By: Mamoona Ali Kazmi
India has failed to respect, protect and ensure the fundamental rights of its Dalit population, says its own governmental and non-governmental agencies. Recently, a civil society delegation of India met the Chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Caste, Dr P.L. Punia, and submitted a memorandum seeking justice for a young Dalit Kamlesh.
Kamlesh, a six-year-old little girl from in Uttar Pradesh, was tossed into the burning fire by the members from the upper caste community three years ago. Her crime was that she walked by the house of an upper caste family early in the morning. She is still waiting for justice and the culprits are freely moving around, as the court closed the case for lack of witnesses. Unfortunately, this is not the first time that a Dalit did not get justice. It has become a routine in India that violators of minority rights get away without any punishment. Her case is just one example of the discrimination and oppression that millions of Dalits suffer in India.
Dalits are considered impure in India’s caste system and their status has often been associated with jobs considered as dirty labour, such as removing carcasses and cleaning sewers and latrines. The country’s 164 million Dalits also encounter other forms of discrimination, from not being allowed to touch produce in a shop to not being able to own land, even though India outlawed the caste system in its Constitution in 1950.
Dalits suffer routine violation of their right to life, security of person and protection of the State, through state sponsored or sanctioned violence. Caste motivated killings, rape and other abuses are a daily occurrence in India. Between 2001-2002, about 58,000 cases were registered under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. A 2005 government report states that there is a crime committed against a Dalit every 20 minutes. This figure represents only a fraction of the actual incidents, since many Dalits do not register cases for fear of retaliation by the police and upper caste individuals. In the rare instance if a case does reach the courts, the most likely outcome is acquittal. India’s official data reveals that during 1999-2001, as many as 89 percent of the trials involving offences against the Dalits resulted in acquittals. According to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), the law enforcement machinery is the greatest violator of Dalit rights, and the torture and killing of Dalits in custody, rape of Dalit women, and the looting of the Dalit property are condoned or at best ignored by them.
Source: http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/Opinions/Columns/24-Apr-2011/Dalits-Suffer-in-silence-and-submission
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