equal by law, unequal by caste - International Dalit Solidarity Network

More documents

Recommendations

Info

274 Wisconsin International Law Journalhas no escape from untouchability.” 87 Every village has its ghetto, andthe ghetto is where the Dalits live.“Untouchability” relegates Dalits to a lifetime of discrimination,exploitation, and violence, including severe forms of torture perpetratedby state and private actors. 88 Because of the castes into which they areborn, Dalits are forced to work in “polluting” and degrading occupationsand are subject to exploitative labor arrangements such as bonded labor,migratory labor, and forced prostitution. Dalit children are vulnerable totrafficking and the worst forms of child labor in these and other areas.Dalits are also discriminated against in hiring and in the payment ofwages by private employers. 89Migration and the anonymity of the urban environment have insome cases resulted in upward occupational mobility for Dalits, but themajority continues to perform its traditional or “polluting” functions. Alack of training and education, along with the discrimination faced inseeking other forms of employment, has kept alive these traditions andtheir hereditary nature. A majority of the Dalit rural workforce subsistson the menial wages of landless agricultural laborers, earning less thanUS$1 per day. 90 Those in urban areas work mostly in the unorganizedsector. India’s much touted system of reservations or constitutionallyreserved quotas for scheduled castes assists less than 1 percent of theDalit population. In all forms of labor, women are consistently paid lessthan men, compounding the dual discrimination of caste and genderdetailed below. 91Segregation between Dalits and non-Dalits is routinely practicedin housing, schools, and access to public and private sector services.Ninety-nine percent of Dalit students are enrolled in government schoolsthat lack basic infrastructure, classrooms, teachers, and teaching aids. 92Government schools by and large teach in local languages, as opposed toprivate schools—whose students are predominantly “upper-caste”—thatteach in English. 93 Their inability to speak English further disadvantages87888990919293AMBEDKAR THOUGHT, supra note 19, at 34.HIDDEN APARTHEID, supra note 5, at 30-32.Id. at 82.BROKEN PEOPLE, supra note 21, at 2.See generally Sukhadeo Thorat et al., Human Poverty and Socially Disadvantaged Groups inIndia, (Human Development Resource Center/United Nations Development Program, IndiaOffice, New Delhi, Jan. 2007).HIDDEN APARTHEID, supra note 5, at 13.Emily Wax, India’s Lower Castes Seek Social Progress in Global Job Market, WASH. POST,Aug. 20, 2007, at A01.
Vol. 26, No. 2 Equal by Law, Unequal by Caste 275Dalits in the private sector and the global market. 94 Dalit children alsoface abuse from teachers and non-Dalit students as well as segregationboth in the classroom and in the provision of mid-day meals. Dalitschoolchildren and teachers also face discrimination from “upper-caste”community members who perceive education for and by Dalits as both awaste and a threat. Their hostility toward Dalits’ education is linked tothe perception that Dalits are not meant to be educated, are incapable ofbeing educated, or if educated, would pose a threat to village hierarchiesand power relations. 95Indian economist Sukhadeo Thorat analyzes data generated byprimary surveys conducted in four regions of India as well as datagenerated by the National Commission for Scheduled Castes andScheduled Tribes’ all-India annual reports. 96 He argues that the regionaldata generated by the primary surveys is important because itunderscores severe caste-based abuses that may not have been reportedto the local authorities and have been left undocumented. 97 The studieshighlight persistent patterns such as: denial of Dalits’ access to water;refusal of essential and/or public services to Dalits, or provision of suchservices in a discriminatory fashion; physical violence against Dalits; andDalit political disenfranchisement. 98 Thorat concludes that “upper-caste”social behavior in rural India is governed by the norms and codes of thetraditional caste system. 99 Consequently, Dalits are separated from othercommunities, denied freedom of movement, and otherwise ostracizedfrom shared social activities. 100The practice of economic exclusion and discrimination is alsoevident in the differential pricing for Dalits in the sale and purchase ofitems ranging from raw materials to finished goods, and in Dalits beingdenied the ability to purchase land for both agricultural and non-94Id.95HIDDEN APARTHEID, supra note 5, at 13.96Sukhadeo Thorat, Oppression and Denial: Dalit Discrimination in the 1990s, 37 ECON. & POL.WKLY. 573-74 (2002). The non-governmental surveys were conducted in Karnataka (1973-74and 1991), Andhra Pradesh (1977), Orissa (1987-88) and Gujarat (1971 and 1996).97Id. at 574.98Id. at 578.99Id..100 Id. Another study relies on comparable poverty estimates drawn from two different cycles of theConsumer Expenditure Surveys conducted by the National Sample Survey Organization. Theauthors found that the social groups which were most vulnerable to poverty were Dalit and tribalhouseholds in both urban and rural areas, and that the most vulnerable economic groups wereagricultural labor households (rural) and casual labor households (urban). K. Sundaram &Suresh D. Tendulkar, Poverty Among Social and Economic Groups in India in 1990s, 38 ECON.& POL. WKLY. 5263 (2003).
Page 1 and 2: EQUAL BY LAW, UNEQUAL BY CASTE: THE
Page 3 and 4: Vol. 26, No. 2 Equal by Law, Unequa
Page 19: Vol. 26, No. 2 Equal by Law, Unequa
Page 55: Vol. 26, No. 2 Equal by Law, Unequa
Page 58 and 59: 312 Wisconsin International Law Jou
Page 70 and 71:
324 Wisconsin International Law Jou
Page 72 and 73:
Page 74 and 75:
Page 76 and 77:
Page 78 and 79:
Page 80 and 81:
Page 82 and 83:
Page 84 and 85:
Page 86 and 87:
Page 88 and 89:
show all

equal by law, unequal by caste - International Dalit Solidarity Network

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?