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

332 Wisconsin International Law JournalWhatever the limitations, reservations have helped create a Dalitmiddle class. But the creation of a Dalit middle class has not created arevolution, nor does upward class mobility work to eliminate the stigmaattached to one’s “untouchable” status. Dalit journalist ChandrabanPrasad—perhaps the only nationally prominent Dalit journalist 412 —poignantly reminds us that even as select Dalits migrate into higher classand occupational categories as a result of reservations, Dalit tea shopvendors are nowhere to be found. Though non-Dalits may grudginglyaccept marginal economic success among Dalits, they will not dine withthem, allow their children to marry them, or even be served a cup of teaby Dalit hands. 413The international human rights movement now steps into thefray with its clarion call of “Dalit Rights are Human Rights.” Thequestion remains, can human rights succeed where all else has seeminglyfailed? Can it deliver on its promise of equality? The remainder of thissection scrutinizes the human rights framework for its own brand of the“trickle-down theory” but concludes that the human rights movement cangalvanize a project of social transformation so long as it does not restrictitself to the constraints of the legal and moral regime in which thisstruggle now lives.A. HUMAN RIGHTS’ FLAWED TRICKLE-DOWN THEORYUntil recently, attention to India from international human rightsnongovernmental organizations (“NGOs”) focused on the symptoms ofthe caste system (e.g., bonded labor, forced prostitution, and policecorruption) without diagnosing the disease. Simultaneously,international interventions on caste (and racial) discrimination werelimited to inquiries regarding the mechanisms of protection offered bythe state, without asking for evidence of their effective enforcement.U.N. human rights treaty bodies have now begun to ask for such412 HIDDEN APARTHEID, supra note 5, at 110.413 Prasad, supra note 316. Prasad asks: “We must ponder. . . how Dalits can become Collectors,Engineers, Ministers and surgeons, but not tea vendors or sweet shop owners?” On thedifference between Dalits and “lower-caste” non-Dalits, Prasad asserts:Those who can’t open a tea or a paan [betel leaf] shop, are least likely to graduate intoiron, cloth or grocery shop owners. On the other hand, howsoever poor the lowercaste people may be, society offers them ample opportunities of self-employment.That’s the distinction between out caste and lower caste.