Author: Rajinder Sachar
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: August 31, 2001
We have witnessed a series of seminars
and consultations, not with a view to draw up a programme how to eradicate
discrimination against Dalits but whether caste discrimination should be
included as an item of agenda of discussion at the World Conference against
Racism, Racial Discrimination and Related Intolerance (WCAR) being held
at Durban. I find this an exercise in futility.
Judged by any measure it is not
even arguable that the worst of discrimination and deprivation is the usual
lot of Dalits. This shameful attitude of Hindu society toward Dalits made
Swami Vivekanand cry out in anguish, "India's doom was sealed the very
day it invented the word "mlechcha" and stopped from communion with other
... O Indians... Forget not that the lower classes, the cobbler, the sweeper,
are thy flesh and blood, thy brothers".
But not withstanding all this, the
evil of castism has the vicious habit of persisting. Dr Lohia was, therefore,
insistent that sustained efforts be made to put Dalits into positions of
power, and warned of the damage the caste system had done to India, and
how she may rid herself of it. This pain was also reflected in 1982 in
a judgement of the Delhi High Court, which, justifying that in the matter
of allotment of land by the Government, priority be given to Dalits said:
"Our social system has had, it must be remembered, to live down centuries
of caste exploitation and sub-human existence to which this large chunk
of our population, ie Harijans were condemned". A question may well be
posed as to why then I see no utility in caste discrimination being discussed
at Durban.
Though I am prepared to admit that
discrimination against Dalits may sometimes be worse than many instances
of racial discrimination, to equate Dalits as a separate race is to evolve
a theory that India is a mixture of various races. That we are a multi-religious
and a multi-cultural nation is a reality. But we are not multi-racial-like
the US, which colonised Indians in America, or like Australia and New Zealand,
which colonised the Aborogines and the Maoris. In India, people have lived
together in harmony for thousands of years. To pick out any particular
segment of the population as a separate race is illogical, because on similar
grounds, the Brahmins and others will claim to be separate races, which
will endanger the inherent unity of the country.
No, we cannot wash off our sins
of caste discrimination by passing the buck to the UN. I am against providing
an excuse to the Hindu society to absolve itself of its shame and guilt
by purporting to put forward an excuse that discrimination against the
Dalits is not a cancer within Hindu Religion, but a question racial discrimination.
The Dalit Christians too have expressed
their resentment at being discriminated by other Christians in being denied
facilities like a common church and common burial grounds. Should not Christian
groups feel concerned as to why the religion of Christ, who treated all
beings as children of God, and who has inspired millions of us in the fight
for equality and universal brotherhood, permits this discrimination? Are
we running away from our collective shame by saying that Dalits constitute
a separate race in India and, therefore, are discriminated against by all
religions-Hinduism, Islam or Christianity. I refuse to lessen my guilt
as a Hindu at the treatment meted in the past and in the present by Hindu
society, in calling Dalits a separate race. I must continue to wear the
cross, till I redeem Dalit dignity and rights.
No, we do not have to go to Durban
to know the reality of caste discrimination. Commendable work has been
done by some NGOs which last year held a public hearing on this aspect.
Violation of the Human Rights of the Dalits are perpetrated not only by
the State but also by dominant castes. More disturbingly, they found that
in Kerala, the CPI and the CPI(M) workers were threatened by Dalits who
had left their party to join the Dalit Movement and also instances of forbidding
temple entry to Dalits by the upper castes.
No, it is not a question of concealing
from the international community this evil which is so well documented.
Nor is it the devilish design of the present Central Government to avoid
discussion on caste at the international forum. As far back as 1996, the
Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) noted that the
then Indian Government, in its report, had claimed that the situation of
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes does not fall within the scope of
the convention. The United Front Government in its communication of September,
1997 to the Special Reporteur repeated the same stand.
The euphoria that a programme of
action could have been defined at Durban to fight caste discrimination
is to deliberately shut one's eyes to the motivation and purpose of the
organisers of WCAR. The United Nations publication mentions that the drafters
of the UN Charter were well aware of the dangers of racism which had become
so clearly evident in the years prior to the Second World War and which,
during that war, reached an unimagined level of horror in the systematic
and wholesale extermination of people for reason of race alone.
In 1991, in a note by the UN Secretary-General,
the need to proclaim the Third Decade to Control Racism was emphasised
as new conflicts along racial and ethnic lines have come about, among others,
because of: (a) Intensified migration from Third World and Eastern Europe
countries which suffer economic stagnation; (b) conflicts over economic
resources, in developed as well as developing countries; (c) exacerbation
of old racial conflicts and prejudices by racist groups, which in some
countries have gained power and legitimacy by election to public office;
(d) increase in Western countries of racial discrimination such as that
which occurred with respect to immigrants from the Middle East and North
Africa during the Gulf War.
The fact sheet of the World Conference
has highlighted that racial discrimination, ethnic conflicts and widespread
violence persist in various parts of the world. In recent years, the world
has witnessed instances of "ethnic cleansing". Racial minorities, migrants,
asylum seekers and indigenous people are persistent targets of intolerance.
Right since 1945, the concept of racial discrimination has been the discriminatory
treatment by Europe and the developed world of Asians, Africans and people
from developing countries.
The shame of Dalit discrimination
is certainly an issue of Human Rights and can and should form, legitimately,
the subject matter of discussion at any International World Conference
on Human Rights. But to purport to include caste in the WCAR would really
take away the pressure from the racist policies of Europeans, like the
treatment meted out by Clermans to Turkish immigrants, and to the racial
attacks on people of Asian origin settled in the UK by the white hoodlums.
I fear no practical benefits will
accrue to the Dalit movement; instead, in the bargain, it may weaken the
fight against racism which is spreading in the developed world against
the poor of the South. I would rather suggest that the Central Government
be pressurised to hold an International Conference on Dalit Discrimination,
with emphasis on how to eradicate it. NGOs engaged in the work of racial
discrimination from outside the country should also be invited. Let the
shame of our treatment of Dalits be exposed to public view.
My disagreement is only with those
who want to fight this battle at Durban. If all the energy that has been
put in just to place this item on the agenda at Durban had been spent fighting
and exposing this discrimination at the ground level, a good deal of ground
would have been covered. It is not jingoist nationalism that urges one
to speak against the Durban discussion, but the sheer purposelessness of
it. We must accept that the biggest hurdle in the fight against casteism
is that our society is still seeped in a feudal mindset.
The Brahmanical caste system must
be uprooted, and a Satyagraha launched for breaking the barrier of temple
entry, and ending the practice of separate wells. But the battle has to
be fought in Delhi, not Durban.
