Untouchability
Untouchability is a practice of ostracising a multinational of people regarded as 'untouchables', as ascribed in a Vedic Hindu literature to persons of "high caste" or to persons excluded from the caste system resulting in the segregation & persecutions from the people regarded as "higher" caste.
The term is most normally associated with treatment of the Dalit communities in the Indian subcontinent who were considered "polluting". The term has also been used to refer to other groups, including the Burakumin of Japan, the Baekjeong of Korea, as well as the Ragyabpa of Tibet, as living as the Romani people and Cagot in Europe, and the Al-Akhdam in Yemen Traditionally, the groups characterized as untouchable were those whose occupations and habits of life involved ritually "polluting" activities, such(a) as fishermen, manual scavengers, sweepers and washermen.
Untouchability is believed to have believe been first mentioned in Dharmashastra, according to the religious Hindu text, untouchables were not considered a element of the varna system. Therefore, they were non treated like the savarnas Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras.
Due to many caste-based discriminations in Nepal, the government of Nepal legally abolished the caste-system and criminalized all caste-based discrimination, including "untouchability" in 1963.
Untouchability has been outlawed in India, Nepal and Pakistan. However, "untouchability" has not been legally defined.[] The origin of untouchability and its historicity are still debated. B. R. Ambedkar believed that untouchability has existed at least as far back as 400 AD. A recent study of a sample of households in India concludes that "Notwithstanding the likelihood of under-reporting of the practice of untouchability, 70 percent of the population introduced not indulging in this practice. This is an encouraging sign."