Hidden Apartheid : India practises caste discrimination against dalits - Report

A new report by the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice and Human Rights Watch documents India’s systematic failure to respect, protect and ensure the fundamental rights of its dalit population

March 12, 2007: A new report by the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice and Human Rights Watch documents India’s systematic failure to respect, protect and ensure the fundamental rights of its dalit population.

More than 165 million people remain vulnerable to discrimination, exploitation and violence, says ‘Hidden Apartheid: Caste Discrimination against India’s ‘Untouchables’ because India has failed in its obligation to pursue, by all appropriate means, a policy of eliminating caste discrimination and ensuring that all public authorities and institutions do not engage in caste-based discrimination.

Using documents and data from India’s own governmental and non-governmental agencies, the National Human Rights Commission, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and media sources, the report, published inFebruary by the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) and Human Rights Watch (HRW), documents India’s systematic failure to respect, protect and ensure the fundamental human rights of dalits.

CHRGJ-HRW’s ‘shadow report’ is a response to India’s recent submission of a report to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), which monitors implementation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), to which India is a party.

As party to the convention, India has an obligation to prohibit and bring to an end caste-based discrimination. Article 1 of the convention guarantees rights of non-discrimination on the basis of “race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin”. In 1996, the committee concluded that the plight of dalits falls under the prohibition of descent-based discrimination.

India’s report to the committee was more than eight years overdue. Although it covers over a decade of India’s compliance with the convention (from 1996 to 2006), it does not even mention dalit abuse -- something that India’s own governmental agencies have documented and verified.

‘Hidden Apartheid’ fills this gap, presenting committee members with information that is essential to a fair assessment of India’s record and, ultimately, to encouraging the government to live up to its domestic and international human rights obligations.

The report states that India has consistently cited its numerous legislations and policies as a measure of compliance with its obligations to end caste-based discrimination, choosing to ignore its failure to implement them, which has resulted in continued, and sometimes enhanced, brutality against dalits.

The report focuses on the practice of ‘untouchability’ -- the imposition of social disabilities on persons by reason of their birth in certain castes -- which relegates a vast majority of India’s 165 million dalits (scheduled castes), to a lifetime of discrimination, exploitation and violence, including severe forms of torture perpetrated by State and private actors. All these acts are in violation of the rights guaranteed by the ICERD.

Entrenched discrimination violates dalits’ rights to education, health, housing, property, freedom of religion, free choice of employment and equal treatment before the law. The report says that dalits also suffer routine violations of their right to life and security of person through State-sponsored or sanctioned acts of violence, including torture. Based on in-depth investigations by CHRGJ, Human Rights Watch, Indian non-governmental organisations, reports by Indian governmental agencies, including the National Human Rights Commission, the National Commission on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and media sources, the report documents the pervasiveness of abuse against dalits.

Dalits suffer routine violations of their right to life, security of person and protection of the State, through State-sponsored or sanctioned violence

Caste-motivated killings, rape and other abuses are a daily occurrence in India, says the report. Between 2001 and 2002, close to 58,000 cases were registered under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act -- legislation that criminalises particularly heinous forms of abuse against dalits and tribals.

A 2005 government report states that a crime is committed against a dalit every 20 minutes. Though staggering, this figure represents only a fraction of actual incidents since many dalits do not register cases for fear of retaliation by the police and upper-caste individuals.

In the rare instance that a case does reach the courts, the most likely outcome is acquittal. Official data reveals that between 1999 and 2001 as many as 89% of trials involving offences against dalits resulted in acquittals.

Sadly, the report notes, both State and non-State actors commit crimes against dalits with impunity. The report cites the National Human Rights Commission’s (NHRC’s) observation that the law-enforcement machinery is the greatest violator of dalits’ human rights. According to the NHRC, India’s apex national institution to protect human rights and redress grievances, police responsibility for the widespread torture of dalits in custody, rape of dalit women, and the looting of dalit property “are condoned, or at best ignored”.

Dalits, jurists and human rights groups claim that lack of political will and immunity laws that shield those responsible for human rights abuses from prosecution allow torture and other forms of custodial abuse to continue unchecked. Under a theory of collective punishment, the police often target entire dalit communities in search of select individuals. Dalit women are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence by the police.

The open dissemination of propaganda targeting both dalits and religious minorities by Hindu nationalist groups -- whose members incite and engage in widespread violence -- calls into question India’s commitment to fulfilling its Article 4 obligations to condemn the promotion of hatred and discrimination in any form.

Innocuous treatment of the caste system in school textbooks and curricula, along with insufficient media attention towards dalit issues all suggest that the Indian government is failing to take effective measures to counter caste prejudice, in contravention of Article 7 of the convention.

Exploitation of labour at the heart of the caste system

Dalits comprise the majority of agricultural, bonded and child labourers in India, says ‘Hidden Apartheid’, many surviving on less than US$ 1 a day, that is, by the UN and World Bank’s definition, in extreme poverty.

Dalits are forced -- through centuries-old tradition enforced by the hierarchical division of labour in the Hindu caste system -- to perform tasks deemed too “polluting” or “degrading” for non-dalits to carry out. According to unofficial estimates, more than 1.3 million dalits -- mostly women -- are employed as manual scavengers to carry away human waste from dry pit latrines. In several cities, dalits are lowered into manholes, without any protective gear, to clear sewage drains, resulting in more than 100 deaths each year from inhalation of toxic gases or from drowning in excrement.

Under Article 2 of the ICERD, India is bound to ensure the development and protection of particularly marginalised groups. India grants dalits certain privileges, including ‘reservations’ (quotas) in education, government jobs and political posts. However, the report notes, like many of the protective measures adopted, the reservation policy has not been faithfully implemented.

Caste-based occupational distribution is often reinforced in government employment quotas, with dalits assigned primarily to the post of sweeper. Reservations in higher education continue to be met with a great deal of resistance, leading to under-enforcement. Additionally, there has been widespread public opposition to reservations for dalits in local government bodies, often leading to acts of violence against dalit candidates.

According to government estimates, in 2000, the unemployment rate for dalits and tribal groups was double that of non-dalits/tribals. Public sector divestment is estimated to have left 200,000 dalit employees jobless. Dalits continue to be significantly underrepresented in most professional strata.

Dalit representation in India’s high-technology industries and service sectors is dismal. The National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has stated that the private sector, which continues to enjoy government patronage, should also be brought under the purview of the reservation policy.

Dalit women face structural discrimination

‘Hidden Apartheid’ also records the plight of dalit women and the multiple forms of discrimination they face. In January 2007, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women concluded that dalit women in India suffer from “deeply-rooted structural discrimination”.

Even as compared to dalit men, dalit women do not have equal access to employment opportunities or justice mechanisms. They must contend with threats to their personal security, including trafficking and sexual violence. “The dalit woman faces triple discrimination because she is an untouchable, of a poor class and is a woman,” the report quotes the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NACDOR) as saying.

Untouchability is very much alive

Residential segregation of dalits is prevalent across the country, in violation of India’s obligations under Article 3 of the ICERD. Segregation is also seen in schools, in access to public services, and in access to services operated by the private sector. In his 1999 annual report, the UN special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance found “untouchability” to be “very much alive” in rural areas.

A recently published survey investigating the extent of ‘untouchability’ in 565 villages in 11 Indian states found that the practice continues to profoundly affect the lives and psyches of millions of dalits. ‘Untouchability’ practices were documented in almost 80% of the villages surveyed.

Dalits are denied equal access to public places such as police stations, government ration shops, post offices, schools, water facilities and village council offices. More than 20% of dalits do not have access to safe drinking water. Only 10% of dalit households have access to sanitation (as compared to 27% for non-dalit households), and the vast majority of dalits depend on the ‘goodwill’ of upper-caste community members for access to water from public wells. Dalits are also excluded from, or receive discriminatory treatment at private businesses such as food stalls, barber shops and cinemas.

Strict prohibitions on marriage and other social interaction between dalits and non-dalits violate the rights of dalits to marry and choose their spouses. Inter-caste marriages are frequently extra-judicially punished by acts of public lynching, murder, rape, beatings and other sanctions against the couple and their relatives. In one of the worst examples of this, on August 6, 2001, in Uttar Pradesh, an upper-caste boy and a lower-caste girl were publicly hanged by members of their own families for refusing to end an inter-caste relationship.

Dalits are routinely and frequently denied entry into places of worship. Some dalits have responded to ill-treatment by upper-caste Hindus by converting en masse to Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. However, the loss of constitutional privileges upon conversion (to Christianity or Islam) is a serious impediment to dalits’ freedom to choose their religion. In recent times, the introduction of anti-conversion legislation in several states has made religious conversion extremely difficult, if not impossible. Tragically, even conversion does not guarantee escape since ‘untouchability’ is practised across all faiths in India.

Dalits are also systematically denied the right to own property. Landlessness -- encompassing lack of access to land, inability to own land, and forced evictions -- constitutes a crucial element in the subordination of dalits, says the report. Land reform legislation is neither implemented nor properly enforced. When dalits do manage to acquire land, access to it is often denied. In 2004, the dalits of Kalapatti village, Tamil Nadu, were forced to flee after an attack in which upper-caste neighbours burned and destroyed over 100 dalit homes.

Right to education free from discrimination is not secured for dalit children

Dalit children face consistent hurdles in their access to education. Ninety-nine per cent of dalit students are enrolled in government schools that lack basic infrastructure, classrooms, teachers and teaching aids. They are made to sit in the back of the classroom and endure verbal and physical harassment by teachers and students. According to the UN special rapporteur on the right to education, teachers have been known to declare that dalit pupils “cannot learn unless they are beaten”. The effect of such abuse is borne out by the low literacy and high dropout rates for dalits.

Upper-caste hostility toward dalits’ education is linked to the perception that dalits are either incapable of being educated, or, if educated, will pose a threat to village hierarchies and power relations, says the report.

Dalits who defy the caste order or claim their rights face swift, brutal retribution

Attempts by members of the dalit community to demand their rights, or to lay claim to land that is legally theirs are consistently met with economic boycotts or retaliatory violence. For example, in Punjab, on January 5, 2006, dalit labourer and activist Bant Singh, seeking prosecution of the people who gang raped his daughter, was beaten so severely that both his arms and one leg had to be amputated.

In an incident that enraged dalits all over India and shocked people across the country after it belatedly made national headlines on September 26, 2006, in Khairlanji village, Maharashtra, a dalit family was killed by an upper-caste mob, after the mother and daughter were stripped, beaten and paraded through the village and the two brothers brutally beaten. They were attacked because they refused to let upper-caste farmers take away their land. After widespread protests at the police’s failure to arrest the perpetrators, some of those accused in the killing were finally arrested and the policemen and medical officers who had failed to do their job were suspended from duty.

On February 1, 2007, the European Parliament found India’s efforts to enforce laws protecting dalits to be “grossly inadequate,” adding that “atrocities, untouchability, illiteracy, [and] inequality of opportunity continue to blight the lives of India’s dalits”.

“International scrutiny is growing and with it the condemnation of abuses resulting from the caste system and the government’s failure to protect dalits,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “India needs to mobilise the entire government and make good on its paper commitments to end caste abuses. Otherwise it risks pariah status for its home-grown brand of apartheid.”

“International outrage over the treatment of dalits is matched by growing national discontent,” says Professor Smita Narula, faculty director of CHRGJ at the New York University School of Law, and co-author of the report. “India can’t ignore the voices of 165 million citizens.”

Indeed, ‘Hidden Apartheid’s’ scathing indictment echoes a statement made months earlier by India’s prime minister. On December 27, 2006, Dr Manmohan Singh became the first serving Indian prime minister to openly acknowledge the parallel between the practice of ‘untouchability’ and the crime of apartheid.

Links to the full report can be found on the website of HRW and CHRGJ. On CHRGJ's website you can also find links to audio commentaries in Hindi and English by Prof. Smita Narula, the co-author of the report.