Caste Discrimination against India's “Untouchables” - Human Rights ...

The Committee itself has recognized that India is in breach of its international human rights
obligations in its failure to bring an end to caste discrimination. In its Concluding
Observations to India’s tenth to fourteenth periodic reports, 6 the Committee asserted that:
although constitutional provisions and legal texts exist to abolish
untouchability and to protect the members of the scheduled castes and tribes,
and although social and educational policies have been adopted to improve
the situation of members of scheduled castes and tribes and to protect them
from abuses, widespread discrimination against them and the relative
impunity of those who abuse them point to the limited effect of these
measures. 7
While tribal peoples in India, adivasis, face similar forms of discrimination, this report limits
itself to caste-based discrimination based against Dalits or so-called untouchables.
Sources Used in this Report
This report draws on extensive investigations on the issue of caste discrimination
conducted by Human Rights Watch in India; on information made publicly available by the
Government of India through inter alia, a 2004 report by the NHRC on the “Prevention of
Atrocities Against Scheduled Castes;” 8 reports by the National Commission on Scheduled
Tribes and Schedules Castes, the National Commission on Women, and the Annual Reports
to the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, 9 and the Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989; 10 and
on Indian media and NGO reports, among other sources. 11 Where relevant the report also
6
Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, “Consideration of Reports Submitted by State parties under Article 9 of the
Convention, Fourteenth Periodic Report of State parties due in 1996, India,” CERD/C/299/Add.3, April 26, 1996,
http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/(Symbol)/a035833a480e4514802565530037bf7e?Opendocument (accessed February 7, 2007).
7
Report of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Fifty-first session, A/51/18, 1996,
http://www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/898586b1dc7b4043c1256a450044f331/76ebd2611b2261d2c12563e90058d7d7/$FILE/N9625738.pd
f (accessed February 7, 2007), para. 361.
8
National Human Rights Commission, “Report on Prevention of Atrocities against Scheduled Castes,” 2004, [hereinafter “NHRC Report”].
9
Annual Report on The Protection Of Civil Rights Act, 1955 For The Year 2002 (Twenty Second Report) Government Of India, Ministry Of
Social Justice And Empowerment, New Delhi, http://socialjustice.nic.in/schedule/ar-pcr.pdf (accessed February 7, 2007).
10
Annual Report on The Scheduled Castes And The Scheduled Tribes (Prevention Of Atrocities) Act, 1989 For The Year 2002 (Nineteenth
Report) Government Of India, Ministry Of Social Justice And Empowerment, New Delhi, http://socialjustice.nic.in/schedule/ar-poa.pdf
(accessed February 7, 2007).
11
This report also relies on sources provided by the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR), a network of Indian NGOs that
has worked on caste discrimination issues for the past eight years. The report draws in particular from the case papers submitted in the
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