India is obsessed with pollution. Caste is a pyramid of purity defended so fiercely that ‘cleaner’ people higher up quite often beat up, or murder, the ‘dirtier’ ones for, say, drinking from the same well, or growing a moustache, or using the same wedding procession route through a village. You no longer hear the bells that the polluted once had to ring while walking, to warn the pure of their presence, but the pure know they’re still around, and they still keep them at arm’s length. Many won’t have them in their offices. Many discriminate against them in the classroom.
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