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Article: Times of India
9 March 2001
by Smita Narula, Senior Researcher, Human Rights Watch
In `Racism, Name Changing and Toilets'(March
4) Attorney-General Soli Sorabjee joined the ranks of Indian
government officials to argue that caste is not race, that the
inclusion of caste-based discrimination in a UN-sponsored World
Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and
Related Intolerance (WCAR) would `dilute' the conference theme,
and that caste-based abuses are an internal, not international,
concern. The conference is to take place in South Africa in
September.
Mr Sorabjee's arguments effectively
undermine India's commitment to the universality of human rights,
as expressed through its ratification of numerous international
conventions. They are more reminiscent of the
`not-in-my-backyard' defensiveness of governments around the
world. The arguments also ignore the pronouncements of numerous
UN treaty bodies that caste-based discrimination is
discrimination on the basis of descent under Article 1 of the
Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination. Caste-based abuse is rampant in numerous Asian
countries including Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Pakistan and
Japan. Its inclusion in the WCAR is, therefore, not a dilution
but an affirmation of the voices of hundreds of millions of
victims who continue to suffer from segregation, modern day
slavery, and extreme forms of exploitation and violence.
At preparatory meetings for the WCAR, the
issue of caste has been undermined, sidelined and ignored by
Indian delegates and state- sponsored NGOs purporting to
represent the world's largest democracy. The government has
consulted neither Parliament nor the National Human Rights
Commission or National Commission for Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes while promulgating and promoting its position.
Mr Sorabjee is an expert member of the UN Sub-Commission on Human
Rights - which recently passed a resolution on work and
descent-based discrimination. As India's attorney-general, he
should encourage the government to support efforts to implement a
resolution he helped create. While countries may ignore the
pronouncements of UN treaty bodies, they cannot ignore their own
Constitutions or the voices of their citizens. The spirit of this
conference and India's own constitutional commitment to freedom
of expression, equality, and the abolishment of untouchability
demands no less.
Posted on 2001-07-16
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