Satyamev Jayate's new episode tackles untouchability, manual scavenging

The latest episode of the popular talk show "Satyamev Jayate", hosted by Bollywood actor Aamir Khan, not so surprisingly touched on the evil practice of untouchability, showing how it existed within society as well as in religions.

The first guest to speak on casteism was Dr Kaushal Panwar, a Sankrit professor with Delhi University, who suffered discrimination at every step in her life, beginning with her childhood.

The next to come was Stalin K, a human rights activist and award-winning documentary filmmaker.

Stalin reveals how untouchability is well-entrenched and is still being widely practiced across the country by people of all religions.

Clips from Stalin's documentary showed how the upper caste and lower caste divide were so prevalent even in Islam, Christianity and Sikhism, besides Hinduism.

In one of the clips, a church attended only by 'lower caste' Christians is shown. "The upper caste Christians never come here. They have a different church to worship. They think our blood is blue in color and theirs is red?" asks a woman standing in front of the church.

Besides segregation within church structures, the existence of two separate cemeteries is also shown.

Touching a related subject, the show continued to highlight the widespread inhuman system of manual scavenging. Bezwada Wilson, who is leading a nationwide movement to abolish the dehumanizing practice, shared of the degrading conditions faced by those employed in manual toilet cleaning and scavenging in India.

Wilson rued that despite a law being passed by the central government in 1993, less has been done to curb this practice. There are about 13 lakh manual scavengers in India, mostly people from the 'lower caste'.

"One of the most heart breaking encounters for me on the show was listening to Bezwada Wilson speak about manual scavenging. Words fail me. I am ashamed to admit that it was as late as last year when I was going through the research material, at the age of 46 that I came to recognize and actually see the existence of manual scavenging," Aamir shared in a column published today.

"At this late age for the first time I felt the horror and inhumanity of it. How could I have for 46 years accepted, without batting an eyelid, the fact that some of our countrymen are made to clean the excreta of others with their hands as a means of survival? That they have no means of escape from it because of the caste that they are born into? Why didn't I notice or react to this earlier?"

He answers it by adding, "No. I did not notice it because I guess I had grown so used to seeing it around me right from my childhood that it didn't seem unusual to me! And since I was not the victim, the horror and injustice of it probably did not occur to me! I am afraid I am guilty of this insensitivity on my part."