Caste Discrimination against India's âUntouchablesâ - Human Rights ...

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at graduate, post-graduate and professional/research/PhD levels is “abysmally low,” at 8.73 percent, 8 percent, and 2.77 percent respectively. 421 Discrimination in schools and the resulting drop-out rates for Dalit children are intimately linked to child labor. 422 A social worker in Karnataka told Human Rights Watch: “A child will say to his or her parents, ‘The teacher told me not to come tomorrow, that I am no good for studying.’ Instead of asking why the teacher has said this, the parents will send the child to work.” 423 c. Low literacy rates for Dalits Low literacy rates for the Dalit population are a clear indication of the ways in which the school system fails Dalit children. The 2001 population census shows that the literacy rate among Dalits is 54.70 percent compared to 68.81 percent among others. 424 Illiteracy in turn results in a lack of gainful employment options for Dalits. 425 d. Labor patterns (migratory and child labor) affect Dalits’ access to education Migratory labor serves as a hindrance to education in that it prevents Dalit children from being able to continuously attend school and, ultimately, from being able to advance with their class (once students miss 18 days, they are no longer allowed to advance in the same grade). 426 Dalit parents generally take their children with them while searching for labor, and older boys and girls are expected to either work alongside their parents or stay at home to care for younger siblings. 427 Though the attendant problems of migratory work are visited on non-Dalit agricultural workers as well, they are especially pervasive among Dalits, who are 421 Ibid. 422 Joy Maliekal, director of the Rural Literacy and Health Programme and national convenor of the Campaign against Child Labour told Human Rights Watch: “It is important to make the link between child labor and discrimination in school. In our experience, Dalit children are made to sit in the back and are asked to do work [i.e. chores rather than schoolwork].” Human Rights Watch, Small Change, p. 44. 423 Ibid. 424 Dalits and Primary Education, p. 3. 425 Ibid., p. 14. 426 “Economic, Social and Cultural Rights for Dalits in India: Case Study on Primary Education in Gujarat,” Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, p. 19. 427 Ibid. 97
overwhelmingly landless and engaged in agricultural work, and thus uniquely susceptible to forces that push them into migrant labor 428 (see Section VIII(D)(1)(a)). e. Discrimination in Higher Education Caste bias erodes Dalit students’ right to education even in institutions of higher education. In September 2006 allegations of caste-based discrimination and intimidations surfaced at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences, India’s premier medical institute. In written complaints submitted to the director of the Institute, two first-year Dalit students complained of casteist remarks and various forms of harassment and intimidation from senior upper-caste students. 429 The complaints were accompanied by a memorandum signed by 40 students, recounting similar incidents of harassment and intimidation. 430 Similarly, Dalit doctors at the Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital have written about a “biased attitude towards reserved category junior residents.” 431 The incidents of caste-based discrimination in institutions of higher learning are illustrative of the depth and breadth of anti-Dalit sentiment in education, and show that such biases transcend the rural/urban divide and affect the entirety of the education system, from elementary schools to universities. f. Discrimination against Dalit teachers Like Dalit students, Dalit teachers also face rampant discrimination; they too are segregated for purposes of food and water consumption. 432 Discrimination against Dalit teachers has at 428 Ibid. 429 In the complaint, one of the students recounts the nature of the harassment he suffered at AIIMS: I have been subjected to mental and physical torture from my very first day in this institute...I was abused on my caste and...in the last few days my room had been locked from outside because of which I was unable to attend classes. Abantika Ghosh, “Dalit students ‘abused’ at AIIMS,” The Times of India, September 12, 2006. 430 Ibid. 431 As a member of Medicos Forum for Equal Opportunities said: Students and doctors of the reserved category are now being forced to stay in isolated groups and are increasingly feeling unsafe in an environment where there is discrimination and a failure of the local administration and the Health Ministry to redress specific instances of caste discrimination. Bindu Shaja Perappadan, “Reserved Category Medicos Facing Discrimination,” September 19, 2006, http://www.hindu.com/2006/09/16/stories/2006091616430400.htm (accessed February 7, 2007). 432 “Economic, Social and Cultural Rights for Dalits in India: Case Study on Primary Education in Gujarat,” Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, p. 17. In the village of Kumbhana in Gujarat, for instance, a Dalit teacher named Jignasha was told by the 98
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Hidden Apartheid was produced as a
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VII. Article 4: Eradicate propagand
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I. Summary List of the Critical Iss
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Article 2 India’s failure to ensu
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The NHRC has recommended that the g
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propaganda of the Sangh Parivar, wh
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The right to freedom of opinion and
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impediment to Dalits’ freedom to
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to education noted in his report be
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Article 7 There is a severe lack of
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Human Rights Watch An independent,
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The Committee itself has recognized
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IV. Response to India’s denial of
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to suffer disproportionately from m
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V. Article 2: States Parties’ obl
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interrogation of Dalits. Jurists, h
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Section 107 in excess of the maximu
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Bihar and Tamil Nadu conducted by H
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Atrocities Act, 1989. 83 Similarly,
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2. Refrain from supporting private
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4. Encourage integrationist movemen
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that these groups were poorly repre
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4. Inadequate development and prote
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implemented. 130 The societal perce
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Page 53 and 54: A. Duty to ensure the right to equa
Page 55 and 56: In fact, as statistics from the Nat
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Page 61 and 62: Box 3: Offenses under the Preventio
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Page 67 and 68: C. Ensure Dalits’ political right
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Page 71 and 72: Box 6: Instances of Forced Displace
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Page 79 and 80: difficult if not impossible. Finall
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Page 83 and 84: The Ramabai Killings The Ramabai ki
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Page 87 and 88: castes, 326 with the result that mo
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Page 91 and 92: c. Forced Migratory Labor The susce
Page 93 and 94: also fail to adequately address chi
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Page 115 and 116: Acknowledgements Center for Human R
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