Is India a developed country?

Well, nearly one month in and can't believe how quickly it has gone. Lots of learning going on as per usual. Some very emotional stuff which, I won't lie, has sometimes resulted in tears from a few of us (mostly girls but not always!). We have now completed our first field visit of the three we will be doing and this is what I intend to talk about.

The group I wasin went to the district Tamil Nadu, we visited lots of places and because I have not got the sheet of paper with the names on I will have to refer to them by villages (sorry). In Tamil Nadu we spent time with an organisation called SASY which works with people in the caste system called Dalits or Untouchables. If you don'tknow the caste system, I recommend you google it, it is an horrendous system that is now 3000 years old, illegal but still being practised in India, as I witnessed. Some examples of the types of things we saw and the people we spoke too are; dalit villagers being deprived of water after a recent cyclone and after trying to steal the water (they needed it to survive) their homes were burnt to the ground and one man was brutally murdered because he reported it to the police. Luckily this situation in this village has improved thanks to the work of SASY.

We met some tribal girls that had been gang raped by police while the men in their village were arrested on false charges. One of these women was pregnant. They told us their story. We were lucky enough to be there when the men were released after being imprisoned for 3 months. They had been psychologically (they were told all the details of the rapes of their wives and children) and physically tortured. Remember, they are innocent men! The police that commited the rapes are still free men, they have been suspended but are still free. The government is reluctant to act because the police were a higher caste than the tribal women (who are lower than untouchables).

We met many other villages affected by similar atrocities done to them by people who are in a higher caste than them. These are the two stories that had the biggest impact on me. The caste system affects everybody; men, women and children. Men from the upmost caste, the Brahmins often rape girls, or use them as prostitutes because they can, because they are upper caste. Did you know that this was going on in India? Is India truly a developed country as the leaders would like us all to think? I do not doubt that it is developed economically with some ofthe richest people in the world being Indian, but does this make it a developed country?

To lighten the mood a little SASY is trying really hard, with great passion to rid India ofthe caste system but it is a long process. They have made good progress over the past few years with the development of a cashew factory thatwe visited; only dalit women ran and produced the cashew nuts. They told us of how much SASY had empowered them, now dominant caste people were coming to them to get cashews! Not all dominant caste people are bad people, we met a few human rights activists from dominant castes fighting forthe rights of dalits.

Anyway, I will leave it there. When I have a better internet connection will try and post some pics.

All for now, Rachel.