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Often during class discussions, students brought up the disproportionately high AIDS rates in the black and/or gay populations in their home states. Other factors such as percent population living below the poverty line, percent population that was institutionalized, and presence of STD’s all seemed to be confounding issues in how widely and rapidly AIDS spreads in a certain area. Expecting to find similar patterns, I started my search through looking into India’s notorious caste system. Dalits, often referred to as the ‘untouchables’, historically constituted the lowest level in the Indian caste system. According to the Hindu hierarchy a person’s caste defines his social status and regulates issues ranging from who they are allowed to marry and the jobs they are allowed to do. The Dalits, now called the ‘scheduled caste’ were outcastes and barred from all but the most menial tasks. They were isolated up to a point that even their shadows were avoided by the upper castes. In a country that is still 80% Hindu, even though the caste system is officially eradicated, the historical context is not completely forgotten. (Wikepedia) In a way, the scheduled castes are at the lowest social level. Therefore, I was certain that there would be a strong correlation between the scheduled caste and the spread of AIDS, a disease with strong ties to the poor and the underprivileged.
India was broken down into 33 states and Union territories, and hence a correlation of .296 was required to establish a 90% confidence limit. Total numbers of the scheduled caste persons per state were extracted from the website, Census of India, established by the Office of the Registrar and General Commissioner in India. A correlation was established between the AIDS rate and the SC percent population of each state. Surprisingly enough, there was a very weak negative correlation of -.05. (Table 1) By itself this correlation is not alarming at all. This correlation alone simply means that no relationship between the scheduled caste and AIDS exists. It may even reflect that the scheduled caste is not as marginal a population as I had originally believed. Moreover, this pattern of strange and unreasonable correlations continued in almost all aspects that I thought would be relevant constituents. |
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