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THE NATION : CASTE DISCRIMINATION
Casting A Shadow
India is confronted with a contentious issue as the Durban
conference readies to debate Dalit atrocities
By Lakshmi Iyer
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AUTONOMOUS STAND: NHRC consults the public to inspire trust
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Fifty-four years
after Independence, sovereign India is set to be whipped for its savagery.
At the international conference on racism to be held in Durban, South
Africa, from August 31 to September 7, the country will pay for its sins:
for the untouchability that some of us continue to practice flouting Article
17 of the Constitution; for brutalising Dalits in violation of the SC/ST
(Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989; and employing an estimated one million
manual scavengers strictly by descent. These foibles have been doggedly
documented by non-governmental organisations.
Despite its best efforts, the Indian Government
lost the battle to keep reference to caste-based discrimination out of
the United Nations conference. At the third preparatory committee meeting
for the Durban conference that ended in Geneva on August 10, the Swiss
Government incorporated paragraph 109 in the programme for action "to
ensure that appropriate forms of affirmative action are in place to prohibit
and redress discrimination on the basis of work and descent". Incorporation
of this clause by a member state means the Durban meet will now officially
discuss caste-based discrimination in India and the rest of South Asia.
The Swiss Government later informally communicated to Delhi that it put
in the contentious clause succumbing to pressure from its NGOs.
 The
National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR)-an apex body of over
100 NGOs that has been pitching for the inclusion of caste in the Durban
agenda for the past two years-is thrilled. Paragraph 109 is an "unbracketed"
clause in the draft programme. This means that it is not subject to dispute
or change. "Why can't the Government accept discussions on caste?
If it can discuss its poverty at global fora, why can't it discuss a social
issue?" asks NCDHR convener Martin Macwan.
The Government is unfazed. "South Africa
dismantled apartheid in 1994 but not everyone in the country is happy
with the process. As a result Pretoria has appealed to everyone to keep
the issue out of the agenda. India can make a similar appeal. We started
affirmative action in 1951. The problem has been in implementing it,"
says a Foreign Ministry official.
In the run-up to the Durban conference, the
Government has been trying hard to pay the NGOs in their own currency.
It matched their propaganda by injecting a dose of public consultation
in its decision-making. A national committee was set up "to aid"
its participation in the Durban conference. The panel in turn held two
public meetings and heard 50 NGOs before advising the Government. In a
reply to a starred question in the Rajya Sabha, the Government said it
was rejecting "international initiative or intervention" on
the caste question as advised by the panel.
The public consultation by the national committee
and National Commission for Human Rights may have been a good counter-propaganda
to the seminars held by the NCDHR, but has fuelled numerous misgivings.
Will India become another Kosovo which was subjected to international
military action because people of Albanian origin were being discriminated?
Yogesh Tyagi of the School of Law, Jawaharlal Nehru University, says the
nation is indeed exposing itself to the risk of military action. Even
civil liberty activist and jurist Rajinder Sachar is uncomfortable with
the internationalisation of the issue. "We don't need foreigners
to fight this problem.We are running away from our responsibility,"
he says.
The Durban agenda has also raised disquieting
questions about the NGOs. Are the NGOs antinational in that they are ready
to trade the country for a few dollars? As many leaders espousing Dalit
causes are Christians, are they pushing for job quotas for Dalit Christians?
The Government is convinced that reservation is the real agenda. Why else
should the Dalit Christian groups in the south be the only ones to carry
tales of exploitation to Durban? Macwan debunks the quota agenda. "Don't
give us reservation. Give us land," he says.
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