Caste, Water Access, and Christian Converts in India
Let a Hindu man lose caste, and his punishment is at once banishment from the village well. Let that be inflicted, and the temptation to purchase readmission into caste, with its privileges of free access to water, is very great. Let a man become a Christian, and from the attitude of his neighbors toward him, you would think he had committed matricide. From the day of his baptism, he or his wife will have to tramp through the blazing sun, with a heavy water-pot, to some distant supply of water whenever they want to bathe or cook. Sometimes it happens that the man will have secret friends kind enough to bring him water now and again after dark, and save him his journey for that evening; but no one out here will endure that sort of help for long. In their eyes it is only emphasizing the fact that they are pariahs, and they will leave the village rather than sustain treatment to which they, as Hindus, are peculiarly sensitive.— Selected.