DALITS ENSLAVED: A CLOSE LOOK AT THE HIERARCHICAL SOCIETY

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to explore the origin of the marginalisation of Dalits in India. Long before the arrival of the Aryans there existed indigenous people in our country, who built one of the most ancient civilisations on earth — the Harappan Civilisation. But when a nomadic race named the Aryans, armed with crafty brain and weapons made of iron came, those aboriginal people gradually were pushed to the margin, and were forced to live in jungles. Indigenous non-Aryans were picturized in the Aryan mythologies either as crooked or as passive. With the establishment of the rule of the Aryans non-Aryans or the indigenous people were looked at subhuman beings, or rather we may say their existence in society was overlooked as if they were invisible beings, because the newly arrived Aryans intended to keep the sole authority in their clutch. To do this they needed a hierarchical structure so that they could perpetually throw their victims at the bottom of that structure and can enslave them.  This paper explores how newly arrived Aryans solidified their ideology through caste system to exclude non-Aryans . In vivid language this paper also examines how ‘Centre’ became ‘Margin’, ‘Self’ became ‘Other’, and a section of our society became outcaste.