All Human Beings Are Free And Equal In Dignity And Rights

Article 1: All human beings are free and equal in dignity and rights

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Case Study: DISCRIMINATION BASED ON DESCENT IN INDIA

• In much of Asia and parts of Africa, distinct groups suffer from discrimination which is based on their descent.

• India has a total population of 1 billion people. Caste discrimination in India affects the largest number of people because 16% of the population - 160 million people - are at the bottom of the cast hierarchy.

• Despite formal protections in law societal norms continue to pose challenges to change.

Context

Caste is determined by one's birth into a particular social group. It is based on descent and is hereditary in nature.

In much of Asia and parts of Africa, caste is the basis of discrimination and exclusion of distinct groups.

Over 250 million people worldwide suffer from this form of discrimination which is an obstacle to the fulfilment of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights.

Communities affected by caste include the Dalits in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, as well as the Buraku people of Japan, the Osu of Nigeria's Igbo people, and certain groups in Senegal and Mauritania.

Background in India

In India, the nearly 3,000 years old caste system is imbedded in the Hindi religious culture.

Indian society was originally divided by categories of work or varna. This system developed into more complicated divisions of society - castes.

Dalits, formerly known as 'untouchables', are viewed by many as separate from or below the caste system. Despite attempts during the last 100 years to break down caste barriers, the caste system is still a dominating feature of Indian society.

Legal Framework

Under the Indian Constitution, discrimination on the basis of caste is illegal.

In 1989 the Indian government enacted legislation to combat discrimination based on caste when it passed the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

The government has also enacted legislation which provides quotas for people from low castes in politics and government jobs.

The Indian Constitution reserves a proportional number of seats in both Union and State assemblies for Scheduled Castes. Despite these formal legal protections, in many areas, Dalits are either unaware of their legal rights or don't have the resources to seek redress, thus discriminatory treatment continues.

In India, Dalits, now known by the Indian government as Scheduled Castes, make up 16% of India's population.

India's Poorest

Status as a Dalit affects every dimension of an individual's life. Dalits are among the poorest of Indians.

Their status is frequently the basis for violence, including land encroachment, murders, attacks, rapes and arson.

They suffer from wage discrimination, infringement of the right to vote and run for elections, discrimination in schools, disproportionately high drop out rates and levels of illiteracy, dehumanising living and working conditions, impoverishment and malnourishment.

They generally do not own land and are often relegated to separate villages or neighbourhoods and to low paying and undesirable occupations such as street sweeping and removing human waste and dead animals.

They are often not allowed to use the same wells or attend the same temples as higher-castes.

Dalit women are affected by the burden of both caste and gender and even farther removed from legal protections.

Dalit Voices

In Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, the Dalits have a strong political presence and parties representing their interests are central to forming the state government.

In May 2002, the leader of the low-caste dominated Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Mayawati Kumari, was sworn in as the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh.

According to BBC's Ram Dutt Tripathi, for the first forty years of elected governments in Uttar Pradesh, every single chief minister belonged to upper caste communities.

He