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Discuss
Headmaster
Character
and
role
in
Valmikiss
Joothan.
Answers
After the independence of India, the political leaders of our nation had attempted to eradicate the ominous practice of untouchability through various sanctions in government laws and policies, the validation of its dismantled state was further cemented by the Constitution of India which came into power in 1950. However the scope of removal of untouchability remained limited only to be put pen to paper. That is to say, legal changes were made within political framework, but mindsets of larger population were infected with germ of obnoxious caste system. Caste system of India has allotted the untouchables to lowest echelon of society. This segregated class of people has remained downtrodden and is forbidden by the so called upper castes of society to climb up the social ladder and settle themselves down at a better place in society. Labelling them as the depressed class, scheduled class by constitution or addressing them as Harijans by Gandhi failed to confine the anguished state of mind of those people caused by the abhorrence meted out to them by their own fellow countrymen and women. The dubious and tumultuous nature of their realistic lives and experiences could not be made non-visible by wrapping the facts under the garb of law and administration, hopes and aspirations bestowed upon the ex-untouchables by the national leaders. The multifarious trajectories undertaken to comprehend and restrain the phenomenon of untouchability have still not dealt with the real life bizarre caste rigidity practices which promote exactly the opposite of the values what our state and its constitution strive to stand by. The identity crisis resurfaces with a thrust along the lines of precariousness.
The untouchables embraced the term “Dalit” first coined by Jyotirao Phule and further popularised by Dr. B.