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

2. Ensure Dalits’ right to leave any country, including one’s own, and to return to
one’s country
Article 5 (d) (ii): The right to leave any country, including one’s own, and to
return to one’s country.
Dalits’ right to leave India, while formally granted, is not substantively guaranteed, due to
Dalits’ difficulty in acquiring relevant documents (such as birth certificates) and other proof
necessary to get a passport. 250
Dalits can suffer reprisal attacks against the families of those who are able to travel for
employment abroad and send remittances back home. Caste-based prejudice has led to
attacks against Dalits who become economically better off because of such remittances.
Many Dalits in the village of Kodiyangulam, Tamil Nadu, for example, have been sending
family members to work in Gulf states in an attempt to rise above their economic
oppression at home. But according to the London paper The Guardian, on August 31, 2005,
the Dalit villagers were assaulted by hundreds of rampaging policemen, who poisoned their
well and destroyed the possessions accumulated over a lifetime of hard work. 251 In a similar
episode in Tamil Nadu in 1999, Dalits returning with money from jobs in the Gulf states and
elsewhere found themselves attacked by landlords and police when they tried to buy land
for their families. 252
3. Ensure Dalits’ right to marriage and choice of spouse
Article 5 (d) (iv): The right to marriage and choice of spouse.
Rigid social norms of purity and pollution are socially enforced through strict prohibitions
on marriage or other social interaction between castes, in violation of Dalits’ right to marry
and choose their spouse. These prohibitions on inter-marriage are a hallmark feature of the
250
Dalits in Pondicherry, for instance, were unable to gain employment through the reservations policies aimed at their rehabilitation
because they were not able to produce birth certificates relating to the pre-1964 period. “Bhim Sena Seeks Rehabilitation of Displaced
Dalit Workers,” The Hindu, June 26, 2003.
251
“Raid Hits 'Uppity Untouchables,'” Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian (London), October 19, 1995.
252
“Brutality used to keep India’s underclass down,” Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian (London), April 13, 1999.
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