Sink or swim for ‘untouchables’

IN THE two weeks since a monsoon-swollen river burst its banks, ancient prejudices have run just as deep as the floodwaters.

India’s “untouchables” are the last to be rescued — if at all — from a deluge that has killed dozens and left 1.2 million homeless.

Dalits, the social outcasts at the bottom of the Hindu caste ladder, have borne the brunt of the devastation as the rampaging Kosi River overwhelmed decrepit flood defences in Nepal and swamped hundreds of square miles in northern India.

At least 100 people have been confirmed dead, but the real toll is believed to be far higher.

Lieutenant-General HS Panag, the Indian army official coordinating relief work, said the floods were “the biggest national calamity in recent times”.

A large part of Bihar is still under water, with 550,000 people displaced and a further 400,000 people still awaiting rescue, state officials said.

According to the UN’s World Health Organisation, three million people have been affected.

Hundreds of thousands of flood victims huddled into makeshift camps in India and Nepal face disease outbreaks if help fails to reach them quickly, aid workers warned.

However, caste discrimination poses an even more immediate threat to lives. One Dalit, Mohan Parwan, ran up and down a half destroyed bridge that has become the headquarters for rescue operations in this town near the border with Nepal, desperately scanning boats for signs of his family.

Dozens came in but each time he was disappointed.

Parwan, 43, is from a Dalit village just 4km away but completely cut off by the swirling waters. As the village headman, he was put on the first rescue boat and was promised his family and the rest of the community would follow.

“It’s been six days and no boat has come,” he said, tears welling in is eyes.

Dalits have long been shunned, holding a status so low they are considered outside the caste system that is all pervasive in India, dividing people into hundreds of groups defined by livelihood, class and ethnicity.

Even India’s emergence as a global force has failed to break down the barriers.

Hearing about the flood, Prithvi Chand Baswan, a 38-year-old Dalit, rushed home from Punjab where he works as a farm labourer, searching for his wife and six children. Seven kilometres from home, he was stopped by flooding.

“People from the village say they are sheltering in the temple, but they won’t send a boat for a Dalit village,” he said, holding his head in despair.

Ravindra Prasad Singh, a state government official coordinating rescue work in Triveniganj, about 1,100km east of New Delhi, denied that Dalits were being ignored.

“It’s ridiculous. They are lying,” he said, but he could not explain why only a single boat of Dalits had come in during one afternoon, even though they make up more than half the region’s people.

Other government officials acknowledged there was a serious problem with Dalits being ignored, but said they were working to fix it.

Faced with indifference from officials, one group of Dalits gave up waiting and waded into the neck-deep water in search of their kin.