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After Mahatma Gandhi - whose birthday falls on Friday - Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar is indubitably India's most revered leader.

All over the country, his statues abound: in towns and cities and villages, road crossings and railway stations, and in parks. The charismatic leader is usually portrayed as a stocky bespectacled man, wearing a western suit and tie, with a pen in his front pocket and holding a book - the constitution of India - under his arm.

This, according to historian Janaki Nair, "symbolises the self-assertion on the part of Dalits". Not surprisingly, in caste-ridden and unequal India, Ambedkar is a lightning rod for Dalits (formerly known as untouchables) and their opponents.

This also possibly explains why authorities are placing in cages the statues of the leader - the "darling of the dispossessed", as historian Ramachandra Guha calls him - in many states.


Dark reality

Tamil Nadu, one of India's most developed states, is one of the worst affected by the scourge of caste. It is India's second largest economy and, according to the World Bank, well on track to meet the major millennium development goals. The state's two main political parties were founded on rationalism. But this masks a dark reality of decades-old and continuing atrocities by the dominant castes against the Dalits, who comprise 19% of the state's population.

Opponents of Dalit assertiveness have, over the years, provoked rioting and violence by desecrating - garlanding them with slippers, cutting off their heads - statues of Ambedkar. Pusillanimous authorities, unable to rein in the dominant castes have responded by placing the leader's statues in cages all over the state.

"This is Tamil Nadu's biggest shame. It shows the complete failure of the state to protect the Dalits. The state is increasingly succumbing to caste barbarity," says political scientist C Lakshmanan.

The opposition is so fierce and brazen that dominant caste groups have joined hands openly to demand softening of laws that aim at curbing atrocities against the Dalits - an example of what Mr Lakshmanan calls "explicit anti-Dalit politics".

In the past, dominant castes have refused to let state-run public transport buses named after Dalit icons to enter their villages, forcing the authorities to remove the name. In many villages, Dalits are still not allowed to use communal wells, enter Hindu temples, and visit barber shops.

Many in the state call the shameful caging of Ambedkar statues as an example of "caste fascism" in modern-day India. It also proves that the country's caste parties are mostly interested in extracting special privileges and concessions for their communities rather than fighting for justice and rights. So untouchability, in its worst and vilest forms, is alive and well in Tamil Nadu.

More than 70 Dalits - more than in dirt-poor, caste-ridden, violent Bihar state - were killed in Tamil Nadu last year in mob attacks and clashes. There have been more than 15 judicial enquiries into incidents of atrocities against Dalits in the state since 1956, but not a single person has been punished.

"The tension with the dominant castes is increasing by the day. The dominant castes are ranged against the Dalits," says D Ravikumar, former lawmaker and leader of VCK, a strident anti-caste party.


In one of his memorable speeches, Ambedkar had wondered how long Indians would continue to deny equality in their social and economic life. "If we continue to deny it for long, we do so only by putting our political democracy in peril."

Then, with what many say was chilling prescience, Ambedkar said that much of the growth of independent India was like "building a castle on a dung heap". He was not entirely off the mark.

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A woman recruited from India to be a domestic servant for a family in the UK, and who was awarded almost £184,000 in unpaid wages after being paid 11p an hour, has told the Victoria Derbyshire programme she worked "all day and all night".

Last month a groundbreaking employment tribunal found Permila Tirkey, 39, had been discriminated against because of her "low caste."

It heard she had been recruited by Pooja and Ajay Chandhok because they wanted someone "servile".

"I worked all day and all night, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That's because the children often woke up at night; they wanted milk, food, a drink of water, so I had to get up and make that for them," she said.

"I was told to stay with the children all of the time.

"On a normal day I would get up at six o'clock in the morning, go to the bathroom, get the children's milk ready, I would feed them, then I would clean up, I would make dinner, I would help with dinner for the children.

"Then I would do other domestic chores like washing the clothes, cleaning up, hoovering, polishing and mopping up."

Ms Tirkey said she did not have a bed, sleeping on a mattress on the floor of the little boy's room.

'No friends'

The family, who lived in Milton Keynes, had said they would pay her 5,000 rupees a month (£50), which was what she would have earned in Delhi. She said she did not question it as she did not know what level pay should be in the UK.

The tribunal, which her lawyers said was the first successful case of its kind, found the conditions in which she was forced to live and work were a "clear violation of her dignity", adding "it created an atmosphere of degradation which was offensive".

It upheld several claims, including that she was harassed on the grounds of her race, subjected to unacceptable working conditions and was the victim of indirect religious discrimination.

It ordered the couple to pay £183,773, to make up the total she should have been paid if she had received the national minimum wage.

Ms Tirkey said while she mainly stayed at home, she accompanied the family to social gatherings and days out to places like London Zoo.

"But they told me the rules were not to speak to anyone. I could say, 'hello, how are you?' but on the whole I would avoid situations where I would talk to people, I had no friends," she said.

'No phone calls'

She once tried to call her family in India using the phone, but the couple stopped her, saying the bills would be too high. They said they would give her money to top up her mobile phone, but did not.

"In the four-and-a-half years I spent with the Chandhoks I spoke to my family about twice," she explained.

"My family accepted that, as they had the memory of those phone calls and they knew I didn't have the money to call them.

"I used to think about the phone calls I'd made to my family and that kept me going. I wanted to cry but I controlled myself."

In fact, she says, the worst moment of her life concerned something as simple as a phone call - she wanted money to top up her phone and when she did not get it she wanted to end her life.

"What, over £5? It's a part of my life I can't talk about now, I get upset about this £5. If they had given it to me, I had been able to top up my mobile phone, and been able to make calls, things would have been different. This £5 changed my life," she explained.

The couple also stopped her from bringing her Bible to England.

"I wanted to put it in my suitcase but they took it away from me. I accepted it because I didn't question anything they asked me to do," she said.

'Basic rights'

Mr and Mrs Chandhok have said they provided everything for her, and that she was well paid and part of their family.

"Although I lived with them and they gave me shelter, they gave me food, they didn't give me my rights. They wouldn't let me speak to anyone, like my family, and they wouldn't let me have any friends," Ms Tirkey said.

"When I asked for an increase in wages they wouldn't give me any extra money, they just kept saying they would give it to me in India, so they didn't give me my basic rights."

Ms Tirkey said she wanted her story to help others.

"All I want in life is to smile and be happy, I want to live well. I've looked at my life and I want to educate myself, as I want to live well, I want to work, I want to laugh," she said.

"My life was completely gone, but I am now trying to slowly rebuild it and I want to tell my story to stop it happening to anybody else. I don't want them to suffer how I did."