UK: India Clashes with Britain over Equality Bill

The Equality Bill has been welcomed by campaigners for India’s “Dalits” or “untouchables”, a caste which suffers extreme violence and persecution, but has been rejected by their government as it outlaws caste discrimination as a form of racism. There are more than 250 million Dalits in India, many of whom are denied water, access to schools, and in some cases the right to pass through villages by upper caste Hindus who believe their presence or even their shadow, pollutes them. Some Dalits in India work as “night soil carriers”, transporting human waste from the latrines.

Ministers in London have become increasingly concerned about discrimination and persecution against lower caste Indians in Britain following a report in 2009 which claimed thousands had been ill-treated because of their caste, and introduced amendments to the draft Equality Bill to outlaw discrimination based on caste. The Indian government made its views know to British delegations at the UN’s Human Rights Council in Geneva and at a European Union-India Human Rights Dialogue in February 2010. An official source said, “Caste and race discrimination are two separate issues and there is no case to equate the two”. India’s leading campaigner for Dalit rights, Dr Udit Raj, welcomed the Equality Bill and said it would increase pressure for the UN to recognize caste as a form of racism.

The Daily Telegraph, 3/31/10