India's Rao appeals for end to caste discrimination

BOMBAY (Reuter): Indian Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, wooing India's vast population of Harijans or untouchables, appealed to his people yesterday to end centuries of caste discrimination across the country.

"Only when caste discrimination stops and political parties stop getting mileage out of these divisions can we say that his dream has come true," said Rao after unveiling a statue of Babasaheb Ambedkar, the late revered leader of the untouchables who drafted India's constitution.

Rao, who is pushing through sweeping economic reform, flew into India's commercial capital Bombay for the unveiling ceremony on the late leader's 103rd birth anniversary.

"Ambedkar did the daunting task of demanding rights for the lowest people but the more daunting task of implementing his ideals still remains," said Rao, whose government is wooing the large vote banks of the low castes.

Under India's caste system, which ranks the priestly caste of Brahmins at the top, the millions of Harijans are the lowest rung of the hierarchy, and are considered by orthodox Hindus as unclean or outcaste.

Ambedkar, born in 1891 into a family of untouchables, fought the brutal dominance of upper caste Brahmins and shot to prominence as a brilliant lawyer and writer. He led his people to revolt against the caste system goading them towards Buddhism.

Buddhism has no caste system and his followers came to be called "Neo-Buddhists".

While Rao, himself a Brahmin, unveiled Ambedkar's statue at the Maharashtra state legislature assembly building, thousands of Neo-Buddhists paid their respects at a memorial to their leader in central Bombay by praying and laying flowers.

Rao said the perversion of the caste system and the discrimination against the lower castes was a result of several historical factors rather than the fault of a particular group of people -- an apparent reference to the Brahmins.

"Our society needs to change but I can see there is still much opposition to change," said Rao in a reference to last month's violence in the western state of Maharashtra following the renaming of a University after Ambedkar.

Political analysts said the renaming of the Marathwada University was opposed by the Hindu militant Shiv Sena party because they saw in it a Congress party ploy to woo the untouchables rather than an intent to honor the leader.

The untouchables were traditionally supporters of the Congress party but the emergence in electorally-crucial north India of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), a low castes coalition has threatened to wrench their vote from Rao's Congress party.

Congress faces electoral tests in state elections in several parts of India later this year.

Last year, the BSP was swept to power in state elections in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh which has the most seats in the federal Parliament.

Newspapers hailed the BSP leader Kanshi Ram as the new messiah of the lower classes and political analysts said the Congress was feeling threatened.