Residential Segregation In Metro City

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“If a dalit happened to touch an upper caste person’s vessel, it had to be smeared with cow dung and burnt in fire. It would then be immersed in a solution of tamarind and salt. Afterwards, it would be immersed in cow’s urine, and only then would it be placed along with the other vessels of house.” (102) Malagatti’s is not a unique case; rather thousands of Dalits face the same situation in this so called modern day civilized society. Close reading of many Dalit autobiographical narratives would easily provide the readers similar kind of instances. In his autobiographical narrative, Omprakash Valmiki writes an account of the caste experience in an urban setting, wherein he explicates how the exposition of his Dalit identity brings an end to…show more content…
Trina Vithayathi and Gayatri Singh in their article titled “Spaces of Discrimination: Residential Segregation in Indian Cities” (2012) through the analysis of 2001 Census data, have come with the result that, in the Indian metro cities, “residential segregation by caste is more prominent than the level of segregation by Socio-economic status.” (60) The study analyses the data of seven largest metro cities such as Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad. Cities like Ahmedabad and Delhi are found to be on the top of the table in this analysis of spatial segregation by caste. In relation to the result of the study, Sharan Kumar Limbale in his autobiography Akkarmashi describes a similar incident where he finds the whole Latur town divided on caste lines. To explain the spatial segregation in the Latur town he writes, “This city was made of herds of castes. Even localities were identified by castes.” (107) In a huge town like Latur, Limbale was unable to get a single room to stay, during his service as a telephone operator and finally he had to stay in the slum. He could get a room in the city when he kept his caste secret but was always petrified by the thought that he could be humiliated and beaten off at the exposition of his caste identity. His experiences were very…show more content…
Reservation in the educational institutions and in the government jobs for Scheduled caste candidates has been helpful for the development of the Dalit community. But due to this reservation, on many occasions, many upper caste students and professors in the higher educational institutions become prejudiced against the Dalit students. Thus both their low caste and reservation become the cause of physical and mental torture which they face in different educational institutions. Malagatti reflects on the incidents of his college days when his upper caste classmates used to scold him using his caste and called him ‘Government Brahmana’ as he was getting benefits from the government’s reservation policy. (61) Here, one can see the way the term “Brahmin” is used to signify someone with “high status” and privileges. Whereas Brahmins get both the “high status” in society and privileges just by being born into that caste, the fact that some educated Dalits benefit in terms of education and jobs through the government’s reservation policy is seen by the upper caste people to be an act of charity by the government, and hence the disparaging phrase “Government Brahmana”. According to the article “Caste and the Metropolitan University” (2002) published by Anveshi Law Committee, in January 2002 ten Dalit students were rusticated from Hyderabad Central University (HCU) and sent to
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