New Delhi – Imagine a poor laborer who has toiled all day under the scorching sun—breaking his back in the fields, harvesting crops, driving oxen to separate grain from chaff. His spine aches, his palms are blistered, yet a faint hope lingers in his eyes that perhaps today, he will receive fair compensation for his hard work. Exhausted, he approaches his employer to claim his wages, dreaming that his children might finally eat a full meal. But what does the landlord give him?

Not money, not clean grain—but a sack of Gobarha: grain that has been sifted from cattle dung, the very same grain that passed through the stomachs of oxen, now dumped into the laborer’s sack so he can grind it into flour and bake bread for his family. This is the story of gobarha—a practice that symbolizes the dehumanization of the "untouchables" and the cruelty of the Hindu social order, as documented by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar in his writings. It is a harsh truth that shakes the conscience and exposes the depths of oppression endured by Dalits for centuries.

In Dr. Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, Vol. 5, Chapter 4, the brutal realities faced by the "untouchables" in India’s caste-ridden society are poignantly described, with gobarha emerging as a stark symbol of their subjugation.

The gobarha practice highlights the systematic oppression of Dalits under Hindu social hierarchy. It exemplifies how caste humiliation was institutionalized, keeping them economically, socially, and culturally marginalized—perpetually treated as outsiders in the so-called "village republic."

The Divided Village

Ambedkar described Indian villages as deeply segregated societies, split into two distinct groups:

1. Touchables (Savarnas): Upper-caste Hindus who lived inside the village, wielding economic and social power.

2. Untouchables (Dalits): A marginalized minority forced to live in segregated settlements outside the village, treated as "hereditary bonded laborers."

The Touchables enforced a rigid code that controlled every aspect of Dalit life, criminalizing basic dignities such as:

• Owning property (land or livestock).

• Building houses with tiled roofs.

• Wearing clean clothes, shoes, or gold jewelry.

• Giving their children respectable names or speaking refined language.

Violating these rules invited punishments ranging from social ostracization to violence, ensuring Dalits remained oppressed.

Gobarha: The Ultimate Humiliation

In parts of Uttar Pradesh, Dalit laborers were paid in gobarha—literally, "dung grain." During harvest season (March-April), oxen trampled crops to separate grain from chaff, inevitably consuming some of it. The next day, the partially digested grain would be extracted from their dung, sieved, and given to Dalit workers as wages. These laborers had no choice but to grind this filthy grain into flour and consume it.

Ambedkarite scholars argue that gobarha was not merely a form of payment but a deliberate act of degradation. It denied Dalits the dignity of fair wages and clean food, forcing them to survive on cattle waste. Ambedkar’s documentation of this practice underscores the brutality of caste, where Dalit labor was so undervalued that even their sustenance was an insult.

In an agrarian society, land ownership was key to economic stability—yet Dalits were systematically denied it:

• Financial Barriers: Most lacked the means to buy land.

• Social Resistance: Upper castes violently opposed any attempt by Dalits to acquire land, viewing it as a threat to their dominance.

• Legal Obstacles: In regions like Punjab, laws such as the Land Alienation Act explicitly barred Dalits from purchasing land.

As a result, Dalits were trapped as landless laborers, dependent on Savarna landowners. With no bargaining power, they were forced to accept meager wages—often in humiliating forms like gobarha—or face starvation and violence.

The Right to Beg: A Parallel System of Survival

When agricultural work was unavailable (outside harvest season), Dalits relied on precarious livelihoods:

• Selling grass and firewood (gathered from forests, often requiring bribes to guards).

• Institutionalized Begging: Many villages enforced a system where Dalit families were "assigned" to specific upper-caste households, from whom they were expected to beg for food. This was not charity but a structured practice akin to medieval serfdom.

Like gobarha, begging reinforced dependence and dehumanization, binding Dalits to a cycle of survival at the mercy of the upper castes.

The Village Republic: An Empire of Exploitation

Ambedkar called Indian villages a "den of caste oppression"—far from the romanticized "village republics" of nationalist imagination. They were "republics of the Touchables, by the Touchables, and for the Touchables," where Dalits were stripped of rights and reduced to servitude.

The caste system’s "iron law of karma" permanently branded Dalits as inferior, regardless of merit. A poor, uneducated Savarna would always rank above even the most accomplished Dalit. Gobarha embodied this unchangeable hierarchy—where even survival came with a reminder of their "untouchable" status.