Teachers "purify" students with cow urine in Indian village

dpa German Press Agency Published: Saturday April 21, 2007

New Delhi- Teachers in a village school in India's
Maharashtra state sprinkled low-caste students with cow urine in an
attempt to "purify" them, news reports said Saturday.
Upper-caste principal Sharad Kaitade, soon after taking over from
his lower-caste Dalit predecessor earlier this month, allegedly
performed ritual prayers and then asked a teacher to sprinkle cow
urine in the classes to "purify" the premises and ward off evil, the
Times of India newspaper reported.

The cow is considered holy in the Hindu religion which also
divides society according to a 3000-year-old caste system originally
based on occupation but later on lineage.

Teacher Madhavi Raut promptly went around the classes spraying
cow urine and asked a group of lower-caste Dalit students appearing
for an examination to go and get the "cow urine shower" saying it
would purify them.

The priestly Brahmin caste form the top rung of the caste system,
while the Dalits are at its lowest level. While many of the
practises related to the system have become obscure, disappeared or
have been outlawed, some survive, especially in rural India.

The urine wet some of their faces and their answer scripts, the
students said. They felt humiliated and lodged a complaint, the CNN-
IBN news channel reported.

"She (Raut) said you will study well after getting purified," a
student, Rajnik Washnik, was quoted as saying.

The local administration has ordered a probe and the police has
questioned the principal.

Dalits, formerly known as "Untouchables", comprise about 160
million of India's 1.2-billion population. Almost all sewage cleaners
are Dalits and they often manually remove nightsoil, though this is
banned under Indian law.

In villages, they are most often the poorest landless labour, paid
a pittance, and still not allowed in many parts of the country to
drink from the common village well.

© 2006 - dpa German Press Agency

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