'Incident a case of silent apartheid'

Kannur: June 7, 1893. A tiny railway station in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa. A young barrister called Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was thrown off the train, when he refused to move from the first-class. Though he had a proper ticket, he had to face such a discrimination because he was 'coloured'. Even after becoming the father of the nation, he was still called 'half-naked fakir' by some.
December 19, 2015. Aluva town of Kerala. Renowned social activist Daya Bai, who has devoted her life for the tribal communities in Madhya Pradesh, was forced out of a KSRTC bus by the driver and conductor, after humiliating her with abusive words for asking the place where she wanted to get down. She too had a proper ticket.
If Gandhiji was thrown out as he was 'brown', and was not expected to sit in the first class compartment reserved for the White, septuagenarian Daya Bai was forced out apparently for not being 'well dressed', or for that matter she did not look 'civilized'. If not apartheid, what else it is?
Kannur: Social and cultural activists condemned the harassment faced by renowned social worker Daya Bai from KSRTC employees on Saturday night.
This is a shameful incident reflecting the perversion and prejudices of the Malayali psyche, observed eminent writer N S Madhavan, who said this was an example of 'silent apartheid'.
"What happened to Daya Bai is no stray incident. A perfect complement to this would be another incident in which people stopped praying at Mookambika temple and went after Saritha Nair, when she came in. Taken together, these happenings are a sad commentary of our times. It is a pity that in Kerala, increasingly gentrified looks matter and not respect for human dignity," he said. It also points to how we treat the elderly people, he added.
This shows how the Indian society as a whole and Kerala society in particular, approach the so-called oppressed people comprising dalits and migrant labourers, said sociologist Antony Palackal, an associate professor at Loyola College of Social Sciences, Thiruvananthapuram. "In her appearance, Daya Bai might look like a tribal woman because she voluntarily decides to dress like one as she wants to be one among the dalit and the adivasi community. That prejudice worked against her when she was forced out of the bus," he added.
This also reflects the paradoxical attitude of the Kerala society that claims to be progressive. Even now, we nurture all the negative elements of feudalism, further strengthened by the colonial hangover, due to which we have a contempt towards dark skin, he said.
And these are the reasons why she made the issue public, said Daya Bai. "If I face such a humiliation in my own home state, it points to what thousands of faceless people undergo here and there should be an end to it," said the veteran social worker who is on her way back to Madhya Pradesh.
Though she has travelled far and wide, she has not faced such humiliation and discrimination anywhere, she said. "Even in Germany, which is said to be a highly racist society, I was treated well. It shows that something serious is ailing Kerala society," she said.