Caste and rights

Published : Aug 18, 2001 00:00 IST

Social activists protest against the Government of India's opposition to any discussion on caste as a form of discrimination at the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, which is already under pressure from the U.S. which wants any reference to Zionism deleted from the draft declaration.

IN the run-up to the World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, voices of dissent have consolidated themselves in India. These voices belong to a number of social commentators, some well-known journalists and academics and social activists fighting for Dalit rights. They have protested against the Government of India's opposition to discussing caste as a form of discrimination at the World Conference, to be held in Durban, South Africa, from August 31 (Frontline, July 6, 2001).

This has happened even as the future of the Conference has become uncertain with key participants, including the United States, some European countries and Israel, threatening to boycott it if its agenda includes talks of reparations for slavery and colonialism or a measure equating Zionism with racism.

In India, the argument that caste-based discrimination is a human rights issue has brought the dissenters together. Earlier the debate was getting diluted amid the ambiguities of defining race and caste in the correct academic terms in order to make a clear distinction between the two. Now the dissenters clarify that caste-based discrimination is above all a human rights issue and that is the reason why it should be put on the conference agenda.

This argument got a shot in the arm when the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) declined to toe the government's line on the issue and retracted its offer to associate itself with the committee set up to finalise India's approach to issues at the conference. "We shall keep our minds open till we hear all arguments. We do not mortgage our views to any particular thought," said NHRC chairperson Justice J.S. Verma.

"This is a welcome sign because it means that the issue of including caste is now seen as a rights issue," said Stalin K, member of the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights.

The inclusion of caste on the agenda is no longer an end in itself for the dissenters, for they realise that the chances of its inclusion are slim. "The main thing here is to get international exposure for the issue of caste," said All India Christian Council secretary-general John Dayal.

The underlying argument is that international pressure and support have helped the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, the civil rights movement in the U.S., and the women's movement. Therefore the motive is to bring moral and political pressure on the Indian state to improve the conditions of Dalits. This can be done by taking up the cause at an international forum. The dissenters argue that Durban is the ideal stage for this. They hope that in the long run, raising the caste issue at a United Nations forum will draw the attention of the world community and help garner funds to fight for Dalit empowerment.

As a result there has been a change in the nature of the debate in India. It is now stressed that the government has taken an undemocratic stand in handling the question. Thus, while the government claims to be promoting the national interest by not taking up the "internal" matter of caste at an international meet, the dissenters try to expose the fallacy of the government's nationalist claims. "Patriotism is being aligned with the opposition to raising the issue of caste. This is a wrong stand. Negating that a problem exists is not the correct way of finding a solution to it," said film script-writer Javed Akhtar at a conference on 'Caste in the United Nations', organised in New Delhi by the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights.

While politicians in general were initially reticent, political groups are now gradually making their stand clear. The Left parties have come out openly in support of including caste as a subtext of discussion at the meet. A Polit Bureau member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) said that caste cannot be equated with race or casteism with racism. However, this did not mean that the issue should not be taken up at the international forum, he said. "Caste oppression is an affront to basic human dignity and its practice in India and elsewhere is a fit subject for a conference of the type called by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights," the CPI(M) leader said.

With the battle lines now drawn sharper than ever before, the dissenters are confident that they will be able to make their voices heard in Durban. This might turn out to be a difficult task, with the conference promising to set the agenda for disparate social issues, including the elimination of poverty, sexual violence, human trafficking, unemployment, wife-battering, fighting acquired immune deficiency syndrome, and the promotion of international investments in health, education, electricity and drinking water supply, indigenous cultures, childhood immunisation and access to the Internet.

According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, two hotly debated issues in the draft declaration and the final preparatory sessions have been the questions whether Zionism should be treated as racism and whether compensation should be paid to victims of slavery and colonialism.

THE final week of negotiations on the draft declaration has been marked by threats from the U.S. and Israel to keep away from the conference if the anti-Israeli language is not removed. One of the paragraphs that is unacceptable to Israel refers to a "foreign occupation founded on settlements, its laws based on racial discrimination, with the aim of continuing domination on the occupied territory, as well as its practices which consist of reinforcing a total military blockade, isolating towns, cities and villages under occupation from each other." This represents a "new kind of apartheid, a crime against humanity and a serious threat to international peace and security," says the draft text.

Although Israel has not been mentioned by name in the passage, Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Melchior expressed "deep concern" over the failure of the negotiators to remove it from the text. "This will be a major blow against Israel and not only Israel but the Jewish people, its past, its sufferings, its hope for the future," he said.

These clauses in the draft agenda were drawn up at several regional conferences called ahead of the Durban meeting. The portions concerning Israel emerged from a meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) held in Iran.

The U.S., an ally of Israel, condemned the effort in 1975 to equate Zionism with racism, even as the U.N. General Assembly approved a motion affirming that notion. The U.N. repealed that resolution in 1991. The U.S. did not attend the U.N.-sponsored conferences on racism in Geneva in August 1983 and in Vienna in June 1993, disagreeing with the language of the agenda.

The Durban Conference has stirred up several issues in the U.S. congressional hearings. Black members of Congress have been saying that the government should attend the conference to demonstrate its concern over racism. They have slammed the White House, saying that the U.S. would be forfeiting by staying away an important opportunity to tackle long-simmering domestic issue of racial strife. Others, including Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Charles E. Schumer, Democrats from New York, wrote to the White House urging Washington to insist on having the language used concerning Israel changed.

The U.S. stand will become clear when the drafts of the conference are finalised. Notably, in Geneva, the U.S. went ahead with completing the formalities of the conference under procedures established for 157 countries that have signed the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which was approved by the General Assembly in 1965 and which Washington joined in 1994. On August 6, the U.S. State Department prepared and presented its first country report on racial discrimination to the U.N. even as it continued with an internal debate on whether to take part in the Conference.

The submission of this report coincided with the final preparatory session of the conference, which ensured the presence of a small corps of U.S. officials at the U.N., trying to get the references to Israel deleted. This was not surprising as the real negotiations are expected to occur behind closed doors.

Indian non-governmental organisations apprehend that some closed-door negotiations may take place between Indian and the U.S. officials. "It is probable that the U.S. will agree not to include caste and India will be only too happy to help it delete any such references that are detrimental to Israeli interests," Stalin K said.

The U.S. has made it clear that it will continue to put pressure on the parties concerned to drop the anti-Israel statements from the draft. If it does not succeed there, it is likely that the U.S. will not sign up the declaration, along with some European countries that are balking at the idea of setting up "an international compensation scheme for victims of the slave trade and other transnational racist policies."

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