For Real!

I told you all that I would write some of my observations on the caste system, but it’s proving to be very difficult. First of all, I don’t even know enough about the caste system to know what I don’t know. Second, writing about the caste system in India makes me feel like I’m somehow ignoring the fact that discrimination is very much alive and well in my home country and community. As a white, middle class young woman born to educated parents, I have personally benefited from the racial discrimination found in the USA. Although I worked hard to get to India, many of the reasons I was able to come were a result of unearned privileges I have been granted because of my social class and ethnicity. I don’t want my observations to come across as if discrimination is foreign to me.

That being acknowledged, I still don’t feel all that comfortable writing about caste. I can, however, do what I usually do and tell you all a story.

The Gram Chetna staff is primarily made up of Brahmins. The founding team were all Brahmin, Big Boss is Brahmin, and both his son (Amit) and brother (Vishnu) work here and are obviously also Brahmin. Brahmins are at the top of the caste system and the Scheduled Castes and Tribes are at the bottom. “Scheduled” means that they are given certain affirmative action style rights in the constitution. It’s also a nicer name for what they were once referred to - Untouchables.

Gram Chetna’s has a huge presence in the surrounding communities. The name can be roughly translated to Village Awareness Center and it provides education on health, safe water and sanitation, child development, nutrition, family planning among many other things. The center also arranges for dairy cooperatives among the farmers, and provides support to women’s microfinance schemes. The work done here is generally done with and for the uneducated, rural poor. Rajiv once said that as a social worker, there is very little room for caste discrimination in his line of work.

Now, there is a young man, Mahendra, who comes to Gram Chetna every morning, seven days a week, to sweep the dust, clean the bathrooms and take out the trash. He arrives before we wake up and takes a short break when morning chai is served. While we all sit around on lawn chairs drinking out of ceramic tea cups, he is served his chai in a plastic cup and sits about ten yards away, on some concrete steps. From the very beginning I thought these behaviors were caste related, but I never said anything about it.

Two weeks ago we went to a marriage party where caste was directly brought up by Amit and Rajiv. To make a long story short, two girls sat with our Gram Chetna group for dinner. I didn’t pick up on any of this at the time, but it was discussed later on the way home. One of the two girls wasn’t going to eat with us because her friend (!!!!!) was of a lower caste, and she wouldn’t eat with her. Amit, who is Brahmin, didn’t care about anyone’s caste and told the one girl to eat. So she did, but Amit and Rajiv laughed about it in the car on the way home.

The above story gave me the impression that caste was largely ignored by the people at Gram Chetna. But the chai served to him in a plastic cup was really throwing me off. Finally I brought it up to John and he said something about age being a possible factor. He read somewhere that if a young man is younger than 18, he is still often treated as a child. But that didn’t seem right to me. John then asked Prashand and he confirmed my beliefs, that it was indeed caste related. And unfortunately, he also told us some more upsetting information about caste discrimination at Gram Chetna.

Not only does Mahendra have to drink his tea from a plastic cup away from the group every morning, he must also keep his dishes separate from everyone else’s, he is also not allowed in the kitchen, and he is not allowed to drink from the electrocuting water cooler. When he sweeps in the mornings he is not allowed to step foot in Big Boss’s office, Amit’s office, or Vishnu’s dormitory. If he goes in, the rooms are considered contaminated because he is a member of the Scheduled Caste.

Prashand added that although the caste system is reinforced through Hindu beliefs, Rajasthan was the birthplace of discrimination based on caste. He is from a Uttar Pradesh and said that things weren’t like this back at his home. I have no way of knowing how accurate that is. It may be like saying Chicago is less racist than Detroit. It might just be that the discrimination in Rajasthan is more overt than other places in India. Who knows.

That’s that on caste.

In other news, I had to break out the mosquito net. Before coming I read countless blogs about how useless mosquito nets are in India. I read that there is never any place to hang it from, it creates a cocoon of heat around you, and there aren’t really any bugs to worry about. After all, it was pretty useless while I was in Kenya. For a minute I thought about leaving it at home, especially because I was packing so light. But in the end I decided to bring it anyway. And thank the lord I did! The bugs just seem to get worse and worse by the minute. Yesterday after dinner I went to wash my dishes and found the outdoor kitchen sink was fill of squirming fly larvae. I definitely gagged at that one…

And I’ve decided to tell you all one more short story. It has to do with the sweeper, Mahendra. Yesterday morning I decided to forgo my bike ride and spend the morning getting rid of the bugs in my room. Crickets and ¾ inch long ants had taken over the place. So I decided to take my luggage from under my bed, the two boxes of empty mineral water bottles from the corner, and my floor rug and place it all on a shelf. The ants and crickets hide under and behind those things, so I got rid of it all.

When Mahendra saw me pulling everything out of my room he asked if I wanted him to clean. Being fully capable of cleaning my own bedroom, I smiled and said, “no thanks”. Now there is a chance that he took that as me asking him not to enter my room, like Vishnu. This morning on my bike ride, I was really looking forward to coming back to a swept room. I know, I know… But if he is going to sweep (which he usually does), I prefer it to happen when I’m gone. I get embarrassed when he comes in to sweep when I’m relaxing on my bed, reading. I feel like I should get up and help him.

But when I got back from my bike ride my room was still a mess. There was dust everywhere, dead bugs were all over the floor. It definitely had not been swept yet. Mahendra had moved onto the other section of the building, so I knew he was done with my room. I know I am fully capable of sweeping out my own room, and that’s exactly what I ended up doing. I just can’t help thinking something else happened, maybe some sort of a miscommunication.

As I see it, I’m stuck either ignoring the possible miscommunication, or deliberately asking him to sweep my room in the morning. Both options make me uncomfortable. While I have no problem sweeping my own room, I don’t want my actions to be misconstrued as caste related. Certainly asking him to sweep my room would clarify that I don’t care about caste, but my Western (or maybe American) values makes me uncomfortable with asking someone to clean up my mess.

I guess my third option would be to tell him it is nothing caste related, but I can sweep my own room. But I’m sure no one would understand why I was making such a distinction. Why is this so damn complicated?!