A few days back, I saw a small kid selling ‘channa masala’ near my college premises. Though the fact that a child was doing it bothered me but what bothered me more was a young lady buyer, a student from our esteemed college, who called him ‘cha***r’.

A lot of us are unaware of the fact that calling anyone by that name is non permissible under the law and is also a non bailable offence. A few months back, a Delhi University teacher was jailed for calling a fellow colleague by that name.

These are only two of the millions of incidents. Since time immemorial, India has been witnessing caste system practices. In this practice, many castes have been facing discrimination. Dalits or out castes have been treated as a sub-human class of untouchables. ‘Dalits’ literally means ’broken or crushes’.

On September 29, 2008, when I was conducting a research for this article I came across an article, reading which my heart was filled with grief, sorrow and shame.

On December 26, 2004, when India witnessed one of the biggest disasters, Tsunami. The Government of India had ordered relief operations in states of the South. Less did it know that these operations were being carried out with caste as a determining factor.

Villages like Kadapakuppam and Pattipulam of Kachipuram in Tamil Nadu, which are homes to the so called ‘untouchables’, received no immediate relief whatsoever. About 175 families in Kadapakuppam and 280 in Pattipulam have suffered. Despite complaints, no government official had gone to their aid.

This is just a story from the South. In an another incident in Uttar Pradesh several teachers of a government school were handed over to police for misbehaving with dalit students.

These incidents are indicative of the persistent caste discrimination throughout the country. It is a sad reality that even in times of extreme necessity, caste prejudices dominate social exchanges.

In India, the caste system is a powerful tool for social segregation and has implications in our everyday life. It weakens the human urge to excel and liberate. Though the Constitution provides certain safeguards against such discrimination but the constitutional remedies are often inaccessible to the lower castes.

On June 20, 2008, another shameful incident took place in a well known private school in Delhi. A reputed school on Pusa Road refused to admit seven waste pickers out of fear that they might carry disease. This incident gave us a reality check of where our humanitarian behaviour actually stands.

This is not it, Indians from Northeastern states face high level of discrimination, abuse; be it of a mental or a physical nature, which makes them feel alienated in their own motherland. When a foreign tourist is raped, it takes our judiciary to solve that case in a month, or even weeks but there are millions of rape cases of Indian women which are still pending. We are not saying that don’t solve the foreign cases, we are saying that if the foreign cases can be solved so fast, why can’t the Indian cases be?

Here a small boy who is HIV positive is treated like an untouchable. I feel irritated to see such incidents.

Muslims find it hard to be trusted by others, why? Not only this, the politicians take advantage of this and play their vote bank politics.

When will we realise that we are all the same? We all deserve the same. Please open up your eyes and treat everyone, if not like your brother/sister, at least like a human being. All this won’t stop until we take the charge.

These incidents will always be made a part of the filthy politics and will be played with. I plead to you genuinely to open up your eyes and feel the brunt that others feel when they are discriminated in their own motherland. Be the change and help others live in a better environment.