Inder Meghwal, a nine-year-old boy, died recently in a village in the Jalore district of Rajasthan. The family say he succumbed to injuries caused by an assault by a teacher in his school who was angry that the young boy drank from a water pot meant for ‘upper castes’. The accused, Chail Singh, who is in custody, says he did slap the boy — not because of the reason stated, but because Inder had quarrelled with another student. Inder’s family members assert that the boy was beaten brutally due to his caste.
An unusual place
Many testimonies and individual claims have been made that neither the school nor the Rajput teacher holds any bias against the Meghwals, a community considered “untouchable” in Rajasthan. Some reports state that Inder had been suffering from a ear infection and probably died of septicemia, or sepsis (the clinical name for blood poisoning by bacteria), rather than brain hemorrhage caused by the teacher’s slap. Doctors have considered the possibility that the infection could have been aggravated by the assault. Reports also say there is no upper caste pot in the premises of the school; all the students and teachers, some of whom are from ‘lower castes’, drink water from one source — a cement tank. This is the most unlikely source of drinking water in the hot summer of Rajasthan. Generally, people drink from a clay pot ( matki). Nevertheless, Inder’s village (and school) must be an unusual place in Rajasthan as it doesn’t have caste practices.
