The Hindu : 'Dalits not given their due'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 17, 2002

National

National

'Dalits not given their due'

By Our Staff Reporter

HYDERABAD Aug. 16. The "stonewalling" of the efforts of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) by the Government at a recent meet of the U.N. Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) in Geneva on August 8 and 9 has not come as a surprise to the Dalit activists.

After all, they did not expect anything better than this "from the Hindutva forces," the NCDHR representatives said. But what piqued them was the "nerve displayed by the authorities" in making Mayawati and B.R. Ambedkar their mascots while doing so.

The Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister was brought into the argument to prove that had the Dalits been discriminated against, she would never have made it to the high office. The other "argument of convenience" was that B.R. Ambedkar himself had never said that caste was a race while drafting the Constitution.

The "brazen attempt" made by the BJP-led coalition had angered the NCDHR and it is planning to approach the NHRC seeking its intervention in forcing the Government to comply with the directive of the U.N. and to send the pending reports on discrimination at the earliest to the U.N.

Yet another affront to the Dalits, the NCDHR says, comes from the representative of the Permanent Mission of India to the U.N., Rajesh Prasad, who, in the informal thematic discussion on ``descent'' in the CERD on August 8 in Geneva, said that despite number of interventions being in place in the country to eliminate caste-based discrimination, efforts were on to digress from the main issue.

India's argument was as usual two fold — one based on the situation faced by the Dalits and the other, whether the discrimination could fall within the purview of the committee.

It also argued with the help of statistics that the uplift of the Dalits to the extent that had happened in India would not have been possible without a sincere attempt by the Government. Another "irritant" the NCDHR said was that the Government took "shelter" behind the argument that if the Dalits could be called a different race then B.R. Ambedkar himself could have made the distinction.

``The concept of race in India, as recognised under our Constitution, is distinct from caste. The two are mentioned separately as prohibited grounds of discrimination. The principal architect of the Constitution, B.R. Ambedkar was a member of the Scheduled Caste. It is reasonable to assume that this towering legal intellect, one of the foremost constitutional experts of the 20th century, knew well the distinction between race and caste,'' Mr. Prasad argued.

The national convener of the NCDHR, N. Paul Divakar, who has just returned from the U.N., told The Hindu that such a development was unforeseen. It amounted to pitting the Dalits against Dalits.

What the Government forgot to mention in its argument was that literate or not, a Dalit remained a Dalit. That the percentage of SCs and STs in the top echelons of the Government services had grown from 4.5 per cent in 1965 to 22.8 per cent in 1995 did not exactly reflect on his social status. Or even the fact that 106 out of 544 seats were reserved in the Lower House of Parliament for the Dalits.

The NCDHR said that even the Constitutional Review Committee in its report in June 2002, said, "there is a misconception that the problems of the SCs and the STs and the Backward Classes are marginal. In reality, these are part of the central and core problems of the country.''

Where then do Ms. Mayawati or B.R. Ambedkar fit into the argument? Or should Ms. Mayawati step down to prove that discrimination against the Dalits continues in the country, ask the NCDHR activists.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

National