Old awareness video of BBMP during COVID times is falsely shared as caste discrimination.
Claim
This video will tell you why reservation is necessary. Has this discrimination happened with any Brahmin Baniya Thakur person?
Rating
Explanation
The 40-second viral video shared by the user namely “The Dalit Voice” claimed that this video will tell you the necessity why we need a reservation. The post further questions, if this kind of discrimination has happened to any person from the community of Brahmin, Baniya or Thakur. This viral post alone gets more than 6500 likes and a whopping three lakh fifty thousand plus views.
In this video, we are able to see a female community worker standing in the front gate of a house and we see a landlady wearing a mask and asking her to stand in a distance. Then we see the same landlady walking towards the worker with a water bottle in her hand and opening the gate we see her keeping the bottle down on the road. Meanwhile, we see another two female workers watching this incident. The lady then walks back and closes the gate.
https://twitter.com/b0dh_5/status/1692944142362690007?s=46&t=kIszbQH_arRSG8kPbuGeZw
This video is shared by many users on social media claiming that, look how untouchability is still happening and they further added the question if it has happened to you? This sensational viral clip is widely spread on X and can be viewed here and here.
What’s the truth?
When we started our research with relevant key terms, we were able to identify that the incident happened in Bengaluru, Karnataka and we can hear the landlady speak in Kannada. We eventually got a YouTube video from “Asianet Newsable” where we saw the same matching visuals. The video was uploaded on 24 June 2020 notably the first lockdown during the corona times with the title “House owner ‘refuses’ to give drinking water to pourakarmikas; viral video brings awareness”.
When we watched the whole video it’s clearly evident that they have scripted and enacted this to create awareness among the public. The reporter is heard saying that the pourakarmikas are the most vulnerable people who face daily challenges during this covid period and they themselves have acted in the video which went viral. Thus, it’s a staged act done by the Bengaluru civic women workers.
According to Asianet Newsable, in the description box, they have clearly mentioned that the BBMP, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike are not just limited to keeping the city clean, some also try to bring in hidden talent in them. When the city is gripped with fear following the increase in coronavirus (COVID-19) cases, the pourakarmikas who are the most vulnerable, hit upon the concept of creating a video.
They further added that, among two pourakarmika women, one plays the role of an arrogant house owner and refuses to provide drinking water inside her home. Following that, the arrogant lady came out of her house gate, placed a water bottle on the road and asked the pourakarmika to collect it.
Meanwhile, the video went viral and even officials got furious as they believed it to be true. The following day another video was shared only to tell this was only an awareness video and all the persons in the video were pourakarmikas from Singasandra ward in Bengaluru.
Moreover, the special commissioner with BBMP, Sarfaraz Khan also appreciates the pourakarmikas for their creative effort during these hard times and also said this video will bring some change in the few who misbehave with them.
Though there are multiple incidents related to caste discrimination happening daily across the nation, this particular video is a scripted video shared by the BBMP, during the peak of the first wave of the pandemic in order to create awareness.
Conclusion:
Therefore, we conclude that the viral clip showing the pourakarmikas ill-treated by an arrogant house owner is a staged video and not a real incident. It is also worth noting that, both the house owner woman and the ones in the uniform are BBMP pourakarmika workers. So, there is no caste discrimination nor untouchability seen or practised in the video.
