Neha Sethi SYBA Roll No.

081

Rights of Dalits
Despite the fact that untouchability was abolished under India's constitution in 1950, the practice of untouchabilitythe imposition of social disabilities on persons by reason of their birth in certain castes remains very much a part of rural India. Untouchables may not cross the line dividing their part of the village from that occupied by higher castes. They may not use the same wells, visit the same temples, drink from the same cups in tea stalls, or lay claim to land that is legally theirs. Dalit children are frequently made to sit in the back of classrooms, and communities as a whole are made to perform degrading rituals in the name of caste. Most Dalits continue to live in extreme poverty, without land or opportunities for better employment or education. With the exception of a minority who have benefited from Indias policy of quotas in education and government jobs, Dalits are relegated to the most menial of tasks, as manual scavengers, removers of human waste and dead animals, leather workers, street sweepers, and cobblers. Dalit children make up the majority of those sold into bondage to pay off debts to upper-caste creditors. Dalit men, women, and children numbering in the tens of millions work as agricultural laborers for a few kilograms of rice or Rs. 15 to Rs. 35 (US$0.38 to $0.88) a day. Their upper-caste employers frequently use caste as a cover for exploitative economic arrangements: social sanction of their status as lesser beings allows their impoverishment to continue. According to the charter of Dalit Human Rights put forward by the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights in India: -Despite Indias achievement of Independence, Dalit populations have not been brought into the mainstream society. We assert that the Dalits are in need of liberation from the hegemony of the dominant caste forces in India. -Every hour two Dalits are assaulted, every day three Dalit women are raped, every day two Dalits are murdered, every day two Dalit houses are burned down. Therefore we assert that Dalit rights are also human rights. -The Indian State has ratified the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). However, this is only in paper as far as the Dalits are concerned. The third article of the UDHR says that everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person. However, in India the Dalits are denied these basic human rights every day in large measure. Therefore, we assert that Dalit rights are human rights. -Much more than the violence that is perpetrated on the Dalits, one of the worst and barbaric forms of the Varnashrama Dharma is untouchability which no sensible human being can think of. That this is called a religion is an insult to the whole of humanity. It is an assertion of the underlying paradigm that some sections of the people are irrelevant and a nuisance to the dominant forces of the world. Therefore, we demand that a global effort be made to abolish untouchability in all its manifestations and those practice it be punished in the severest form possible for a human institution.

-We realise that the discourses of human rights have been clouded by an excessive focus on individual liberty. This is because of the predominant focus on the individual in contemporary Western thinking. However, individualism of the type and intensity that is being promoted by the West is in sharp contrast to the culture of community living of the indigenous people in general and Dalits and tribal people in particular. Therefore, we demand that the discourse of individual security be taken to its next logical step in the context of the Dalits i.e. security of the community of people. -We demand that the denial of the basic material needs of the Dalits be treated as denial of Dalit human rights and protective measures be taken. -We protest any biased allocation of resources by the caste-biased forces of governance and demand that the Dalits be guaranteed their right to livelihood which will ensure a dignified living. This right to livelihood and dignity are enshrined in the UDHR. -We demand full protection to the Dalits to participate in the Panchayat Raj Institutions and other democratic institutions of the country. -we demand that from the present manner of fixing minimum wages for labour the State effectively goes about fixing a living wage for the Dalits taking into serious consideration the changing economic situation, with its escalating prices, reduction of subsidies, withdrawal of the welfare State, shifting of development responsibility to the Dalits themselves, etc. -We demand that the right to freedom of thought and freedom of expression be protected for the Dalits in spirit and in letter. -We demand that the rights of the Dalits to identify themselves as culturally different from other groups be guaranteed, that the commercialisation of their cultural forms be stopped and State allocations be made for the promotion and preservation of the cultural forms of the Dalit people. -We demand that special measure be taken for the protection of the rights of Dalit women. - We demand that the international human rights bodies bring under the purview of human rights all forms of discrimination and violations both by the State and by the civil society. Such a stand needs to be brought into the institutional framework of these human rights bodies. In conclusion, I would like to say that rights demands more than civil and political rights. Beyond expressed exclusions are more subtle violations. Indeed, the violation of ESC rights results in identifiable instances of discrimination and the denial of simple human dignity. Attention to ESC rights allows us to do more than just write legislation it allows us to pursue systematic change.