Still untouchable; Caste in India.(Dalits dramatically under-represented in India's government)(Asia)(Brief Article)

"CASTE is worthless and so is its name," proclaimed Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religion. Yet in the village of Sidhwan Khurd in Punjab, one of India's richest states, there are two gurdwaras (Sikh houses of worship), a scruffy one for the village's "scheduled castes", the official name for people who used to be called untouchables, and a spiffier one for other Sikhs. India's 160m Dalits-as members of its scheduled castes call themselves these days-suffer worse privations than segregation at prayer. But nothing shows better than Sidhwan Khurd's two gurdwaras how stubborn…