NEW DELHI, 30 August — India is determined to keep the issue of caste discrimination off the agenda of the global meeting on racism in South Africa, arguing it is not within the ambit of the conference.
“The Durban conference is about racism and it is different from casteism and trying to include the subject in the meeting would confuse the whole issue,” Social Justice Minister Maneka Gandhi said.
The government has send the former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief, Bangaru Laxman, for participation in the conference. Tehelka expose had compelled Laxman to quit BJP’s presidentship.
India’s fractious opposition and disparate partners in Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s coalition government are in rare agreement on the matter, which human rights groups are determined should be raised. The politicians say the Durban conference, to begin tomorrow, should not be overloaded with what one official called “extraneous and irrelevant issues.”
Laxman, a Dalit, has been deliberately selected by the government to thwart attempts of other groups to include caste issue in discussions. However, several Dalit groups are reported to have gathered at Durban to attract the world attention to their plight in India
Maneka wondered if there would be any interest from outside South Asia in the caste issue during the debates.
But non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Durban ahead of the meeting have already drawn up a draft resolution calling caste discrimination “a contemporary form of slavery” and saying it should be abolished. Maneka said atrocities were bound to occur. “Casteism has been here for thousands of years. So it may take some time for us to tackle it.”
“Besides casteism, there is a huge number of evils (in India) such as over-population. Every country looks for instruments to resolve their problems and so shall we,” she added. Vajpayee’s government will offer “forceful arguments” against discussing caste at the conference, a government official said, adding that such discrimination is India’s matter.
This was supported by the main opposition Congress party, a bitter political foe of Vajpayee. “It will be ridiculous if the Congress supports these groups (wanting to raise the issue of casteism) at the conference,” a party officials said. “Also, the inclusion of caste-related atrocities will give Pakistan a handle to press for a resolution to censure India for practicing a special kind of apartheid,” he said.
In a report ahead of the conference, Human Rights Watch accused New Delhi of using “political and economic influence over other countries to pressure them into a partnership of silence.”
Martin Macwan, convener of the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights, has said that 240 million people in South Asia alone are discriminated against because of their lowly castes.
