Outcast

Within ten minutes in the village primary school, I noticed two 'feeble beings' sitting in the darkest corner of the room holding onto each other's hands as if they were total aliens in the class and that someone would soon bring harm to them. Before I started talking the children I asked those 'feeble beings' to come up and sit among the other children  but all they did was give me a blank look. My demand made all the other children laugh. "Madam, you don't have to ask them to do that. They aren't allowed to sit with the other children. They are outcast. We had to take them as there would be a government inspection by the end of this month," the school headmaster whispered to me. I looked at him in awe. This was the same man who, a couple of minutes ago, spoke about the need and importance of  compulsory education.  I looked back at those pair again and now their heads were bowed down.
                             Meanwhile I learned that those children lived with their parents on the farther end of the village, in an old stone house remnant, away from the high caste families. They were not allowed to participate in any social activities and were not allowed to enter any social institutions. The father of the children was a daily wager outside, working hard to keep the family going. The children's physical condition showed the deprivation of nutritious food. They were draped in untidy, torn clothes too which made them look worser. On the way back from the village I saw that house in which this outcast family lived in.
                              I saw a live example of the prevailing untouchability practise in India. When I studied these kind of stories in history classes in school, I used to listen to them as if they were fairy tales. I thought  that something like that would never have happened. As I grew up I thought that due to social changes the whole system was completely erased from the society. This singular incident made me realise that despite modernisation, untouchability  still prevails in India. I read somewhere that 'education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.' but this very purpose of education failed in this context as the attitude of people did not  change even when they were educated. Asto this note I wonder whether BR.Ambedkar's dream of an India where untouchables are not a sub division of Hindus but a separate and distinct element in the national life would ever come true.