Angry Dalits rise against age-old caste prejudices

Members of the community are still victims of thousands of attacks each year

The video footage posted on social media by India's self-proclaimed cow saviors was brutal. It showed four bare-chested men tied with ropes to a car, flinching as an angry group of men took turns beating them with wooden sticks, belts and iron rods. Their crime: skinning a dead cow.

The savage beating of the men - all Dalits from the lowest rung of India's caste hierarchy - in the small town of Una in the western state of Gujarat last month stirred outrage across the country. The men were beaten by a group of upper-caste men, highlighting how the rigid social hierarchy persists more than 65 years after India instituted laws banning caste discrimination.