World's Apart: How Prejudice and Discrimination Have Affected the People of India

Written by: Kelly L. Hunter

When you hear the word India, visions of spicy exotic cuisine, peaceful religious practices like yoga, belly dancing, brightly-colored saris, and camel rides through the desert probably come to mind. However, what usually doesn’t come to mind are acts of genocide, forced child labor, prejudice, discrimination, and racism. During my recent trip to India, I discovered something that I was unaware exists within this country and culture. The people of India are suffering much like the people of Darfur and Rwanda and are greatly in need of world-wide help.
The Presbyterian World Service and Development (PWS&D) along with the Institute for Development Education (IFDE) have begun working with different poverty stricken villages and slums in India in order to help working children get back into school so that they are able to receive an education that is necessary for their survival (Plater, 2007). PWS&D and IFDE have opened four centers for at risk youth in India; these centers focus on children who are 15 years or older (Plater, 2007). Karen Plater (2007) states that “All of the students so far are girls-because they are more likely to be pulled out of school and are even more vulnerable to poverty and exploitation without an education than men” (¶ 3).
The children of India perform a variety of extremely diverse jobs like selling vegetables and fish, making bricks, sewing clothes, and housekeeping to name only a few (Plater, 2007). Karen Plater (2007) goes on to say that “The Maquila Solidarity Network (MSN)-a partner of PWS&D working for fair working conditions and living wages for people around the world-has found that child labour is often directly linked to the low wages paid to adult workers, restrictions on the right to organize and the lack of affordable child care” (¶ 5). Unless these children receive the support that they need to make this transition, they may end up in far more dangerous situations.
According to studies conducted by MSN, the majority of working parents have no other choice but to force their children to work so that their family is able to support itself and meet the basic needs for survival (Plater, 2007). Poverty plagues many villages and families living in India today. If the parents of these working children were being paid a higher and more livable wage, they would be able to send their children to school to receive the education that they so rightly deserve (Plater, 2007). One of the many things that PWS&D are working on is promoting fair trade to help improve the influx of money for farmers and workers living in these developing countries (Plater, 2007).
Over the years, India like many other Eastern countries has been faced with radical extremist ransacking villages and murdering thousands of innocent people all while hiding behind religion. Hindu nationalism poses a serious threat to the people of India on many levels. “The threat of Hindu fundamentalism, whose ugliest manifestation was the 2002 riot in Gujarat (which killed 900 people, including 600 Muslims), remains ever-present” (Tripathi, 2007, ¶ 3). Salil Tripathi (2007) also discusses that there has been little to no progress in areas of education and health care in and around Gujarat. “I believe, however, that the answer India offers is one of hope, and not despair” (Tripathi, 2007, ¶ 5).
“As the inclusive, unifying impulse of India’s founding fathers declined, an unusual, almost monotheistic, militarist view of Hinduism gained ascendance” (Tripathi, 2007, ¶ 11). Tripathi (2007) goes on to say that “Many Hindus believed their interests were overlooked because India allowed the inspired ideas of Tagore, Gandhi, and Nehru to lapse” (¶ 10). This leads us back to education and the simple fact that education can lead to a better way of living.
Discrimination, racism, and sexism are also very prevalent in the Indian culture still today. Violence against women is not something that is an uncommon practice in India. Things like wife burning and the abortion of female fetuses happens everyday in Indian culture (MacFarquhar, 1994). Social services geared toward women who are victims of such violence are almost non-existent within the country itself (MacFarquhar, 1994). Emily MacFarquhar states that “Some wives are burnt to death because their dowries were not rich enough to satisfy in-law parents and others as a form of domestic violence” (¶ 1).
Fire is an element that is at the center of the Hindu faith and is used in religious rituals and practices such as cremation (MacFarquhar, 1994). MacFarquhar (1994) also states that, “The mythic paragon of Indian womanhood, the goddess Sita, walked through fire to prove her chastity to her husband, Rama” (¶ 2). MacFarquhar (1994) goes on to say that “In the late 1970s, new echoes of Sita emerged. At first they appeared to be a rash of kitchen accidents in which careless wives dipped saris into cooking fires or were burned by exploding stoves” (¶ 2). Ultrasounds are also used early on in a woman’s pregnancy in order to determine the sex of a child so that any female fetuses may be aborted (MacFarquhar, 1994).
The link between these two cruel acts is an illegal and fast-spreading custom for providing lavish and expensive dowries at Indian ceremonial weddings (MacFarquhar, 1994). MacFarquhar (1994) explains that “The cost of a sex-determination test, doctors are saying, is a fraction of what it would cost to marry off your unwanted girl child” (¶ 4). Dowry deaths occur because of the monetary greed that has become customary to Indian culture by the male child's parents or in-laws. If the bride’s dowry is not to the standards of her in-laws, she is forced to kill herself or be burned to death if her parents cannot provide more money (MacFarquhar, 1994). It is said that this is done in order for the family to receive a separate dowry from a different family with more to offer monetarily (MacFarquhar, 1994). Can you imagine if you were born somewhere like this? If your parents had to choose between your life and paying more money which would they choose?
Parents of these battered women usually refuse to take them back into their family due to the level of embarrassment and disgrace. MacFarquhar (1994) states “that families so fear losing social status and financial assets that they risk the death of a daughter” (¶ 10). MacFarquhar (1994) also says that these women are “sitting targets, battered wives in northern India have nowhere to turn” (¶ 11). Life often feels like hell for these women who have been victims since birth; as if they are being punished for being born. MacFarquhar (1994) goes on to say that “Selective abortion may be having one beneficial effect: Newly released population data show a recent fall in the mortality rate for girls under 4” (¶ 16). She also says that “Now, Indian girls who make it to delivery are more likely to be wanted—and to have a better chance of survival” (MacFarquhar, 1994, ¶ 16).
It’s hard to imagine living somewhere outside of the comfort zone of our “free world”. As a mother, I could not imagine having to choose between aborting my unborn daughter and taking the chance of having her murdered later on in life due to the greed of financial securities. As a woman, I cannot imagine having to live my life like a prisoner in my own home or facing the cruel reality that I will most likely be beaten on a regular basis or possibly killed. It is imperative that somehow, we as a global community find a way to help the innocent people who are suffering on vast scales in India.