The Untouchables - 4

...The Brahman being most pure cannot eat impure things, so he cannot eat food given by a Shudra because the food coming from an impure person is bound to be impure. This directly affects the purity of lawmakers. Here is inherent notion that a mere touch of an impure person can make the food impure. So the impurity spreads by touch. The impurity of Shudras and untouchables cannot be removed by any known process of purification. The impurity of untouchables ranks below the impurity of Shudras on account of their unclean jobs. Actually they are the polluting pollutants, spreading pollution by their very presence. This pollution also spreads by touch like the polluting of food by the mere touch by a Shudra.

Another contributory factor to development of untouchability was the system of ostracization. The system of ostracization was put in place to keep in check the recalcitrant members of the society. It was a controlling device of the society without the presence of police. In it there are features of double or multiple power centers in the Hindu society. There was a king, there are scriptures, there were lawmakers who were spiritual and priestly heads and there was a system of ostracization.

The system of ostracization enabled the local caste Panchayats (or Sabhas) or village level caste councils to impose the fines on recalcitrant members of the caste or if required then to ostracize them. Their decisions were binding on all the member of any particular caste in the village. These Panchayats worked on the principle of dharma to conduct their proceedings.

The threat of ostracization was like a hanging sword on the head of any rebelling member. The ostracization meant disinheritance of one’s Varna, land, property and money. And it also meant stoppage of any social or economic transaction with such person. No one from any of the four Varnas could sit, walk, talk or associate with an outcaste in any manner. This put the outcaste in tattered economic conditions. His Varna was snatched from him. He could not marry anybody from his Varna. He could also not profess his Varna occupation. He could not own any land. He could not get protection from king. He could not perform Vedic rites. For all the practical purpose, he did not have any Varna; he became a landless Avarna. The same was the conditions of untouchables. Nobody was willing to sit with him and eat with him. And an atonement was required if somebody unknowingly set with him or did any other such thing. Thus touching him was not allowed since sitting with him was disallowed itself. This is a practice of untouchability. His conditions were equivalent to untouchables which forced him to join the last stratum and take up its jobs...