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Barbers In This Gujarat Village Won't Cut Hair Of Dalits: Report

Barbers In This Gujarat Village Won't Cut Hair Of Dalits: Report
Hindustan Times via Getty Images

Even seventy years after independence, caste-based discrimination and atrocities against Dalits continue to happen in India. In the recent past, several cases of Dalits being beaten for either riding a horse or keeping a moustache have come to light. And on Sunday, a Dalit man was beaten to death by some upper caste men in Gujarat for allegedly attending a garba event.

There is a village in Gujarat that bans Dalits from any barber shops, apart from other restrictions that include riding horses too.

According to a Times of India report, in Gujarat's Kalol taluka, barbers aren't allowed to cut hair or shave beards of lower caste men as it might anger the dominant darbar (upper caste Hindus) community.

"It'll ruin our business," Vijay Limbachiya, a village barber, told the paper.

As a result, Dalits have to travel almost 8 kms in search of a barber.

According to the report, the police officers belonging to the Dalit community here are scared to take any action against people from the upper castes.

Kalol taluka isn't the first place to put in effect a Dalit ban from salons. According to a report in the Deccan Chronicle, a village in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar does not allow Dalits in the same salons where upper-class communities go for haircuts.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.