"Untouchables": Indian outcast millionaire mulls caste, riches

AP reports:

As far back as he can remember, people told Hari Kishan Pippal that he was unclean, with a filthiness that had tainted his family for centuries. Teachers forced him to sit apart from other students. Employers sometimes didn't bother to pay him.
Pippal is a dalit, a member of the outcast community once known as untouchables. Born at the bottom of Hinduism's complex social ladder, that meant he could not eat with people from higher castes or drink from their wells. He was not supposed to aspire to a life beyond that of his father, an illiterate cobbler. Years later, he still won't repeat the slurs that people called him.
Now, though, people call him something else.
They call him rich.

Saurabh Das / AP

Hari Kishan Pippal speaks in his office in Agra, India.

Saurabh Das / AP

Hari Kishan Pippal inspects shoes at his shoe factory in Agra.

Saurabh Das / AP

Hari Kishan Pippal poses for a photograph inside his
Heritage Hospital, one of the largest private medical
facilities in the north Indian city of Agra.

Saurabh Das / AP

Hari Kishan Pippal sits for a photograph with his family at
his home in Agra, India.

Saurabh Das / AP

Hari Kishan Pippal sits with his granddaughter at his home
in Agra, India.

Saurabh Das / AP

Hari Kishan Pippal talks on his mobile phone as his wife
watches television in their bedroom at their home in Agra,
India.

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