« India's Untouchable Millionnaire | Main | Will there be Justice? »
March 08, 2010
Lord Alton and the Single Equality Bill
On the heels of the Single Equality Bill in the House of Lords, the Dalit campaign is much in the news all over because of Kancha Ilaiah's new book, the Tamil Nadu Christian march for Dalit Christian Rights, and a host of other things. The Muslim world is particularly responding to Kancha's thesis of a post-hindu India.
Lord Alton who is one of our big advocates has some great examples of British Christian stalwarts who spoke up against social and structural evil and Wilberforce on caste!!
Following is the victorious email forwarded from Lord Alton on this very topic.
~ Joseph
Begin forwarded message:
From: "ALTON, Lord"
Date: March 5, 2010 3:57:05 PM GMT+05:30
Subject: Dalits In india
Second Reading of the Anti Slavery Day Bill: Debate March 5th 2010
It is with great pleasure that I add my voice to those supporting the terms of my noble and learned friend’s Bill to inaugurate an Anti Slavery Day.
In 2007, the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade, I ran a series of Roscoe Lectures on behalf of Liverpool John Moores University, where I hold a chair, commemorating the passage of William Wilberforce’s Bill to abolish the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and highlighting the nature of contemporary forms of slavery. For those who may not have read it, William Hague’s magnificent biography of Wilberforce cannot be bettered.
Liverpool was at the epicentre of the trade. Even so, brave men, like William Roscoe, the city’s Member of Parliament, would not countenance support for slavery and he voted with Wilberforce.
Sir James Picton, Liverpool's greatest historian, said of William Roscoe:
"No native resident of Liverpool has done more to elevate the character of the community, by uniting the successful pursuit of literature and art with the ordinary duties of the citizen and man of business."
In Roscoe’s epic poem, The Wrongs of Africa, published in 1787, he wrote of the iron hand crushing the people of Africa. He devoted the proceeds of the poem to the London Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.
"Blush ye not
To boast your equal laws, your just restraints,
Your rights defined, your liberties secured,
Whilst with an iron hand ye crush to earth
The helpless African; and bid him drink
That cup of sorrow, which yourselves have dashed,
Indignant, from oppression's fainting grasp."
With great strength and clarity the final stanza of Part One of this 35-page poem warns its readers:
"Forget not, Britain, higher still than thee
Sits the Judge of Nations, who can weigh
The wrong and can repay. Before His throne
Confess they weakness; nor with impious voice
Arraign th' immutable decree, that fix'd
The bounds of wrong and right; that gave to all
Their equal blessing, and secures its ends
By penalties severe; which often slow,
But always certain, on the guilty head,
Pour down the terrors of the wrath divine."
Hansard records, on February 23rd 1807, that Roscoe told the House of Commons that:
the slave trade had “disgraced the land” and continued:
"I have,” said the hon.gentleman, “long resided in the town of Liverpool; for 30 years I have never ceased to condemn this inhuman traffic; and I consider it the greatest happiness of my existence to lift up my voice on this occasion against it, with the friends of justice and humanity."
For so lifting up his voice, Roscoe was assailed by the mob on his return to Liverpool and never returned again to Parliament. It is important that stories like this are not forgotten. The courage and determination of men like Roscoe and Wilberforce should remain an inspiration to future generations. The stories matter because many of the same battles remain to be fought in our own generation.
Just a week ago I was in West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.
At several events I spoke about the plight of India’s untouchables – the Dalits – and the forms of exploitation and slavery which stem from the caste system. Dalit is a term which derives from a Sanskrit word meaning “broken” or “crushed.” One in forty of the world’s population is a Dalit living in India - a quarter of India's population.
I recalled that on June 22nd 1813, Wilberforce made a major speech in the Commons about India. In his remarks he said that the caste system:
“must surely appear to every heart of true British temper to be a system at war with truth and nature; a detestable expedient for keeping the lower orders of the community bowed down in an abject state of hopelessness and irremediable vassalage. It is justly, Sir, the glory of this country, that no member of our free community is naturally precluded from rising into the highest classes in society.”
Two centuries later India’s President, Dr.Manmohan Singh has trenchantly argued that “untouchability is not just social discrimination; it is a blot on humanity”
Yet, in 2010, while India is a rising world power and is rightly gaining a reputation for innovation and excellence in many fields, this “blot on humanity” disfigures India’s reputation and has become one of the world’s greatest human rights challenges. Hundreds of millions of people remain imprisoned by the bondage of what Wilberforce called “the cruel shackles” of the caste system.
Those shackles inevitably lock their prisoners into the most menial forms of labour, trap them in servitude, and leave them susceptible to innumerable forms of exploitation.
In fairness to the Indian Government it must be said that growing social mobility and a series of remedial measures introduced since independence have provided some amelioration. Some individual Dalits have reached high positions in Indian society, not least Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, the senior judge of India’s Supreme Court and Ms Meira Kumar, Speaker of the Lok Sabha, the lower house of India’s parliament. Yet, as I heard first-hand, even where Dalit people are securing elementary education, in some cases further educational progress and employment opportunities have been blocked to them.
Few would surely disagree that the caste system, with all the social prejudices and hierarchies which it entails, continues to enforce and compound servitude and exploitation. The perpetuation of humiliating descent-based occupations is the natural and inevitable consequence of the caste system. The rationale for caste was the division of labour, but to paraphrase Dr B.R. Ambedkar, architect of India’s constitution and hero of the Dalits, caste came to enforce a division of labourers.
I illustrate this point with reference to one of the most appalling and disgraceful forms of labour anywhere in the world, known euphemistically as manual scavenging: it involves cleaning human excrement from dry latrines, and is uniquely performed by Dalits as a consequence of their caste. The number engaged in this occupation is not known for certain, but it may be as high (or higher) than the equivalent of the population of Birmingham. An article in The New Statesman explained the link between this occupation and caste exploitation:
“Every society needs its sanitation workers, and no doubt those in any context may face some stigma. However, the deeper reality in India is that this job is reserved for Dalits, the ‘untouchables’ of old, and it is their job for life. As members of the Thoti sub-caste”,
the subject of the article,
“they were destined for this work by their birth, with no right of appeal. Members of equivalent sub-castes endure similar work across numerous districts of India: perhaps as many as 1.3 million of them. The nature of the caste system is that it generates a powerful combination of social and psychological pressures, constraints and expectations, which means that they cannot simply walk out of this work into another job of their choice. Because the scavengers do this work, there is little incentive to bring about change by introducing proper toilet facilities into the areas they work. Yet as long as the scavengers do it, they will be treated as untouchables. Theirs is a story of institutional dehumanisation and the flagrant abuse of their human rights.”
Tens of millions of India’s citizens are subject to highly exploitative forms of labour and modern-day slavery. This often plays into the problem of debt bondage and bonded labour, which affects tens of millions: it perpetuates a cycle of despair and hopelessness, as generations are bonded to the family debt, unable to be educated, unable to escape. Tragically, the debt is often the result of a loan taken out for something as simple and essential as a medical bill.
The caste system also plays into people trafficking - another form of slavery which affects millions in India. According to a report in CNN Asia last year, India’s Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta “remarked that at least 100 million people were involved in human trafficking in India”, whether for sex or for labour. The head of the Central Bureau of Investigation said that India occupied a unique position as a source, transit and destination country for trafficking, and that India has more than three million prostitutes, of whom an estimated 40% are children. These statistics are hugely significant: the situation in India simply must be at the heart of the fight against trafficking globally.
The Dalit Solidarity Network UK, which has been calling for an end to the caste system before this year’s Commonwealth Games, also highlights devadasi - a system of ritual prostitution of almost exclusively young Dalit girls.
During their time in India the British failed to heed Wilberforce and resisted the calls to abolish caste. Although untouchability was barred by the constitution when India secured independence, in 1947, the caste system was not dismantled. Most of the worst forms of exploitation are proscribed by Statute but all too often, the laws are simply not implemented, and the police further entrench, rather than protect against, caste prejudice. This point was made repeatedly in the Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination in May 2007.
A damning verdict is reached by a recent, in-depth report by the Robert F. Kennedy Centre entitled ‘Understanding Untouchability: A Comprehensive Study of Practices and Conditions in 1,589 Villages’: it describes “the Government of India’s continued ignorance about the depth of the problem and inadequacy in addressing untouchability and meetings its legal obligations in regard to the problem of untouchability”.
Caste discrimination is usually associated with India but, in parenthesis, I might add that there are also an estimated 3.5-5.5 million Dalits living in Bangladesh (2.5-4% of the total population). The majority are landless, and live in chronic poverty in rural areas or urban slums. They are deprived or actively excluded from adequate housing, health care, education, employment and participation in public life. Approximately 96% are illiterate.
To conclude, then, My lords, let me commend the attempt of my noble and learned friend, Lady Butler-Sloss, to remember and highlight the campaign against modern-day forms of slavery.
In my study I have a small terracotta pot given to me by Dr. Joseph D’souza, President of the International Dalit Freedom Network. Such pots must be broken once a Dalit has drunk out of it – so as not to pollute or contaminate other castes. This, in the 21st century. It's not the pots which need to be broken, nor the people, but the system which ensnares them.
Dr. D’souza rightly says: "If we are not intentional about bringing change and transformation in lives and society it will not happen. To love people is to act on behalf of them.”
My learned and noble friend’s Bill will be a stimulus to act on behalf of people like the Dalits and I readily support it.
Posted by klajja at March 8, 2010 10:09 PM
Comment Code of Conduct
I will express myself with civility, courtesy, and respect for others, especially toward those with whom I disagree—even if I feel disrespected by them.
I will express my disagreements with others' ideas without insulting, mocking, or slandering them personally.
I will not exaggerate others' beliefs nor make unfounded prejudicial assumptions based on labels, categories, or stereotypes. I will always extend the benefit of the doubt.