Gathering on intolerance: End untouchability in India

By Hiren Mukerjeet

NEW DELHI: A world conference under United Nations auspices is being held (August-September 2001) at Durban, South Africa, against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance all over our planet. There is reason for anxiety about India's stand in this conference. From all accounts, it appears that India would strongly resist any effort to raise the issue of enormities of our caste system that lends socio- religious sanction to impermissible and inhuman practices like that cursed shame that we have not yet been able to root out, namely, untouchability.

No sophistry, no jugglery with words, no transcendental philosophizing can bring us exoneration on this wretched count. At Durban, where the horrendous memory of apartheid must be omnipresent, India, in all honesty, should tell her people and all the world that she will steadfastly fulfill her own pledge that untouchability and other casteist infamies will sternly be eradicated. In his Republic Day (Jan. 26) address, President KR Narayanan did not hesitate to observe: "Untouchability has been abolished by law but shades of it remain in the ingrained attitudes nurtured by the caste system."

What agony it must have been for our head of state to note that even now male "sadism" seems "earmarked for Dalit women" subjected, as it is often reported, to the most heinous forms of utterly unwarranted humiliation (like being paraded naked for alleged casteist offenses). We can be proud, of course, that our President himself was born "outside the pale" of the caste system and can be described as one of the dalits (or various grades!) whose total number in India exceeds the population of the overwhelming majority of the world's states.

This is because not everything in present-day India is dismal and degrading. However, just as the fact of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh having several women as Prime Ministers does not mean that women's rights have been securely won, President Narayanan being where he is and dalits holding some high positions does not by any means signify the triumph of the struggle for human dignity.

It is not only a specious but supremely, insensitive argument to differentiate, in legalistic fashion, casteist enormities as an internal issue of India and keep it out of the orbit of discussion in Durban. Not racism alone but all "related intolerances" are part of the agenda.

How do we, in all conscience, condemn Apartheid and not make a clean breast of our own long-practical "sin" of untouchability and assure the world of our bonafides? Apartheid, hateful and heinous, has of course been defended by its civilized practitioners but perhaps even they could not dare imagine any moral justification for it. There has been no lack in India even today for learned justification for caste -- not only by ignorant Hindutva zealots but by others intellectually equipped. In this regard, our country, great in so many ways,

If we really intend to fulfill promises to our own people enshrined in the Constitution, we need not be nervous about laying all cards on the table in Durban. A courageous delineation of difficulties experienced in exterminating age-old prejudices and malpractice and of our invincible resolve to eliminate casteist enormities will win us better dividends.

A fib often goes round that the actual practice of untouchability has diminished drastically, except perhaps in a few very backward states of the Union. A parliamentary statement in July 1998 indicated that it was "prevalent" in 12 states; it was "prevalent in a mild form" in six states. If in West Bengal and Kerala we are somewhat better off, let us not nurse the illusion of innocence. Try a look only at the combined report for 1996-1997 and 1997-1998 of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes and you will be disenchanted and almost fairly stripped of pride for whatever Leftist ideologies we cherish.

This report is by law furnished regularly before Parliament but from experience neither Parliament nor the country takes much notice. Parliament is too often busy with the production of "scenes" (now exhibited by television) and the people (like their representatives) are lulled into a peculiar indifference.

In West Bengal, last year a Harijan woman had surreptitiously a ritual bath in a pond attached to a temple (and banned to Harijans and the wretched of the earth) before offering worship, but she was caught and after much ado escaped when the pious villagers had extracted a five-figure fine from her school- teacher husband. This may not be typical but normal human beings (which perhaps we are not) should feel their blood boil at such atrocious outrage and assault on all human dignity.

At Durban, India's credentials are impeccable. On the issues to be debated there her record is among the cleanest. Our image as a secular democracy, warts and all, remains enviable. One learns our delegation in Durban is led by a young Muslim minister of state and among our major spokesmen is the jurist Soli Sorabjee.

Let us be entirely honest, place before the world community the Himalayan hurdle of eradicating one of history's oldest and most obstinate socio-religious institutionalization of inequality and report how resolutely we fight for its eradication.

The author, an eminent parliamentarian, represented the Communist Party of India.

-- The Statesman/Asia News Network