Knowra Untouchability Untouchability Untouchability is a practice of social exclusion and discrimination imposed on communities deemed polluting, especially within caste hierarchies in South Asia. It restricts social contact and access to shared spaces, services, and rights.
Ritual purity : A religious and social classification of people, objects, or acts as pure or impure. Ideas of purity and pollution have been used to justify restrictions on contact.
Varna : A fourfold framework of social categories described in ancient Indian texts. Varna ideology is often distinguished from the many local caste relations through which untouchability operated.
Mahatma Gandhi : An Indian anticolonial leader who campaigned against untouchability while retaining a distinct vision of caste reform. Gandhi’s campaigns opposed untouchability, while his disagreements with Ambedkar exposed competing strategies.
Constitution of India : The supreme legal framework of the Republic of India, in force since 1950. Article 17 abolishes untouchability and forbids its practice in any form.
Caste system in India : A system of hereditary social stratification that has shaped status, occupation, and marriage in South Asia. Untouchability has been enforced within caste hierarchies, though practices vary across communities and regions.
Jati : A localized, usually hereditary social group associated with marriage, status, and occupation in South Asia. Jati relations organized social boundaries that could mark communities as untouchable.
Periyar E. V. Ramasamy : A Tamil social reformer who led the Self-Respect Movement against caste hierarchy and Brahmanical authority. Periyar’s movement challenged the social and religious structures that sustained caste-based exclusion.
Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 : An Indian law that penalizes the enforcement of disabilities arising from untouchability. The Act provides penalties for practices prohibited by constitutional Article 17.
Manual scavenging : The removal of human excreta by hand from dry latrines or other sites. Caste-based assignment of stigmatized sanitation work has sustained severe forms of exclusion.
Colonialism in India : British political and economic rule over much of the Indian subcontinent, ending in 1947. Colonial censuses and administration reshaped how caste identities were recorded and governed.
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