Untouchability and the idea of Purity

Context:

A shuddhikaran or purification ritual was performed at Haldwani’s Ramlila ground, two days after Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, a Dalit leader, addressed a rally there. 

Mr. Kharge alleged that the act reflected untouchability, while the organisers claimed that it concerned slogans and political remarks made during the rally, not his caste. 

The controversy raises a significant constitutional question: when does symbolic “purification” become caste-based untouchability?

How does Indian Law Address Untouchability?

1. Article 17 of the Indian Constitution: 

• Article 17: 
  • abolishes untouchability;
  • prohibits its practice in any form; and
  • makes the enforcement of any resulting disability punishable by law.
• Unlike most Fundamental Rights, Article 17 operates horizontally against private individuals as well as the State. 

However, the Constitution deliberately does not define untouchability, allowing courts to address its evolving manifestations.

2. Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955: 

• Parliament initially enacted the Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955, which was strengthened and renamed the Protection of Civil Rights Act in 1976. It punishes:
  • denial of entry into temples and public places
  • discrimination in shops, services, hospitals and educational institutions
  • enforcement of social or religious disabilities
  • justification or encouragement of untouchability; and
  • under Section 7(1)(d), insulting an SC member “on the ground of untouchability”.
• Thus, physical exclusion is not essential. A symbolic act implying that a person’s touch or presence causes pollution may also attract the law. 

However, merely insulting an SC person is insufficient: the insult must have a demonstrable connection with untouchability.

3. SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989: 

• The Protection of Civil Rights Act specifically addresses untouchability, while the SC/ST Act covers a wider range of caste-based atrocities.
• Under Section 3(1)(r) of the SC/ST Act, a non-SC/ST person commits an offence by:
  • intentionally insulting or intimidating an SC/ST member
  • intending to humiliate the person
  • because of their protected identity; and
  • doing so at a place within public view.

Judicial Rulings: 

• In Sukanya Shantha v. Union of India (2024), the Supreme Court struck down caste-discriminatory provisions in prison manuals that assigned work and segregated prisoners according to caste. The Court observed that untouchability is rooted in the caste system and its interconnected notions of purity and pollution. Article 17 rejects practices that stigmatise a person’s touch, presence or existence. It consequently held that Article 17 must therefore be interpreted broadly enough to address indirect and symbolic forms of caste exclusion, not merely the traditional denial of physical access. 
• In Surya Narayan Choudhary v. State of Rajasthan (1988), Dalit devotees visiting the Shrinathji Temple at Nathdwara were reportedly required to undergo purification through sprinkling of Gangajal, wearing a kanthimala and receiving tulsidal. The Rajasthan High Court ordered the practice to be discontinued because this additional condition applied only to Dalits. It held that the practice violated Articles 14, 15 and 17.
• In Hitesh Verma v. State of Uttarakhand (2020), the Supreme Court clarified that every insult directed at an SC/ST person is not an atrocity unless it is connected with their caste identity. 
• In Gunjan v. State (NCT of Delhi), 2026, the Supreme Court reiterated that public view is an indispensable ingredient under Sections 3(1)(r) and 3(1)(s).

The term shuddhikaran by itself neither establishes nor rules out untouchability. Religious rituals may have varied purposes; they become constitutionally objectionable when selectively used to suggest that a person or community is inherently polluting. 

The decisive legal question is therefore not simply whether purification occurred, but whether it was motivated by caste-based notions of purity and pollution.

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