Politics of lobbying

By Gopal Guru

PREPARATORY MEETINGS of various sub-commissions on human rights have been held in Geneva for the world conference on racism scheduled in Durban for early 2001. This process, aimed at finalising the issues and themes to be discussed at the conference, involves three key players - the Human Rights Commission, the various Governments and the NGOs. Of the three, the UNCHR's role is to maintain the balance between the positions of the Governments and the NGOs. This naturally suggests that the Governments and the NGOs are supposed to sort out problems at their level. But in the case of the Government of India, the situation is not straightforward as it is locked in conflict with the NGOs particularly led by the national campaign on Dalit human rights. The discord was related to the question of caste. In the beginning of the deliberations, the Government looked to be vehemently opposed to the idea of inclusion of caste in the world conference. It refused to name the caste issue at the international level, for the following reasons. First, it argued that the issue cannot be taken up, as caste discrimination was different from racial discrimination. Second, the Indian diplomatic mission in Geneva took the position of denying any violation of human rights based on caste discrimination. Third, the caste issue could be entertained at any international forum only in the context where it is proved that the domestic mechanisms of redress had failed. And the Government of India argued that such mechanisms are still active even in regard to the question of Dalits. Finally, the Government raised the bogey of nationalism against the ``internationalisation'' of the caste issue. It argued that the adversaries next door might use it to embarrass India internationally.

Of course, the Dalits made hectic lobbying efforts to impress upon member-countries, including India, that caste discrimination should be included in the agenda. They argued on two grounds. First, caste and race, by implication, are the same because both lead to discrimination. Second, the caste issue, prevalent not only in India but also in other countries, including Senegal, should be given visibility at the international level. Both these phenomena, according to these groups, are the cunning construct of the socially-dominant forces and therefore they result in discrimination and humiliation of the Dalit masses.

The defence offered by the Government of India at the Geneva meetings looked to be feeble and at times fraught with contradictions. For example, at one level, the Government, at least in the past, supported the liberation movement of the African-Americans who are still fighting against white racial discrimination in different parts of the world. The representatives of the diplomatic establishment in Geneva were found lamenting on the racial discrimination that is practised against Indian upper castes settled in countries dominated by the white majority. If caste also involves discrimination, perhaps of the worst kind, and therefore necessarily leads to the denial of recognition of human dignity, why does the Government of India feel hesitant to accept it in an international forum? Why does the Government refuse to seize an intellectual initiative to define discrimination in broader terms? In fact, such generalisation would help the Government to remove the inconsistency in its approach towards discrimination and thus strengthen its moral standing internationally. Its refusal only helps its adversaries, those next door or far off.

Similarly, the Government's efforts to beat the Dalits with the stick of nationalism are problematic for two reasons. First, Dalits are lobbying for the their cause not with any intention of undermining the nation; their efforts are aimed at expanding the democratic base of nationalism. They expect the Government to appreciate this point of view, which is therefore radically different from groups motivated by the idea of secessionism. In fact, such sincere acceptance of caste-based discrimination offers the Government a chance to prove its democratic credentials; that which it talks a lot about. But one fails to understand why the Government, at least in the beginning, vehemently refused to accept this raising of the caste issue at the international level? However, this stiff opposition led the Dalit groups to intensify their lobbying efforts and finally they succeeded in getting a resolution passed in the meeting of the sub-commission on racial discrimination. But the Government succeeded in removing the word caste from the resolution and the resolution it as discrimination-based on occupation and descent. The Japanese Government did not take a tough stand against the Japanese Dalit NGOs who in Geneva felt free to project caste discrimination that the Buraku community has been facing in Japan.

However, lobbying for raising the caste issue at the international level needs to be pursued with caution. First, it is necessary for the Dalit groups to take a firm stand against international groups whose support seems to be motivated more by their desire to embarrass the Government of India than any conviction against caste. This has to be done not to please the pseudo-nationalists or the Hindutva forces at home, but to expand more authentically the social base of the Dalit cause, particularly inside the country. Otherwise, it might prove politically disastrous for Dalit politics in the country. This, therefore, requires that the groups should radically move away from the politics of lobbying to the politics of the people. Second, the politics of lobbying is constraining in the sense that at one level it opens up an attractive passage to power and perhaps to powerful personalities, but, at another level, it necessarily blocks the path to the people. This ultimately replaces the need to make the political efforts or the emancipatory efforts of such groups publicly more accountable. In fact, any Government would feel comfortable with such politics of lobbying because such efforts always keep otherwise politically motivated activists busy with rhetoric and personalities. Since lobbying does not require any actual mobilisation of the Dalit masses, the state does not feel threatened. It can handle the Dalit groups with a little bit of cunning and the ``politics of promises''. One could see this cunning in Geneva when some of the Dalit NGOs argued quite ironically that there was no problem of caste in India. Finally, lobbying may not be a sufficient condition for forcing the Indian state to translate rhetorical promises into reality, because lobbying basically depends on the intentions and the ability of the actors involved in the process. Thus, the question of emancipation comes to be dependent on the mood and the ``might'' of the lobbyist. The whole process, by implication, denies autonomy and authenticity to Dalit politics as it is done for or on behalf of the people but without their involvement.

What perhaps is needed is the kind of purposive politics which will involve people's engagement with the state on a regular basis. This domestic terrain perhaps is the most uncomfortable for the state, as it does not give respite to the latter in as much as it puts the state and its political morality under public scrutiny. This taking on of the state at the local site would reaffirm the claim of the Dalits on the Indian nation on the one hand and, on the other, it will also prevent the Indian state from wielding the stick of nationalism against the Dalits. The so-called nationalists did try to beat Dr. B. R. Ambedkar with the stick of nationalism but they failed because his democratic nationalism was firmly rooted in the Dalits and other toiling masses.

(The writer is Mahatma Gandhi Professor, University of Pune.)

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