Ismaili.NET - Heritage F.I.E.L.D.

By the end of Rig Vedic period, the fourfold division of society was regarded as fundamental and primeval in India, making its society classified into four castes, i.e., the priest (brahmana), warrior (ksatriya), peasant (vaisya) and serf (sudra). Below the sudra are the people, called untouchable (achhut), outcastes or depressed classes, and sometimes they are called the fifth class (pancama). In Indo-Pakistan subcontinent, there are millions of untouchables, whom Gandhi (1869-1948) called harijan (children of God) in 1920. Dr. Ambedikar, one of the eminent leaders of the untouchables, in his published report of 1930 had given them the name of scheduled caste, which is coined also in Simmon Commission Report. Untouchable