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Dalits to draw world attention to caste discrimination

THE HINDU

22 July 2002

By our Special Correspondent

Jaipur, July 21: Dalit human rights activists have warned that Durban was only a “trailer” and the real action would take place at such international conclaves in future. “The world’s eyes are on India where the greatest racial discrimination after the Apartheid is being perpetuated on the basis of caste,” the speakers at a lecture on “Bringing accountability to issues of Dalit rights in Rajasthan’ cautioned.

Expressing concern over the dismal state of affairs in the country, and especially in Rajasthan, the Dalit rights activists indicated that they had no other way but to internationalize the issue of caste discrimination. “We are the people without wings. As we start growing wings, they come and clip them,” lamented P. L. Mimroth, Dalit activist and convener of the Centre for Dalit Human Rights, which organized the lecture.

The issue of caste would again figure in the forthcoming meeting of the UN Commission on Elimination of Racial Discrimination to be held in Geneva in the second week of next month, observed Ravi Nair, Executive Director of South Asia Human Rights Documentation Centre. “India’s position is a very weak when it comes to protection of rights of Dalits,” he charged.

In case any complaint by any Dalit about atrocities was going unattended, the UN Special Rapporteur appointed for India could ask the Centre for an explanation, Mr. Nair observed. The countries no longer had, the traditional soverignity when it came to human right violations. New laws permit arrest of those who have human rights violation cases pending against them in India when they visit a foreign country like the UK or Belgium, he pointed out.

There was a general atmosphere of non-accountability when it came up holding Dalit rights, the participants noted. Back in 1996, maximum cases of atrocities against Dalits were registered in Rajasthan. In the next year, it was only the second largest, it was pointed out. Within a 30-km radius of the Rajasthan capital, one could come across untouchability and other caste discrimination, it was observed.

The caste structure continued to prevail in the State even after Indpendence, partly due to its feudal past. The Dalits still had to face both the societal violence and the State violence, they charged.

Dalits were the productive class of society but there had been no recognition of their contribution, noted Prakash Louis, Executive Director of he Indian Social Institute. Even now 60-70 percent Dalits in the country remained landless labourers while only 15-20 per cent of htem were literate, he pointed out. However, even within the Dalit community case system was prevalent. “Dalits in Rajasthan alone have 60 sub-castes,”Dr. Louis noted to drive home the difficulties in fighting for Dalit rights. The former acting Governer of Rajasthan, Justice N. L. Tibrewal, and the retired judge of the Rajasthan High Court, Justice Vinod Shankar Dave, suggested intensive educational drive among Dalits to improve their lot and to make them aware of their rights.

Mr. Dave specially referred to the unfortunate role of Dalits in the recent Gujarat carnage. Dalits should shed their complex of being Dalits as well as the obsession that all from the so-called upper castes were perpetrators of the caste order, it was suggested.

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