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

6. Ensure Dalits’ right to freedom of opinion and expression
Article 5 (d) (viii): The right to freedom of opinion and expression.
Dalits’ right to freedom of opinion and expression is compromised by police abuse of Dalit
activists (see Section V(A)(1)(a)(ii)), retaliatory attacks by private actors that are carried out
with impunity (see Section VIII(B)), and social and economic boycotts against Dalits (see
Section VIII(E)). These actions often result when Dalits refuse to carry out caste-based tasks
or seek to defy the social order; they frequently entail punishment of entire communities. 296
As the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes surmises:
“Whenever Dalits have tried to organize themselves or assert their rights, there has been a
backlash from the feudal lords resulting in mass killings of Dalits, gang rapes, looting and
arsoning” of Dalit villages. 297
7. Ensure Dalits the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association
Article 5 (d) (ix): The right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
Though the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association is enshrined in Article 19
of the Indian Constitution, Dalit protests are often met with police violence or arbitrary
arrest and detention. Dalit activists have been detained and charged under draconian
national security and anti-terrorism laws (see Section V(A)(1)(a)(ii)). In addition, police have
made use of the Sedition Act, embodied under Indian Penal Code Section 124A, to prohibit
peaceful meetings and protests. 298 A number of such protests emerge in response to the
desecration of statues of prominent Dalit Dr. B.R. Ambedkar by upper-caste community
296
Human Rights Watch, Caste Discrimination: A Global Concern, p. 20. A June 1997 fact-finding mission by the People’s Union for Civil
Liberties, India’s largest civil rights organization, found that in caste clashes in Madurai district, Tamil Nadu, “Dalits were the worst
affected in terms of property loss and physical injuries sustained... due to violent attacks on them” and that it was their “increased
political consciousness...regarding their fundamental social, political and economic rights expressed in terms of demands for social
equality [and] equitable distribution of resources” that played a major role in the attacks against them. Human Rights Watch, Broken
People, p. 85 (citing People’s Union for Civil Liberties, “Final Report of the PUCL-Tamil Nadu Team that Inquired Into Caste Disturbances
in Southern Districts of Tamil Nadu,” (Madras: PUCL, 1997)).
297
Human Rights Watch, Broken People, p. 29 (citing National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, Highlights of the
Report of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for the Years 1994-95 & 1995-96 (New Delhi, Government
of India, 1997), p. 2).
298
Ibid., p. 161.
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