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Research Paper - Political Science Topic : Impact Of Human Rights And Socially Excluded: Policies And Perspectives Author : V. Rama Krishna Dept. of Political Science Tumkar University, Tumkar.
Dalits have remained excluded not only from the economic and cultural mainstream of society but also from the ambit of the expression of their existential notions in the hierarchical order of the society. Caste, like race is exploitative, discrimination and anti development. Its virulence can be gauged from the facts that though originally a creation of the medieval Brahminical priestcraft, the abominable caste system has spread its tentacles into those religions that admitted converts from Hinduism, such as Islam, Christianity and Buddhism. Despite of abolishing untouchability prejudice against SCs and STs persists in some form or the other be it overt, covert or subtle in expression and transnational. The paper attempts to address two interrelated issues. First it tries to conceptualize the nature and dimensions of socially excluded people linked with atrocities and human rights violations. Secondly, in this theoretical back drop it tries to provide empirical evidence on the practice of caste based exclusion and discrimination and denial of rights of dalits in socio-political and economic development. Finally the paper explores to expand the human rights agenda for more transformative ends, and consider socially excluded people to bring in to the mainstream of the society and achievement of global development goals set by India. Introduction In India there is an increase in violence against the "untouchables" it is said that the violence and discrimination against more than 160 million people - the broken people - is increasing and the Indian Government has failed to take effective preventive measures. "Untouchability" was abolished under India's Constitution in 1950. Yet entire villages in many Indian states remain completely segregated by caste, in what has been called "hidden apartheid". Untouchables or Dalits - the name literally means "broken" people may not enter the higher-caste sections of villages and have been the victims of many brutal massacres in recent years. "Untouchability" is not an ancient cultural artifact; it is human rights abuse on a vast scale. "The tools for change are in place - what is lacking is the political will for their implementation." Since the early 1990s, violence against Dalits has escalated dramatically in response to growing Dalit rights movements. The Human Rights Watch Report 1999 includes more than forty specific recommendations to the Indian government at the central and state level, many of them focused on implementing a 1989 law banning atrocities against Dalits. According to that law, it is illegal to force Dalits into bonded labour, deny them access to public places, foul their drinking water, force them to eat "obnoxious substances", "parade them naked or with painted face or body." The recommendations also call for the establishment of special courts and atrocities units to prosecute crimes against Dalits, and more women police personnel to register complaints by Dalit women. "The violence will only grow without these measures". "It is a crisis that calls out for national and international attention." The Relevance of Human Rights The idea that non-ful?lment of only certain kinds of human rights and not others will count as poverty may seem to militate against the principle of indivisibility of rights, which states that all human rights are equally important. It is well documented that the poor frequently experience social exclusion, isolation, alienation, discrimination and inequality. This feeling of being looked down upon often arises from a combination of economic deprivation and socio-cultural factors, such as ethnicity, colour, religion, social hierarchy and gender. Poverty not only arises from a lack of resources it may also arise from a lack of access to resources, information, opportunities, power and mobility. As the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights observes: "Sometimes poverty arises when people have no access to existing resources because of who they are, what they believe or where they live. Discrimination may cause poverty, just as poverty may cause discrimination." Social Exclusion Vectors and Domains South Asia is a repository of policy interventions which explicitly or implicitly respond to the Copenhagen and MDG agenda, and go beyond it in the form of policies sensitive to social inclusion (Gabriele Kohler and Mariana Stirbu 2008). Societies are not homogenous, and include wide ranges of identities of the individuals and groups living in them. Identity can be a source of strength and social cohesion, can underpin creative multicultural environments, and be a source of inspiration. Identity can also be a source as well as an outcome of processes of social exclusion, and negate fundamental human rights. Vectors of social

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exclusion can be clustered into groups. Exclusions overlap and compound, with income poverty and gender reinforcing other vectors, and functioning as sources of exclusion as well as resulting in exclusion. Political and Economic Inclusion Bandyopadhyay (2005) the best-known examples are those around political inclusion. India has a long practice of affirmative action in the form of "reservations" quotas for different caste groups, defined in a classification system introduced at India's independence, and broadened in 1979 by the Mangal Commission established by the Prime Minister. The purpose is to give priority access to higher education and by implication to facilitate access to the better paid and more prestigious professions and government service - for students from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. Also in India, there are provisions to ensure representation of women in local level bodies at the community level; in some cases, there is also a small stipend provided to compensate for opportunity costs. The downside of affirmative action is that it can overemphasise identity and create rifts in the population and turn into politically divisive and centrifugal processes. Social Exclusion and Ambedkar's Principles of Employment "Dalit" is a term which has had increasing currency in recent years. Literally, it means "the oppressed". It encompasses peoples who used to be called "untouchables", or "Harijans"; who are often also referred to as "Scheduled Castes", because the way they are referred to in the constitution of India. "Adivasi" is a term which refers to those who are members of "Scheduled Tribes". That is, individuals who are racially distinct, as indigenous peoples, in contradistinction to the Caucasian peoples who invaded and settled India centuries ago. There is legislation stemming from the Indian Constitution which outlaws caste discrimination. The Chair of the committee which wrote the constitution of the Republic of India was Dr. Ambedkar. He became an all-India figure and the undisputed leader of the Dalits. He used this vantage-point successfully to question with blunt and militant doggedness the claim of Gandhi to represent all of India and especially the Dalits. He died in 1956 having served as India's first Law Minister. Under the constitution, the Republic of India is empowered to "promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker sections of the people, and, in particular, of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation". To achieve this aim, the State has used a two-fold approach: the provision of legal safeguards against discrimination; and a "Reservation Policy" in the

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State sector and State Supported Sector. Subsequently, there has been further legislation, which has introduced penalties for specific examples of caste discrimination. These include the 1989 Prevention of Atrocities Act, the 1993 Protection of Human Rights Act, and the 1993 Employment of Manual Scavengers Act. However, these laws are far from effective. The Reservation Policy allocates 17% of public sector jobs to Scheduled Castes, and a further 8% to Scheduled Tribes. This approximately reflects their respective percentages in the population as a whole. Since the inception of the Reservation Policy following independence in 1947, there has been a significant increase in the number of Dalit and Adivasi government employees, but this is for a population of between about 250 million Dalits and Adivasis (167 million Dalits, and 86 million Adivasis, in 2001). Varadarajan. A; Prakash Ambedkar (1993) Social discrimination exists in rural areas where SC people do not have burial and cremation grounds. If there are specific cremation grounds, then they are not accessible by road and are more often reached through private lands, leading to communal violence. Urgent action is required by Departments concerned on these needs of the Dalit people. The short fall in reservations, as reported in the press, giving answers by the Ministers to the questions raised by Members of Parliament show the gap between the rules and the implementation of them. In order to find a remedy for these discriminatory issues we put forth the following proposals: 1. The Government shall appoint special tribunals to try the cases within the stipulated period of 3 months. These tribunals should have powers to punish the erring officials for the failure to implement the Government laws and rules. They are anxious and quick to deny to the SC and ST people reservation in promotions taking umbrage under some observation made by the Supreme Court in the Mandal Case though that case relates only to reservation for Backward classes and any observation made regarding SC and ST people could only be obiter dicta, not enforceable in law against the SC and ST people. Immediate steps are required to be taken to remedy the situation. 2. Education on Human rights to remove deep rooted prejudices and to end discrimination and atrocities on the Dalit people as a preventive measure is urgently required. 3. In order to support the Governmental measures. We urge the Government to encourage voluntary bodies working for and with the Dalits to make

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representations to the State and Central Governments, which may set up a special cell for this purpose for taking remedial action. Problems Faced by SCs and STs Despite abolishing untouchability, prejudice against SCs and STs persists in some form or the other - be it overt, covert or subtle in expression. "Whatever has been done in this regard has been done hesitatingly half-heartedly and as a measure of concession forgetting that this relates to their Constitutional rights and not concession to (them)..." More and more Dalits and Adivasis are becoming landless and are joining the ranks of agricultural labourers. The state of landlessness makes them vulnerable and fuels and promotes further perpetration of atrocities against them. Since the 1980s there has been a steady decline in the allocation of government funds for SC and ST development and welfare projects. The paper states, "there has in general been an inherent lack of interest and seriousness on the part of the planning and implementing machinery to achieve the objectives of the Constitution...benefits secured by the SCs and STs do not appear commensurate with the funds spent so far". Despite providing reservation quotas in jobs, the representation of SCs and STs in the higher levels of all public services remains poor. Sainath. P (1999) Even in the panchayats, dalit and adivasi sarpanches are routinely deposed by fraudulent means. Often, at the end of their first year in office, they are removed by rigged votes of 'no confidence' which then leave the upper caste upa sarpanch in de facto powers for years. The illiterate ones are often made to put their thumbprints on some documents - and then charged with embezzlement by the very persons guilty of it. Dalit women members are precluded from attending crucial panchayat meetings simply by holding these late at night in the upper caste basti. So half of them won't date enter that basti and the ruling elite in such a meeting can pass almost any vote. Crimes against Dalits in India Every 18 minutes: A crime is committed against a Dalit Every day: 3 Dalit women are raped; 2 Dalits are murdered & 2 Dalits Houses are burnt in India; 11 Dalits are beaten Every week: 13 Dalits are murdered; 5 Dalits home or possessions are burnt; 6 Dalits are kidnapped or abducted Social and Economic condition of Dalits: v 37 percent of Dalits living below poverty in India v More than half (54%) of their children are undernourished in India v 83 per 1000 live birth children born in Dalit

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community are probability of dying before the first birthday 45 percent of Dalits do not know read and write in India Dalits women burden double discrimination (gender and caste) in India Only 27 percent of Dalits women give institutional deliveries in India About one third of Dalit households do not have basic facilities Public health workers refused to visit Dalit homes in 33% of villages Dalits were prevented from entering police station in 27.6% of villages Dalit children had to sit separately while eating in 37.8% of Govt. schools Dalits didn't get mail delivered to their homes in 23.5% of villages Dalits were denied access to water sources in 48.4% of villages because of segregation & untouchabilty practices Half of India's Dalit children are undernourished, 21% are severely underweight & 12% DIE before their 5th birthday Literacy rates for Dalit women are as low as 37.8% In Rural India Status of Prevention of Atrocities Act: The conviction rate under SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act is 15.71% and pendency is as high as 85.37%. This when the Act has strict provisions aimed as a deterrent. By contrast, conviction rate under IPC is over 40% On actual crime committed against Dalits "Even the reports prepared by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and placed before Parliament contain merely factual information received from States about registration and disposal of cases; various administrative arrangements made for the function of the Act and funds spent, without any meaningful analysis of the performance of the States which could form the basis for making corrective interventions." "Under-reporting of Atrocities Act cases is a very common phenomenon and therefore the decline in the number of registered cases does not provide a true picture of the incidence of atrocities." "A large number of cases which deserve to be registered under Protection of Civil Rights Act or the SCs & STs (Prevention of Atrocities) Act are not actually registered under these Acts, either due to ignorance of

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law or under pressure from the interested parties. Investigations in even those limited number of cases is often earned out in a slipshod manner and with considerable delay." Crimes Against Dalits in Karnataka According to the National Crime Records Bureau of the Ministry of Home Affairs of Government of India, 214 cases of atrocities against tribals were reported from Karnataka in 2006. These included four cases of killing, seven cases of rape and 117 cases registered under SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act of 1989, among others. The rate of filing charge-sheet for crimes committed against tribals was 95.7% during 2006 but the conviction rate was only 4%. Out of total 259 cases in which trials were completed, only in 10 cases the accused were convicted and in other 240 cases the accused were acquitted. The conditions of displaced tribals who now live in forest areas are deplorable. In August 2007, the Adivasi Mulabhuta Hakkugala Horata Samiti alleged that the Forest Department officials were making the lives of the tribals living in the "hadis" (tribal settlements) inside the Nagarahole National Park in Karnataka miserable by restricting their movement and lodging of false cases against them and were repeatedly booked for growing paddy, ginger, vegetables and coffee in and around their habitations in the forests and transporting them outside the forests to sell them to earn their livelihood. In December 2006, nearly 78 tribal families were evicted from the Saragodu Reserve Forest in Chikmagalur district on the direction of the Supreme Court who termed the tribals as "encroachers". After their eviction, the tribal IDPs were asked by the government to fend for themselves. The State government promised to provide to each family two acres of land, Rs 50,000 for a girl who had attained marriageable age and money for construction of house but as of 19 February 2007 the evicted tribals were given nothing. Earlier in January 2006, the tribal people petitioned to the National Human Rights Commission and the National Commission for the Scheduled Tribes against the eviction notice. The tribals rejected the government's resettlement package as it did not include the names of several families who were in the voters' list as well as in school documents. The tribals demanded that the resettlement package be converted into a development package and the lands being cultivated by tribals in the Saragodu Reserve Forests should be regularised. The state government failed to prevent further alienation of the lands of tribal people. According to the Annual Report 2007-08 of the Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, a total of 42,582 cases alleging alienation of 130,373 acres of land have been filed

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in the court in Karnataka. The courts disposed off 38,521 cases out of which 21,834 cases involving 67,862 acres of land have been decided in favor of tribals and 16,687 cases involving 47,159 acre of land have been rejected. About 4,061 cases were pending in the court. According to the National Crime Records Bureau of the Ministry of Home Affairs, 1,730 cases of atrocities were reported against Scheduled Castes in 2006 in Karnataka. These included 28 cases of killing, 27 cases of rape, four cases of abduction/kidnapping, 25 cases registered under the Protection of Civil Rights Act and 1,051 cases registered under the SC/ST Prevention of Atrocities Act of 1989. The rate of filing charge-sheets for crimes committed against the Dalits was 92.3% during 2006 but the conviction rate was only 2.3%. Out of total 1519 cases in which trials were completed, only in 35 cases the accused were convicted and in other 1484 cases the accused were acquitted. Mr Nehru C. Olekar, the chairperson of the Karnataka State Commission for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes stated on 3 July 2007 that the accused in 98% of cases involving violations of human rights of the Dalits were allowed to go free as witnesses in most cases did not turn up for fear of being attacked by the upper castes. Dalits were targeted for accessing public places. On 13 April 2007, upper caste Hindus attacked Dalits at K. Shettahalli in Mandya district. At least 20 Dalits including women were injured in the attacked launched by members of dominant Vokkaliga community. Violence against Women According to the 2006 Annual Report of the NCRB, a total of 6,084 cases of violence against women were reported in 2006. Of these, 400 were rape cases, 328 kidnapping and abduction cases, 244 dowry death cases, 786 cases under Immoral Trafficking (Prevention) Act of 1956, among others. Crimes against women were committed by the police. The NHRC registered one case of custodial rape in Karnataka during 1 April 2006 31 March 2007. In October 2007, the SHRC intervened after an undertrial prisoner Asha (name changed), lodged at the Central prison at Parapanna Agrahara, alleged that she was raped by police constable CC Basavaraj of Koramangal police station while in judicial custody. The victim along with her husband were illegally detained at the Koramangala police station for almost a week and tortured by the police. In India, the last quarter of the 20th century has been witness to a growing recognition of the place and relevance of human rights. It is axiomatic that this interest in human rights is rooted in the denial of life and liberty that was a pervasive aspect of the Emergency (1975-77).

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Movements against Pervasive Discrimination Dalit movements have kept caste oppression, and the oppression of caste, in public view. Moving beyond untouchability, which persists in virulent forms, the movement has had to contend with increasing violence against dalits even as dalits refuse to suffer in silence, or as they move beyond the roles allotted to them in traditional caste hierarchy. The growth of caste armies in Bihar, for instance, is one manifestation. The assassination of dalit panchayats leaders in Melmazhuvur in Tamil Nadu is another. The firing on dalits by the police forces when they were seen to be rising above their oppression in the southern tip of Tamil Nadu is a third. The scourge of manual scavenging has been brought into policy and the law campaigns; there have been efforts to break through public obduracy in acknowledging that untouchability exists. In the meantime, there are efforts by groups working on dalit issues to internationalise deep discrimination of caste by influencing the agenda of the World Conference Against Racism. The professionalising of the non-governmental sector has had an impact on finding public space for certain issues and in making work on the issues sustainable. Child labour, AIDS-related work, the area of devolution and aiding women's participation in panchayat institutions, and battling violence against women have found support and sustainability in funding infrastructure development and support. These have existed alongside civil liberties groups and initiatives, grassroots campaigns such as the Campaign for the Right to Information based in Rajasthan, the development struggle which has the Narmada Bachao Andolan at its helm, or the fish workers' forum that has combated, sometimes successfully, the encroachments by the large-scale and capital-intensive into the livelihoods of traditional fishing communities. Movements for selfdetermination, militancy, dissent and the naxalite movement have provoked various extraordinary measures which have, in turn, prompted human rights groups into protest and challenge. The Terrorist and Disruptive A c t i v i t i e s ( P r e v e n t i o n ) A c t ( TA D A ) i s a n instanceMadhusree Chatterjee (2010), in her article published on International Women's Day. India's leading feminist Dalit novelist-cum-politician P. Sivakami feels that most gender atrocities in the country are committed against Dalit women. The former senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer gave up her job to become a full-time writer in 2008. "In the society that is known as mainstream, the problems of Dalit women are considered separatist. They face the worst expressions of male chauvinistic society - atrocities like raping, profiling, physical assault

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and murder." "Consequently Dalit feminists, who speak for their women and spearhead causes like inter-caste marriages, are often branded separatists, they may be on the periphery but they ironically form the core issues because they speak for large numbers who have been affected by discrimination. The Dalit communities are forced to prostrate before upper castes and they are ghettoized working as landless labourers and living in clusters on the fringe of the village." IANS (2010) in the report quoted that the poorest of the poor dalits and exploited sections of society have extremely low awareness about legal rights and judicial remedies which is impeding welfare and human rights objectives, a rights activist said Saturday. "Unless Dalits and marginalised sections of society are aware of their legal rights and are also aware of the ways and means to enforce them, they will not be able to enjoy rights and privileges accorded to them under Indian laws," Sarita Bhoi of the Dalit Rights Initiative of Human Rights Law Network (HRLN) said after the conclusion of a two day workshop on "Dalit Rights and the Law". "There is large scale ignorance about legal rights, together with ignorance and fear of the judicial options and procedures among dalits and exploited communities. All of the recommendations were formulated in Constitution with Indian activists involved in the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights, founded in 1998. Uppercaste employers frequently use caste as a cover for exploitative economic arrangements. With the exception of a minority who have benefited from India's policy of reservation (affirmative action), Dalits are relegated to the most menial tasks. An estimated forty million people in India, among them fifteen million children, are bonded labourers, working in slave-like conditions in order to pay off debts. The majority of them are Dalits. At least one million Dalits work as manual scavengers, clearing feces from latrines and disposing of dead animals with their bare hands. Dalits also comprise the majority of agricultural labourers who work for a few kilograms of rice, or 15-35 rupees (less than US $1) a day. In India's southern states, thousands of Dalit girls are forced to become prostitutes for upper-caste patrons and village priests before reaching the age of puberty. Landlords and the police use sexual abuse and other forms of violence against women to inflict political "lessons" and crush dissent within the community. Dalit women have been arrested and tortured in custody to punish their male relatives who are hiding from the authorities. In Bihar, high-caste landlords have organised private militias, or senas, which have killed Dalit villagers with impunity. Extremist guerrilla groups have retaliated by killing high-

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caste villagers, leading to an escalating cycle of violence. Such attacks on civilians constitute violations of international humanitarian law. Human Rights Watch has called for independent investigations into the killings and for the disarming of the militias. Sukhadeo Thorat (2009) Dalits are the erstwhile untouchable caste or the current Scheduled Castes (SCs). These castes suffered perpetual social discrimination, economic exploitation and political marginalization. Acknowledging such grave injustice, many reformers, political activists and leaders waged relentless struggle for the empowerment of these deprived masses. As the result of many vibrant social movements, the independent nationstate in India has provided these castes multiple policies of affirmative action, special safeguards and other rights to overcome their depraved conditions. He examines the current status of the Dalits especially in the last three decades by providing a vast statistical database on multiple indicators of growth. At the all India level the Dalits also remained poorer in comparison with other social groups. The greater dependency of SCs on agriculture for livelihood, mainly as landless labours with low wage rates has created the condition for such chronic poverty. Such discriminatory disparities remained also in the educational sectors. Even though there is a significant rise in the literacy rate among the SC, their participation in elementary and higher education lagged behind significantly in comparison with the non-SC/ST counterparts. Further from his studies on the health status of the Dalits Thorat claims that the health conditions of the SCs is really poor and more deprived in comparison with other sections of the population. Almost on all the indicators of health, the SC suffers worst kind of inaccessibility with the basic health care facilities like maternity and immunisation. He argued that social discriminations like non-access to tea shops, denial of water facilities, denial of barber and washer men's services, ban on marriage procession on roads, denial of right to seat with the upper caste and other such practices are still reluctantly observed in many states. Further, the labour market is also blotted with such practices through exclusion and discrimination in hiring, wage payments and as low as preventing Dalits from selling in local market. Conclusion The perspective of social exclusion is broad and inclusive, but need not lack coherence or cogency, if used with discrimination and scrutiny. It is, however, necessary to make some crucial distinctions to clarify the varying reach of the analysis of social exclusion. The real issue is not whether the idea of "social exclusion" deserves a celebratory medal as a conceptual advance, but whether

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people concerned with practical measurement and public policy have reason to pay attention to the issues to which the idea helps to draw attention. "Mainstreaming" the concerns of excluded groups in agencies or ministries appears to have worked in the case of gender inclusion, but this requires the presence of a government agency or function devoted to coordination and vigilance. This agency's success depends on strong support from the executive branch, close alliance with non -state actors, and both political and cultural openings. One of the accomplishments of the UN reform agenda is the creation of the social and economic development pillar, which conceptually unites policy thinking in macroeconomics, trade, investment, migration, and social development and integration/inclusion related policies. A next step is to come up with a core set of policy stances the non-negotiables, rooted in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Millennium Declaration, and hence acknowledging the primacy of employment and decent work, poverty eradication and social inclusion in a rights-based framework. Obviously, specific types and points of intervention cannot be "dictated", but it does suggest the need for consensus building on key evidence based "policies that work". And it posits the need to make cross references and synergies among mandates and programmes more visible and tangible, for concrete results to inclusively include those who are excluded. The right of access to information and participation in social protection programs has to be analysed. In general, a lack of knowledge by civil society about government responses to the crisis has been observed across all regions, which has in turn limited public scrutiny of the design and implementation of programs. The most fundamental way in which empowerment occurs is through the introduction of the concept of rights itself. This recognition of the existence of legal entitlements of the socially excluded and legal obligations of others towards them is the ?rst step towards empowerment.

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