petition on untouchability
Yogesh Varhade (acjp@torfree.net)
Mon, 21 Oct 1996 04:26:39 GMT
Please petition the United Nations and the Indian government. Petition
them to publicize appropriately and especially in India the findings of
the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)
slamming the Indian government on the Indian practice of untouchability
which is a crime against humanity. This is required by the UN Convention
but the Indian government shows no intention of complying.
Enclosed 1)letter from our president and 2) our press release on
the CERD findings. We hope that this will help you decide. The UN CERD
draft can be made available on request.
AMBEDKAR CENTRE FOR JUSTICE AND PEACE
A NON-PROFIT HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANISATION
ONTARIO Reg. No. 931114
October 1996
Dear Friend :
I am delighted to inform you the recent development at UN Centre for Human
Rights.
The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) had to
examine the India report which was long due. We had submitted the case
studies of the atrocities on Untouchables and Tribals to CERD and met many
wonderful members of CERD Committee, explaining them the pathetic
conditions of the 250 million slaves of the Hindu Caste System.
Even though we are very far from the final goal of dismantling this cruel
"Apartheid" of South Asia, the result, a concluding report by CERD
slamming the Indian government, is encouraging. Now we need your help
which we hope you will extend.
1. Please ask the major media (National newspapers and magazines) to
publish the UN press release and the report of CERD.
2. Write letters to UN Committee on Human Rights as follows:
Attn.: Mr.Ibrahima Fall, Assistant Secretary General, United Nations,
Centre for Human Rights, United Nations Office at Geneva 1211, Geneva 10,
Switzerland. Fax No. (4122) 917 0214
Copy To: Prof.Maurice Glele-Ahanhanzo, Special Rapporteur on Racism,
Racial Discrimination and Xenophobia, Centre for Human Rights,United
Nations Office at Geneva, 1211, Geneva 10, Switzerland Fax No. (4122) 917
0212
3. Please ask Prime Minister, Mr.Deve Gowda, India to publicize the
concluding observations of the commitee on elimination of racial
discrimination (CERD) alongwith its own report as per obligations to the
CERD committee as signatory to the CERD convention as soon as possilbe in
its major newspapers and media.
The letter writing campaign will help to pressurize United Nations and its
Special Rapporteur to consider seriously for investigations into this 3000
years old discrimination of millions of children, women and men trapped in
the caste system and practice of untouchability with no fault of theirs.
I request you to send out these letters at the earliest and send us a copy
for our records. We have a long way to go. We need your help in this long
journey. Thank you.
Sincerely Yours in Human Rights,
(Yogesh Varhade)
President
(Posted by Bhaskar Srinivasan, ACJP Communications Coordinator).
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PRESS RELEASE
UN BODY SLAMS INDIA ON UNTOUCHABILITY ISSUE;
T.O. ACTIVIST HAILS UN STAND AS IMPORTANT FIRST STEP
A UN body has strongly criticized the Indian government for continuing
human rights violations against India's 250 million untouchables. A
Toronto rights activist has hailed the move as perhaps the most
significant development and an important first step for the August body.
"For the first time in its over forty-year history, a UN Committee has
seen it necessary to censure the Indian Government over its treatment of
untouchables," says Yogesh Varhade who heads the Toronto-based Ambedkar
Centre for Justice and Peace and who is this year's recipient of the Los
.Angeles.-based Lift Every Voice's* Human Rights Award even though he adds
he " feels the Committee has not gone far enough."
UN COMMITTEE EXAMINES INDIAN GOVERNMENT REPORT
Varhade was invited to be present as an observer (5-23 Aug 1996) as well
as present case studies of atrocities on India's untouchables and tribals
when the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)
within the Geneva-based UN Centre for Human Rights deliberated the reports
presented by the Indian Government as part of its obligation under the
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial
Discrimination.
Varhade is an accredited participant of the UN Working Group on Indigenous
Populations at Geneva where he has been presenting evidence on the
conditions of India' untouchables and campaigning for the last six years
urging that the UN recognize untouchability as a crime against humanity
and pressure the Indian government to dismantle the system of
untouchability. While Varhade says it was great to get over 1,000 NGOs
worldwide at the UN Vienna Human Rights Summit in June 1993 to declare a
resolution urging the UN to act, the UN had till now refused to officially
comment on the issue, he says.
COMMITTEE SAYS INDIAN GOVERNMENT FAILS TO PREVENT DISCRIMINATION AND
PUNISH THE GUILTY
But that changed this year, he says, when the Committee in response to the
report which it saw as seriously flawed, condemned the Indian government
for among other things, failing to "prevent acts of discrimination "
towards untouchables and failing to "punish those found responsible and
provide just and adequate reparation to the victims."
COMMITTEE SAYS UNTOUCHABLES FALL WITHIN SCOPE OF UN CONVENTION
The Committee has also criticized the Indian government for continuing to
deny that the situation of the untouchables falls within the scope of the
convention and "its great concern that there was no inclination on the
side of the State party to reconsider its position."
INDIAN STAND A DENIAL OF INTERNATIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY SAYS ACTIVIST
This denial is not an academic question says Varhade. On account of its
denial, the Indian Government, though a signatory to the Convention,
continues to refuse to make a declaration allowing for victims of
discrimination to appeal directly to the UN Committee which has powers to
make the Indian government accountable for corrective measures.
The seriousness of the concern can be gauged by the fact says Varhade that
"the Indian government's own statistics shows that two untouchables are
assaulted in India every hour. Every day three untouchable women and
children are raped, two untouchable are murdered and two untouchables
houses are torched. For more realistic figures multiply these numbers by
ten. One estimate puts the atrocities at over 500,000 a year," says
Varhade. "But what is even more shocking still is that the perpetrators
rarely get punished. One government report showed that out of 2,718 police
cases only 94 convictions were obtained for a success rate of 3.5%".
INDIA CRITICIZED FOR NOT OUTLAWING RACIST ORGANIZATIONS
The Committee has also taken the government to task for its failure to
prohibit organizations which incite and promote racial discrimination. The
report has concluded that "this is the most serious in view of widespread
violence against certain minorities actively sponsored by extremist
organizations that have not been declared illegal."
LEGAL PROVISIONS INEFFECTIVE SAYS UN BODY
The Committee has pointed out that despite Constitutional provisions,
"widespread discrimination against those people and the relative impunity
of those who abuse them, points to the limited effects of those measures.
The Committee is particularly concerned at reports that (untouchables) are
often prevented from using public wells or from entering cafes or
restaurants and that their children are sometimes separated from other
children in schools, in violation of article 5 (c) of the Convention."
INDIA UNLIKELY TO PUBLICIZE UN FINDINGS SAYS ACTIVIST
While these are some of the harsh words that the Committee has directed
against the Indian government, Varhade says, he is concerned that though
the UN Committee has recommended to the Indian government that it "ensures
wide publicity" to both its own reports as well as the committees
concluding observations, he sees little hope that the Indian government
will do that. Mainly because, he says according to a UN press release, an
Indian CERD Committee expert "disassociated herself from the observations,
saying they were unbalanced."
PARAGRAPH DELETED
Varhade says that he is also upset that under pressure from India, the
Committee deleted a paragraph that recommended "a visit to India of Mr
Glele-Ahanhanzo, Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racial
Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance, in accordance with his
mandate under the Human Rights Commission."
-30-
* The L.A.-based Lift Every Voice is an educational NGO with internship
programs available to many disadvantaged students worldwide and it has
also been working with the UN assistant secretary general who heads the UN
Human Rights Division. Varhade was presented the award for his work
within the UN along with such notable activists like the Nigerian Ken Saro
Wiwa executed by the military junta.
For further information the following may be contacted:
Yogesh Varhade, president Ambedkar Centre for Justice and Peace, (ACJP).
(416) 533-6681
Dr Sam Lanfranco, economics professor at York University and ACJP
board member. (416) 812-7433
Dr Meyer Brownstone, Oxfam (Canada) chair and ACJP board member. (416)
537-5693
Jane Jacobs, urban historian and ACJP board member. (416) 534-5329
Copies of UN press releases and concluding draft of the UN Committee on
the Elimination of Racial Discrimination can be made available on request.
List of office bearers:
President Yogesh Varhade;
Vice-President Ross Mallick, Ph.D.;
Gen. Secretary and Treasurer Aloy Perera.
Directors USA P.N. Arya; Wilda Spalding Ted Eagans; UK P.L.
Ganvir;M.D.,F.R.C.S. V.T. Hireker; Ms.M.Hireker INDIA Prof.N.L.Sao; Prof.
Bhau Lokhande; Prof. Suresh Mane Dr. R.M.Pal
MALAYSIA A.Karunakaran; Raju Kamble
ADVISORS M. Brownstone, Ph.D.; Chair, OXFAM (Canada); Sam
Lanfranco, Ph.D. Professor, York University; Jane Jacobs,Historian.
Women's Issues Ana Maria Quiroz
The voice of India's 250 million indigenous peoples - Dalits.*
(* THE WORD DALITS MEANS THE DOWNTRODDEN OR THE UNTOUCHABLES)
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Ambedkar Centre for Justice & Peace (ACJP) P.O. Box 846, Stn. P, Toronto
Ontario, CANADA M5S 2Z2 Fax: (416) 531-2817 Phone: (416) 533-66810
Working with United Nations Centre for Human Rights
Working Group on Indigenous Populations
Email: acp@torfree.net acjp@freenet.toronto.on.ca
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ACJP is a non-profit human rights organization in support of India's
Dalits (CONTACT PERSON - YOGESH VARHADE , PRESIDENT)
ONTARIO REGISTRATION # 931114
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Ambedkar Centre for Justice & Peace (ACJP) P.O. Box 846, Station P,
Toronto Ontario, CANADA M5S 2Z2 Fax: (416) 531-2817
Phone (416) 533-6681 Email <acp@torfree.net> <acjp@freenet.toronto.on.ca>
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