UN says Indian caste system is a human rights abuse

United Nations is to declare discrimination based on the Indian caste system is a human rights abuse.

By Dean Nelson in New Delhi



The UN’s Human Rights Council, meeting in Geneva, is expected to ratify draft principles which recognises the scale of persecution suffered by 65 million ‘untouchables’ or ‘Dalits’ who carry out the most menial and degrading work
Many of them work as lavatory and sewer cleaners and in remote villages as “night-soil carriers”.
They are considered unclean by many higher-caste ‘Brahmins’ who regard their presence, and sometimes even their shadow as ‘polluting’.
Many Dalits have been badly beaten or killed for ‘polluting’ Brahmin wells by drinking from them.
The UN draft, which has been opposed by India, pledges to work for the “effective elimination of discrimination based on work and descent”.
The Indian government had lobbied heavily for the Human Rights Council to remove the word ‘caste’ from a draft earlier this year.
India’s opposition was undermined however by Nepal, the former Hindu Kingdom, which has supported the move. Its foreign minister Jeet Bahadur Darjee Gautam said Nepal welcomes UN and international support for its attempts to tackle caste discrimination.
The UN has now called on India to follow Nepal’s example, but New Delhi remains opposed to international interference on the issue.

Navanethem Pillay, the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, who is a South African Tamil, said Nepal’s response marked a “significant step by a country grappling with this problem itself” and urged other states to follow its lead.
The issue is sensitive in India where untouchables and other low-caste groups wield increasing political influence, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, its most populous state, where the pro-Dalit Bahujan Samaj Party rules and its chief minister Mayawati has erected statues commemorating Dalit heroes.
Rahul Gandhi, the architect of the Congress Party’s recent general election victory, has raised the profile of the case issue recently by staying with Dalit families during visits to Uttar Pradesh.
The caste divisions have become institutionalised by quotas for Dalits in government jobs and university places, which has in turn angered higher caste groups.
Dr Udit Raj, of the Dalit-based Indian Justice Party, last night welcomed the move, which he said would focus international attention on the issue and lead to an increase in aid and government spending to improve Dalit opportunities in India.
“It’s very good. We almost lost the battle last April, but now it seems we will have our victory. This will get attention at a global level and that will focus resources from bodies like the European Union. Aid will flow to India.
“But the Indian government should have the courage to accept there’s discrimination,” he said.