India's tryst with caste

Sixty years after Independance, India's sizeable Dalit population is still awaiting the famed "tryst with destiny"

Prasenjit Chowdhury Kolkata

Fighting political opportunism, Dalits managed to get caste-based oppression included as a UN agenda against racism in the UN conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia held in Durban from August 31 to September 7, 2001. This official recognition helped provide global recognition to the problem, though within the dark world of casteism, academically refined arguments continue to be raised that question the equivalence between casteism and racism.

This equivalence is established by the fact that both draw their sustenance from social discrimination on the basis of descent and occupation. The practice of untouchability is the source of immense human suffering and the cause of gross human rights violations and of dehumanising and degrading treatment of 240 million people, including in India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, Buraku people in Japan, and other communities in Senegal, South Mauritania. Those at the receiving end have suffered extreme violence, abhorrent conditions of work, degradation, exclusion and humiliation. Untouchability is a crime against humanity. That caste as a basis for the segregation and oppression of peoples in terms of their descent and occupation is a form of apartheid and a distinct form

of racism affecting victims equally irrespective of religion. Caste places restrictions on social and occupational

mobility which lead to a negation of humanity and the inability to exercise all human rights.

Constitutionally provisions have been made to protect Dalits, there is affirmative action, and recently the apex court punished those who harassed couples in inter-caste marriages. Constitution experts point out to the equality provisions (Articles 15 and 16), the abolition of untouchablility (Article 17), the

temple entry provision (Article 25), special provisions for an SC and ST Commission (Articles 330-342 and 46) that buttress India’s commitment to wage a battle against casteism.

However, these provisions and measures are not adequate as witnessed by the continuation of caste-based discrimination and exploitation. Sixty years after Independence has not left the lot of Dalits any much better. The reason is complex, but hints can be found in the pages of history.

In 1961, Jawaharlal Nehru wrote in his famous “tryst with destiny” apothegm:  "Due help should be given on economic considerations, and not on caste. Because, if we go in for reservation on communal and caste basis, we swamp the bright and able people and remain second-rate or third-rate. And I want my country to be a first-class country in everything."