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BANGLADESH - DALIT WOMEN - END DISCRIMINATION & OPPRESSION

 

Mary Griffin - 23 November 2009

 

We are not thought of as human

Dalit people wash their clothes and bathe in the same place, with no privacy. Photography by: Abir Abdullah/EPA

Bangladesh - 'If you are not considered to be human, human rights do not apply to you," says Moni Rani, walking under lines of brightly-coloured laundry decorating dilapidated buildings like bunting.

The kaleidoscopic colours of this cramped south Dhaka community disguise the dark reality that its 4,000 residents live apart from the rest of the city's citizens. As a Dalit, Moni inhabits one of the capital's 27 so-called "colonies", reserved for the men and women destined to do Dhaka's dirtiest jobs. These people, whose ancestors were left out of the four-tier Hindu caste hierarchy, are literally outcasts. Known as "untouchables" because they are shunned by the rest of society, and labelled Harijan (children of God) by Gandhi, they have adopted the name Dalit, from the Sanskrit for "downtrodden".

Based on a notion of purity and pollution, the caste system has led Dalits to be considered unclean and historically, in some communities, they were forced to wear a bell alerting others of their approach. Today, they still face resistance - and often outright refusal - when attempting to enter temples, restaurants and schools, for fear they will contaminate the higher castes.

Reminiscent of apartheid-era South Africa, Dalits - distinguished by their names, sari style, language and accents - are assigned the jobs nobody else wants, including sweeping the streets, burying the dead and manual scavenging (cleaning human excrement from dry toilets by hand). The estimated 5.5 million Dalits in Bangladesh are among 250 million across south Asia. In neighbouring India a successful civil rights movement has gained political representation for the country's 170 million Dalits, but in Bangladesh - where the former British colonial rulers lured Indian Dalits on the broken promise of better jobs, homes and prospects - they are not only a caste minority, but a religious minority in a predominantly Muslim country. In a nation of Bengali speakers, their Hindi and Telagu mother tongues mean access to education, housing, the justice system and the political arena is severely suppressed.

Gabtoli colony sits at the end of a long potholed road; a grey slum stuck on the western edge of the city. Living in a no-man's land of rusty corrugated iron and old bamboo, with no facilities and no privacy, the women of Gabtoli bathe fully clothed at the banks of the Turag - just 200 metres from a large pipe spewing sewage.

In a country where 80% of the population lives on less than $2 a day, Dalits shoulder the further burden of exclusion and entrenched discrimination. Munni Rani Das raises her hand to shoulder-level when describing the floods in rainy season. "When the rains come it brings snakes and dangerous insects to our home," she says. "We try to get away but the rickshaw pullers and bus drivers won't carry us."

Discrimination

Munni, her husband and three teenagers were moved to this flood-prone colony after developers planning to build apartments evicted them from their central Dhaka home. "We protested," she says, "but the army and police came and said, 'If you don't leave we will beat you and shoot you'."

Proffering a cup of murky chemical-scented water, Munni adds: "There, we had safe water and a market. We were near jobs and my children went to school. Now, school is too far away."

The International Dalit Solidarity Network estimates that 96% of Dalits in Bangladesh cannot read or write. Dalits say they need political representation from leaders who understand the extent of the problem, but of Dhaka's 90 elected commissioners, not one is Dalit.

Sitting behind his desk, the commissioner for Dhaka's Ward 85, Alhaj Badal Shardar, says: "I love Dalit people because they are sincere and very simple." When a typical Dhaka power cut kills the lights and the fan, one of the commissioner's men hurries to his side, wafting his boss with a giant fan of palm leaves. "I have never seen any discrimination against Dalits in my community," Shardar continues, "I am 100% sure there is no discrimination."

But, born and brought up in the Telagu colony in the commissioner's ward, Prokashamma Bhodanki insists caste discrimination is rife. The 23-year-old daughter of the late BG Murthy, who seven years ago founded the Bangladesh Dalit Human Rights movement, Prokashamma hid her Dalit identity at secondary school by speaking Bangla, each term taking her Bangla-speaking sister instead of her Telagu-speaking mother to collect her exam results - an event similar to parents' evening at British schools. She recalls: "One time my sister wasn't able to come. When the other students heard my mother speak they said terrible things."

Wiping her tears with her pink shawl, she adds: "For four years I hid my identity from my friends but when they knew I was a Dalit girl they wouldn't eat with me or speak with me. I swore I would never go back to school."

But she did. After finishing her two remaining years, Prokashamma passed her exams and is now teaching English and Bangla to young Dalits. She said: "Now I understand that so many of us are facing that kind of discrimination. I want to fight for my rights and do something for my community and myself."

Prokashamma belongs to a new wave of young Dalit women in Bangladesh who, having swum against the tide to finish school, are now role models, being elected as leaders in their communities and teaching under the Dalit Women's Forum to give the younger generation a fighting chance.

Launched two years ago, the forum provides training in making and selling candles and garments for its 150 members as a first step to financial independence.

Back at her brightly coloured home, forum leader Moni Rani says her father ensured she was the first girl in her community to finish school - and she intends to be the first of many.

"All Dalit women are now conscious of their situation and demanding change," says Moni. "When I was a girl I couldn't get the chances our girls are getting now. Our young women are smarter than me and I feel that is my success. My vision is for hundreds of smart Dalit women coming together and I will gather them under my banner."