Polite Indian

When Manmohan singh equated untouchability to apartheid, I felt good that someone at the top is finally calling a spade a spade. I felt that international pressure be put on India to take some concrete steps to improve the conditions of Dalits. As Nitin pointed out in the comments section that sanctions against India might not be the right thing for it, I wonder what else can be done. For years, Dalit activists have tried to equate the plight of dalits to that of racism and the Indian delegates have always defended arguing caste is not same as race.

Now when CERD slams Indian on dalit violence, I take it as a good sign.

A UN committee has equated violence against Dalits in India with racial discrimination and questioned the country’s record on treatment of the socially marginalised.

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) has called upon the Indian government to ensure an immediate end to the violence on Dalits

The report further confirms that systematic segregations of Dalits very much exists. This is nothing new to us but when a UN body accepts it, it is a big achievement for the activists.

The report also mentioned “the Indian delegation’s arrogant rejection of well-documented abuses against Dalits before UN experts in Geneva” and added that it “mirrors India’s systematic denial of Dalit rights at home”,

What was the Indian delegation trying to say by rejecting the abuse cases? Prove that Dalit attrocities don’t happen? Even in the light of events like Khairllanji, these guys have the audacity to refute it? Not only that, as usual they tried to deflect things by getting into a semantic debate between race and caste.

The report said the Indian delegation resorted to a semantic debate on the difference between caste and race.

I understand that untouchability is not an official state policy, but I hold the state equally responsible because it is an unofficial state policy and that is even worse. The police doesn’t file complaints, the media doesn’t give them proper attention, the politician just consider them as vote banks, the NGOs can do only so much and the elite doesn’t understand what social justice is all about.

I still think that International pressure when put on India, only then will the state really act. Till then it is difficult to wake this giant from slumber.

Recently Manmohan singh compared Untouchability to aparthied.

Seeking to make a distinction between the problems faced by Dalits in India and those faced by minorities in all societies, Singh said the dalits faced a unique discrimination with Apartheid being the only parallel to untouchability.

“Even after 60 years of Constitutional and legal protection and support, there is still social discrimination against Dalits in many parts of the country,” he accepted.

(link via upliftthem)

I think that was a very honest admittance of an evil that has plagues India society for centuries. This accpetance is definitely the right step.

BJP has criticised the PM’s speech saying that this will tarnish the image of India internationally. I think this is something that needs to be told to the entire world. India has a problem and it needs to accept it and then address it. PM has just done the first part of admitting it. The second remains to be seen.

I think International pressure needs to be put on India to put an end to untouchability. Pressures similar to those on South Africa to end the aparthied. India on its own has done little to vanquish this evil. Even though legislation to ban untouchability and other acts have been passed, their implementation leaves much to be desired.

If internation pressure and sanctions can bring that change in India then so be it. I am all for it.

The Hindu reports

This gross under-presence of Muslims in virtually every sector is presaged by substantial inequalities in education. Muslim enrolment and retention rates at the primary and secondary levels are lower than the national average and this further magnifies existing inequalities at the college level as well as in the labour market. For virtually every socio-economic marker of well being, the Muslim is well below the national norm — not to speak of the level commensurate with her or his share of the national population — and the evidence suggests these inequalities are not decreasing over time.

This bleak statistical picture is rendered drearier still by new trends visible in many cities. Muslims, for example, find it extremely difficult to rent and buy property outside of “Muslim areas” in some metros. Apart from several journalists, I even know of one former Muslim Union Minister in Delhi whose Hindu colleagues had to intercede to find him a flat. In Mumbai, the situation is perhaps worse. Many Muslim businessmen have problems accessing credit, besides having to run the gamut of uncooperative officials who look upon them with suspicion at every turn. Even in politics, as Iqbal A. Ansari’s recent book, Political Representation of Muslims in India, 1952-2004, has shown, Muslims have consistently been under-represented in the Lok Sabha and all State Assemblies since Independence except Kerala. Only half as many Muslim MPs and MLAs get elected as one might expect based on their population share. In the absence of our political parties throwing up a large enough number of Muslim elected representatives, clerics and obscurantists are only too willing to step into the breach.

……

In India, the first task of the government must be to guarantee formal equality of opportunity by dealing firmly with discrimination in the labour, housing and credit markets as well as educational system. Without instituting a system of reservation — which would generate more political heat than tangible benefit for Muslims — the Government must send out a clear and unambiguous message that the social cohesiveness and future growth prospects of the country require government departments and private firms to encourage the recruitment of Muslims. But in order to generate substantive equality of opportunity and uproot inequality and exclusion from their roots, the government has to guarantee better access to education at every level for Muslims, Dalits, Tribals, and OBCs.

Link via Krish

cartoon link via Bhupinder Singh originally published in The Tribune.

Is the Muslim under represntation because of discrimination alone? What are the other reasons?

Shivam has the entire story of the Khairlanji Massacre.

Surekha and Priyanka were stripped, paraded naked, beaten black and blue with bicycle chains, axes and bullock cart pokers. They were publicly gang raped until they died. Some raped them even after that, and finally, sticks and rods were shoved into their genitals. In the meantime, Sudhir managed to contact the police from his mobile phone, but his phone had been smashed. Its pieces are now circumstantial evidence. Roshan and Sudhir were beaten up, their genitals mutilated, faces disfigured and their bodies tossed in the air, before they lay dead on the ground. Hiding behind a hut, Bhaiyyalal helplessly watched his family’s gruesome end. There was no one to call for help. Kherlanji had only two Mahar families; the rest were either perpetrators or spectators. An hour later, a village meeting was called and a diktat issued: no one was to say a word about the massacre.

It will be shameful if the perpetrators  go unpunished in this case.

Incidents like these make me ashamed of the country that I belong to.

Link Via Shivam

Most people won’t believe this unless they see it with their own eyes.

This video made me sad.