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

Vol. 26, No. 2 Equal by Law, Unequal by Caste 327reservations protests in India are a microcosm of the global trend to cooptthe language of equality for wholly unequal ends.V. CASTE VS. HUMAN RIGHTS:COMPETING THEORIES OF EQUALITYOn November 25, 1949, in an address to members of theConstituent Assembly, Dr. Ambedkar declared:We must make our political democracy a social democracy as well.Political democracy cannot last unless there lies at the base of itsocial democracy. What does social democracy mean? It means away of life which recognizes liberty, equality, and fraternity as theprinciples of life . . . . On the 26 th of January 1950, we are going toenter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equalityand in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics,we will be recognizing the principle of one man–one vote and onevote–one value. In our social and economic life, we shall by reasonof our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principleof one man-one value. 395The Constitution of India—now in 22 parts, with 395 articles and 12schedules—embraces an aggressive state role in ensuring both formaland substantive equality (equality of result) in India. Even with its morethan 117,000 words, and the volumes of laws to which it has given birth,it has yet to yield its promised result for Dalits. As noted above, themere presence of laws and constitutionally mandated affirmative actionprograms has served to mask widespread, egregious, and often violentforms of de facto discrimination. In 1943, Ambedkar commented that,The idea of making a gift of fundamental rights to every individual isno doubt very laudable. The question is how to make them effective?The prevalent view is that once rights are enacted in a law then theyare safeguarded. This again is an unwarranted assumption. Asexperience proves, rights are protected not by laws, but by the socialand moral conscience of society. 396The drafting of the Indian Constitution in 1947 and 1948 also coincidedwith the promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights(“UDHR”) in 1948 and as such emulates the UDHR in a number of395 Debate From the Constituent Assembly of India, Nov. 25, 1949, available athttp://parliamentofindia.nic.in/ls/ debates/vol11p11.htm.396 B.R. Ambedkar, Speech Delivered on Jan. 18, 1943, in DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR: WRITINGAND SPEECHES, VOL. 1 222 (1979).