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

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342 Wisconsin International Law Journalpolicies and protective legislation and to scrutinize the implementation ofthese laws.Data plays an important role in making visible structural andcontemporary forms of discrimination and inequality. The third lesson isnot to become complacent regarding the availability of data that animatesthe social condition. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the disaggregation of castein the 2001 census was the subject of much debate. While some arguedthat the census should also disaggregate “Other Backward Castes,” oreven all castes, 435 others mounted a “vigorous campaign” againstcounting caste on the grounds that it would lead to a hardening of casteidentities and possibly even to large-scale caste conflicts and violence. 436The fourth lesson is to recognize the resilience and adaptabilityof historic forms of discrimination to contemporary global trends. Anincreased reliance on market forces, a dismantling of economic controls,and a drastically reduced role of the state has triggered dramaticeconomic growth, but the growth has been captured by the powerful fewand has not led to equitable development.The fifth and final lesson is to caution against the intuitivelinking of caste or race and class, and to recognize that upward classmobility does not displace the stigma attached to one’s “untouchable”status. Among Dalits, the “Haves” are few and the “Have-Nots” aregreat. Regardless of class status, none have escaped the confiscation oftheir very persona or realized their right to self determination in the mostprofound sense of the term: they remain stateless in their own countryand robbed daily of human dignity. Poignantly captured by Ambedkar,the Dalit struggle, therefore, “is a battle not for wealth or for power. It isa battle for freedom. It is a battle for the reclamation of humanpersonality.” 437435 Ravivarma Kumar, Caste Enumeration in Census: Constitutional Imperative, ECON. AND POL.WKLY, Aug. 26, 2000, at 3100.436 Id; Ranjit Sau, Human Development Index in Lieu of Caste Census 2001, ECON. AND POL.WKLY., Dec. 18, 1999, at 3607; Nandini Sundar, Caste as Census Category: Implications forSociology, 48 CURRENT SOC. 111, 117 (2000). Governmental agencies in India and the IndianParliament itself persistently fail to make statistics available to the public in a timely fashion.The National Commission on Scheduled Castes’ annual report for 2004-05 has to this day notbeen published owing to, the Commission says, the failure of the Ministry of Social Justice andEmpowerment to lay a response before the Houses of Parliament. See NAT’L COMM. FORSCHEDULED CASTES, ANNUAL REPORTS OF THE NCSC, http://ncsc.nic.in/index1.asp?linkid=157(last visited Aug. 16, 2008).437 AMBEDKAR THOUGHT, supra note 19, at 26.
Vol. 26, No. 2 Equal by Law, Unequal by Caste 343The emancipatory path from subject to citizen has been a longand tortuous one for Dalits, and remains woefully incomplete. 438 Thefailure of the legal reform project now openly invites comparisons toapartheid. Here, apartheid must be understood as both state-sponsorshipof oppression, as is the case in India in spite of the law, and as a mindsetthat denies sociability and social inclusion. The human rights movementhas, to date, forsaken the struggle against the latter. It can, however, helpgalvanize a process of social transformation by inviting greater scrutinyinto the “upper-caste” condition. With this scrutiny, the rule of law canstart to emerge from the shadow of the rule of caste and the emancipationof Dalits can begin.438 For an analysis of Ambedkar’s own path, see generally CHRISTOPHE JAFFRELOT, DR.AMBEDKAR AND UNTOUCHABILITY: FIGHTING THE INDIAN CASTE SYSTEM (ColumbiaUniversity Press 2005).
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