A group of Dalit activists from India made a strong representation at a European Union conference on caste discrimination held in Brussels on June 3. Manjula Pradeep of Navsarjan, a pan-Gujarat Dalit organisation, led the India delegation in the conference.

The Indian delegation urged the EU to take up the Dalit cause. While Manjula Pradeep made a presentation on “how impunity obstructs justice for Dalits in India”, other similar representations were made by Farzana Islam, professor, Department of Anthropology, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka and advisor to the National Platform of Bangladesh Dalit and Excluded Communities’ Rights Movement; Zulfiqar Shah, senior research associate, Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research; Tudor Silva, Professor of Sociology at University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka; and Pushkar Khati, program director of Anubhav Media and board member of the Dalit NGO Federation.

The conference titled “Programme for hearing Caste Discrimination in South Asia, 260 million reasons why Europe should act”, was organised by the International Dalit Solidarity Network (IDSN), an international agency supporting Dalit movement in the sub-continent.

“India is being ruled by castes, not laws”, quoted New Europe, an international newspaper. “There is one incredible India and one untouchable India,” said Manjula Pradeep. “What we are claiming from the EU is justice,” she added.

Interestingly, sources indicate that Euro-American Intelligence has been trying since long to unravel the intricacies of casteism in the Indian sub-continent, as the system has the potential to unleash large-scale socio-political unrest with far-fetched geo-political ramifications. The rights activists often become an easy source of information to such agencies, who play different roles including that of funding agencies working for human rights, said a source.

Euro-American keenness about this issue can be gauged from the fact that the Centre for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at the New York University School of Law had released a report titled “Recasting Justice: Securing Dalit Rights in Nepal’s New Constitution” on the heels of Nepal’s historic Constituent Assembly Elections on April 10 this year.

The IDSN has recommended the European Parliament to initiate a discussion on the measures to eliminate caste discrimination and exchange views with parliamentary counterparts and government officials from caste affected countries. The discussion should also include the Foreign Affairs Committee (AFET), the Development Committee (DEVE), the Sub-Committee on Human Rights (DROI), the delegation for relations with the countries of South Asia, and the delegation for relations with India. Further, it has asked parliament to meet representatives from caste-affected communities during every parliamentary visit to caste-dominated countries.