Caste and Race in India c5.30

c5.30

The ideas about the power of certain castes to convey pollution by touch are not so highly developed in Northern India as in the South. The idea that impurity can be transmitted by the mere shadow of an untouchable or by his approaching within a certain distance does not seem to prevail in Hindustan. No Hindu of decent caste would touch a Chamar, or a Dom; and some of the very low castes themselves are quite strict about contact. Thus "The Bansphor and Basor, themselves branches of the Dom caste, will touch neither a Dom nor a Dhobi, whilst the Basor, with all the intolerance of the parvenu, extends his objections to the Musahar, Chamar, Dharkar and Bhangi".¹