It's very interesting though isn't it! These people were obviously skilled enough to make a clean environment for pickle to... pickle, but were seen as untouchable.
I would have thought that the juxtaposition was so obvious that the people who weren't 'untouchable' didn't really believe it, but went along with it because everyone else did, too.
I agree. There were (or still are) various levels of untouchables, but not everywhere, not same people, and not same level of strictness. For example women if some areas are considered untouchables when they have periods (same home, same family, daughters, wives, mothers). Then the financial status. Then caste, tribe. Or language. Or geography.
> It's very interesting though isn't it! These people were obviously skilled enough to make a clean environment for pickle to... pickle, but were seen as untouchable.
There are often whole systems of technicalities created to rationalize these contradictions.
Here's an even more striking example (priests using clay from the ground of the house of a prostitute to make an icon for a religious festival):
There are all kinds of these scenarios that happen when theoretical social hierarchy comes into practical contact with the lived reality of people in interdependent communities.
I would have thought that the juxtaposition was so obvious that the people who weren't 'untouchable' didn't really believe it, but went along with it because everyone else did, too.
I think this is probably a kind of pluralistic ignorance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluralistic_ignorance