In Narsinghpatana, a village in the Puri district of Odisha, Bijoy and fellow Dalit families managed to enter the cyclone relief shelter after they were stopped by neighbours from the dominant caste. They “allowed us to enter the shelter on the condition that we would stay in a specific part of the shelter and would not come close to them”, said Bijoy. “When we used the hand pump, [members of different castes] used to wash the hand pump with water and clean their hands before they used it,” Bijoy said, laughing. One can easily tell who was impacted most by Cyclone Fani – even three years later. A group of houses with blue roofs made of tarpaulin sits at one end of the village. At the other end, the homes are all well-built structures. Every person living under a tarpaulin roof is Dalit. The tarpaulin was meant as temporary relief, providing villagers with shelter while they waited for damage compensation from the state. But three years on, having yet to receive compensation, those have become permanent roofs. “We are the ones who have lost everything,” Bijoy said. “[The other castes] have rebuilt their homes, [they’re] back to their jobs, and here we are, living under the blue plastic.”
Suprakash Majumdar, ‘How India’s caste system keeps Dalits from accessing disaster relief’, New Humanitarian
