UP's Musahars face such intense discrimination that even healthcare is denied to them -Tarun Kanti Bose

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Untouchability was outlawed in 1950, but discrimination and segregation of the scheduled caste remains pervasive.

Musahars, a Scheduled Caste that sections of Hindu society deem untouchable, are still being denied government entitlements such as state pensions and housing. The discrimination is blatant when it comes to accessing government healthcare in Badagaon administrative block of Varanasi district in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous province.

The scourge of discrimination is so pervasive that Musahars, derided as rat catchers, are unable to access services at primary health centers, sub-centres and government-run district hospitals. It has been seen that if pregnant women, or infants accompanied by their parents, turn up at these places, the government healthcare staff try to drive them away by abusing or humiliating them. If a baby is delivered, they have to cough up money to bribe the staff, even if the child is stillborn.

In Koeripur, Lakhapur, Annai and Dallipur villages, the only evidence of the government is the solitary hand pump. These hamlets have no schools, no dispensaries, no electricity and no roads. Officially, untouchability has been banned, but the discrimination against scheduled castes remains so pervasive that in 1989 the government passed a legislation called the Prevention of Atrocities Act. The Act made it illegal to intimidate, humiliate and carry out atrocities against members of Scheduled Castes and Tribes, including parading people naked through the streets, forcing them to eat faeces, taking away their land, polluting their water, interfering their right to vote and burning down their home.

It hasn’t had much effect on the ground though. For instance, Musahar children still have to sit outside classrooms or are kept away from the children of upper caste people.

Devoid of healthcare

In Koeripur village, the majority of the 39 families of Musahars work in brick kilns or migrates to Punjab or Haryana to work as agricultural labor. While working in the fields, they sweep up the grain left behind on freshly threshed fields. Faced by hunger, they scoop up morsels from the burrows of rodents.

The brazen practice of untouchability by the staff at the government healthcare system and its failures continue to impact the community directly. Auxiliary nurse midwives and accredited social health activists (or ASHA) in the area are mostly drawn from upper caste and seldom visit the Musahar households.

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