Annihilating caste

India has always championed the cause of the oppressed. But what of the dalits who are discriminated against? Should the issue of casteism be taken up at the World Commission Against Racism? MARI MARCEL THEKAEKARA examines the issue.

"WHY do we need to take caste to the U.N.? Don't you know they are just waiting to humiliate India? Cut us down to size?" fumes the Indian Government. It makes sense. On an extended stay in Washington DC, 10 years ago, I scanned the Washington Post and the Times for a scrap of Indian news. Once a week or so, a little item appeared, usually on dowry deaths, Hindu Muslim tension and sati. I was furious at the appalling coverage.

Ten years down the line, as I listen to dalit activists explaining why they have taken "caste" to the U.N. World Conference Against Racism (WCAR), I get a whole new perspective. I listen to reports from Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. They are sickening. The Ranbir Sena guns down an entire dalit village. A dalit woman is raped in Rajasthan. O.K. The cow belt is uncivilised. But then, a dalit woman sexually assaulted and tortured in normally sane Maharashtra? And finally I'm horrified to find dalits burnt to death in Chintamani on the way to my children's school, near Bangalore.

If, dear reader, you and I were a part of such a landscape, where your children, family, close friends and relatives were always in danger of being "put in their place" merely because they aspired to a normal decent life, would you not do something to end the torture, the precarious existence, walking on eggshells so as not to upset your "betters"?

What dalits want to mobilise world opinion on is not for temple entry, or the roti-beti syndrome of eating together and intercaste marriage. That's something which will take a few more generations probably. They're talking here of everyday things. Like walking through the main street of the village with slippers on. Of a dalit bridegroom in Rajasthan needing a few hundred armed policemen to allow him to ride on horseback to his marriage. This happened for the first time because Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot ordered it on the pain of punishment to the Collector and the Superintendent of Police. I once interviewed a dalit Collector. Because he dared to study and aspire to a college degree, the elders in his village in Andhra Pradesh slapped him and attempted to cut off his right hand - the hand that dared to write, instead of working in their fields. The point is all these things happen even now, in this day and age.

After 54 years of Independence and in spite of a Constitution meant to safeguard the rights of our people, our poor, our dalits, our adivasis and our women, there is no political will to stop the killing, burning, raping. Every time a carnage occurs, there is a hue and cry. Politicians rush to the place to make the correct, placatory noises and get a few free photo opportunities. Then it all dies down. No one is ever punished. The culprits get off scot free. So everyone knows you can kill dalits and get away with it. That's what they want to change.

The Government has taken the position that race is not caste.

The Dalit National Campaign points out that the WCAR is about discrimination in all forms. Race in terms of black versus white is an essentially Euro-centric definition. The conference against racism is about discrimination and the whole world will be there working to end global discrimination of all kinds. They point out angrily that the academic debate begun by Andre Beteille is a futile exercise in semantics. The dalit fight is about real issues, not a college duel to score debating points. The dalit woman who has seen her family burnt to death in Chintamani or Bihar cares not about your academic anthropological quibbling, they remind you angrily. The killing, raping, burning, torturing of dalit people is discrimination because of origin and descent. It is designed to maintain status quo, to keep dalits at the bottom of the heap, as has been the case for millennia now.

The government's position that the dalit issue should not be made international, is not consistent with our position on other international issues or on India's status as a Human Rights Defender, the Campaign points out. Since Independence, India has always championed the cause of the oppressed, starting with African nations struggling for freedom from colonial oppression to the U.S. Civil Rights movement and hailing Martin Luther King as a hero. In recent times, we were the first to align ourselves with South Africa in the struggle against apartheid. As I write this, we have appealed to the world to help Hindus in Afghanistan fight Taliban oppression and Prime Minister Vajpayee has pledged support to the Romas at the WCAR. How then can we hypocritically try to keep caste under wraps?

As an Indian writer, it touches a raw nerve. I have thought about it long and hard. It is one thing to write about caste for my own people, in our newspapers and magazines, in my own country because I want to participate in creating a better world for our children and the generations to come. Going international makes me a bit queasy. But the question is: can we go on pretending the problem is not there?

As a nation we are champions at hypocrisy. A doctor friend once described an incident which made her sick. She was examining a 13-year-old girl who was pregnant. She had been raped by her uncle. "Always, it's a cousin, brother-in-law, maama. And it is hushed up to preserve the family izzat. The girl is treated as though it is her fault, though she's the victim. As a people we are sickening," she concluded.

The question here is can we go on preserving our non-existent honour when dalits continue to be killed and tortured even as we boast of our nuclear status and IT achievements? The dalit plea is: "In the last century we got rid of slavery and apartheid. Let this century be the one to annihilate casteism."

It is ironic that they are taking it to Durban where Gandhiji began his discovery of freedom. It is a question only you and I can answer. You and I and our country.

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