The UK Government’s action on tackling caste discrimination in India was the topic of a debate on the 26th November in the UK House of Lords. Many Lords spoke out passionately against caste-based discrimination and asked that the UK Government in its relations with India take-up fighting caste-based discrimination.
Thirty-one parliamentarians from India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh gathered for a meeting of the Asian Parliamentarians’ Forum on Dalit Concerns in Kathmandu, at the fringes of the 2014 SAARC meeting. The former Prime Minister of Nepal, Baburam Bhatttarai, delivered a remarkable keynote speech, calling for an international framework and a regional thematic approach to eliminate caste discrimination, and cooperation between South Asian parliamentarians for a common agenda.
Report findings recently released from the India Human Development Survey, the India Exclusion Report and the Nepal Multidimensional Social Inclusion Index, document that caste discrimination is very far from being history. In almost all aspects of every-day life statistics indicate that caste discrimination is deep-rooted and widespread.
A new report following up on modern slavery in Indian spinning mills, finds that despite initiatives launched to end conditions of forced labour, the situation remains alarming. Efforts of clothing brands and retailers to end this, lack scale and conviction. Due to their marginalised status and lack of alternative opportunities, the majority of girls working in these factories are Dalits.
At the UN General Assembly meeting on the 28th October, The UN Special Rapporteur on the exercise of the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Maina Kiai, criticised India for arbitrarily blocking the International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN) from obtaining UN consultative status calling it “clearly unacceptable, wrong and unfair.”
Convened by the United Nations Development Programme, six UN agencies in India including IFAD, ILO, UNFPA, UNICEF and UN Women are working together to help accelerate inclusion of Dalit and Adivasi issues and access to rights in national and state policy and planning processes.
October was a month of headlines on India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, asking the nation to rise above caste divides and telling every Indian to pick up a broom and sweep the streets. Modi’s drive to make India clean and to end the practice that one caste group is tasked with cleaning up after all the others, sounds promising. It remains to be seen, however, whether there will be true reform and political will to end caste discrimination, behind the hype.
Caste discrimination is a key factor behind child labour in India, home to the highest number of child labourers in the world. This is the message coming from experts on child labour. The Nobel Peace Prize winner, Kailash Satyarthi, also explains how witnessing caste discrimination as a child spurred on his engagement with fighting for the rights of the most marginalised.
A 28 year old Dalit human rights defender, Mr. Poovarasan, was abducted from his house by five police officers in Tamil Nadu, and brutally tortured and abused using derogatory caste names. Following the abuse, the police filed false charges against him. Unable to walk, the victim was taken to court in an ambulance, and the Police inspector forced the ambulance with Mr. Poovarasan in it to drive off the court premises, while he threatened Mr. Poovarasan to remain silent about the assault. An urgent appeal has been launched to ensure proper medical treatment for the victim and consequences for the involved police officers.
In two separate speeches India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, and President, Shri Pranab Mukherjee, have stressed the urgent need to end casteism and communal violence splitting the Nation and hampering India’s developement.
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