Discrimination survives disaster

INDIA’S untouchables, reeling from the tsunami disaster, are being forced out of relief camps by higher caste survivors and being denied aid supplies, activists charged yesterday.

Kuppuswamy Ramachandran, 32, a Dalit, or untouchable, in India’s rigid caste hierarchy, said he and his family were told to leave a relief camp in worst-hit Nagapattinam district where 50 more families were housed.

“The higher caste fishing community did not allow us to sleep in a marriage hall where they are put up because we belong to the lowest caste,” he said. “After three days we were moved out to a school but now the school is going to reopen within three days and the teachers drove us out.”