U ntouchability ‘Untouchability’ is an extreme and particularly vicious aspect of the caste system that prescribes stringent social sanctions against members of castes located at the bottom of the purity-pollution scale. Strictly speaking, the ‘untouchable’ castes are outside the caste hierarchy – they are considered to be so ‘impure’ Race and Caste – A Cross-Cultural Comparison Just like caste in India, race in South Africa stratifies society into a hierarchy. About one South African in seven is of European ancestry, yet South Africa’s White minority holds the dominant share of power and wealth. Dutch traders settled in South Africa in the mid-seventeenth century; early in the nineteenth century, their descendants were pushed inland by British colonisation.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the British gained control of what became the Union and then the Republic of South Africa. To ensure their political control, the White European minority developed the policy of apartheid , or separation of the races. An informal practice for many years, apartheid became law in and was used to deny the Black majority South African citizenship, ownership of land, and a formal voice in government. Every individual was classified by race and mixed marriages were prohibited.
As a racial caste, Blacks held low-paying jobs; on average, they earned only one- fourth of what whites did. In the latter half of the twentieth century, millions of Blacks were forcibly relocated to ‘Bantustans’ or ‘homelands’ – dirt-poor districts with no infrastructure or industry or jobs. All the homelands together constituted Box .1b