In a statement on World NGO Day the EU reiterates its commitment to protecting space for civil society and human rights defenders. This is particularly relevant in relation to organisations and defenders working to fight caste discrimination as they are increasingly facing threats and sanctions.
Lenin Raghuvanshi receives the M.A. Thomas National Human Rights Award 2016 for his work with the marginalised community, particularly the Dalits and adivasis (tribal people) in Varanasi.
In the latest of a series of blocks on foreign funding to human rights NGOs, the Indian Government has revoked the foreign funding (FCRA) license from Dalit rights NGO Navsarjan Trust. The revocation of the license means that Navsarjan can no longer receive funding from foreign donors and the organisation has had to ask its 80 staff to resign.
Women being beaten, raped, stripped naked and paraded through their villages and a rape case as barbaric as the 2012 Nirbhaya case. These and a whole host of other atrocities were what the women marching for self-respect, and to end violence against Dalit and Adivasi women in the state of Odisha, India, came across on their path to justice.
The Dalit-American transmedia artist Thenmozhi Soundararajan turns a critical lens on the intersection of caste discrimination and sexual violence in India. By Amanda Holpuch.
NACDOR activists Lathi charged by police
Since elections in May, the government has moved to dismantle procedures for citizens to voice opposition to mining and industrial operations. Fortunately, the judiciary has been willing to stand firm against such attempts to ride roughshod over the right to raise environmental and human rights issues. In an address on April 5 to judges of the Supreme Court and chief justices of high courts, Mr. Modi accused judges of fearing negative reactions from “five-star activists,” should they rule against them. The chief justice of India, H.L. Dattu, told The Times of India: “Judges today are as fearless as they ever were.”
“Since December 2014 and even earlier, there have been assaults on the freedom of expression — a constitutional guarantee — of writers and singers like me,” said Sarath Naliganti, a young Dalit political activist, who also sang during Horata. “But the Indian government is hardly curbing the rising frequency of such unacceptable actions.”
By Sally Hayden. "There is no future for us here," Ratan Basfur says angrily. Basfur is an "untouchable," a member of one of Bangladesh's lowest castes, and his surname cements it. The Basfurs are part of the "sweeper class" that live in Horijon Polli, a densely packed slum in Mymensingh District that contains 1,200 households, with an average of five inhabitants in each. unni Basfur works three cleaning jobs. She wakes at 4am to clean the street, employed casually by the city government. Then she moves on to a pharmaceutical company to do a two-hour cleaning shift, and does another half an hour's work in a store. She spoke about one of the biggest concerns of the sweeper class — the fact that they've condemned their offspring to a life in the lowest caste. There have even been reports of untouchables sending their children away and encouraging them to change their names, in the hopes that the next generation can escape the stigma that has plagued their parents.
By Harsh Mander. - Taking India’s issues to foreign forums, using foreign funds, is criticised as washing India’s dirty linen in public. For example, fighting India’s caste-discrimination within India was an old and respectable strand of social and political activism. But the moment some anti-caste activists took the issue to global forums such as the UN conference on discrimination in Durban in 2001, equating practices of caste untouchability with racism, this was considered both illegitimate and unpatriotic.
In April two Dalit women received prestigious awards for their work defending the rights of Dalits in India. Manjula Pradeep, Director of the large Gujarat based NGO Navsarjan Trust, received the Femina Women 2015 Social Impact Award and Beena J. Pallical of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights received the Dr. Ambedkar Award 2015.
Dalit leader Paul Divakar and 29 other activists were arrested following a peaceful gathering of over 500 students gathered in front of the Indian parliament to protests severe cuts to budgets allocated to Dalit and Adivasi (Tribals) welfare and upholding of their rights. The arrests underscore a deeply concerning trend for Government stifling of voices of dissent in India.
The Annual Action Plan 2015 for the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) has integrated the rights of persons affected by caste based discrimination as a cross-cutting concern. It makes specific mention of persons affected by caste discrimination in action documents on support to civil society, in its actions to support protection and promotion of human rights, human rights defenders, universities for human rights and democracy postgraduate education and in supporting key international actors – the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
The International Service on Human Rights (ISHR) has released a new handbook on NGO access to the UN and the UN Committee on NGOs. The case of IDSN, whose application for UN consultative (ECOSOC) status has been unjustly deferred by the Committee for 7 years, is featured prominently in the book. An event to launch the book was held in Geneva where the IDSN Executive Director spoke on a panel alongside the ISHR and the Vice-President of the Human rights council.
As aid agencies and NGOs fight to deliver aid and help victims of the devastating earthquake in Nepal, IDSN wish to draw attention to the importance of considering caste discrimination in relation to aid delivery in Nepal.
Indian authorities should end politically motivated intimidation and harassment of human rights activists who have been pursuing justice for victims of the 2002 anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat state. While all nongovernmental organizations should fully adhere to financial regulations, police in Gujarat state appear to be acting to undermine the human rights work of the activists Teesta Setalvad and her husband, Javed Anand.
INDIA: Release Human Rights Defenders Thushar and Jaison