Thread by @sd268

Hinduism has always policed temple entry & access to drinking water sources (think caste-segregated wells), punishing those who flout these “rules”. Poor Asif was “punished” for his “transgression”, as countless Dalits have before him. Be appalled, but spare me the surprise. 1/

I’ve been to many villages in Rajasthan and UP where people from disadvantaged castes would be risking death if they dared to try and drink water from a well earmarked for so-called “upper” castes. And the situation is no different elsewhere in the country. The entry of Dalits 2/

..into temples was fought tooth and nail by Brahmins and other “upper” castes. In Bengali, the term for castes who are of “similar” status is “jol-chol”, ie quite literally “those whom you can share water with”. Not sharing space, water and food: this is CENTRAL to caste.

Casteism infects the practice of even ostensibly egalitarian religions in S Asia. The original sin of Asiya Bibi, the Pakistani Christian woman hounded for blasphemy, was to drink water from a shared glass. Mangalore matrimonials: “RCBC” stands for “Roman Catholic Brahmin Caste”.

Kerala’s Surianis occupied a special place in the social hierarchy because they supposedly descended from Namboodiris converted ~2000 yrs ago. The idea of hierarchy, which caste formalizes, is incredibly powerful. As many have found, you can convert but your caste follows you.

Most regressive social practices in the subcontinent can be traced back in some way to the fundamental idea that some people are, by virtue of their birth, superior to others. It is also true that people have resisted this idea for millennia - but it remains incredibly powerful.