The subjugation of millions of people in a caste system that is a radical form of apartheid has long had its critics, both from within India and from outside it. Although the government has introduced equal opportunity legislation in an effort to right some of history's wrongs, untouchability is an accident of birth that continues to stigmatize and ostracize more than one hundred and forty million people. Untouchables remain on the bottom of the socioeconomic scale and are found, more often than not, in unskilled, low status occupations. They are forbidden to enter temples, often beg for...

The subjugation of millions of people in a caste system that is a radical form of apartheid has long had its critics, both from within India and from outside it. Although the government has introduced equal opportunity legislation in an effort to right some of history's wrongs, untouchability is an accident of birth that continues to stigmatize and ostracize more than one hundred and forty million people. Untouchables remain on the bottom of the socioeconomic scale and are found, more often than not, in unskilled, low status occupations. They are forbidden to enter temples, often beg for...