Narendra Jadhav

Untouchables

by Narendra Jadhav

Jadhav is an economist, he has an American PhD, and his family are from an untouchable caste. His widowed mother got on a train, with no ticket, and travelled illegally to Bombay because being untouchable was not as bad in a city. She got a job as a maidservant and so her children had access to urban India. Her son picks up reading and learns English. He ends up in Bombay broadcasting and gets a government flat so all his children go to the local schools and both the boys and girls have all travelled abroad – they have all reached the top. It is an amazing story of mobility, an optimistic real-life story of people with no legal help taking opportunities and, with education, education, education, raising their status like iconic ballad heroes.

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