One argument I heard is that some of the most important priests/sages of Hinduism are from the untouchable class and wrote their major books called the Ram-a-yana and Mahaabaratha. I also read somewhere that a low caste woman in India is one of their most famous religious leaders today. I also read about some people in Yemen being untouchables. Something does not add up somewhere. Either the media is lying to us or I have been fed wrong info. I would like someone more knowledgeable to tell me about it because I am in general sympathetic to India as it can be our ally against Islam. Israel in particular seems to have a soft spot for Hindus. So my bet is that the liberal media is feeding us the same kind of drivel we hear about us.
They’ve had a former president, who was a Dalit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._R._Narayanan
K. R. Narayanan was elected to the Presidency of India[11] (17 July 1997) with 95% of the votes in the electoral college, as a result of the Presidential poll on 14 July. This is the only Presidential election to have been held with a minority government holding power at the centre. T. N. Seshan was the sole opposing candidate, and all major parties save the Shiv Sena supported his candidature.
He was sworn in as the President of India (25 July 1997) by Chief Justice J. S. Verma in the Central Hall of Parliament. In his inaugural address, he said:
“That the nation has found a consensus for its highest office in some one who has sprung from the grass-roots of our society and grown up in the dust and heat of this sacred land is symbolic of the fact that the concerns of the common man have now moved to the centre stage of our social and political life. It is this larger significance of my election rather than any personal sense of honour that makes me rejoice on this occasion.”
Article links on footnotes in the main link.
India is the most ethnically diverse country on the planet, so that wildly divergent accounts of its culture are not necessarily in conflict.
The word "untouchables" in this context is a something of a misnomer. Any Hindu can touch a member of the lowest caste. But members of lower castes cannot touch a Brahmin, someone of the highest priestly caste.