LAROI (BHOGPUR), APRIL 12: Your waste water should not flow towards the rising sun.'' It is by this logic, directed at Dalits, that members of the upper caste in Laroi, a village on the Jalandhar-Pathankot highway, have stalled the laying of an underground sewage line for more than two months now.The operative word here, of course, is ``your'', for the waste water from upper caste houses already flow eastwards to a cesspool.The authorities want to connect the Dalit-inhabited part of the village to this cesspool, but protests and counter-protests followed. Tensions between the upper and lower castes reached a flashpoint last week and the administration imposed Section 144 on the village three days ago in order to restore work on the pipeline.The work has started, but an uneasy calm prevails in the village. The issue is kept alive within the four walls of homes those of the upper class as well as the Dalits.Though the upper caste is numerically inferior to the Dalits, they are more vocal about the issue in public. Ever since the imposition of Section 144, however, they will speak only on condition of anonymity.``We don't have any objection to the pipeline,'' says one of them self-righteously. ``All we want is that the water of `those' houses be disposed of where they were being disposed of so long. After all, logic dating back to our ancestors' times has ensured they inhabit the pachhim (west) side, where the sun sets.''It is this very `logic' that the Dalits object to. ``We are protesting not against the work on the pipeline but the ridiculous argument,'' says Amarjit Singh, a villager.Interestingly, they have found support in village sarpanch Tarsem Singh, an upper-caste man who has taken it upon himself to ensure that the pipeline gets laid. ``I looked at the matter impartially,'' he tells The Indian Express.``I tried to convince the protesting members of the upper class, but because of the pressure from some vested interests, they did not listen to me.''Incidentally, guided by the sarpanch, the panchayat contributed Rs 1.25 lakh for the pipeline work; the authorities had already earmarked Rs 5 lakh for the project.``I found no logic in the argument that the waste water from Dalit homes should not flow towards the rising sun. They live in miserable conditions; since there's no pipeline, the waste enters their houses and results in the outbreak of disease,'' said Tarsem Singh.Satnam Singh, a Dalit, agrees: ``Our children are forever under the threat of water-borne diseases, especially malaria.''``Our houses are located at the bottom of a slope and it tends to collect there. The cesspool, on the other hand, is located at a height.''While the authorities are likely to complete the work on the pipeline in the two months that Section 144 will be valid, villagers are keeping their fingers crossed in the hope that there is no further tension on the issue.If they have any other wish, it is this: A little more vigilance on the part of the authorities. Villagers from either side of the `Great Divide' say no member of the administration has visited Laroi since the imposition of Section 144.
