Caste No Bar?

Following our village visits, we visited a landlord. We are assuming that this landlord is the one who owns the land upon which the members of the village community just visited work. A member of this community joined us in our visit; she is a leader of the self-help group and was returning to Visthar with our staff. Our large group filed inside the landlord’s house, and it wasn’t until we were all seated and settled that I realized this woman was missing; she wasn’t inside. We chatted with the wealthy landlord; he had no reservations telling us that the women who worked his land made less money than men, yet he also boasted of the inter-caste marriages that his family had supported. They were progressive, he said, and caste was no bar in the marriages. Yet as we filed out of the house, there sat the woman from the community, barred from entering his house because she was a dalit. A member of the lowest caste, she was unclean to enter this landlord’s house. It is so difficult for me to understand this mindset; how one human being can consider another unclean and untouchable simply because they are born at a different socioeconomic level. Progressive, hm? Caste no bar? I think it may be necessary to progress just a little bit further…