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BROKEN PROMISES AND BETRAYAL. A BLACK PAPER ON THE STATUS OF RIGHTS OF DALITS

 On 26th January 1950, in the words of Dr. B.R. Ambedker, we entered into a world of contradictions between our democratic politics and our feudal economic and social structure. Today those same contradictions to which Ambedker referred almost 50 years ago continue unabated. Instead of repudiating the outdated law of Varnashram Dharma, 52 years of democracy have only served to prove that caste hierarchy is still the law of the land, and not the democratic and socialistic principles enshrined in our Constitution.

Who's to say this recently elected government will be any different from the last, unless we, the Dalits, collectively demand that the government own up and admit culpability for a half-century of constitutional delinquency and callous disregard for the rights of the Dalits? That is why the National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights is releasing the Black Paper. The first document in history to deal in detail with the state of Dalit Human Rights, the Black Paper is a thorough and severe indictment of the State for its denial of Dalit rights to livelihood, education, gender equity for Dalit women, reservation and employment, land and labour, and life and security.

Right to Livelihood: Basic Livelihood Denied
The rapid progress India has made since 1991 in many areas such as technology, infrastructure, machinery, industry, science and space research has meant very little for the Dalits, most of whom are still without even such basic amenities such as electricity, sanitation and safe drinking water.

Basic Amenities: Just 31% of Dalit households are equipped with electricity, as compared to 61% of non-Dalit households. With regards to sanitation, only 10% of SC households and 27% of non-SC households have sanitation. The figure for non-SC households, though low, is still much higher than that of SC households. The state deliberately excludes Dalits from such basic amenities. In many villages, it installs electricity, sanitation and safe drinking water in the upper-caste section, but neglects to do the same in the neighbouring Dalit colony.

Poverty Line: The Dalits have been most vulnerable to the global economic forces unleashed by the New Economic Policy in 1991. From pre-NEP in 1987 to post-NEP in 1993, the percentage of Dalits living below the poverty line actually increased by 5%, reversing a declining trend of the previous 15 years. A full half of the SC population lived below the poverty line in 1993 compared to a third of the general population, whose percentage below the poverty lined remained unchanged since 1987.

For the state's failure to equitably allocate and distribute basic amenities, the Black Paper places the blame squarely on the shoulders of the ruling dominant-caste elite who continue to cling to their feudal caste politics, which is the root of the pandemic political corruption and bureaucratic incompetence that plague our democracy.

Right to Education: If Education is the Key, then Dalits are Locked Out


The Indian Constitution mandates the State to provide within ten years (1950-1959) free, compulsory and universal education for all children up to 14 years, with special care and consideration given to promote the educational progress of SCs.

Illiteracy: Forty years later illiteracy still plagues almost two thirds of Dalits as compared to about one half of the general population. The literacy gap between Dalits and the rest of the population fell a scant .39% between 1961 and 1991.

Primary School Enrolment: Enrollment among Dalit children in 1993 at the primary level was an inexcusably low 16.2%, while among non-SCs it was 83.8%.

Sub-standard Schools: 99% of Dalit students come from government schools which lack basic infrastructure, class rooms, teachers and teaching aid. In a situation where the state is already appallingly remiss in its duty to provide free, universal and compulsory education for its citizens, the trend towards privatization of education will only reinforce the ongoing neglect and deterioration of government schools. What credible assurance can the state give to its Dalit citizens that contrary to its past record, it will today make a conscious and concrete commitment to address the acute and dire educational needs of Dalits?

Right to Land & Labour: The Legacy of Aryan Colonialism Lives Today

Dalits are Backbone of Agrarian Economy: Most Dalits live in rural areas, where they constitute the backbone of the agrarian workforce, their sweat and blood oiling the wheels of this nation's agrarian economy. Almost half of them (49%) are agricultural labourers, while only 25% are cultivators. By contrast, in 1961, 38% of Dalits were cultivators and 34% were agricultural laborers.

Dalits Losing Land: Since 1961, despite a host of land reforms, a great many Dalits lost even the little land they had and had no choice but to join the ranks of landless agricultural labourers. Today, over 86% of SC households are landless or near landless and 63% are wage-labour households.

Land Reforms Violated: Land reforms are continually scuttled and violently undermined by lawless landlords who take the land back by brutal force with the connivance of the police. Take, for example, the two Dalit youth that died by police fire in Tamil Nadu in 1994 when Dalits attempted to claim Panchami Lands. Other efforts by Dalits to acquire land through the land reforms are met with social boycotts ostracising them from buying or selling anything in the village.

The implementation of ceiling laws has proceeded at a snail's pace and has been crippled by bureaucratic inertia. As against the estimated 30 million hectares of available surplus land, only 75 lakh acres have been declared surplus so far. Out of this, it has taken the government 50 years to take possession of a mere 6.4 lakh acres and distribute 5.2 million acres of it to as many beneficiaries. And, still, about 10 lakh acres remain in ineligible hands.

The First, Longest and Still Existing Colonialism: The western imperialist colonialism of the past gives certain self-proclaimed patriots and genuine nationalists legitimate cause to decry alien invasion and exploitation. But, should not these same patriotic voices exhibit their moral courage and political will through serious introspection and public debate in the matter of the internal colonization of the Dalits and Tribals, who have been dispossessed land and forests, religion and culture, life and livelihood- and not just during a few decades, but for centuries? Why is this same story being repeated today?

Dalit Women's Right to Gender Equity: Dalits within Dalits
Dalit women are the most discriminated and exploited persons in a society dominated by caste hierarchy and patriarchy. For them, the intersection of caste and gender means that they are subject to the most extreme forms of violence, discrimination and exploitation, even at the hands of women from upper-castes.

Daily Victims of Rape: Whenever upper-castes mete out violence upon Dalits, the women are often the ones who bear the brunt of their violence and brutality, including rape, mutilation, molestation and disrobing. An average of two Dalit women are raped per day. This number is only the tip of the iceberg as many cases of rape go unreported either due to fear, intimidation by police, ignorance of legal procedure, or loss of faith in the law enforcement establishment.

Appalling Illiteracy: Literacy among Dalit women is just 23.76%, that is, about half the literacy rate of non-Dalit women. Such low levels of literacy have profound consequences for their lives and the rest of the Dalit community. Illiteracy makes them susceptible to superstitious beliefs and misinformation regarding their bodies, reproduction and health, due to which their fertility rates continue to be higher than those of non-SC women. What hope of progress for Dalits is there when the meager development aid and gains they do manage to extract from the government are quickly soaked up by rising population?

A Large, but Marginalised Labour Force: In contrast to their upper-caste counterparts, almost 90% of Dalit women participate in some sort of productive labour outside their home, most of it in the unorganised sector. Of the Dalit women who work, 82% work in the agricultural sector. They also contribute 30 to 50% of the work force in household labour. This sort of employment is characterised by low wages, irregular work and wages, absence of social securities such as maternity leave and child care, sexual harassment and dependency on the whims of middlemen and employees.

Denied Equal Wages: Dalit women are consistently paid less than their male counterparts for the same work. In agriculture, when men are paid Rs. 40 to 50 per day, women earn only Rs. 15 to 25 per day. In manufacture of footwear, where men earn Rs. 55.85 maximum per day, women earn just Rs. 24.39 maximum per day.

A Distinct Identity: For Dalit women, the issue is neither only caste nor only gender. It is the intersection of caste and gender that fundamentally shapes their lives. Hence, any genuine efforts to help the cause of Dalit women must needs recognize this intersection by addressing their concerns as distinct from those of upper-caste women and those of Dalit men.

The Right to Life & Security: Rule of Caste over Rule of Law

Untouchability- Same as it Ever Was: Despite official assertions and the mass of educated, urban beliefs to the contrary, dozens of forms of untouchability, varying in their degree of inhumanity, persist unabated today in rural areas. A 1996 survey of 69 villages in Gujurat revealed that 46 villages had separate water facilities for Dalits. A 1992-1993 survey of 52 villages in Karnataka revealed that 80% bar Dalits from entering into hotels. 400 villages in Warangal District, Andhra Pradesh, still practice the two-tumbler system for tea and coffee in 1999. The evidence presented by the Black Paper is sufficient to show that these examples are easily multiplied and even include incidents of highly perverted social behavior such as forcing Dalits to drink or eat excreta, dumping carcasses or other waste matter in their premises and polluting their drinking water sources.

The prevalence of the menace of untouchability denies Dalits the ability to live his or her day-to-day existence and carry out mundane activities with even a modicum of human dignity: drawing water, taking tea, moving about freely, wearing clothes of one's choice, worshiping freely, etc.

Manual Scavenging: What National Pride? Today, even as we march into the 21st century as a nuclear power, there are four to eight lakh Dalits having to manually carry human excreta as part of the sanitation arrangements in various places, including our nation's capitol. They earn a mere Rs. 50 a month. Rehabilitating less than a million manual scavengers in a population of a thousand million is no gigantic task, especially, when the programme can be concentrated on just four states where 70% of the manual scavengers live. Given that laws banning the practice are in place and crores of rupees have been allocated for their rehabilitation and to build flush latrines, why does this major social evil and blot on national pride continue? Why do our leaders make it so obvious that they have no moral conscience whatsoever?

Atrocities- Caste (read "Mob") Rule: In hundreds of districts and several states, Dalits live today in a constant state of alert and fear due to threats to their life and security from upper-caste militias, sometimes abetted by or tacitly condoned by police. Since it was founded in August 1994, the Ranavir Sena has perpetrated 19 massacres killing 277 persons, almost all of them poor, landless Dalits. Till date, no important member of the Sena has been tried in court.

From 1995 to 1997, a total of 90,925 crimes against Dalits were registered by police, of which 1617 were for murder, 12,591 for hurt, 2824 for rape, and 31,376 for offenses listed under the SC and ST Prevention of Atrocities Act, 1989. These numbers represent only registered crimes. Either due to intimidation, inaccessibility of police stations, or loss of faith in the law enforcement agencies, many cases go unreported.

There is more than enough data and evidence to show that "untouchability is not an ancient cultural artifact, it is human rights abuse on a vast scale," as reported by Smita Narula, researcher for the Asia division of Human Rights Watch.

Right to Reservation & Employment: The Unacknowledged Reservation System
Reservation has come under a lot of fire in recent times as anyone familiar with the Mandal Commission controversy can attest to. Certain interests among the upper-caste slander the Reservation Policy as "anti-merit" and "undemocratic."

Government Service- A Brahminocracy: A close examination of the caste composition of government services, institutions of education and other services, however, show that there exists an "unacknowledged reservation policy" for upper-castes, particularly Brahmins, insidiously built into the system. Though they were only 5% of the population in 1989, Brahmins composed 70% of the Class I officers in governmental services. A very similar situation can be found in the caste composition of University teaching faculties: Upper-castes occupy 90% of the posts in the social sciences and 94% in the sciences, while SC/ST representation is 1.2% and .5% respectively.

Reservation not Filled is Justice Denied: The ruling elite in control of appointments has been deliberately delinquent in filling the reservation quota. Nowhere has the reservation policy been fulfilled per the requirements of the law. Of the total SC reservation quota in the Central Government, over 54% remain unfilled. More than 88 percent in the Public Sector and 45 percent in the Banks remain unfilled.

At the level of the states, an October 1998 writ petition in the Andhra Pradesh High Court challenged the non-filling of 37,649 reserved posts when a staggering 2,60,000 SC/ST candidates had already registered themselves in the Employment Exchange! The backlog of SC/ST reservations is reported to be 25,000 in the Karnataka state government services and some vacancies have not been filled since 1978!

Reservation is the Ground Floor of Dalit Rights: It is not enough that Dalits are deprived of almost all their fundamental rights, but the dominant caste-class combine also feels it necessary to deny Dalits the one and only political and legal right available for them to acquire the power necessary to secure themselves these other rights. The Black Paper shows that it is not democracy and merit that upper-castes genuinely value, but exclusive power and control of the state machinery so that they can perpetuate their feudal caste rule and exploitation into the next millenium.


Some of our Demands

Right to Livelihood
· To amend Art. 21, Part III, Fundamental Rights, so as to include the following rights for all citizens, but with preferential consideration for SCs and STs: right to a standard of living adequate to their health and well-being in areas such as food, safe drinking water, clothing, housing, public health and medical care, social security and social services; right to free and compulsory education; right to own five acres of cultivable land, or to gainful employment; right to a living wage.
· To allocate adequate funds in the annual budget of the Centre and States to the tune of 20% of GDP in order to enable the implementation of the policies and programmes related to the same amendment of the Constitution.
· To enact a law in Parliament which would tax 15% of the annual income of the private corporate sector in order to augment the resources necessary for the effective and swift implementation of the policies and programmes.

Right to Education
· Implement both in letter and spirit compulsory, universal and free education for Dalits.
· Make the reservation quota mandatory for all private educational institutions at different levels- from primary to technical and professional.
· Take total responsibility for making Dalit communities literate within a specified period of ten years.

Right to Land & Labour
· Bring down the ceiling limit of land ownership in the Land Reforms Act.
· From the declared surplus land under the Land Ceiling Act distribute a minimum of five acres of cultivable land to each Dalit household within three years.
· Appoint statutory committees at national and state level, under the purview of the SC/ST Commission, to identify within a specified time-frame all the Panchami Lands; to study the extent of areas occupied by non-Dalits; to assess the quantum of compensation to be paid by the non-Dalits for having utilized the lands; to identify and distribute the lands to the original Dalit owners and their nearest kith and kin.

Dalit Women's Right to Gender Equity

· Recognise Dalit Women as a distinct social group, rather than mask them under the general category of women.
· Make segregated data on Dalit Women available in census reports, status reports, and progress and impact reports.
· Make special and distinct provisions for Dalit Women in policy making, programme planning, allocation of finances and distribution of reservation facilities in education and employment.

Dalit Right to Life & Security
· Effectively implement, in spirit and action, the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act (1989) and Rules (1995).
· Establish special courts at the level of Supreme, High and District Court to try cases of untouchability within a stipulated time frame for each level.
· Recruit a proportional percentage of Dalits to all the different classes of police forces at both national and state levels.
· Launch a State-sponsored nationwide public awareness campaign, through electronic media and public and private print, regarding the legal prohibition of untouchability, atrocities and other forms of discrimination and violence against Dalits.

Right to Reservation & Employment
· Fill all backlog posts meant for Dalits immediately and, that too, only with Dalits.
· Make reservation mandatory in the private sector in the same proportion as it is in the government institutions.
· Review the earlier policy of prohibiting reservation to certain areas like judiciary, trustee posts, etc.
· Ensure, in the light of the Supreme Court verdict- reservation should not exceed more then 50%- that the representation of the forward castes (non-SC/ST/OBC) does not exceed 50%.

Black Paper Objectives
In order that our grievances be heard and our demands taken up, ten thousand copies of the BLACK PAPER will be distributed and presented to MPs, MLAs and journalists across the country for tabling before the parliament and state assemblies and for reviewing in the press.

The Black Paper vigorously challenges the Indian State to not enter into the 21st century without releasing a White Paper to Dalits detailing its performance record in protecting Dalit human rights and the concrete actions it will take to protect Dalit Human Rights in the next century.

The BLACK PAPER is an expression of our anguish, our language of anger, our voice of protest, our instrument of campaign, our symbol of assertion, our cry of appeal, our statement of proclamation and our demand charter of rights.