Those who say caste does not exist in cities, here is the study done on the segregation of Dalits in big cities. Dalits do face discrimination everywhere, caste is such a disease that it doesn’t leave you no matter you move to small cities or metro cities. Dr. Ambedkar had called villages ‘den of iniquity’ and Dr. Ambedkar had advised Dalits to move to cities for better opportunities and access to facilities but so called upper castes have spread the caste virus so strongly that no city or village has escaped from it. Indian parents do teach their children about their castes and till the time this is not stopped, India can’t progress. Dalits and Muslims are also not given houses in the cities, caste discrimination in renting the homes also.

[Tweet “Dr. Ambedkar had called villages ‘den of iniquity’ and Dr. Ambedkar had advised Dalits to move to cities”]

Now, according to this report, Dalits are concentrated in some certain parts of the cities and they don’t have proper access to all the facilities such as water etc.  It is shameful but reality of Indian cities and Indians. Even governments don’t do much to improve, rather it has been seen that Delhi government as well has center government has decreased the funds for Dalits’ welfare and schemes. Dalits are ignored by all the governments. Will India improve this way? No. If no funds will be provided how can the situation improve for Dalits? This is the reason that poorer countries such as Bangladesh is doing better than India.

Using ward-level data released by the census, the paper carries out a study of residential segregation in the 10 most populated Indian cities. It finds that there is significant residential segregation by caste and also by access to in-house drinking water, a basic public good, and access to in-house latrines, a basic private good. Further, in the case of some cities covered in the study, the proportion of Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes in wards is highly correlated with access to public, private, and luxury goods. (Source EPW)

An analysis of the latest ward level census data for the 10 most populous cities in India shows that we may need to rethink how we view cities. Most of these cities display a high level of residential segregation, with scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs) concentrated in a few areas of the city. Further, access to public goods such as tap water is much lower in these places.

Kolkata merits special mention. Out of a total of 141 wards in the city, with SC/STs making up 5.6% of the total population, it is only in 12 of these wards that more than 40% of the city’s SC/ST population resides in. These wards do significantly worse than average in terms of household access to in-house water, with 43% of households of these wards without water supply in their homes, as compared to 27% of households overall in the city. (Source Livemint)