Moving up in life

Why should only Islam be getting all the bad publicity? It's good to see some attention being given to this aspect of Hinduism:

Like tens of thousands of other untouchables — or dalits — across India yesterday, Mr Cherlaguda ritually converted to Buddhism to escape his low-caste status....

"Untouchability" was abolished under India's constitution in 1950, but the practice remains a degrading part of everyday life in villages.

Dalits in rural areas are often bullied and assigned menial jobs such as removing human waste and dead animals.

The sometimes intense violence against them has led to a migration to the cities, where caste is easier to submerge.

At yesterday's mass conversion of dalits — almost 200,000 changed religion — they all repeated 22 oaths, including never worshipping Hindu gods and never drinking alcohol.

So, you have to give up alcohol to get out of being on the bottom of the social scale. Must be a hard choice for some.

This was from The Age, taken from The Guardian.