The Indian caste system is a way of stratifying a population according to their work and thereby social status. The reason for the man’s sentence is found in India’s history of the caste system. Of course, considering the current law in India every citizen has the right to stand up on a train. 200 million people that do not have the rights to stand up on a train? 200 million people of India’s population are considered untouchable making them face widespread discrimination still to this day. 200 million Indian people are still considered to be members of this caste. The word “ Dalit” stands for “suppressed, smashed, broken into pieces” in Sanskrit. “ Untouchable” is a name for members of the lowest caste in India, called Dalit or nowadays “Scheduled caste”. Once another passenger looked at me, saw my confused and shocked face, giggled and said: “ He is untouchable, he doesn’t have the right to stand up”. Sometimes poor-looking men would enter on their knees and clean the floors before asking for some money, thereby neither standing up nor looking up. I experienced many things that would stick in my mind for many years. The trains were full of life, people were coming in and out, selling tea and food, shouting and sleeping.
Maybe I was, but I enjoyed living this eye-opening experience. I have met several Indian people in Europe who asked me if I was completely out of my mind. I travelled most of the distances by train in the third class. It ended up being the craziest, loudest, most energy taking, saddest and yet most colourful, exciting and most wonderful trip I would ever experience. I was inexperienced with travelling and not at all aware at how this trip would be. I was 18 when I spent two months in India during a summer break.
Even though several measures have been taken by the government since the ’50s, members of this caste still face discrimination and segregation up until today. Being the lowest possible class of India’s society, considered outside of the traditional caste system, untouchables are facing widespread problems. While travelling through India I came across a social class called “untouchables”.
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