|
NEW
DELHI, May 3 (IPS) - India's long-suffering Dalits, or people
considered untouchable by high-caste Hindus, are demanding that
their problems be heard at the United Nations World Conference Against
Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance
(WCAR) later this year.
But
they find themselves thwarted by the Indian government's view that
the phenomenon of caste, a form of social stratification unique
to India and Nepal and much of South Asia, does not fall within
the scope of the conference to be held in South Africa from Aug.
31 to Sep. 7.
''This
conference is a significant opportunity for the international community
to address the situation of South Asia's 240 million Dalits or so-called
untouchables,'' says Smita Narula, senior researcher for the New
York-based rights group Human Rights Watch.
According
to Narula, Indian officials have ''erroneously'' argued that the
conference is about racism -- and no other forms of discrimination.
But ''the very title of the conference undercuts this argument,''
she says.
India
has some 160 million Dalits out of a population of one billion people.
Conclusions
drawn by the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination say that the situation of Dalits ''falls within the
scope'' of the convention and its language.
The
National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), an umbrella organisation
of some 35 non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working among Dalits,
now accuses the government of deliberately obstructing efforts to
draw international attention to their problems, which range from
being shut out from work opportunities to being barred from intermarriages
with those of other groups.
''We
apprehend that Dalit activists wishing to attend the meeting in
Durban may be denied passports,'' says Paul Divakar, convenor of
the NCDHR.
Divakar
said the Asia-Pacific Regional NGO Coordination Forum that met in
Kathmandu, Nepal last week favoured putting pressure on U.N. development
agencies to pay attention to violence against lower caste groups.
''We want existing U.N.-sponsored programmes to be assessed with
caste factored in and we also want that strategies are developed
to curb abuse and encourage accountability,'' Divakar points out.
Meanwhile,
the issue of whether caste discrimination is in fact a form of racism
has become the subject of polemics aired through newspaper columns
by Indian sociologists.
Prof.
Andre Beteille of Delhi University holds that ''treating caste as
a form of race is politically mischievous''. He has accused the
United Nations of trying to ''revive and expand the idea of race,
ostensibly to combat the many forms of social and political discrimination
prevalent in the world.'' Beteille thinks there are interested parties
that would like to bring caste discrimination in general, and the
practice of untouchability in particular, within the purview of
racial discrimination.
''We
cannot throw out the concept of race by the front door and when
it is misused by for asserting social superiority and bring it in
again through the back door to misuse it in the cause of the oppressed,''
Beteille argues.
Gail
Omvedt, an activist on behalf of the Dalits, writes that the South
Africa conference is a big step for the global Dalit movement, which
has succeeded in overcoming decades of obstructionism by ''the Indian
government and the India elite'' to get their plight discussed at
an international forum.
''Indians
may find it demeaning to be condemned for forms of racism but what
is truly demeaning is the effort to block discussion, the refusal
to have transparency before the world,'' Omvedt writes.
Vimla
Thorat, a member of the National Convention on Dalit Human Rights
and professor of Dalit literature at the Indira Gandhi National
Open University here, says that whatever the polemics, the plight
of Dalits, especially Dalit women, is truly deplorable and deserves
international attention.
Thorat
says 90 percent of the estimated 40,000 women reported raped in
India annually are in fact Dalit women, a group she thinks is most
deprived, abused and discriminated against in the whole world.
''Surveys
have shown that Dalit women are routinely denied dignified jobs
so that they continue to be forced to take to scavenging and even
carrying nightsoil (human excreta) on their heads in spite of it
being banned by law,'' Thorat explains.
She
adds that even in 'modern' urban areas today, Dalit women are not
allowed to go into kitchens or touch cooking utensils. Thorat cited
a survey conducted in Jawharalal Nehru university campus here that
shows that not a single household there employed a Dalit woman --
which shows how they are forced into scavenging to make a living.
Thorat
says it is ironical that India, which actively supported the anti-apartheid
struggle and ratified all major human rights conventions and enacted
progressive legislation against bonded labour and scavenging, prefers
to suppress the issue of caste. (END/IPS/ap-hd/rdr/js/01) .
|
