districts which are irrigated on River Indus, in search of food for themselves and fodder for their livestock. In these districts, they work as temporary farm workers on the lands of powerful Muslim landlords. Despite working day and night, on most occasions these poor Dalits are not given their due share in the crop.
“After a drought hits Thar Desert, these Dalits become internally displaced people. They walk hundreds of miles with their livestock, to find some employment as agricultural workers with a powerful Muslim landlord. But in many cases, work is forcibly extracted out of them; they are often not paid, and eventually, are pushed into bonded labour,” says rights activist Veerji Kohli.
Although a majority of Pakistani Hindus are lower caste, almost all Hindu parliamentarians are from the upper caste, which creates a set of dichotomies: who becomes the voice of Dalits in Sindh?
In total, there are 37 representative seats that have been reserved for religious minorities in various legislatures: 10 seats in the National Assembly, four seats in the Senate, nine in the Sindh Assembly, eight in Punjab, and three each in Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Of these 37 reserved seats — meant for Hindus, Christians, Sikhs and other minorities — 20 are occupied by Hindu parliamentarians, 16 of whom are upper caste Hindus. In essence, they represent the 9pc of the total Hindu population in Pakistan.
The shrine of Pir Pithoro in Pithoro Town in District Umerkot is exclusively a shrine for lower caste HindusPakistani Hindus, like other religious minorities, have dual vote rights in principle. But in reality, they have no right to vote to elect their own representative, as seats for religious minorities are kept as reserved. Distribution of these seats is at the discretion of political parties’ leadership, and therefore, most upper-caste Hindus, majority of them well-off and privileged, are nominated to these seats.
“Dalits are poor and can’t pay huge amount in party funds as upper caste Hindus usually do. As a result, they can’t reach the assemblies and thus their voice is not heard in the assemblies,” says Veerji.
In fact, Dalit exclusion and discrimination at the hands of upper caste Hindus is as much a concern for lower caste Hindus as the persecution inflicted from elsewhere. They are not allowed to sit or eat with any upper caste Hindu, and therefore in Mirpurkhas district, there are separate tea stalls or restaurants for these lower caste communities. It is for this reason that Mirpurkhas, Khipro, Sanghar, Umerkot and other cities of Mirpurkhas division are dotted with restaurants and shacks named “Hindu Hotel”, “Kohli Hotel”, “Bheel Hotel” and so on.
Similarly, lower caste Hindus have their own places of worship, where annual mass gatherings of Dalits are held. Rarely would any upper caste Hindus visit these temples or shrines. The shrine of Pir Pithoro in the Pithoro town in Umerkot District, and the Rama Pir Temple in Tando Allahyar, are both examples of exclusive sites of worship for Dalit Hindus.
But Sant Neeno Ram Ashram, a shrine of local saint in Salamkot town of Tharparkar district, provides the uglier side to the dynamic: managed by upper caste Hindus, this shrine is frequented daily by a large number of lower caste Hindus. Even in matters of worship, Dalits face discrimination: instead of food being served on plates, upper caste Hindus distribute food on old newspaper. Even in devotion, Dalits in Sindh are children of a different god.
The writer is a journalist based in Karachi. He tweets @AmarGuriro
On the run
by Aslam Khwaja
Its a case of once bitten, twice shy for families whose loved ones have been kidnapped or pushed into bondage
Some 28 years ago, young Meeran was captured by zamindar Lal Mangrio in tehsil Dhoronaro, Umarkot district, along with her family — her father, four brothers and four sisters. She was released some seven years ago. But when her family planned to marry her off within their community, the zamindar’s son, Ibrahim Mangrio, kept her; later on, he and his henchmen would sexually assault her. Meeran now has two children.
When she gave birth to a girl, the zamindar wanted the infant, named Meerzadi. Upon her refusal to comply, he allegedly poisoned the seven-month-old baby.
About five years ago, Meeran gave birth to a boy named Hanif. Today, she is on the run from the zamindar, who is after the boy now. Recently he offered her Rs100,000 for the child but she refused. She lives by constantly changing her place of residence in fear of the zamindar.
After employing Lalio Kohli’s family for two to three years as peasants, a zamindar near Umarkot declared that her family had incurred loans of Rs50,000 from him and kept them in chains. One night, this family fled from the zamindar’s private prison but were captured by the landlord’s armed men. Lacho’s husband, Lalio Kolhi, was beaten badly and separated from his family.
Most cases of forced Dalit conversions are not reported in the mainstream media nor do they find attention at the government level.Upon enquiring about her husband, she was told that he was working on the fields. After some time, the Umarkot police raided the area and many workers were freed but there was no trace of Lacho’s husband. She is still searching for Lalio.
Chandar Kohli alias Javed Shaikh was rescued from bonded labour by rights activists in District Thatta. He had been kept in bondage by a landlord named Luqman Palari for Rs200. He worked for two years without any payment.
When rights activists Ghulam Hussain and Lalee Kohli received information about Chandar Kohli slaving away in bondage, they proceeded to the village to rescue him. Despite heated arguments and threats issued by the landlord, the activists successfully rescued the peasant.
Lalee narrates that at one point, both parties were ready for a physical confrontation. One of the landlord’s managers claimed that the local administration will do nothing against them; his belief was that they could extract bonded labour out of anyone who was in debt, even if the amount owed was as little as Rs5.
Chandar was taken to a residential colony for freed bonded labour in Hyderabad. He set up a life there; he was happily married with three children and working independently on a farm.
About nine years ago, some preachers contacted him and drove him to Karachi. They offered him a better life and a Muslim woman’s hand in marriage if he converted to Islam. Unable to deal with the trappings of the caste system, he was attracted by the glamour of urban Muslim life and subsequently converted.
But at home, Chandar’s wife refused to become Muslim and went to live with her parents instead. Meanwhile, those who had helped Chandar convert distanced themselves. Today, Chandar faces an unusual dilemma: he is officially a Muslim citizen, and according to Islamic laws, he cannot become Hindu again. His family is still not willing to convert.
The writer is a social science researcher. He tweets @AslamKhwaja
Living at the edge
by Mansoor Raza
In October, 2013, the dead body of a low-caste Hindu named Bhuro Bheel from Pangrio, Badin was exhumed from the graveyard on the pretext that low-caste Hindus cannot be buried in a graveyard used by Muslims. Bhuro was killed in a road accident.
According to a press report “…local clerics instigated the mob to dig out the body by repeating that a ‘non-Muslim was buried in a Muslim graveyard’.” The clerics mentioned were in fact seminary students from a nearby town, who came armed with weapons to carry out the task, say locals. Bhuro’s body lay under the sky for nearly eight hours before it could be retrieved by members of the Dalit community.
In another case, Manoo Bheel from Thar has been on hunger strike since 2003 to recover nine family members who have gone missing. His family had migrated to an irrigated area after a drought but in the 1980s, he started working with a zamindar in district Mithi as a working partner.
After some years, the zamindar claimed that Manoo had taken an advance, so he refused the payment of his wages. Instead, he sold Manoo and three of his brothers and two of his in-laws with their families —21 family members in total —to another zamindar in Sanghar district. Despite some administrative measures, Munno Bheel is still in search of justice.
According to the 1998 census, the population of religious minorities in Pakistan was around six million or 3.7pc of the total population. Hindus and Christians constitute 83pc of religious minorities, with Hindus outnumbering Christians by a small margin. About 93pc of Hindus live in Sindh.
In 1956, the government of Pakistan declared about 32 castes and tribes as schedules castes in the country. The majority of them are lower-caste Hindus, such as Kohlis, Meghawars, Bheels, Bagris, Balmakis, Jogis and Oadhs. Most low-caste Hindus are in menial jobs and associated with low-end agricultural services.
The spatial distribution of those, widely, is Rahimyar Khan and Bhawalpur districts in Punjab and Tharparkar, Mirpurkhas, Umerkot and Badin districts in Sindh.
In 1956, the government of Pakistan declared about 32 castes and tribes as schedules castes in the country. The majority of them are lower-caste Hindus, such as Kohlis, Meghawars, Bheels, Bagris, Balmakis, Jogis and Oadhs.
Many of these communities face the brunt of vulnerability when a natural disaster strikes. Worldwide, disasters affect poorest of the poor most, as they live in hazardous areas, don’t have monetary cushions for rehabilitation and are discriminated in aid delivery. All those holds true for Pakistan’s Dalit population as well — these factors became glaringly obvious in the aftermath of the 2010 floods, where reportedly, they were denied access to relief goods on one pretext or another.
The low-caste Hindus are caught up in a vicious cycle. Ending their woes is not possible without political mainstreaming, but students of political science know very well that performance in political spheres is heavily dependent on the economic well being of a community, particularly when it comes to minorities.
Minorities thrive in excellence and it comes with educational achievements. The literacy rates of Dalits, according to a report, are only 26pc as compared to national rates of 58 to 70 per cent.
Economic impoverishment, discrimination and spatial distribution of population are big impediments for these wretched of earth to perform. Upward social mobility is not possible without owning modes of production as defined by service capitalism, which in turn relies heavily on advance education system for its survival. Discrimination also means usurpation of due social capital, another loss to the community.
Traditionally in South Asia, caste tends to define professions as well. It has worked for quite long in a barter economy, but with the advent of the culture of cash economies, the former started collapsing. The global consensus on the values of human rights also brought the issue of birth-descent discrimination to the fore. The values of free-market are also at loggerheads with traditional mindsets.
Moreover, a secular contract between a citizen and the state demands removing all shades of discrimination based on caste, class, gender, ethnicity and sect.
In Pakistan’s case, the State has all the necessary instruments at its disposal and has all the moral justification to support the downtrodden.
Will it act or not is a different question, one defined more by political will.
The writer is a freelance researcher with a specific interest in subaltern narratives and the functioning of urban centres in Asia. He can be reached at mansooraza@gmail.com
EDITORIAL: THE ASSAULT CONTINUES
Vinod Mubayi and Raza Mir
The unrelenting attacks on Dalit, progressive, and minority students in universities all around the country by right-wing thugs in cahoots with the police, orchestrated by the Central government, continue unabated. The latest episode is taking place, once again, in the University of Hyderabad (UOH) with brutal attacks by police on students protesting the return of the Vice Chancellor Apparao who had been sent on leave pending an enquiry against him for his role in the death of Rohith Vemula in January. Vemula, a Dalit post-graduate scholar in the university, had been hounded and discriminated against by the university administration to the point where he took his own life, an act that has been labeled an “institutional murder.”
Last month the focus was on JNU in New Delhi where several students were charged by the police under the law of sedition that dates back to the time of the British Raj. Notwithstanding the fact that the very idea of a “seditious utterance” runs counter to the principle of free speech enshrined in the Constitution, different governments since the time of independence have let this colonial law remain on the books largely because it gives them a convenient handle to harass and intimidate political opponents. Under the current, authoritarian BJP regime, the use of this law for emasculating the opposition and harassing those who dare to voice their opinion can be expected to increase. Already, numerous students and professors have been dragged into court and slapped with charges based on false, manipulated, and doctored video “evidence.” Although many of the JNU students who were charged last month have now been able to get bail, their future life will be shackled by having to face trial. Exceptional and gifted individuals can, of course, use this opportunity to lay bare the false and hypocritical face of the administration as the president of the JNU students union has done, but the chilling effect of such prosecution on the right to free expression of an average person can hardly be discounted.
The UOH event shows graphically the devious and malign role being played by the HRD ministry, which controls central universities all over the country. After Vemula’s death, an inquiry instituted by the ministry led to the VC being sent on leave while his role was being investigated. Under the administration of the acting VC, the university was slowly returning to normal. However, Apparao suddenly returned to reclaim his position a few days ago; the vast majority of the students, barring a minority belonging to BJP’s student wing ABVP, naturally protested as they feared that Apparao would tamper with evidence to exculpate himself before the inquiry cold be completed. However, the students and the faculty’s protest was met with a brutal assault by the Telengana police. There were many injuries and several students are hospitalized. The administration also cut of power and water to the hostels and closed the messes leaving the students with no place to stay or eat. In all this, it is very likely that the HRD ministry was complicit. Despite the fact that the VC had originally been the target of an enquiry and sent on leave pending an investigation, the fact that the ministry not only allowed him to return but acquiesced in all the other repressive and violent actions of the police shows its true character.
A parallel controversy is being created over slogans pertaining to the government’s, or rather the RSS, concept of nationalism. A Muslim legislator in Maharashtra was expelled from the assembly for refusing to say Bharat Mata ki Jai (victory to Mother India), which has obvious Hindu religious overtones, rather than the secular slogan Jai Hind. This form of harassment based on petty cultural nationalism is not unique to India. It has manifested in other countries when attempts are made to coerce ethnic, linguistic, religious, minorities to adopt the cultural symbols of the majority. However, what is happening in India is the enforcement of this cultural nationalism by street thugs allied to the RSS and its vast array of fronts and groups like Bajrang Dal or assorted senas and the tacit endorsement of their actions by the police responding to their political masters. This is the slippery road to fascism that all votaries of democracy and freedom have to be mindful of.
Finally, it needs to be noted that the repression against Adivasis and their supporters by the BJP government in Chhattisgarh is intensifying. Earlier, the courageous activist Soni Sori, a member of AAP, was targeted by unknown assailants, very likely police agents, by having a toxic chemical splased on her face. Now the police are even targeting journalists who have written about police atrocities. Respected human-rights activists like Malini Subramaniam and now Bela Bhatia are being literally forced out of the state. A well-known commentator has written that all the provisions of the Indian Constitution as well as the directives of the Supreme Court coming to a grinding halt at the borders of this state! Not that they are being observed more meticulously elsewhere under the Modi regime.
Pakistan
Manu Bheel, a Dalit, was freed from bonded labour in 1996. His family then worked as wage labourers, but in 1998, nine of his family members were kidnapped, allegedly by men sent by his former landlord. The case is still unresolved, and Manu Bheel’s symbolic hunger strike has become a symbol of the plight of Pakistan’s Dalits.Photo: Jakob Carlsen
Introduction
Dalits in Pakistan mostly belong to the Hindu minority and fall victim to double discrimination due to their religious status – as non-Muslims in a Muslim state – as well as their caste. As in neighbouring India, they are officially known as ‘scheduled castes’ and suffer numerous forms of abuse, from bonded labour to rape. Crimes against them are often committed with impunity.
An illiterary rate above 75 per cent is the norm, and poverty is rampant. In the Sindh and Punjab provinces, the majority of Dalits live as bonded and forced labourers enslaved by landlords. The only reservation policy is a reinstated six per cent quota for minorities in public services, which is not being enforced.
Officially, the number of Dalits is approximately 330,000 (as of 1998), but according to researchers the real figure may be as high as two million. However, these data do not include ‘lower castes’ within the Muslim community, living under similarly depressed conditions.
Sweepers in Bangladesh
Dirtiness, garbage, bad smell and nasty bio-products are part of their lives
Muzibur Rahman Masud, Daily Jugantor, Bangladesh
About 3.5 million sweepers belonging to the Dalit (so called lower cast of the Hindus) community across the country including the capital have been passing an inhuman and sub-standard life amid unbearable pains, enormous sufferings, serious accommodation problem and deep uncertainty. The number of Dalit people only in the capital is about half million. The sweepers or Dalits, one of the 44 scheduled cast communities, is the most neglected section of the society.
No authority is there to look after the sweepers who passes their nights only to wake up in the morning to clean the dirties and city garbage. They have been working for 365 days of the year but their reserved colonies are being occupied one after another by musclemen. They have been deprived of all types of civil facilities including education and health care services. They have been passing their days in unbearable sorrows and sufferings without electricity, pure drinking water and supply of gas. The recruitment of sweepers in government jobs has also been decreased. The shanties in their colonies are not hygienic so that their children have been suffering from different type of diseases. The female sweepers are being raped and oppressed frequently during their work in the night. The City Corporations and police stations are not taking actions against the culprits despite repeated complaints, rather, they are being oppressed by the authorities.
The Telegu and Kanpuri speaking sweepers have no educational or health care service centre in their colonies. The pregnant sweepers have no maternity leave, even there is no maternity or mother care facilities in the colony. Some of these colonies have few numbers of primary schools but there is no adequate language teacher. Some of non-government organizations (NGO) have been collecting huge amount of money but it is not being used for their welfare.
The government slogan ‘Education for All’ carries little value there. For these reasons, some of the Dalit guardians have sent up their children to nearby schools and colleges by changing their identity and address. There is no space for walking, enough drainage system in the colonies. In this condition, the sweepers in deep frustration. They have submitted memorandums containing their various demands to the authorities even to the Prime Minister but no results came yet. They have also failed to the Mayor of Dhaka Sadek Hossain Khoka and Local Government and Co-operatives Minister Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan despite repeated attempts.
In earlier days, they used to enjoy life by drinking liquor, taking ganza and country-made liquor but it became a daydream for them today. They have no money to buy liquor. They have no money for colourful function during the marriage ceremonies. Even the members of the Shawtal community arrange pleasure-festival along with liquor and ganza after the death of a Shawtal to forget the pain. They join the function cheerfully and enjoy it. They consider that the death free detached the men from all types of sufferings and made him free from all hardships and problems. On the other hand, they arrange a weeklong .mourning programme after the birth of a child considering that the newborn baby would face enormous sufferings during his lifetime.
Shyama Proshad, a sweeper leader told this reporter that the secret meaning of the festival with the death is different. We do it to forget the sorrows. All these information here revealed after this journalist visited the Ganoktuli, Dayaganj, Dhalpur, Sutrapur, Agargaon and Mohammadpur sweeper colonies.
Dateline: Ganoktuli Sweeper Colony
Over one lakh sweepers live in the Ganoktuli Sweeper Colony located on a piece of 20 acres of land by the side of the Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) Headquarters at Pilkhana. The people are living, among them 50 percent are sweepers. The colony was erected only for the sweepers but local terrorists, muscleman and drug traders and mostly heroin, liquor and ganza sellers have occupied a major portion of it. Local influential persons have already forcibly captured about two acres of colony land.
The condition of entire colony is nasty and unhygienic, discomfort environment. Life is here very difficult more than the imagination. The residents of the colony have been passing their days in inhuman condition live in their small shanties along with serious bad smell of dirt and garbage. Scarcity of pure drinking water all over the colony is so high. Water supply to the colony is dirty. There are only four to five water taps in the colony. Whole daylong queue surrounding these taps is a common scene. They bath here and collect their drinking water from these taps. There is no separate arrangement for the females. The dustbin is located in front of the slum house due to scarcity of land. The minor boys and girls used to respond the nature’s call on the roadside drains. The kids and band of pigs used to play together. They wash their dishes and other kitchen instruments by the drain water. The mosquitoes and flies gathered on the dirt. There is no scope to fresh breath because of the huge congested slum house in the colony. There are over 100 unauthorized make-shift centres of country made liquor, ganza, Phensidyl and heroin outside the colony. Terrorist and violent acts here centering the drug business are common phenomenon. The local musclemen under the direct shelter of law and order forces run the drug business, so that nobody dared to protest them.
Local people said that there is no health care centre in the colony. There is only a primary school but the scope of education of the sweepers children is limited. There is no teacher who has some expertise on their language. Lashkar, a member of the Dalit community alleged that their children are neglect and harassed in the school. So that they loss their interest in the school. The availability of drugs in the colony made the juveniles and teenagers drug addict. Even they have been becoming vagabond, terrorist and musclemen.
Dayaganj Sweeper Colony
Dayaganj Sweeper Colony is located in the old party of the capital. About 50,000 sweepers reside with fear and uncertainty. Most of the areas of the colony have already been occupied by the miscreants and rest part is now under threat of eviction. The Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) authorities have built a market there evicting the sweepers but they were not given even a single position. Local terrorists are threatening to capture the rest portion of the colony. Fearing terrorist attacks, some of the sweepers have already left the colony. Local influential groups have set up drug selling centres showing the sweepers.
Local police officials with a regular gap raid the drug spots and arrest the innocent sweepers but the culprits influential quarters remain untouched. There is no way to lead healthy life in the colony because of scarcity of electricity, supply of water and other basic facilities. The garbage and dirt is everywhere and huge congested slum houses made them helpless human being.
Agargaon PWD Sweeper Colony
About 1000 sweeper families have been passing their measurable days on a small land near Dhaka Orthopedic Hospital in the city’s Agargaon area. The normal breathing would be hampered seriously if any body enter into the colony. There is no room for walking inside the colony. They have been living here by erecting shanties by bamboo and sacks. The government recently circulated eviction notice on them without ascertaining any reason. They are counting days for more sufferings. They have been paying Taka 2 everyday to the local police to stay here. The musclemen of nearby BNP Basti are running a drug spot using the sweepers. The entire western side of the colony has already occupied by the miscreants. They have been collecting tolls for the cleaners for their staying in their own colonies.
Dhalpur Sweeper Colony
The situation is comparatively better here than the other sweeper colonies in the capital but the real sweepers are now under threat here. About 2000 families of Kanpuri speaking sweepers have been living in the colony on 6.7 acres of land. At least 200 slum houses of the colony have already been captured by local influential persons. The real sweepers are now under threat. The sweepers were allocated the colony after constructing eight rows of 10/10 feet houses. A good number sweeper have been already left the colony in the face of threat by the local terrorists and influential political leaders.
Local people alleged that most of the houses of this colony and nearby City Palli are now drug-selling centre. After evening, the gathering of drug addicts and anti-social elements with liquor, heroin, ganza and Phensidyl is a regular phenomenon here. The drug syndicate used to sell huge quantity of liquor worth about Tk seven to eight lakhs everyday. Scarcity of electricity and pure drinking water is a common picture. They pass their lives in between the light and darkness of the colony.
Spotlight-Mohammadpu Sweeper Colony
About 1000 sweepers are living in Mohammadpur Sweeper Colony with 200 houses of different shapes but the sweepers are not allowed to stay here. These houses have already been captured by miscreants and made it as dens of drug peddlers. Drugs like alcohol, ganza, heroin and Phensidyl worth about Tk four to five lakhs are being sold here everyday. Many sweepers were evicted from their house at gunpoint for selling drugs in their houses. Dirt and garbage cover the entire colony. It is very difficult to live here like a wet place. Not only in these colonies, there are a good number of lower cast Dalit people of the Hindu community have been passing their measurable days and lives in Mirpur, Shyampur, Gulshan, Islampur and Badda areas of the capital.
While visiting the colony, this reporter met the President of Bangladesh Dalitas Human Rights B G Murti who narrated the lives of the lowers of the lower cast Hindus. BG Murti said that the sweepers have been engaged in cleaning profession by birth and tradition. “We are the citizens of this country, we fought for the independence of the country, whereas we have been identified as untouched.” he said. He claimed that about 35 laks of sweepers and lower cast people like cobbler, shoe-maker, smith and kamars have been staying all over the country. Our people have been engaged throughout the day to clean up the government offices, hospitals, educational institutions, different private and non-government offices and roads under city corporations and tea gardens of the country, whereas we do not have enough food for feeding our children, BG added. The scope to enter into the government jobs has been shrinking day by day. In most of the cases, the non-professionals have been capturing the posts of sweepers by offering bribes.
The Dalit leader alleged that we have been deprived of the government jobs as the government has decided that no man would be appointed as sweeper without having a class eight-pass certificate. The present government so far recruited about 3500 sweepers in different offices but there is only a boy from the community. Not only that the boy from the sweeper community also paid a handsome amount of money to the employer for the job.
He alleged that we are being ousted from our colonies, the law and order agencies don’t hear to us. It seems we are not the citizens of this country. The sweepers have no permanent job, they have been working on daily basis. There is no leave for a day in a month. We have been forced to work even in the Eid Day and Puja-festivals, but our salary is maximum Taka 2000 to 2500.
BG Murti told that a large number of sweepers in different colonies are now infected by different critical diseases and became drug addicts. A good number of children have already died of different diseases. At least a male sweeper is being tortured or a female sweeper is being raped everyday by terrorists and musclemen.
Shamsul Huda, Executive Director of Alliance for Development Support & Cooperation, a rare organisation working with Dalit people told this reporter that the sweepers are deprived of all type of facilities from the government. As per the constitution of the country, a member of the sweeper community is granted all of his basic and citizens’ rights but they are far away from the constitutional rights.
According to the international convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination (CERD) agreement, the government is bound to fulfill the basic needs of employment, housing, education and health care services of the lower cast people. But, only before the election, the ruling and the opposition parties come to them but after the election nobody inquired about them. The government and semi-government offices have been recruiting non-professional people as sweepers, though there are a clear-cut rule for recruitment of sweepers from the Dalits community. Even after liberation till 1975, they were allowed to enjoy three-month leave and had awarded money for drinking and other facilities but those are daydream for them.
B. Samuddram, a witness of over 100 years
B. Samuddram, a 125 years oldman of Agargaon Sweeper Colony told this reporter that during the British regime about 50 sweeper families sent to Pakisthan from Kanpur, Nagpur and Andhra provice of Indian when the toture and opression on the lower cast people were alamingly increased. They were initially appointed as sweeper to the Dhaka Samity. Later, more sweepers came to them from those provices. The migrated lower cast people had engaged in different sectors as sweepers as there was a few people to be appointed as sweeper. There are about 3.5 million sweepers in the country, he claimed adding that though their forefathers are from different countries but now they are all Bangladeshi citizens.
Untouchability in Japan
The concept of hinin (non-human) was first used in the Nara period (710-784) when a member of the nobility was labelled a non-human for taking part in a treacherous plot against the Emperor. In addition, those who escaped from labour or other services to the Imperial family were caught were also referred to as non-humans. Later, persons for economic reasons became beggars, vagrants or vagabonds were also called hinin.
There was a list of eta-hinin which in the order of prestige ran like the following; local chiefs of ghettos, blind masseurs, dancers, plasterers, monkey-showmen, stone cutters, umbrella makers, river boatmen, mountain guards, material dryers, writing brush makers, straw raincoat makers, puppet showmen and brothel madams.
Hinin thus was originally a person in Japan who was disobedient by way of struggling for power or was completely powerless and was living on the edge of society and law. In either case he or she represented a threat to the existing law and order.
The epithet eta meaning much filth in Japan first appeared in the feudal Kamakura period (1185-1333). A minority that was not differentiated from the Eta class were the hinin (non-humans), but later also came to include lower groups which included leather workers, tanners and butchers as well as dyers of cloth material and makers of bamboo goods, entertainers, prostitutes and travelling diviners as well as undertakers and tomb guards
In Japan the word Sandals (Chandal) was and is even in modern times inscribed, in the fashion of hate crime, on the tomb of a Burakumin in order to mark it out as that belonging to Burakumin (eta) community. Historically, Chandal is probably the most impure grouping both in Hindu and Indian Buddhist tradition. This concept travelled from India to Japan via the Buddhist tradition.
The Japanese Buraku people however have never accepted the theory of purity and pollution on its face value, as an explanation of untouchability in Japan. A statement from the Burakumin literature is unequivocal:
The present Burakumin are not just composed of the descendants of the former Eta and Hinin, but were also socially reproduced after the so called Emancipation Edicts
The Burakumin people do not accept any religious explanation for the practice of pollution taboos either:
The overemphasis of the religious aspect and the attempt to explain the discrimination of particular caste merely by their profession finally leads to reducing the occupations of discrimination castes to just those connected with death or blood (butchers, knackers, tanners, hangmen, grave-diggers) and, on the other hand, to excluding other castes from the pursuit of such professions however this does not fit the historical facts since, as can be proved, only a portion of the Eta in the Tokugawa era worked in these professions, but many were active in agriculture or as guards and as guards and had nothing to do with the above mentioned professions. On the other hand, for example, the tannin of white deer skin (shirakawa) in the area of Osaka, was not the responsibility of the Eta, but of craftsmen, belonging to the caste of the ko
Neither can it be overlooked that hunts or animal-baiting “games” like the inuoimomo, practiced by the ruling classes, were not the object of social discrimination, or that, in the Tokugawa era, the people were forbidden to consume beef but several daimyo and even the sh?gun quite often obtained it from the Hihone hab (now Shiga prefecture). Here it may be seen that the forming of certain religious notions, justifying caste discrimination, is also subject to the ruling classes and can be manipulated by them
It is not the pursuit of certain occupations, despised by social consciousness, which is decisive for the decline to discriminate against castes, but the social standing of these castes has forced them to pursue despised and undesirable occupations. Furthermore, certain professions became the object of social contempt by the very fact that they were imposed on the discriminated castes and had to be pursued by them…...
….Some of the professions belonging to the monopoly of the discriminated castes, like bamboo or straw, processing, can not be brought into any connection with religious taboos. An interpretation underrating the socio-political connection between castes and professions and seeking to explain the professions pursued by discriminated castes simply “by religious reasons” can offer no plausible explanation as to why bamboo processing for example became the monopoly of the Eta
In Japan as in India, it is not because the people who were doing degrading tasks that they were untouchables; it is rather that they are borne into a family which is part of a clan or caste which as historically forced to do these degrading tasks and this enforcement was and is being carried out by other means in the present.
Question is would the Indian Untouchables and the Japanese Burakumin continue to stay in their situation if they were to be given the choice?
For this we have to examine the situation where they refuse to do their assigned tasks. In India doing so frequently lead to and still leads to various punishments. In the Indian countryside beatings, raping women, killing of men women and children, burning of houses wholesale destruction, and ritual humiliation such as forced to eat human excreta, stripping women naked and forcing them to march are not uncommon. Traditional punishments which were inhumane and cruel for the slightest insubordination were written into the religious texts and implemented by the major dominant caste, overseen by the local Brahmin and ultimately backed up by the king. Some apologists of the caste system and untouchability used to argue that these prescribed punishments were of theoretical nature and that they were never put into practice. This raises the question as to why these were incorporated into these texts in the first place. A comparison with modern day ground reality would indicate that these punishments are mentally hardwired into the minds of the oppressors from a very early age. One writer had asked the question that unless evidence was coming to the contrary, it had to be assumed that these written laws were fully functioning when it was required for them to be.
Brahminical law-givers enjoined upon the ruler to ensure proper observance of caste duties, and inscriptional evidence shows that brahmanized rulers took pride in championing the varna- dharma and actively intervened in regulating caste hierarchy. After all, it was a status system which could not be delinked from the question of power
So what did the ruling classes both in Japan and in India gain by these discriminating measures?
The Burakumin, robbed of their right to work by discrimination, function as a reserve army, the existence of which enables the employers to hire labour without great cost according to the economic situation prevailing, or, to make them redundant again without provoking great social conflicts – since the majority of Burakumin live in a state of permanent semi-unemployment and are therefore forced to accept even the smallest wage, their existence has the effect of keeping wages low. Their function as wage deflators, on the other hands, favours the reproduction of a discriminatory consciousness and thereby causes a split in the working population.
Untouchability is a cornerstone of the caste system which is continuously hierarchical with theoretical 4 varnas with the untouchables being considered outside of thevarna scheme; at least in theory; but inside of it for all other purposes.
The caste system in the feudalism of the (Japanese) Tokugawa era thus also fulfilled this function of “divide and rule”. By codifying society in castes the aim was to exclude uncontrollable social changes which could have led to a threat to the ruling regime. In this very fact, the cause for the formation of the Eta and Hinin castes must be recognised.
Similar arguments have been put forward pertaining to the lower castes and untouchables in India.
The repression of menial castes, and securing their structured dependence, made agricultural labour cheap and it also reduced the cost of artisanal products and services; for artisan castes had a depressed status with restricted mobility; and hereditary transmission of skill reduced the expenses on training etc. lowering the wage cost as a whole.
Burakumin (部落民, "hamlet people"/"village people", "those who live in hamlets/villages")is an outcast group at the bottom of the Japanese social order that has historically been the victim of severe discrimination and ostracism. They were originally members of outcast communities in the Japanese feudal era, composed of those with occupations consideredimpure or tainted by death (such as executioners, undertakers, workers in slaughterhouses, butchers or tanners), which have severe social stigmas of kegare (穢れ or "defilement") attached to them. Traditionally, the Burakumin lived in their own hamlets or ghettos.
Terminology
The term 部落 buraku literally refers to a small, generally rural, commune or a hamlet. People from regions of Japan where "discriminated communities" no longer exist (e.g. anywhere north of Tokyo) may refer to any hamlet as a buraku, indicating the word's use is not necessarily pejorative. Historically the term was used for an outcast community that was heavily discriminated against officially and formally.
Vagrancy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
John Everett Millais The Blind Girl, depicting vagrant musicians
Vagrancy is the condition of homelessness without regular employment or income. Vagrants usually live in poverty and support themselves by begging, garbage scraping, petty theft, temporary work, or welfare (where available).
Historically, vagrancy in Western societies was associated with petty crime, begging and lawlessness, and punishable by law by forced labor, forced military service, imprisonment, or confinement to dedicated labor houses.
A person who experiences this condition may be referred to as a vagrant, vagabond, rogue, tramp or drifter.
Both vagrant and vagabond ultimately derive from the Latin word vagari, meaning "wander". The term vagabond is derived from Latin vagabundus. In Middle English, vagabond originally denoted a person without a home or employment.
In modern societies, anti-homelessness legislation aims to both help and re-house homeless people on one side, and criminalize homelessness and begging on the other.
Historical views
A woodcut from c. 1536 depicting a vagrant being punished in the streets in Tudor England.
Vagrants have been historically characterised as outsiders in settled, ordered communities: embodiments of otherness, objects of scorn or mistrust, or worthy recipients of help and charity.
Some ancient sources show vagrants as passive objects of pity, who deserve generosity and the gift of alms. Others show them as subversives, or outlaws, who make a parasitical living through theft, fear and threat.
Some fairy tales of medieval Europe have beggars cast curses on anyone who was insulting or stingy towards them. In Tudor England, some of those who begged door-to-door for "milk, yeast, drink, pottage" were thought to be witches.
Many world religions, both in history and today, have vagrant traditions or make reference to vagrants. In Christianity, Jesus is seen in the Bible shown having compassion for beggars, prostitutes, and the disenfranchised. The Catholic church also teaches compassion for people living in vagranc. Vagrant lifestyles are seen in Christian movements in notable figures such as St. Paul. Many still exist in places like Europe, Africa, and the Near East, as preserved by Gnosticism, Hesychasm, and various esoteric practices
In some East Asian and South Asian countries, the condition of vagrancy has long been historically associated with the religious life, as described in the religious literature of Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and Muslim Sufi traditions. Examples include sadhus, dervishes, Bhikkhus and the sramanic traditions generally..
Laws related to vagrancy
Belgium
From 27 November 1891, a vagabond could be jailed. Vagabonds, beggars and procurers were imprisoned in vagrancy prisons: Hoogstraten; Merksplas; and Wortel (Flanders). There, the prisoners had to work for their living by working on the land or in the prison workhouse. If the prisoners had earned enough money, then they could leave the “colony” (as it was called). On 12 January 1993, the Belgian vagrancy law was repealed. At that time, 260 vagabonds still lived in the Wortel colony.
Finland and Sweden
In premodern Finland and Sweden, vagrancy was a crime, which could result in a sentence of forced labor or forced military service. There was a "legal protection" (Finnish: laillinen suojelu) obligation: those not part of the estates of the realm (nobility, clergy, burghers or land-owners) were obliged to be employed, or otherwise, they could be charged with vagrancy. Legal protection was mandatory already in medieval Swedish law, but Gustav I of Sweden began strictly enforcing this provision, applying it even when work was potentially available. In Finland, the legal protection provision was repealed in 1883; however, vagrancy still remained illegal, if connected with "immoral" or "indecent" behavior. In 1936, a new law moved the emphasis from criminalization into social assistance. Forced labor sentences were abolished in 1971 and anti-vagrancy laws were repealed in 1987.
Germany
In Germany, according to the 1871 Penal Code (§ 361 des Strafgesetzbuches von 1871), vagabondage was among the grounds to confine a person to a labor house.
In the Weimar Republic, the law against vagrancy was relaxed, but it became much more stringent in Nazi Germany, where vagrancy, together with begging, prostitution, and "work-shyness" (arbeitsscheu), was classified "asocial behavior" as punishable by confinement to concentration camps.
Russia
Russian Empire
In the Russian Empire, the legal term "vagrancy" (Russian: бродяжничество, brodyazhnichestvo) was defined in another way than corresponding terms (vagabondage, Landstreicherei) in Western Europe. Russian law recognized one as a vagrant if he could not prove his own standing (title), or if he changed his residence without a permission from authorities, rather than punishing loitering or absence of livelihood. Foreigners who had been twice expatriated with prohibition of return to the Russian Empire and were arrested in Russia again were also recognized as vagrants. Punishments were harsh: According to Ulozhenie, the set of currently empowered laws, a vagrant who could not elaborate on his kinship, standing, or permanent residence, or gave false evidence, was sentenced to 4-year imprisonment and subsequent exile to Siberia or another far-off province.
Soviet Union
In the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (1960) [ru], which came into force on 1 January 1961, systematic vagrancy (that which was identified more than once) was punishable by up to two years' imprisonment (section 209).
This continued until 5 December 1991, when Section 209 was repealed and vagrancy ceased to be a criminal offence.
Russian Federation
At present, vagrancy is not a criminal offence in Russia, but it is an offence for someone over 18 to induce a juvenile (one who has not reached that age) to vagrancy, according to Chapter 20, Section 151 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The note, introduced by the Federal Law No. 162 of 8 December 2003, provides that the section does not apply, if such act is performed by a parent of the juvenile under harsh life circumstances due to the loss of livelihood or the absence of living place.
United Kingdom
The Pass Room at Bridewell, c. 1808. At this time paupers from outside London apprehended by the authorities could be imprisoned for seven days before being sent back to their own parish.
The Ordinance of Labourers 1349 was the first major vagrancy law in England and Wales. The ordinance sought to increase the available workforce following the Black Death in England by making idleness (unemployment) an offence. A vagrant was a person who could work but chose not to, and having no fixed abode or lawful occupation, begged. Vagrancy was punishable by human branding or whipping. Vagrants were distinguished from the impotent poor, who were unable to support themselves because of advanced age or sickness. In the Vagabonds Act 1530, Henry VIII decreed that "beggars who are old and incapable of working receive a beggar's licence. On the other hand, [there should be] whipping and imprisonment for sturdy vagabonds. They are to be tied to the cart-tail and whipped until the blood streams from their bodies, then they are to swear on oath to go back to their birthplace or to serve where they have lived the last three years and to 'put themselves to labour'. For the second arrest for vagabondage the whipping is to be repeated and half the ear sliced off; but for the third relapse the offender is to be executed as a hardened criminal and enemy of the common weal."
In the Vagabonds Act 1547, Edward VI ordained that "if anyone refuses to work, he shall be condemned as a slave to the person who has denounced him as an idler. The master has the right to force him to do any work, no matter how vile, with whip and chains. If the slave is absent for a fortnight, he is condemned to slavery for life and is to be branded on forehead or back with the letter S; if he runs away three times, he is to be executed as a felon...If it happens that a vagabond has been idling about for three days, he is to be taken to his birthplace, branded with a red hot iron with the letter V on his breast, and set to work, in chains, on the roads or at some other labour...Every master may put an iron ring round the neck, arms or legs of his slave, by which to know him more easily."
In England, the Vagabonds Act 1572 passed under Elizabeth I, defined a rogue as a person who had no land, no master, and no legitimate trade or source of income; it included rogues in the class of vagrants or vagabonds. If a person were apprehended as a rogue, he would be stripped to the waist, whipped until bleeding, and a hole, about the compass of an inch about, would be burned through the cartilage of his right ear with a hot iron. A rogue who was charged with a second offence, unless taken in by someone who would give him work for one year, could face execution as a felony. A rogue charged with a third offence would only escape death if someone hired him for two years.
The Vagabonds Act of 1572 decreed that "unlicensed beggars above fourteen years of age are to be severely flogged and branded on the left ear unless someone will take them into service for two years; in case of a repetition of the offence, if they are over eighteen, they are to be executed, unless someone will take them into service for two years; but for the third offence they are to be executed without mercy as felons." The same act laid the legal groundwork for the enforced exile (transportation) of "obdurate idlers" to "such parts beyond the seas as shall be […] assigned by the Privy Council". At the time, this meant exile for a fixed term to the Virginia Company's plantations in America. Those who returned unlawfully from their place of exile faced death by hanging.
The Vagabonds Act 1597 banished and transplanted "incorrigible and dangerous rogues" overseas.
In Das Kapital (Capital Volume One, Chapter Twenty-Eight: Bloody Legislation Against the Expropriated, from the End of the 15th Century. Forcing Down of Wages by Acts of Parliament), Karl Marx wrote:
James 1: Any one wandering about and begging is declared a rogue and a vagabond. Justices of the peace in petty sessions are authorised to have them publicly whipped and for the first offence to imprison them for 6 months, for the second for 2 years. Whilst in prison they are to be whipped as much and as often as the justices of the peace think fit…
Incorrigible and dangerous rogues are to be branded with an R on the left shoulder and set to hard labour, and if they are caught begging again, to be executed without mercy. These statutes, legally binding until the beginning of the 18th century, were only repealed by 12 Anne, c. 23.
In late-eighteenth-century Middlesex, those suspected of vagrancy could be detained by the constable or watchman and brought before a magistrate who had the legal right to interview them to determine their status.If declared vagrant, they were to be arrested, whipped, and physically expelled from the county by a vagrant contractor, whose job it was to take them to the edge of the county and pass them to the contractor for the next county on the journey. This process would continue until the person reached his or her place of legal settlement, which was often but not always their place of birth.
In 1795, the Speenhamland system (also known as the Berkshire Bread Act) tried to address some of the problems that underlay vagrancy. The Speenhamland system was a form of outdoor relief intended to mitigate rural poverty in England and Wales at the end of the 18th century and during the early 19th century. The law was an amendment to the Elizabethan Poor Law. It was created as an indirect result of Britain’s involvements in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars (1793–1815).
In 1821, the existing vagrancy law was reviewed by a House of Commons select committee, resulting in the publication of the, 'Report from the Select Committee on The Existing Laws Relating to Vagrants'. After hearing the views of many witnesses appearing before it the select committee made several recommendations. The select committee found that the existing vagrancy laws had become over-complicated and that they should be amended and consolidated into a single Act of Parliament. The payment of fixed rewards for the apprehension and taking vagrants before magistrates had led to abuses of the system. Due to the Poor Laws, vagrants to receive and poverty relief had to seek it from the parish where they were last legally settled, often the parish where they were born. This led to a system of convicted vagrants being 'passed' from parish to parish from where they had been convicted and punished to their own parish. The 'pass' system led to them being transported by vagrancy contractors, a system found to be open to abuses and fraud. It also found that in many instances the punishment for vagrancy offences were insufficient and certain types of vagrants should be given longer prison sentences and made to complete hard labour during it.
Based on the findings and recommendations from the 1821 House of Commons Select on Vagrancy, a new Act of Parliament was introduced, 'An Act for the Punishment of Idle and Disorderly Persons, and Rogues and Vagabonds, in that Part of Great Britain called England', commonly known as the Vagrancy Act 1824. The Vagrancy Act 1824 consolidated the previous vagrancy laws and addressed many of the frauds and abuses identified during the select committee hearings. Much reformed since 1824, some of the offences included in it are still enforceable.
United States
Colonists imported British vagrancy laws when they settled in North America. Throughout the colonial and early national periods, vagrancy laws were used to police the mobility and economic activities of the poor. People experiencing homelessness and people of color were especially vulnerable to arrest as a vagrant. Thousands of inhabitants of colonial and early national America were incarcerated for vagrancy, usually for terms of 30 to 60 days, but occasionally longer.
Political cartoon by Art Young, The Masses, 1917.
After the American Civil War, some Southern states passed Black Codes, laws that tried to control the hundreds of thousands of freed slaves. In 1866, the state of Virginia, fearing that it would be "overrun with dissolute and abandoned characters", passed an Act Providing for the Punishment of Vagrants. Homeless or unemployed persons could be forced into labour on public or private works, for very low pay, for a statutory maximum of three months; if fugitive and recaptured, they must serve the rest of their term at minimum subsistence, wearing ball and chain. In effect, though not in declared intent, the Act criminalized attempts by impoverished freedpeople to seek out their own families and rebuild their lives. The commanding general in Virginia, Alfred H. Terry, condemned the Act as a form of entrapment, the attempted reinstitution of "slavery in all but its name". He forbade its enforcement. It is not known how often it was applied, or what was done to prevent its implementation, but it remained statute in Virginia until 1904.
Since at least as early as the 1930s, a vagrancy law in America typically has rendered "no visible means of support" a misdemeanor, yet it has commonly been used as a pretext to take one into custody for such things as loitering, prostitution, drunkenness, or criminal association. The criminal statutes of law in Louisiana specifically criminalize vagrancy as associating with prostitutes, being a professional gambler, being a habitual drunk, or living on the social welfare benefits or pensions of others. This law establishes as vagrants all those healthy adults who are not engaged in gainful employment.
In the 1960s, laws proven unacceptably broad and vague were found to violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Such laws could no longer be used to obstruct the "freedom of speech" of a political demonstrator or an unpopular group. Ambiguous vagrancy laws became more narrowly and clearly defined.
In Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156 (1972), the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that a Florida vagrancy law was unconstitutional because it was too vague to be understood.
Nevertheless, new local laws in the U.S. have been passed to criminalize aggressive panhandling.
In the U.S., some local officials encourage vagrants to move away instead of arresting them. The word vagrant is often conflated with the term homeless person. Prosecutions for vagrancy are rare, being replaced by prosecutions for specific offenses such as loitering.
Cagot
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Cagots (pronounced [ka.ɡo]) were a persecuted minority found in the west of France and northern Spain: the Navarrese Pyrenees, Basque provinces, Béarn, Aragón, Gascony and Brittany. Their name differed by province and the local language: Cagots, Gézitains, Gahets, and Gafets in Gascony; Agotes, Argotes, Agotak and Gafos in Basque country; Capots in Anjou and Languedoc; and Cacons, Cahets , Caqueux, and Caquins in Brittany. Evidence of the group exists back as far as AD 1000.
Cagots were shunned and hated; while restrictions varied by time and place, they were typically required to live in separate quarters in towns, called cagoteries, which were often on the far outskirts of the villages. Cagots were excluded from all political and social rights. They were not allowed to marry non-Cagots, enter taverns, hold cabarets, use public fountains, sell food or wine, touch food in the market, work with livestock, or enter mills.[2] They were allowed to enter a church only by a special door and, during the service, a rail separated them from the other worshippers. Either they were altogether forbidden to partake of the sacrament, or the Eucharist was given to them on the end of a wooden spoon, while a holy water stoup was reserved for their exclusive use. They were compelled to wear a distinctive dress to which, in some places, was attached the foot of a goose or duck (whence they were sometimes called "Canards"). So pestilential was their touch considered that it was a crime for them to walk the common road barefooted or to drink from the same cup as non-Cagots. The Cagots were often restricted to the trades of carpenter, butcher, and rope-maker.
The Cagots were not an ethnic nor a religious group. They spoke the same language as the people in an area and generally kept the same religion as well. Their only distinguishing feature was their descent from families long identified as Cagots. Few consistent reasons were given as to why they were hated; accusations varied from Cagots being cretins, lepers, heretics, cannibals, to simply being intrinsically evil. The Cagots did have a culture of their own, but very little of it was written down or preserved; as a result, almost everything that is known about them relates to their persecution. The repression lasted through the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Industrial Revolution, with the prejudice fading only in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Origin and etymology
The origins of both the term "Cagots" (and "Agotes", "Capots", "Caqueux", etc.) and the Cagots themselves are uncertain. It has been suggested that they were descendants of the Visigoths, and the name Cagot derives from caas (dog) and "Goth". Yet in opposition to this etymology is the fact that the word "cagot" is first found in this form no earlier than the year 1542. Seventeenth century French historian Pierre de Marca, in his Histoire de Béarn, propounds the reverse – that the word signifies "hunters of the Goths", and that the Cagots were descendants of the Saracens. This theory was comprehensively refuted by the Abbé Venuti as early as 1754.
Another theory is that the Cagots were descendants of the Cathars, who had been persecuted for heresy in the Albigensian Crusade. A delegation by Cagots to Pope Leo X in 1514 made this claim, though the Cagots predate the Cathar heresy. Perhaps this was a strategic move. In limpieza de sangre statutes such stains of heresy expired after four generations and if this was the cause of their marginalisation, it also gave grounds for their emancipation.
One early mention of the Cagots is from 1288, when they appear to have been called Chretiens or Christianos. Thus, another theory is that the Cagots were early converts to Christianity, and that the hatred of their pagan neighbors continued after they also converted, merely for different reasons. Another possible explanation of their name Chretiens or Christianos is to be found in the fact that in medieval times all lepers were known as pauperes Christi, and that, whether Visigoths or not, these Cagots were affected in the Middle Ages with a particular form of leprosy or a condition resembling it, such as psoriasis. Thus would arise the confusion between Christians and Cretins.[3] However, early edicts apparently refer to lepers and Cagots as different categories of undesirables. By 1593 the distinction was explicit. The Parlement of Bordeaux repeated customary prohibitions against them but added when they are lepers, if there still are any, they must carry clicquettes (rattles).
In Bordeaux, where they were numerous, they were called ladres, close to the Catalan lladres and the Spanish ladrón meaning robber or looter, similar to older, probably Celtic term bagaudae (or bagad), a possible origin of agote.
The Way of St. James; the anti-Cagot prejudice existed in northern Spain, Western France, and Southern France, roughly coinciding with the main routes.
The alleged physical appearance and ethnicity of the Cagots varied wildly from legends and stories; some local legends (especially those that held to the leper theory) indicated that Cagots had blonde hair and blue eyes, while those favoring the Arab descent story said that Cagots were considerably darker. One common trend was to claim that Cagots had no earlobes, or that one ear was longer than the other.[10] The same thing appears in popular culture in the novel of Salman Rushdie, Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights, as a characteristic of the Duniazát.
Graham Robb finds most of the above theories unlikely:
Nearly all the old and modern theories are unsatisfactory... the real "mystery of the cagots" was the fact that they had no distinguishing features at all. They spoke whatever dialect was spoken in the region and their family names were not peculiar to the cagots... The only real difference was that, after eight centuries of persecution, they tended to be more skillful and resourceful than the surrounding populations, and more likely to emigrate to America. They were feared because they were persecuted and might therefore seek revenge.
A modern theory of interest is that the Cagots are the descendants of a fallen medieval guild of carpenters. This theory would explain the most salient thing Cagots throughout France and Spain have in common: that is, being restricted in their choice of trade. The red webbed-foot symbol Cagots were sometimes forced to wear could have been the guild's original symbol. There was a brief construction boom on the Way of St. James pilgrimage route in the 9th and 10th centuries; this could have brought the guild both power and suspicion. The collapse of their business would have left a scattered yet cohesive group in the areas where Cagots are known.
A last theory proposes to see in these men descendants of the Vikings who had invaded Gascony in 840 and were defeated at Taller near Dax in 982. This would explain why they appear around 1000 in Gascony and Navarra, the lands of the victors of the battle, the duke of Gascony and Urraca, his wife the queen of Pampelona. This would explain why they were not allowed to own weapons and trade, why they excelled in woodworking, why they hunted whales in Capbreton and Biarritz with Scandinavian techniques. To explain the physical differences, Joel Supéry explains that these seamen were protected by famous shipowners, the Templars who came in Aquitaine to develop transports to Saint James of Compostella. When the Templars had to leave France in 1307, their "commanderies" were given to the Hospitaliers, whose mission was to create "maladreries". This attracted all kind of people who mixed with the original blond and blue eyed Agots. The Scandinavian origin seems to be confirmed by Martin de Viscaya in 1621 : "Around 412, a part of this people (Visigoths) invaded Aquitaine and Gascony and committed so many cruelties that the inhabitants of the country rebelled, united their forces and guided by the nobility succeeded in destroying or driving out the Goths, of whom only a few wretched people remained without being dangerous. These wretches, according to the author, were the first Agots and he affirms that it is a constant tradition in Béarn and Lower Navarre ". However, the Visigoths who were Christianized and romanized did not commit any exactions in Gascony. This region was entrusted to them by the Romans and their domination was peaceful. Moreover, the Visigoths were defeated by Clovis at the battle of Vouillé in 507. Clovis was a pagan and foreign king. Martin of Vizcaya does not describe the Visigothic occupation, but the Viking one.
Religion
Holy water font for Cagots in Oloron cathedral, Béarn
Cagots were forced to use a side entrance to churches, often an intentionally low one to force Cagots to bow and remind them of their subservient status. This practice, done for cultural rather than religious reasons, did not change even between Catholic and Huguenot areas. They had their own holy water fonts set aside for Cagots, and touching the normal font was strictly forbidden. These restrictions were taken seriously; in the 18th century, a wealthy Cagot had his hand cut off and nailed to the church door for daring to touch the font reserved for "clean" citizens.
Cagots were expected to slip into churches quietly and congregate in the worst seats. They received the host in communion only at the end of a stick. Many Bretons believed that Cagots bled from their navel on Good Friday.
An appeal by the Cagots to Pope Leo X in 1514 was successful, and he published a bull instructing that the Cagots be treated "with kindness, in the same way as the other believers." Still, little changed, as most local authorities ignored the bull.
Government
The nominal though usually ineffective allies of the Cagots were the government, the educated, and the wealthy. It has been suggested that the odd patchwork of areas which recognized Cagots has more to do with which local governments tolerated the prejudice, and which allowed Cagots to be a normal part of society. In a study in 1683, doctors examined the Cagots and found them no different from normal citizens. Notably, they did not actually suffer from leprosy or any other disease that would justify their exclusion from society. The Parliaments of Pau, Toulouse and Bordeaux were apprised of the situation, and money was allocated to improve the lot of the Cagots, but the populace and local authorities resisted.
In 1709, the influential politician Juan de Goyeneche planned and constructed the manufacturing town of Nuevo Baztán (after his native Baztan Valley in Navarre) near Madrid. He brought many Cagot settlers to Nuevo Baztán, but after some years, many returned to Navarre, unhappy with their work conditions. During the French Revolution substantive steps were taken to end discrimination toward Cagots. Revolutionary authorities claimed that Cagots were no different from other citizens, and de jure discrimination generally came to an end. Still, local prejudice from the populace persisted, though the practice began to decline.
During the Revolution, Cagots had stormed record offices and burned birth certificates in an attempt to conceal their heritage. These measures did not prove effective, as the local populace still remembered. Rhyming songs kept the names of Cagot families known.
Modern status
Today the Cagots no longer form a separate social class and have largely assimilated into the general population. Very little of Cagot culture still exists, as most descendants of Cagots have preferred not to be known as such.
There was a distinct Cagot community in Navarre until the early 20th century, with the small northern village called Arizkun in Basque (or Arizcun in Spanish) being the last haven of this segregation, where the community was contained within the neighbourhood of Bozate.
Because the main identifying mark of the Cagots was the restriction of their trades to a few small options, their segregation has been compared to the caste system in India.
Baekjeong
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Yangban 양반 兩班 aristocrats
Jung-in 중인 中人 middle people
Sangmin 상민 常民 commoners
Cheonmin 천민 賤民 vulgar commoners
• Baekjeong 백정 白丁 untouchables
A masked person acting as a Baekjeong butcher in a play
Baekjeong
백정
Revised Romanization Baekjeong
McCune–Reischauer Paekchŏng
The Baekjeong (Korean: 백정) were an "untouchable" minority group of Korea. In the early part of the Goryeo period (918–1392), these minority groups were largely settled in fixed communities. However, the Mongol invasion left Korea in disarray and anomie, and these groups became nomadic. Other subgroups of the baekjeong are the ‘chaein’ and the ‘hwachae’. During the Joseon dynasty, they were specific professions like basket weaving and performing executions. In the Goryeo period, baekjeong was used as a term to refer to the common people group. However, in Choson dynasty, it was refer to the lowest class of people and insulting title. In addition, in the Joseon Dynasty and today, the baekjeong was also used as an expression to denigrate a person. On the other hand, sometimes, the meaning is refined and used as a restaurant name. The fact that the name "Baekjeong" has changed into a term referring to various classes of people from different ages is a recent history research achievement.
Origin
There is a theory that they had migrated from Tartar. The term 'Tartar' seems to have been a general term for all northern peoples, Mongols, Manchurians, and so on. This theory is based on the writings of Jeong Yakyong, who was one of the most distinguished scholars on the methodology of historical researches in the reign of King Jeongjo (1777-1800) and King Sunjo (1801-1834). In his book, the origin of baekjeong is attributed to a nomadic group from the Goryeo period known as the Yangsuchuk (Hanja: 楊水尺) or Mujari (Korean: 무자리). Being an alien people from Tartar, the Yangsuchuk were hardly assimilated into the general population.[8] They were engaged in the making and selling of willow baskets. They were also proficient in slaughtering animals and had a liking for hunting, which was frowned upon by the Buddhist society of the Goryeo Dynasty.
History
In the Goryeo period
From the Goryeo Dynasty(918~1392) until the time of King Sejong of the Joseon Dynasty, baekjeong was not a title to refer to the lowest class of people.The term baekjeong itself means "common people. The scholars assume that the baekjeong is "a person who have no burden of duties(역, 役)" based on "Goryosa". It consists of "baek"(Korean: 백, Hanja: 白), which means 'white/innocent/blank', and "jeong(Korean: 정, Hanja: 丁)", or "person, man". As such, baekjeong, "blank man," connotes a group of peasants who have not been granted land because they have not received certain duties from the state.
But they also existed as the lowest class of people. In the Goryeo period, the names calling them were 'yangsuchuk(hanja: 楊水尺)', 'suchuk(hanja: 水尺)', 'hawchuck(hanja: 禾尺)' and 'mujari(Korean: 무자리, lit. "placeless")'. They had been a descendant of the Jurchen or Khitans since the beginning of Koryo. These lowest worship groups liked the group life among themselves, so they continued to live in a temporary residence while moving to various areas. they were distributed nationwide, especially in Pyeongan-do and Hwanghae-do provinces. They were not registered in the national register.
In the Joseon period
After the Goryeo period, Joseon was founded. In the early days of the founding of the Joseon Dynasty, King Sejong consolidated 'yangsucheok', 'sucheok', 'hawcheok' and 'mujari' with ordinary farmers. Therefore, the title calling them became 'Baekjeong', which is the general peasant group in the Goryeo period. King Sejong also put them on the family register, gave them lands to plant and settled them into farmers, and tried to keep them under state control. However, the common policies of King Sejong could not succeed because the ordinary people continued to do so and discriminated against it. Even government officials did not follow the instructions of the king.
On the other hand, it seems that the baekjeong did not change their existing lifestyle or occupation easily. They settled in one area and did not try to farm, but they lived and worked in certain jobs, such as making and selling wicker products, slaughtering, singing and dancing. In this situation, the exchange and integration with the baekjeong and the ordinary peasants was not easy, and the practice of discrimination and suppression against the white cane continued.In particular, the mainstream group regarded the life and customs of the butchers as despicable, antisocial, non-normative, and even potential criminal groups.
End of the Joseon Dynasty
Near the end of the Joseon Dynasty, a mutual aid organization for the baekjeong was established, called Seungdongdoga(Korean: 승동도가, hanja: 承洞都家), with representatives from various communities. The organization was involved in taking actions, coordinating improvements, and acting at times as the official representative of the baekjeong in legal matters. In 1894, the system of cadets was legally abolished by the Gopal reform. However, social discrimination against the baekjeong was not lost. The family register of baekjeong was still separate, and it was marked by the use of the word "殺漢(killing the beast)" or the red dot. Nonetheless, the Gapo reform ensured that baekjeong could become an official, an asset, a scholar or an artist if they had the ability.[ Although still largely limited to their traditional occupations, modified regulations in 1896 allowed non-baekjeong to become licensed butchers, eventually leading to meat businesses which have pressured many out of one of the few tasks allowed them.
However, while changes to improve the baekjeong's social status was slow, commoners (the lower of the yangmins), who had economically been little different from slaves, was already meaningless as the respect for the government in the 17th century as they fled from the invading Japanese and Manchurians, leaving the civilians at their mercy. The government also awarded many militiamen yangban class status in exchange for their voluntary militia activities against these invaders. In time, with the rise of commerce, merchants bought forged family histories and official status documents as well. Eventually, around three fourths of the population were yangban in name.
Modern
The term "baekjeong" still remains in modern Korean society. This is particularly common in occupations dealing with raw meat. When someone choose a job to deal with raw meat, they sometimes encounter severe objections. But at the same time, there is also a restaurant that uses the word "baekjeong". This is also an example of the fact that the butcher is not used as a word to disparage others.
Jobs
Executioner
Throughout much of the Joseon Dynasty, they were also forced to serve as executioners. When the baekjeong community were called upon to supply an executioner, the job was assigned to some hapless member, sometimes practically an insane person.
Butcher
The baekjeong did jobs that no self-respecting Buddhist Korean would touch, including anything working with animals. Slaughtering animals; leather making; these kinds of dirty duties were avoided by Koreans, and so were filled de facto by baekjeong. In other words, the group was assigned to the most demeaning tasks in Korean society. They were also considered in moral violation of Buddhist principles, which led Koreans to see work involving meat as polluting and sinful, even if they saw the consumption as acceptable. By the latter part of the Joseon Dynasty, baekjeong accepted the principles of Confucianism and did not slaughter for three years when their parents died.
Discrimination
The group had long suffered severe social discrimination in Korean society. The baekjeong were seen as contemptible and polluted people that others feared and avoided meeting. Baekjeong could not live in a Roof tiles house, did not wear silk clothes, did not wear leather shoes, and did not wear a gat(hat). When baekjeong went outside their houses, they had to untie their head and wear paeraengi. Baekjeong had to lower himself in front of a yangin. Baekjeong could not smoke or drink in front of a yangin. Baekjeong could not ride a litter or horse when they married, and a married woman could not wear a hair stick. Baekjeong could not put a last name on their name, nor could they use words in their name like 仁, 義, 禮, 智(Korean: 인, 의, 예, 지). The extent to which they were seen as polluted people is well-illustrated in the fact that their bodies were kept in separate graveyards so as not to mingle with those of the yangmin.
Influence of religion
Donghak and Christianity had a lot of influence on the Baekjeong. Both Donghak and Christianity exposed the Baekjeong, and Koreans more generally, to concepts of egalitarianism and social equality. The influence of these religions was then linked to the social movement.
Donghak
Towards the end of the 19th century, there was an increasing impetus on human dignity and liberalization. Of particular importance was the growth of certain religions(Donghak) supportive of change. Donghak, a Korean nationalist religion, wished to end unfair sinbun conventions, and Tonghak peasants had staged an uprising in 1894 in favor of human rights, especially for those low on the social ladder. They also demanded that the baekjeong no longer be forced to wear discriminatory hats and widows be allowed to remarry. Although this uprising was ultimately unsuccessful, it was an important impetus behind the Gabo Reform, and helped to abolish the status structure that had restricted some groups legally. However, the baekjeong had benefited much less from these changes than other groups, such as the slaves.
Christianity
The other major religious influence on human rights came through Christianity. Some missionaries had converted baekjeong to Christianity, stating that everyone has equal rights under God. However, everyone was not equal under the Christian congregation, and protests erupted when missionaries attempted to integrate them into worship services, with non-baekjeong finding such attempts insensitive to traditional notions of social status. Thus, both Donghak and Christianity exposed the baekjeong, and Koreans more generally, to concepts of egalitarianism and social equality. Parallel to and supportive of the rise of these ideas were transitions occurring in Korean society as a whole, particularly with regard to social classes.
Social movements
Beginning in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the baekjeong began to resist the open social discrimination that existed against them. In 1900, leaders from 16 counties petitioned the mayor of Jinju to wear the same clothes and hats as other people. When others in the north refused to wear the humiliating garb traditionally expected of them and were jailed, an effort was made to release them. Growing industrialism in Korea began to erode baekjeong dominance over certain occupations, particularly as the Japanese began to control slaughterhouses and exploit them as employees.
However, as some baekjeong fell into financial despair, the loosening of segregation led others to profit from changes, giving them the ability to fund efforts for change. Beyond financial resources, organization was also strengthened due to the longstanding connections created through segregation and close-knit social networks. Between these human and financial resources, an emphasis on progressive models, and feelings of social deprivation and discrimination, the conditions were ripe for the baekjeong to mobilize for change. One of the earliest of these movements was in 1910 when Chang Chip'il, later an influential member of the Hyeongpyeongsa, attempted to unsuccessfully establish a trade union for butchers. In 1921, the Jipseong Johap was established by Korean and Japanese entrepreneurs, attempting to provide poverty assistance for butchers. However, this effort for improvement of economic conditions was soon overshadowed by an organization with broader goals.
The Hyeongpyeongsa was launched in Jinju on 23 April 1923 through the alliance of wealthy or educated baekjeong and non-baekjeong proponents of change, advocating for "the abolition of classes and of contemptuous appellations, the enlightenment of members, and the promotion of mutual friendship among members." It advocated both for individual civil rights as well as communal fellowship, recognizing that the group must maintain its identity under the strain of changes such as urbanization and industrialization which threatened to atomize the community. Thus, the Hyeongpyeongsa pursued both an equality of human rights and the right to assimilate into the broader public, even as it worked to forge a common identity. In 1927 a number of members of the Hyeongpyeongsa were arrested for their involvement in the creation of an underground nationalist organization. Their absence was partially responsible for the organization's shift to the socialist left in the late 1920s. Power within the organization shifted several times, including the shift in 1925 from the original Chinju faction advocating educational reform to a group of Seoul intellectuals more interested in economic reforms based around traditional occupations.
At the 1931 national conference, they stirred controversy within the movement by introducing a dissolution proposal, feeling that the organization had abandoned its original aims in favor of those of the bourgeois intellectuals directing it. It was their belief that dissolution would better serve their interests as it was replaced by trade unions. The dissolution proposal failed, but not without further alienating more conservative members of the movement, who were already financially strapped from broader economic conditions in Korea. Even more fatal for the movement was the arrest of a number of young radical members, who were accused of establishing a secret communist organization, the "Hyeongpyeongsa Youth Vanguard", which authorities said demanded struggle against feudalism and the abolishment of private property. The trial related to this accusation dragged on for four years, before the defendants were found to be innocent. It appears likely that the "organization" was a construction by Japanese authorities to ensure the labor wing of the Hyeongpyeongsa would not interfere with their access to leather needed for the invasion of China. As a result, the Hyeongpyeongsa shifted to the right, abandoning progressive ideals and finally disbanding in 1935, claiming the movement's aims had successfully been met.
The growing power of the radical wing divided the movement, and much of the economic support provided by wealthier baekjeong was pulled, particularly under the strain of the Great Depression, which had negatively impacted the meat and leather trades. The young socialists in the Hyŏngp'yŏngsa forged connections with other movements, attempting to broaden the movement and work towards "the reconstitution of Korea as a whole." More importantly, they focused on social and economic injustices affecting the baekjeong, hoping to create an egalitarian Korean society. Their efforts included attacking social discrimination by the upper class, authorities, and "commoners" and the use of degrading language against children in public schools.
Tanka people
Tanka woman in Macau.
Languages
for those living in the diaspora speak English, Vietnamese, Khmer, Tetun, Burmese, Thai, Hindi, Bengali, Malay (both Malaysian/Bruneian and Indonesian), Spanish, Portuguese (including Macau), French, Fijian, Creole and Dutch
Religion
Chinese folk religions (including Taoism, Confucianism, ancestral worship and others) and Mahayana Buddhism.
Tanka people
Chinese 1. 蜑家/疍家
2. 艇家
3. 水上人
4. 曲蹄
5. 蜑民
6. 曲蹄囝
Literal meaning 1. Dàn (egg/vermin/..., used only as proper noun in Modern Chinese) families
2. boat households
3. people on water
4. crooked hoof, bowlegged
5. Dàn people
6. crooked hoof children; bowlegged children
showTranscriptions
Tankas (simplified Chinese: 疍家; traditional Chinese: 蜑家; pinyin: Dànjiā; Cantonese Yale: Daahngā) or boat people are a sinicized ethnic group in Southern China[3] who have traditionally lived on junks in coastal parts of Guangdong, Guangxi, Fujian, Hainan, Shanghai, Zhejiang and along the Yangtze river, as well as Hong Kong, and Macau. The Boat people are referred to with other different names outside of Guangdong (not called Tanka). Though many now live onshore, some from the older generations still live on their boats and pursue their traditional livelihood of fishing. Historically, the Tankas were considered to be outcasts. Since they were boat people who lived by the sea, they were sometimes referred to as "sea gypsies" by both Chinese and British. Tanka origins can be traced back to the native ethnic minorities of southern China known historically as the Baiyue who may have taken refuge on the sea and gradually assimilated into Han culture. However, Tanka have preserved many of their native traditions that are not found in Han Chinese culture.
A small number of Tankas also live in parts of Vietnam. There they are called Dan (Đàn) and are classified as a subgroup of the Ngái ethnicity.
Etymology
The term Tanka is now considered derogatory and no longer in common use. "Tank" is a Cantonese term for boat or junk and "ka" means family or peoples. These boat dwellers are now referred to in China as "on-water people" (Chinese: 水上人; pinyin: shuǐshàng rén; Cantonese Yale: Séuiseuhngyàn), or "people of the southern sea" (Chinese: 南海人; Cantonese Yale: Nàamhóiyàn). No standardised English translation of this term exists. "Boat People" is a commonly used translation, although it may be confused with the similar term for Vietnamese refugees in Hong Kong. The term "Boat Dwellers" was proposed by Dr. Lee Ho Yin of The University of Hong Kong in 1999, and it has been adopted by the Hong Kong Museum of History for its permanent exhibition.
Both the Tanka and the Cantonese speak the Cantonese language. However, Tanka living in Fujian speak Min Chinese.
"Boat people" was a general term for the Tanka. The name Tanka was used only by Cantonese to describe the Tanka of the pearl river delta.
The Tanka Boat people of the Yangtze region were called the Nine surnames fishermen households, while Tanka families living on land were called the Mean households.
There were two distinct categories of people based on their way of life, and they were further divided into different groups. The Hakka and Cantonese lived on land; the Tanka (including Hokkien-speaking Tanka immigrants often mistaken for being Hoklo) lived on boats and were both classified as boat people.
The differences between the sea dwelling Tanka and land dwellers were not based merely on their way of life. Cantonese and Hakka who lived on land fished sometimes for a living, but these land fishermen never mixed or married with the Tanka fishermen. Tanka were barred from Cantonese and Hakka celebrations.
British reports on Hong Kong described the Tanka including Hoklo-speaking Tanka boat people living in Hong Kong "since time unknown". The encyclopaedia Americana alleged that Tanka living in Hong Kong "since prehistoric times".
Geographic Distribution
The Tanka people are found throughout the coasts and rivers of the following regions:
Zhejiang: Zhoushan Archipelago, Taizhou Bay, Wenzhou Bay, Sanmen Bay, Hangzhou Bay, Xin'an River, Fuchun River, Lanjiang River
Fujian: Min River Mouth, Fuqing Bay, Xinghua Bay, Quanzhou Bay, Amoy Bay, Zhangzhou Water Front
Guangdong: Jieshi Bay, Honghai Bay, Daya Bay, Dapeng Bay, Zhujiang River Mouth, Leizhou Bay, Lingding Sea, Zhanjiang, Wanshan Archipelago
Guangxi: You River
Anhui: Xin'an River
Jiangxi: Gan River
Hainan: Qiongzhou Strait, Sanya Bay
Beijing, Jiangsu, Henan, Hubei, Hunan: Grand Canal
Shanghai: city river
Hong Kong: Kowloon
Macau: Macau Bay
Origin
Mythical origins
Some Chinese myths claim that animals were the ancestors of the Barbarians, including the Tanka people. Some ancient Chinese sources claimed that water snakes were the ancestors of the Tanka, saying that they could last for three days in the water, without breathing air.
Baiyue connection and origins in Southern China
The Tanka are considered by some scholars to be related to other minority peoples of southern China, such as the Yao and Li people (Miao). The Amoy University anthropologist Ling Hui-hsiang wrote on his theory of the Fujian Tanka being descendants of the Bai Yue. He claimed that Guangdong and Fujian Tanka are definitely descended from the old Bai Yue peoples, and that they may have been ancestors of the Malay race. The Tanka inherited their lifestyle and culture from the original Yue peoples who inhabited Hong Kong during the Neolithic era. After the First Emperor of China conquered Hong Kong, groups from northern and central China moved into the general area of Guangdong, including Hong Kong.
One theory proposes that the ancient Yue inhabitants of southern China are the ancestors of the modern Tanka boat people. The majority of western academics subscribe to this theory, and use Chinese historical sources. (The ancient Chinese used the term "Yue" to refer to all southern barbarians.) The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition, states that the ancestors of the Tanka were native people.
The Tanka's ancestors had been pushed to the southern coast by Chinese peasants who took over their land.
During the British colonial era in Hong Kong, the Tanka were considered a separate ethnic group from the Punti, Hakka, and Hoklo. Punti is another name for Cantonese (it means "local"), who came from mainly Guangdong districts. The Hakka and Hoklo are not considered as Puntis.
The Tanka have been compared to the She people by some historians, practising Han Chinese culture, while being an ethnic minority descended from natives of Southern China.
Yao connections
Chinese scholars and gazettes described the Tanka as a "Yao" tribe, with some other sources noting that "Tan" people lived at Lantau, and other sources saying "Yao" people lived there. As a result, they refused to obey the salt monopoly of the Song dynasty Chinese government. The county gazetteer of Sun on in 1729 described the Tanka as "Yao barbarians", and the Tanka were viewed as animals.
In modern times, the Tanka claim to be ordinary Chinese who happen to fish for a living, and the local dialect is used as their language.
Historiography
Some southern Chinese historic views of the Tanka were that they were a separate aboriginal ethnic group, "not Han Chinese at all". Chinese Imperial records also claim that the Tanka were descendants of aboriginals. Tanka were also called "sea gypsies". (from Chinese, 吉普赛人,(gypsies, Romani)).
The Tanka were regarded as Yueh and not Chinese, they were divided into three classifications, "the fish-Tan, the oyster-Tan, and the wood-Tan" in the 12th century, based on what they did for a living.
The three groups of Punti, Hakka, and Hoklo, all of whom spoke different Chinese dialects, despised and fought each other during the late Qing dynasty. However, they were all united in their overwhelming hatred for the Tanka, since the aboriginals of Southern China were the ancestors of the Tanka. The Cantonese Punti had displaced the Tanka aboriginals, after they began conquering southern China.
The Chinese poet Su Dongpo wrote a poem in which mentioned the Tanka.
The Nankai University of Tianjin published the Nankai social and economic quarterly, Volume 9 in 1936, and it referred to the Tanka as aboriginal descendants before Chinese assimilation. The scholar Jacques Gernet also wrote that the Tanka were aboriginals, who were known for being pirates, which hindered Qing dynasty attempts to assert control in Guangdong.
Scholarly opinions on Baiyue Austronesian connection
The most widely held theory is that the Tanka are the descendants of the native Yue inhabitants of Guangdong before the Han Cantonese moved in. The theory stated that originally the Yueh peoples inhabited the region, when the Chinese conquest began, either absorbed or expelled the Yue to southern regions. The Tanka, according to this theory, are descended from an outcast Yue tribe who preserved their separate culture.
Regarding the Fujian Minyue Tanka it is suggested that in the southeast coastal regions of China, there were many sea nomads during the Neolithic era and they may have spoken ancestral Austronesian languages, and were skilled seafarers. In fact, there is evidence that an Austronesian language was still spoken in Fujian as late as 620 AD. It is therefore believed that the Tanka were Austronesians who were more closely related to the Filipinos, Javanese or Balinese.
Before the invention of modern genetic testing, a minority of scholars who challenged this theory deny that the Tanka are descended from natives, instead claiming they are basically the same as other Han Cantonese who dwell on land, claiming that neither the land dwelling Han Cantonese nor the water dwelling Tanka have more aboriginal blood than the other, with the Tanka boat people being as Chinese and as Han as ordinary Cantonese.
Eugene Newton Anderson claimed that there was no evidence for any of the conjectures put forward by scholars on the Tanka's origins, citing Chen, who stated that "to what tribe or race they once belonged or were once akin to is still unknown".
Some researchers say the origin of the Tanka is multifaceted, with a portion of them having native Yueh ancestors and others originating from other sources.
History
Chinese colonisation and Sinicization
The Song dynasty engaged in extensive colonisation of the region with Chinese people.
Due to the extensive sinicisation of the Tanka, they now identify as Chinese, despite their non-Chinese ancestry from the natives of Southern China.
The Cantonese exploited the Tanka, using their own customs against them to acquire fish to sell from the Tanka.
In some inland regions, the Tanka accounted for half of the total population.
The Tanka of Quanzhou were registered as barbarian households.
Ming Dynasty
The Tanka boat population were not registered into the national census as they were of outcast status.
Macau and Portuguese rule
Main articles: Macau, History of Macau, and Macanese people
Traditional Tanka people clothes in a Hong Kong museum.
The Portuguese, who were granted Macau during the Ming dynasty, often married Tanka women since Han Chinese women would not have relations with them. Some of the Tanka's descendants became Macanese people.
Some Tanka children were enslaved by Portuguese raiders.
The Chinese poet Wu Li wrote a poem, which included a line about the Portuguese in Macau being supplied with fish by the Tanka.
When the Portuguese arrived at Macau, women from Goa (part of Portuguese India), Siam, Indochina, and Malaya became their wives, rarely were they Chinese women. The Tanka women were among the only people in China willing to mix and marry with the Portuguese, with other Chinese women refusing to do so.
The majority of marriages between Portuguese and natives was between Portuguese men and women of Tanka origin, who were considered the lowest class of people in China and had relations with Portuguese settlers and sailors, or low class Chinese women. Western men like the Portuguese were refused by high class Chinese women, who did not marry foreigners.
Literature in Macau was written about love affairs and marriage between the Tanka women and Portuguese men, like "A-Chan, A Tancareira", by Henrique de Senna Fernandes.
Qing dynasty
Tanka. Tankia (tan'ka, tan'kyä), n. [Chinese, literally, 'the Tan family or tribe'; < Tan, an aboriginal tribe who formerly occupied the region lying to the south and west of the Meiing (mountains) in southern China, + kia (pronounced ka in Canton), family, people.] The boat population of Canton in southern China, the descendants of an aboriginal tribe named Tan, who were driven by the advance of Chinese civilisation to live in boats upon the river, and who have for centuries been forbidden to live on the land. "Since 1730 they have been permitted to settle in villages in the immediate neighbourhood of the river, but are still excluded from competition for official honours, and are forbidden by custom from intermarrying with the rest of the people. (Q&es, Glossary of Reference.)
Attempts were made to free the Tanka and several other "mean" groups from this status in a series of edicts from 1723 to 1731. They mostly worked as fishermen and tended to gather at some bays. Some built markets or villages on the shore, while others continued to live on their junks or boats. They claimed to be Han Chinese.
The Qing edict said "Cantonese people regard the Dan households as being of the mean class (beijian zhi) and do not allow them to settle on shore. The Dan households, for their part, dare not struggle with the common people", this edict was issued in 1729.
As Hong Kong developed, some of the fishing grounds in Hong Kong became badly polluted or were reclaimed, and so became land. Those Tankas who only own small boats and cannot fish far out to sea are forced to stay inshore in bays, gathering together like floating villages.
Lifestyle and culture
Always there is plenty to see, as the Tanka. the people who live in the boats, are full of life. They are an aboriginal tribe, speaking an altogether different language from the Chinese. On the land they are like fish out of water. They are said never to intermarry with landlubbers, but somehow or other their tongue has crept into many villages in the Chiklung section. The Chinese say the Tanka speech sounds like that of the Americans. It seems to have no tones. A hardy race, the Tanka are untouched by the epidemics that visit our coast, perhaps because they live so much off land. Each family has a boat, its own little kingdom, and, there being plenty of fish, all look better fed than most of our land neighbours. Christianity is, with a few rare exceptions, unknown to them. The only window of our Chiklung house gives the missioner a full view of the village life of some of the boat tribe. The window at present is just the absence of the south wall of the little loft to the shop. Wooden bars can be inserted in holes against robbers.
Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America in 1921
Before leaving the market, by special invitation we had a swim from off one of the sampans (a term used around Canton: here "baby boat" is the name). The water was almost hot and the current surprisingly swift. Nevertheless the Tanka men and boys go in several times a day, and wash jacket and trousers, undressing and dressing in the water. They seem to let the clothes dry on them. Women and girls also jump in daily.
Catholic Foreign Mission Society of America in 1921
Masonry was unknown by the water dwelling Tanka.
Canton (Guangzhou)
The Tanka also formed a class of prostitutes in Canton, operating the boats in Canton's Pearl River which functioned as brothels, they did not practice foot binding and their dialect was unique. They were forbidden to marry land dwelling Chinese or live on land. Their ancestors were the natives of Southern China before the Cantonese expelled them to their current home on the water.
Modern China
During the intensive reclamation efforts around the islands of Shanghai in the late 1960s, many Tanka were settled on Hengsha Island and organised as fishing brigades.
British occupation of Hong Kong
Hong Kong boat dwellings in December 1970.
In 1937, Walter Schofield, then a Cadet Officer in the Hong Kong Civil Service, wrote that at that time the Tankas were "boat-people [who sometimes lived] in boats hauled ashore, or in more or less boat-shaped huts, as at Shau Kei Wan and Tai O". They mainly lived at the harbours at Cheung Chau, Aberdeen, Tai O, Po Toi, Kau Sai Chau and Yau Ma Tei.
Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew (1845–1917) and Katharine Caroline Bushnell (5 February 1856 – January 26, 1946), who wrote extensively on the position of women in the British Empire, wrote about the Tanka inhabitants of Hong Kong and their position in the prostitution industry, catering towards foreign sailors. The Tanka did not marry with the Chinese, being descendants of the natives, they were restricted to the waterways. They supplied their women as prostitutes to British sailors and assisted the British in their military actions around Hong Kong The Tanka in Hong Kong were considered "outcasts" categorised low class.
Ordinary Chinese prostitutes were afraid of serving Westerners since they looked strange to them, while the Tanka prostitutes freely mingled with western men The Tanka assisted the Europeans with supplies and providing them with prostitutes. Low class European men in Hong Kong easily formed relations with the Tanka prostitutes. The profession of prostitution among the Tanka women led to them being hated by the Chinese both because they had sex with westerners and them being racially Tanka.
The Tanka prostitutes were considered to be "low class", greedy for money, arrogant, and treating clients with a bad attitude, they were known for punching their clients or mocking them by calling them names. Though the Tanka prostitutes were considered low class, their brothels were still remarkably well kept and tidy. A famous fictional story which was written in the 1800s depicted western items decorating the rooms of Tanka prostitutes.
The stereotype among most Chinese in Canton that all Tanka women were prostitutes was common, leading the government during the Republican era to accidentally inflate the number of prostitutes when counting, due to all Tanka women being included. The Tanka women were viewed as such that their prostitution activities were considered part of the normal bustle of a commercial trading city. Sometimes the lowly regarded Tanka prostitutes managed to elevate themselves into higher forms of prostitution.
Tanka women were ostracised from the Cantonese community, and were nicknamed "salt water girls" (ham sui mui in Cantonese) for their services as prostitutes to foreigners in Hong Kong.
Tanka women who worked as prostitutes for foreigners also commonly kept a "nursery" of Tanka girls specifically for exporting them for prostitution work to overseas Chinese communities such as in Australia or America, or to serve as a Chinese or foreigner's concubine.
A report called "Correspondence respecting the alleged existence of Chinese slavery in Hong Kong: presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty" was presented to the English Parliament in 1882 concerning the existence of slavery in Hong Kong, of which many were Tanka girls serving as prostitutes or mistresses to westerners.
Correspondence respecting the alleged existence of Chinese slavery in Hong Kong: presented to both Houses of Parliament by Command of Her Majesty in 1882
Ernest John Eitel claimed that all "half caste" people in Hong Kong were descended exclusively from Europeans having relationship with Tanka women, and not Chinese women. The theory that most of the Eurasian mixed race Hong Kong people are descended only from Tanka women and European men, and not ordinary Cantonese women, is backed up by other researchers who pointed out that Tanka women freely consorted with foreigners due to the fact that they were not bound by the same Confucian traditions as the Cantonese, and having a relationship with European men was advantageous for Tanka women. The ordinary Cantonese women did not sleep with European men, the Eurasian population was formed only from Tanka and European admixture.
The day labourers settled down in huts at Taipingshan, at Saiyingpun and at Tsimshatsui. But the largest proportion of the Chinese population were the so-called Tanka or boat people, the pariahs of South-China, whose intimate connection with the social life of the foreign merchants in the Canton factories used to call forth an annual proclamation on the part of the Cantonese Authorities warning foreigners against the demoralising influences of these people. These Tan-ka people, forbidden by Chinese law (since A.D. 1730) to settle on shore or to compete at literary examinations, and prohibited by custom from intermarrying with the rest of the people, were from the earliest days of the East India Company always the trusty allies of foreigners. They furnished pilots and supplies of provisions to British men-of war, troopships and mercantile vessels, at times when doing so was declared by the Chinese Government to be rank treason, unsparingly visited with capital punishment. They were the hangers-on of the foreign factories of Canton and of the British shipping at Lintin, Kamsingmoon, Tungkin and Hongkong Bay. They invaded Hongkong the moment the settlement was started, living at first on boats in the harbour with their numerous families, and gradually settling on shore. They have maintained ever since almost a monopoly of the supply of pilots and ships' crews, of the fish trade and the cattle trade, but unfortunately also of the trade in girls and women. Strange to say, when the settlement was first started, it was estimated that some 2,000 of these Tan-ka people had flocked to Hongkong, but at the present time they are about the same number, a tendency having set in among them to settle on shore rather than on the water and to disavow their Tan-ka extraction to mix on equal terms with the mass of the Chinese community. The half-caste population in Hongkong were, from the earliest days of the settlement of the Colony and down to the present day, almost exclusively the off-spring of these Tan-ka people. But, like the Tan-ka people themselves, they are happily under the influence of a process of continuous re-absorption in the mass of the Chinese residents of the Colony.
During British rule some special schools were created for the Tanka.
In 1962 a typhoon struck the boats belong to the Tanka including probably Hoklo-speaking Tanka mistaken for being Hoklo, with hundreds being destroyed.
During the 1970s the number of Tanka was reported to be shrinking.
Shanghai
Shanghai, with its many international concessions, contained prostitutes from various areas of China, including Guangdong province, this included the Tanka prostitutes, who were grouped separately from the Cantonese prostitutes. The Cantonese served customers in normal brothels while the Tanka served customers in boats.
Commerce
...always enlivened by the fleet of Tanka boats which pass, conveying passengers to and fro, between the land and the Canton and Hong Kong steamers."
Japan and the Japanese: a narrative of the US government expedition to Japan under Commodore Perry in 1859
Our next picture shows a Chinese tanka boat. The tanka boats are counted by thousands in the rivers and bays of China. They are often employed by our national vessels as conveyances to and. from the shore, thereby saving the health of the sailors, who would be otherwise subjected to pulling long distances under a hot sun, with a liability of contracting some fatal disease peculiar to China, and thus introducing infection in a crowded crew.[121]
Ballou's monthly magazine, Volume 8 in 1858
"Macao.
"We arrived here on the twenty-second, and dispatched a boat to the shore immediately for letters. I received three or four of those fine large letters which are the envy of all who see them, and which are readily distinguishable by their size, and the beautiful style in which they are directed. You cannot imagine the delight with which I devoured their costents. I am glad you wrote so much of our dear pet. 0, my Dita, the longing I feel to take the dear little thing to my heart is agonising! Yesterday I was on shore, and saw a beautiful child of about the same age as ours. I was almost crazy at the sight. Twenty months old! How she must prattle by this time! I fancy I can see her trotting about, following you around the house. What a recompense for the hardest toil of the day would it not be to me, could I only lie down on the floor and have a good romp with her at night!
"And now for Macao, and what I saw, felt, and did. You probably know that a very numerous Chinese population lives entirely in boots; some of them so small that one pities the poor unfortunates who live so miserably. They are born, grow up, marry, and raise children in these boats. You would be astonished to see mothers, with infants at the breast, managing the sails, oars, and rudder of the boat as expertly as any sailor. The Tanka is of very light draft, and, being able to go close in shore, is used to land passengers from the larger boats. As we neared the shore, we noticed small boats pulling toward us from all directions. Soon a boat, "manned" by two really pretty young girls pulling oars, and a third sculling, came alongside, calling out earnestly, 'Takee me boat!' 'Takee me boat!' They had beautiful teeth, white as ivory, brilliant eyes, and their pretty faces, so earnest and pleading, were wreathed in smiles as we gave them the preference over others that joined us from all quarters, clinging to the sides of our large boat, and impeding our headway. The boatmen tried in vain to drive them off. One brute of a fellow splashed repeatedly a poor girl, who. though not at all pretty, had such a depth of meaning and such a sad expression in her eyes and face as charmed me completely. It would have interested any one to hear her scold back, and to see the flashing of her eyes, and the vivid expression in every feature. When I frowned at our sailor, the sudden change in her face from anger to smiles, the earnest 'takee me boat,' as she caught evidence of sympathy from me, was beautiful. We were assailed with these cries from so many, and there was such a clamour, that, in self-defense, we had to choose a boat and go. The first-mentioned girls, on account of their beauty, won the majority, and their boat was clean and well furnished, which is more than could be said of many of them. I caught the look of disappointment which passed over the features of the girl I have described, and it haunts me even now. Trifling as it, appeared to us, such scenes constitute the great events in their poor lives, and such triumphs or defeats are all-important to them.
"Upon entering the Tanka boat, we found the mother of the young girls, and a young infant dressed heroically. The infant was the child of the prettiest one of the girls, whose husband was away fishing. The old woman was quite talkative, and undoubtedly gave us lots of news!
"They had a miniature temple on the bows of the boat, with Joss seated cross-legged, looking very fat, and very red, and very stupid. Before him was an offering of two apricots, but Joss never deigned to look at it, and apparently had no appetite. I felt a sincere respect, however, for the devotional feeling of these poor idolaters, recognising even there the universal instinct which teaches that there is a God.
"I called upon the commodore, who received me with great courtesy, and gave me a very interesting account of the voyage out, by the way of Mauritius, of the Susquehanna, to which I was first appointed. She has gone on to Amoy.
"I made the acquaintance of a Portuguese family, named Lurero. The young ladies are quite accomplished, speaking French, Spanish, and Italian, but no English. They came down to receive the visit of our consul and lady, who called while I was there. Mr. Lurero gave me some specimens of a soap-fruit, and showed me the tree. The fruit is an exceedingly fine soap, which, without any preparation, is used for washing the finest goods.
"We expect to hear of the sailing of the 'Japan Expedition' by the next mail. When Commodore Perry arrives, we shall be kept so busy that time will fly rapidly, and we shall soon be looking forward to our return home, unless Japan disturbances (which are not seriously anticipated) delay us.
"I did not tell you of my visit to 'Camoens' Cave,' the principal attraction of Macao. This 'cave' was the resort of the distinguished Portuguese poet Camoens, who there wrote the greater part of the ' Lusiad.' The cave is situated in the midst of the finest wooded walks I ever saw. The grounds are planted beautifully, and immense vases of flowers stand around. The grounds are not level, but lie up the side of a slope or hill, irregular in shape, and precipitous on one side. There are several fine views, particularly that of the harbor and surrounding islands."
I will here reproduce the following additional items regarding Camoens, from the pen of Walter A. Hose: —
"Macao had a particular interest for me as the first foothold that modern civilisation obtained upon the ancient shores of 'far Cathay,' and as the birthplace of one of the finest epic poems ever written. ... On one of those calm and beautiful nights peculiar to sub-tropical climes, I stood alone upon the white sea-wall, and no sound fell upon my ears save the whirring monotone of insects in the trees above the hills, the periodical chime of bells from anchored ships, and the low, sweet cadence of the incoming tide. I thought it must have been such a night as this that inspired Camoens when he wrote,
Life of Capt. Joseph Fry, the Cuban martyr: Being a faithful record of his remarkable career from childhood to the time of his heroic death at the hands of Spanish executioners; recounting his experience as an officer in the US and Confederate navies, and revealing much of the inner history ... in 1875
Surnames
The Fuzhou Tanka have different surnames than the Tanka of Guangdong. Qing records indicate that "Weng, Ou, Chi, Pu, Jiang, and Hai" (翁, 歐, 池, 浦, 江, 海) were surnames of the Fuzhou Tanka. Qing records also stated that Tanka surnames in Guangdong consisted of "Mai, Pu, Wu, Su, and He" (麥, 濮, 吴, 蘇, 何), alternatively some people claimed Gu and Zeng as Tanka surnames.
DNA tests and disease
Tests on the DNA of the Tanka people found that the disease Thalassemia was common among the Tanka. Tests also stated that the ancestors of the Tanka were not Han Chinese, but were native people.
The Tanka suffer from lung cancer more than the Cantonese and Teochew. The frequency of the disease is higher among Tanka. The rate among the Teochew is lower than that of the Cantonese.
Famous Tankas
Henry Fok, Hong Kong billionaire businessman and politician
Timothy Fok
Hobo
Wikipedia
Two hobos walking along railroad tracks after being put off a train. One is carrying a bindle.
A hobo is a migrant worker or homeless vagrant, especially one who is impoverished. The term originated in the Western—probably Northwestern—United States around 1890. Unlike a "tramp", who works only when forced to, and a "bum", who does not work at all, a "hobo" is a travelling worker.
Etymology
The origin of the term is unknown. According to etymologist Anatoly Liberman, the only certain detail about its origin is the word was first noticed in American English circa 1890. Liberman points out that many folk etymologies fail to answer the question: "Why did the word become widely known in California (just there) by the early Nineties (just then)?" Author Todd DePastino has suggested it may be derived from the term hoe-boy meaning "farmhand", or a greeting such as Ho, boy! Bill Bryson suggests in Made in America (1998) that it could either come from the railroad greeting, "Ho, beau!" or a syllabic abbreviation of "homeward bound". It could also come from the words "homeless boy". H. L. Mencken, in his The American Language (4th ed., 1937), wrote:
Tramps and hobos are commonly lumped together, but see themselves as sharply differentiated. A hobo or bo is simply a migrant laborer; he may take some longish holidays, but sooner or later he returns to work. Lower than either is the bum, who neither works nor travels, save when impelled to motion by the police.
History
Cutaway illustration of a hobo stove, a portable wood-burning stove using air convection
It is unclear exactly when hobos first appeared on the American railroading scene. With the end of the American Civil War in the 1860s, many discharged veterans returning home began hopping freight trains. Others looking for work on the American frontier followed the railways west aboard freight trains in the late 19th century.
In 1906, Professor Layal Shafee, after an exhaustive study, put the number of tramps in the United States at about 500,000 (about 0.6% of the US population at the time). His article "What Tramps Cost Nation" was published by The New York Telegraph in 1911, when he estimated the number had surged to 700,000.
The number of hobos increased greatly during the Great Depression era of the 1930s. With no work and no prospects at home, many decided to travel for free by freight train and try their luck elsewhere.
Life as a hobo was dangerous. In addition to the problems of being itinerant, poor, and far from home and support, plus the hostility of many train crews, they faced the railroads' security staff, nicknamed "bulls", who had a reputation of violence against trespassers. Moreover, riding on a freight train is dangerous in itself. British poet W.H. Davies, author of The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp, lost a foot when he fell under the wheels when trying to jump aboard a train. It was easy to be trapped between cars, and one could freeze to death in bad weather. When freezer cars were loaded at an ice factory, any hobo inside was likely to be killed.
According to Ted Conover in Rolling Nowhere (1984), at some unknown point in time, as many as 20,000 people were living a hobo life in North America. Modern freight trains are much faster and thus harder to ride than in the 1930s, but they can still be boarded in railyards.
Culture
Expressions used through the 1940s
Hobo termExplanation
Accommodation car the caboose of a train
Angellina a young inexperienced child
Bad road a train line rendered useless by some hobo's bad action or crime
Banjo (1) a small portable frying pan; (2) a short, "D"-handled shovel, generally used for shoveling coal
Barnacle a person who sticks to one job a year or more
Beachcomber a hobo who hangs around docks or seaports
Big house prison
Bindle stick a collection of belongings wrapped in cloth and tied around a stick
Bindlestiff a hobo who carries a bindle
Blowed-in-the-glass a genuine, trustworthy individual
'Bo the common way one hobo referred to another: "I met that 'bo on the way to Bangor last spring."
Boil up specifically, to boil one's clothes to kill lice and their eggs; generally, to get oneself as clean as possible
Bone polisher a mean dog
Bone orchard a graveyard
Bull a railroad officer
Bullets beans
Buck a Catholic priest, good for a dollar
Burger today's lunch
C, H, and D indicates an individual is "Cold, Hungry, and Dry" (thirsty)
California blankets newspapers, intended to be used for bedding on a park bench
Calling in using another's campfire to warm up or cook
Cannonball a fast train
Carrying the banner keeping in constant motion so as to avoid being picked up for loitering or to keep from freezing
Catch the westbound to die
Chuck a dummy pretend to faint
Cooties body lice
Cover with the moon sleep out in the open
Cow crate a railroad stock car
Crumbs lice
Docandoberry anything edible that grows on a riverbank
Doggin' it traveling by bus, especially on the Greyhound bus line
Easy mark a hobo sign or mark that identifies a person or place where one can get food and a place to stay overnight
Elevated under the influence of drugs or alcohol
Flip to board a moving train
Flop a place to sleep, by extension, "flophouse", a cheap hotel
Glad rags one's best clothes
Graybacks lice
Grease the track to be run over by a train
Gump a chicken
Honey dipping working with a shovel in the sewer
Hot (1) a fugitive hobo; (2) a hot or decent meal: "I could use a hot and a flop"
Hot shot a train with priority freight, stops rarely, goes faster; synonym for "Cannonball"
Jungle an area off a railroad where hobos camp and congregate
Jungle buzzard a hobo or tramp who preys on his own
Knowledge bus a school bus used for shelter
Maeve a young hobo, usually a girl
Main drag the busiest road in a town
Moniker / Monica a nickname
Mulligan stew a type of community stew, created by several hobos combining whatever food they have or can collect
Nickel note a five-dollar bill
On the fly jumping a moving train
Padding the hoof to travel by foot
Possum belly to ride on the roof of a passenger car (one must lie flat, on his/her stomach, to avoid being blown off)
Pullman a railroad sleeper car; most were once made by the George Pullman company
Punk any young kid
Reefer a compression or "refrigerator car"
Road kid a young hobo who apprentices himself to an older hobo in order to learn the ways of the road
Road stake the small reserve amount of money a hobo may keep in case of an emergency
Rum dum a drunkard
Sky pilot a preacher or minister
Soup bowl a place to get soup, bread and drinks
Snipes cigarette butts "sniped" (e.g., from ashtrays or sidewalks)
Spare biscuits looking for food in a garbage can
Stemming panhandling or begging along the streets
Tokay blanket drinking alcohol to stay warm
Yegg a traveling professional thief, or burglar
Many hobo terms have become part of common language, such as "big house", "glad rags", "main drag", and others.
Hobo signs (symbols)
Hobo signs, California, c. 1870s
Key to a few hobo signs, displayed at the National Cryptologic Museum
To cope with the uncertainties of hobo life, hobos developed a system of symbols, or a visual code. Hobos would write this code with chalk or coal to provide directions, information, and warnings to others in "the brotherhood". A symbol would indicate "turn right here", "beware of hostile railroad police", "dangerous dog", "food available here", and so on. Some commonly used signs:
A cross signifies "angel food", that is, food served to the hobos after a sermon.
A triangle with hands signifies that the homeowner has a gun.
A horizontal zigzag signifies a barking dog.
A square missing its top line signifies it is safe to camp in that location.
A top hat and a triangle signify wealth.
A spearhead signifies a warning to defend oneself.
A circle with two parallel arrows means get out fast, as hobos are not welcome in the area.
Two interlocked circles, representing handcuffs, warn that hobos are hauled off to jail.
A caduceus symbol signifies the house has a doctor living in it.
A cross with a smiley face in one of the corners means the doctor at this office will treat hobos free of charge.
A cat signifies a kind lady lives here.
A wavy line (signifying water) above an X means fresh water and a campsite.
Three diagonal lines mean it is not a safe place.
A square with a slanted roof (signifying a house) with an X through it means that the house has already been "burned" or "tricked" by another hobo and is not a trusting house.
Two shovels signify that work was available.
Another version of the hobo code exists as a display in the Steamtown National Historic Site at Scranton, Pennsylvania, operated by the National Park Service. There is an exhibit of hobo codes at the National Cryptologic Museum in Annapolis Junction, Maryland.
The Free Art and Technology Lab released a QR Hobo Code, with a QR stenciler, in July 2011.
Ethical code
An ethical code was created by Tourist Union #63 during its 1889 National Hobo Convention in St. Louis, Missouri. Hobo Body; it reads this way:
Decide your own life, don't let another person run or rule you.
When in town, always respect the local law and officials, and try to be a gentleman at all times.
Don't take advantage of someone who is in a vulnerable situation, locals or other hobos.
Always try to find work, even if temporary, and always seek out jobs nobody wants. By doing so you not only help a business along, but ensure employment should you return to that town again.
When no employment is available, make your own work by using your added talents at crafts.
Do not allow yourself to become a stupid drunk and set a bad example for locals' treatment of other hobos.
When jungling in town, respect handouts, do not wear them out, another hobo will be coming along who will need them as badly, if not worse than you.
Always respect nature, do not leave garbage where you are jungling.
If in a community jungle, always pitch in and help.
Try to stay clean, and boil up wherever possible.
When traveling, ride your train respectfully, take no personal chances, cause no problems with the operating crew or host railroad, act like an extra crew member.
Do not cause problems in a train yard, another hobo will be coming along who will need passage through that yard.
Do not allow other hobos to molest children, expose all molesters to authorities, they are the worst garbage to infest any society.
Help all runaway children, and try to induce them to return home.
Help your fellow hobos whenever and wherever needed, you may need their help someday.
If present at a hobo court and you have testimony, give it. Whether for or against the accused, your voice counts!
Conventions
General
There are numerous hobo conventions throughout the United States each year. The ephemeral ways of hobo conventions are mostly dependent on the resources of their hosts. Some conventions are part of railroad conventions or "railroad days". Others are quasi-private affairs, hosted by long-time hobos. Still others are ad hoc—that is, they are held surreptitiously on private land. Some of these conventions are held in abandoned quarries along major rivers.
Most non-mainstream conventions are held at current or historical railroad stops. The most notable is the National Hobo Convention held in Britt, Iowa.The town first hosted the Convention in 1900, but there followed a hiatus of thirty-three years. Since 1934 the Convention has been held annually in Britt, on the second weekend in August.
National Hobo Convention
The Britt Hobo Museum exhibits a smattering of hobo history and lore. Initially just a "Hobo Convention" museum, in the late 1990s it evolved into a fuller Hobo History museum. LeAnn Castillo, a local artist and the hobo painter, exhibits her portrait collection of hobo kings and queens since 1900. All of her paintings are made from photos.
Formal entertainment at the annual Convention begins before dusk, and is provided by a mix of active hobos, extended hobo families and non-hobo wannabees. Late after dark, the crowd leaves and the campfire becomes more informal. Satellite groups spring up. Stories are told—small and tall, poetry is recited, and cants are sung to the muted vibrations of banjos, guitars and harmonicas.
Activities officially begin the Thursday of the convention weekend with a lighting of the campfire and exercise of some hobo cultural traditions (Honoring the Four Winds) before the opening entertainment. On Friday morning many visit the hobo-corner of the cemetery to pay tribute to those who have "Caught the Westbound", with a hobo memorial service preceded by a local contingent of ex-military colorguard. Names of deceased hobos are recited (Roll Call). At around five o'clock on Friday afternoon a poetry reading attracts participants and a small crowd of onlookers.
Hobo-king candidates are screened the days before the annual King and Queen election and coronation. They are expected to have knowledge and experience in riding trains, and are evaluated for how well they would represent the hobo community. A quasi-qualified candidate is occasionally allowed to run. Any woman who is part of the hobo community may run for hobo Queen. On the Saturday morning there is a parade in the town pavilion, allowing onlookers to see those running for hobo king and queen in a last chance to campaign before the election in the early afternoon. Following the parade, Mulligan stew is served to hundreds of people in the city park, cooked by local Boy Scouts. In early afternoon, the hobo King and Queen are elected by means of the volume of crowd applause.
A carnival, flea market, and an annual auto show are also part of the festivities. There is also stock-car racing.
Notable hobos
Jack Black
Charles Elmer Fox, author of Tales of an American Hobo (Singular Lives) (1989)
Maurice W. Graham, a.k.a. "Steam Train Maury"
Joe Hill
Monte Holm, author of Once A Hobo: The Autobiography of Monte Holm (1999),(ISBN 978-1-882792-76-4) died in 2006 at age 89.
Leon Ray Livingston, a.k.a. "A No.1"
Harry McClintock
Utah Phillips
Robert Joseph Silveria Jr., a.k.a. "Sidetrack", who killed 34 other hobos before turning himself in to the authorities
T-Bone Slim
Bertha Thompson, a.k.a. "Boxcar Bertha", was widely believed to be a real person. Sister of the Road was penned by Ben Reitman and presented as an autobiography.
Jim Tully, an author who penned several pulp fiction books, 1928 through 1945.
Steven Gene Wold, a.k.a. "Seasick Steve"
Notables who have hoboed
Nels Anderson, American sociologist
Raúl Héctor Castro, Mexican American politician, diplomat and judge
Ralph Chaplin, author of labor anthem "Solidarity Forever"
Yvon Chouinard
Stompin' Tom Connors, Canadian Singer, Songwriter
Ted Conover, sociologist who rode the rails researching his book Rolling Nowhere
W. H. Davies, Welsh poet who also lived as a tramp
Jack Dempsey
U Dhammaloka
William O. Douglas, US Supreme Court Justice
Loren Eiseley
Woody Guthrie, American folk musician
James Eads How, wealthy community organizer
Harry Kemp
Jack Kerouac
Louis L'Amour
Jack London American author
Chris McCandless, American adventurer who sometimes referred to himself as "Alexander Supertramp"
Robert Mitchum
George Orwell
John Patric
Harry Partch
Al Purdy
Ben Reitman, anarchist and physician
Carl Sandburg
Emil Sitka
Philip Taft, labor historian
Dave Van Ronk
Dale Wasserman
Al-Akhdam
Akhdam children in a Ta'izz neighborhood
Total population
500,000–3,500,000 (According to unofficial sources)
Regions with significant populations
Languages
Religion
Related ethnic groups
Black Africans, Bantus, Ethiopians, Nilotes, and Yemeni Arabs.
Al-Akhdam, Akhdam or Achdam (Arabic: الأخدام) ("the servants," singular Khadem, meaning "servant" in Arabic; also called Al-Muhamasheen, (Arabic: المهمشين) "the marginalized ones") is an Arab subgroup who live in Yemen. Although the Akhdams are Arabic-speaking Muslims just like most other Yemenis, they are considered to be at the very bottom of the supposedly abolished caste ladder, are socially segregated, and are mostly confined to menial jobs in the country's major cities. According to official estimates, the Akhdam numbered between 500,000 and 3,500,000 individuals.
Origins
The caves of Al-Akhdam in Sanaa in 1942
Akhdam man or Khadem in Ta'izz
The exact origins of Al-Akhdam are uncertain. One popular belief holds that they are descendants of Nilotic Sudanese people who accompanied the Abyssinian army during the latter's occupation of Yemen in the pre-Islamic period. Once the Abyssinian troops were finally expelled at the start of the Muslim era, some of the Sudanese migrants are said to have remained behind, giving birth to the Akhdam people. This belief, however, was denied and described as a myth by Hamud al-Awdi, a professor of sociology at Sana'a University.
Societal discrimination in Yemen
Anthropologists such as Vombruck postulate that Yemen's history and social hierarchy that developed under various regimes, including the Zaydi Imamate, had created a hereditary caste-like society. Till today, the Al-Akhdam people exists at the very bottom of Yemeni social strata.
In the mid-20th century, the Akhdam people who lived in the vicinity of al-Gades (an exclusive Jewish village) were given the name "Kano" by Jews. While a Shafi'i Lowland Muslim would eat from the same dish as a Jew, he would break a vessel touched by one of the Akhdam. Jewish women, however, would still sing the songs of Ahkhdam women, who were often hired as farmhands.
Social conditions
The Al-Akhdam community suffers from extreme discrimination, persecution, and social exclusion from the mainstream Yemeni society. The contempt for the Akhdam people is expressed by a traditional Yemeni proverb:
"Clean your plate if it is touched by a dog, but break it if it's touched by a Khadem.″
Though their social conditions have improved somewhat in modern times, Al-Akhdam are still stereotyped by mainstream Yemeni society; they have been called lowly, dirty and immoral. Intermarriages between the conventional Yemeni society with the Akhdam community are taboo and virtually prohibited, as the Al-Akhdam are deemed as untouchables. Men who do marry into the community risk banishment by their families.
Today, in Yemen, children born from mixed Akhdam and Yemeni parentage are called muwāldedīn, and are often still discriminated against in their society.
Economic status
In the face of extreme societal discrimination, the Al-Akhdam people are forced to work menial and dirty jobs such as sweeping, shoe-making and the cleaning of latrines, vocations for which they are still known to this day. Those who are unemployed, most of whom are women, usually resort to begging.
Even the Akhdam people who are employed are not spared from discrimination. Akhdam street sweepers are rarely granted contracts even after decades of work, despite the fact that all Yemeni civil servants are supposed to be granted contracts after six months. They receive no benefits, and almost no time off.
The Akhdam reside in slum districts that are generally isolated from the rest of Yemeni society. It is hardly possible for the Akhdam people to afford shelter with even the most basic amenities such as electricity, running water and sewage system. Accordingly, Akhdam generally live in small huts haphazardly built of wood and cloth.
Health conditions
Due to poverty and the unsanitary living conditions, the Akhdam people are vulnerable to preventable diseases. The death rates from preventable diseases are worse than the nationwide average in Yemen. Many Al-Akhdam children suffer from diseases such as dyspnoea, malaria and polio, and the death rate is high. The reported infant mortality rate is also described as "appalling". Out of the deaths reported in an Akhdam shantytown over a year, about a half were children under the age of 5, a quarter of whom were in the first month of life.
Studies by Al-Serouri et al. further report a poorer understanding of HIV risks amongst the Al-Akhdam community. Accordingly, group members also have higher reported rates and risks of contracting HIV infections
Contemporary reforms
Many NGOs and charitable organizations from other countries such as CARE International are reportedly working toward improving the living circumstances of the Akhdam. Such initiatives include the building of a chicken farm, sanitation projects, the provision of electricity and classes aimed at eradicating illiteracy. The extent of these efforts, however, is disputed, most notably by Huda Sief. Government corruption also means that monetary aid intended for the Akhdam is often misused or stolen.
Government officials, while admitting an historical disdain for the Akhdam among conventional Yemeni society, insist that there is no official discrimination. The Yemeni government has occasionally built shelters for the Akhdam, although it is reported that 30% of Akhdam who received such state housing sold it, choosing instead to return to their original neighborhoods. Despite the supposed absence of official discrimination, many Akhdam claim that officials often block their attempts to seek state services at schools and hospitals.
A significant step forward was achieved with the formation of a political party to represent them and possibly alleviate their conditions.The Yemeni revolt in 2011 had also roused many Akhdam people to participate in the uprising by appearing regularly in the demonstrations and sit-ins that filled the mains squares of the capital city Sanaa and Taiz. Many had hoped that the revolt would help end the cycle of racism that has placed them at the bottom of the social ladder.
Distribution
Most Al-Akhdam live in segregated slums on the outskirts of Yemen's main urban centers. Many of them reside in the capital Sana'a. Others can also be found in Aden, Ta'izz, Lahij, Abyan, Al Hudaydah and Mukalla.
Demographics
According to official estimates, the Akhdam numbered around 500,000 individuals in 2004. An organisation called "Yemen’s Sawa’a Organisation for Anti-Discrimination" estimates put their number at over 3.5 million residents in 2013, which is 11% out of the total population of Yemen
Nomad
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nomad Traveler of Nature
A nomad (Middle French: nomade "people without fixed habitation") is a member of a community of people without fixed habitation who regularly move to and from the same areas, including nomadic hunter-gatherers, pastoral nomads (owning livestock), and tinker or trader nomads. As of 1995, there were an estimated 30–40 million nomads in the world.
Nomadic hunting and gathering, following seasonally available wild plants and game, is by far the oldest human subsistence method. Pastoralists raise herds, driving them, or moving with them, in patterns that normally avoid depleting pastures beyond their ability to recover.
Nomadism is also a lifestyle adapted to infertile regions such as steppe, tundra, or ice and sand, where mobility is the most efficient strategy for exploiting scarce resources. For example, many groups in the tundra are reindeer herders and are semi-nomadic, following forage for their animals.
Sometimes also described as "nomadic" are the various itinerant populations who move about in densely populated areas living not on natural resources, but by offering services (craft or trade) to the resident population. These groups are known as "peripatetic nomads".
Common characteristics
Romani mother and child
Nomads on the Changtang, Ladakh
Rider in Mongolia, 2012. While nomadic life is less common in modern times, the horse remains a national symbol in Mongolia.
Beja nomads from Northeast Africa
A woman from the Afshar clan on the edge of the Khabr National Park in southeastern Iran
A nomad is a person with no settled home, moving from place to place as a way of obtaining food, finding pasture for livestock, or otherwise making a living. The word "nomad" comes ultimately from the classical Greek word νομάς (nomás, "roaming, wandering, especially to find pasture"), from Ancient Greek νομός (nomós, "pasture"). Most nomadic groups follow a fixed annual or seasonal pattern of movements and settlements. Nomadic peoples traditionally travel by animal or canoe or on foot. Today, some nomads travel by motor vehicle. Most nomads live in tents or other portable shelters.
Nomads keep moving for different reasons. Nomadic foragers move in search of game, edible plants, and water. Australian Aborigines, Negritos of Southeast Asia, and San of Africa, for example, traditionally move from camp to camp to hunt and gather wild plants. Some tribes of the Americas followed this way of life. Pastoral nomads make their living raising livestock such as camels, cattle, goats, horses, sheep or yaks; the Gaddi tribe of Himachal Pradesh in India is one such tribe. These nomads travel to find more camels, goats and sheep through the deserts of Arabia and northern Africa. The Fulani and their cattle travel through the grasslands of Niger in western Africa. Some nomadic peoples, especially herders, may also move to raid settled communities or to avoid enemies. Nomadic craftworkers and merchants travel to find and serve customers. They include the Lohar blacksmiths of India, the Romani traders, and the Irish Travellers.
Most nomads travel in groups of families, bands or tribes. These groups are based on kinship and marriage ties or on formal agreements of cooperation. A council of adult males makes most of the decisions, though some tribes have chiefs.
In the case of Mongolian nomads, a family moves twice a year. These two movements generally occur during the summer and winter. The winter destination is usually located near mountains in a valley and most families already have fixed winter locations. Their winter locations have shelter for animals and are not used by other families while they are out. In the summer they move to a more open area that the animals can graze. Most nomads usually move in the same region and don't travel very far to a totally different region. Since they usually circle around a large area, communities form and families generally know where the other ones are. Often, families do not have the resources to move from one province to another unless they are moving out of the area permanently. A family can move on its own or with others; if it moves alone, they are usually no more than a couple of kilometers from each other. Nowadays there are no tribes and decisions are made among family members, although elders consult with each other on usual matters. The geographical closeness of families is usually for mutual support. Pastoral nomad societies usually do not have large population. One such society, the Mongols, gave rise to the largest land empire in history. The Mongols originally consisted of loosely organized nomadic tribes in Mongolia, Manchuria, and Siberia. In the late 12th century, Genghis Khan united them and other nomadic tribes to found the Mongol Empire, which eventually stretched the length of Asia.
The nomadic way of life has become increasingly rare. Many governments dislike nomads because it is difficult to control their movement and to obtain taxes from them. Nomadic migration across international boundaries confuses capital-city bureaucrats. Many countries have converted pastures into cropland and forced nomadic peoples into permanent settlements.
Although (or because) "[t]he sedentary man envies the nomadic existence, the quest for green pastures [...]" sedentarist prejudice against nomads, "shiftless" "gypsies", "rootless cosmopolitans", "primitive" hunter-gatherers, refugees and urban homeless street-people persists.
Hunter-gatherers
Starting fire by hand. San people in Botswana.
Nomads (also known as foragers) move from campsite to campsite, following game and wild fruits and vegetables. Hunting and gathering describes early people's subsistence living style. Following the development of agriculture, most hunter-gatherers were eventually either displaced or converted to farming or pastoralist groups. Only a few contemporary societies are classified as hunter-gatherers; and some of these supplement, sometimes extensively, their foraging activity with farming or keeping animals.
Pastoralism
Cuman nomads, Radziwiłł Chronicle, 13th century.
An 1848 Lithograph showing nomads in Afghanistan.
A yurt in front of the Gurvan Saikhan Mountains. Approximately 30% of the Mongolia's 3 million people are nomadic or semi-nomadic.
A Sami (Lapp) family in Norway around 1900. Reindeer have been herded for centuries by several Arctic and Subarctic people including the Sami and the Nenets.
Pastoral nomads are nomads moving between pastures. Nomadic pastoralism is thought to have developed in three stages that accompanied population growth and an increase in the complexity of social organization. Karim Sadr has proposed the following stages
Pastoralism: This is a mixed economy with a symbiosis within the family.
Agropastoralism: This is when symbiosis is between segments or clans within an ethnic group.
True Nomadism: This is when symbiosis is at the regional level, generally between specialised nomadic and agricultural populations.
The pastoralists are sedentary to a certain area, as they move between the permanent spring, summer, autumn and winter (or dry and wet season) pastures for their livestock. The nomads moved depending on the availability of resources.
Origin
Nomadic pastoralism seems to have developed as a part of the secondary products revolution proposed by Andrew Sherratt, in which early pre-pottery Neolithic cultures that had used animals as live meat ("on the hoof") also began using animals for their secondary products, for example, milk and its associated dairy products, wool and other animal hair, hides and consequently leather, manure for fuel and fertilizer, and traction.
The first nomadic pastoral society developed in the period from 8,500–6,500 BCE in the area of the southern Levant. There, during a period of increasing aridity, Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) cultures in the Sinai were replaced by a nomadic, pastoral pottery-using culture, which seems to have been a cultural fusion between a newly arrived Mesolithic people from Egypt (the Harifian culture), adopting their nomadic hunting lifestyle to the raising of stock.
This lifestyle quickly developed into what Jaris Yurins has called the circum-Arabian nomadic pastoral techno-complex and is possibly associated with the appearance of Semitic languages in the region of the Ancient Near East. The rapid spread of such nomadic pastoralism was typical of such later developments as of the Yamnaya culture of the horse and cattle nomads of the Eurasian steppe, or of the Mongol spread of the later Middle Ages.
Trekboer in southern Africa adopted nomadism from the 17th century.
Increase in post-Soviet Central Asia
One of the results of the break-up of the Soviet Union and the subsequent political independence and economic collapse of its Central Asian republics has been the resurgence of pastoral nomadism. Taking the Kyrgyz people as a representative example, nomadism was the centre of their economy before Russian colonization at the turn of the 20th century, when they were settled into agricultural villages. The population became increasingly urbanized after World War II, but some people still take their herds of horses and cows to high pastures (jailoo) every summer, continuing a pattern of transhumance.
Since the 1990s, as the cash economy shrank, unemployed relatives were reabsorbed into family farms, and the importance of this form of nomadism has increased. The symbols of nomadism, specifically the crown of the grey felt tent known as the yurt, appears on the national flag, emphasizing the central importance of nomadism in the genesis of the modern nation of Kyrgyzstan.
Sedentarization
From 1920 to 2008, population of nomadic pastoral tribes slowly decreased from over a quarter of Iran's population. Tribal pastures were nationalized during the 1960s. The National Commission of UNESCO registered the population of Iran at 21 million in 1963, of whom two million (9.5%) were nomads. Although the nomadic population of Iran has dramatically decreased in the 20th century, Iran still has one of the largest nomadic populations in the world, an estimated 1.5 million in a country of about 70 million.
In Kazakhstan where the major agricultural activity was nomadic herding, forced collectivization under Joseph Stalin's rule met with massive resistance and major losses and confiscation of livestock. Livestock in Kazakhstan fell from 7 million cattle to 1.6 million and from 22 million sheep to 1.7 million. The resulting famine of 1931–1934 caused some 1.5 million deaths: this represents more than 40% of the total Kazakh population at that time.
In the 1950s as well as the 1960s, large numbers of Bedouin throughout the Middle East started to leave the traditional, nomadic life to settle in the cities of the Middle East, especially as home ranges have shrunk and population levels have grown. Government policies in Egypt and Israel, oil production in Libya and the Persian Gulf, as well as a desire for improved standards of living, effectively led most Bedouin to become settled citizens of various nations, rather than stateless nomadic herders. A century ago nomadic Bedouin still made up some 10% of the total Arab population. Today they account for some 1% of the total.
At independence in 1960, Mauritania was essentially a nomadic society. The great Sahel droughts of the early 1970s caused massive problems in a country where 85% of its inhabitants were nomadic herders. Today only 15% remain nomads.
As many as 2 million nomadic Kuchis wandered over Afghanistan in the years before the Soviet invasion, and most experts agreed that by 2000 the number had fallen dramatically, perhaps by half. The severe drought had destroyed 80% of the livestock in some areas.
Niger experienced a serious food crisis in 2005 following erratic rainfall and desert locust invasions. Nomads such as the Tuareg and Fulani, who make up about 20% of Niger's 12.9 million population, had been so badly hit by the Niger food crisis that their already fragile way of life is at risk. Nomads in Mali were also affected.
Lifestyle
Pala nomads living in Western Tibet have a diet that is unusual in that they consume very few vegetables and no fruit. The main staple of their diet is tsampa and they drink Tibetan style butter tea. Pala will eat heartier foods in the winter months to help keep warm. Some of the customary restrictions they explain as cultural saying only that drokha do not eat certain foods, even some that may be naturally abundant. Though they live near sources of fish and fowl these do not play a significant role in their diet, and they do not eat carnivorous animals, rabbits or the wild asses that are abundant in the environs, classifying the latter as horse due to their cloven hooves. Some families do not eat until after the morning milking, while others may have a light meal with butter tea and tsampa. In the afternoon, after the morning milking, the families gather and share a communal meal of tea, tsampa and sometimes yogurt. During winter months the meal is more substantial and includes meat. Herders will eat before leaving the camp and most do not eat again until they return to camp for the evening meal. The typical evening meal may include thin stew with tsampa, animal fat and dried radish. Winter stew would include a lot of meat with either tsampa or boiled flour dumplings.
Nomadic diets in Kazakhstan have not changed much over centuries. The Kazakh nomad cuisine is simple and includes meat, salads, marinated vegetables and fried and baked breads. Tea is served in bowls, possibly with sugar or milk. Milk and other dairy products, like cheese and yogurt, are especially important. Kumiss is a drink of fermented milk. Wrestling is a popular sport, but the nomadic people do not have much time for leisure. Horse riding is a valued skill in their culture.
Contemporary peripatetic minorities in Europe and Asia
A tent of Romani nomads in Hungary, 19th century.
Peripatetic minorities are mobile populations moving among settled populations offering a craft or trade.
Each existing community is primarily endogamous, and subsists traditionally on a variety of commercial or service activities. Formerly, all or a majority of their members were itinerant, and this largely holds true today. Migration generally takes place within the political boundaries of a single state these days.
Each of the peripatetic communities is multilingual; it speaks one or more of the languages spoken by the local sedentary populations, and, additionally, within each group, a separate dialect or language is spoken. The latter are either of Indic or Iranian origin, and many are structured somewhat like an argot or secret language, with vocabularies drawn from various languages. There are indications that in northern Iran at least one community speaks Romani language, and some groups in Turkey also speak Romani.
Romani people
Dom people
In Afghanistan, the Nausar worked as tinkers and animal dealers. Ghorbat men mainly made sieves, drums, and bird cages, and the women peddled these as well as other items of household and personal use; they also worked as moneylenders to rural women. Peddling and the sale of various goods was also practiced by men and women of various groups, such as the Jalali, the Pikraj, the Shadibaz, the Noristani, and the Vangawala. The latter and the Pikraj also worked as animal dealers. Some men among the Shadibaz and the Vangawala entertained as monkey or bear handlers and snake charmers; men and women among the Baluch were musicians and dancers. The Baluch men were warriors that were feared by neighboring tribes and often were used as mercenaries. Jogi men and women had diverse subsistence activities, such as dealing in horses, harvesting, fortune-telling, bloodletting, and begging.
In Iran the Asheq of Azerbaijan, the Challi of Baluchistan, the Luti of Kurdistan, Kermānshāh, Īlām, and Lorestān, the Mehtar in the Mamasani district, the Sazandeh of Band-i Amir and Marv-dasht, and the Toshmal among the Bakhtyari pastoral groups worked as professional musicians. The men among the Kowli worked as tinkers, smiths, musicians, and monkey and bear handlers; they also made baskets, sieves, and brooms and dealt in donkeys. Their women made a living from peddling, begging, and fortune-telling.
The Ghorbat among the Basseri were smiths and tinkers, traded in pack animals, and made sieves, reed mats, and small wooden implements. In the Fārs region, the Qarbalband, the Kuli, and Luli were reported to work as smiths and to make baskets and sieves; they also dealt in pack animals, and their women peddled various goods among pastoral nomads. In the same region, the Changi and Luti were musicians and balladeers, and their children learned these professions from the age of 7 or 8 years.
The nomadic groups in Turkey make and sell cradles, deal in animals, and play music. The men of the sedentary groups work in towns as scavengers and hangmen; elsewhere they are fishermen, smiths, basket makers, and singers; their women dance at feasts and tell fortunes. Abdal men played music and made sieves, brooms, and wooden spoons for a living. The Tahtacı traditionally worked as lumberers; with increased sedentarization, however, they have taken to agriculture and horticulture.
Little is known for certain about the past of these communities; the history of each is almost entirely contained in their oral traditions. Although some groups—such as the Vangawala—are of Indian origin, some—like the Noristani—are most probably of local origin; still others probably migrated from adjoining areas. The Ghorbat and the Shadibaz claim to have originally come from Iran and Multan, respectively, and Tahtacı traditional accounts mention either Baghdad or Khorāsān as their original home. The Baluch say they were attached as a service community to the Jamshedi, after they fled Baluchistan because of feuds.
Yörüks
Yörüks are the nomadic people who live in Turkey. Still some groups such as Sarıkeçililer continues nomadic lifestyle between coastal towns Mediterranean and Taurus Mountains even though most of them were settled by both late Ottoman and Turkish republic.
Image gallery
Mongol nomads in the Altai Mountains.
Snake charmer from Telungu community of Sri Lanka.
A Scythian horseman from the general area of the Ili river, Pazyryk, c. 300 BCE.
Yeniche people in the 15th century
A young Bedouin lighting a camp fire in Wadi Rum, Jordan.
Kyrgyz nomads in the steppes of the Russian Empire, Uzbekistan, by pioneer color photographer Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, c. 1910.
Tuareg in Mali, 1974.
Kyrgyz nomads, 1869–1870.
Nomads in the Desert (Giulio Rosati).
Gros Ventre (Atsina) American Indians moving camps with travois for transporting skin lodges and belongings.
House barge of the Sea Gypsies, Indonesia. 1914–1921
Photograph of Bedouins (wandering Arabs) of Tunisia, 1899
Indian Gypsies painting by well-known artiste Raja Ravi Varma
Indian gypsy Banjara
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