The following excerpt is taken from the chapter, ‘Human and civil rights of marginalised sections’

FROM human and civil rights angle, it is pertinent to clearly recognise those marginalised and oppressed communities in our society which are the worst victims of human rights violations. In the present Indian context, different parameters are used to describe these sections on the basis of their socio-economic backwardness, living conditions or discrimination meted out by them in the society. Some commonly accepted parameters include: illiterate or semi-literate, landless and shelterless sections, especially of unorganised sectors devoid of any viable skills and knowledge that fetch marketable capital; bonded/child labourers; victims of caste/communal conflicts, development paradigms and human rights violations; and under-trials and socially untouchables.

Taking these parameters into consideration, we can identify Dalits, tribals/Adivasis, poor women and children as the marginalised sections on whom day to day human rights violations take place. Dalits and Adivasis/tribals comprise about one-fourth of India’s population. Dalits constitute 16 per cent and Adivasis 8 per cent. About 80 per cent of Dalits and 92 per cent of Adivasis live in rural areas. Dalits continue to face wide-ranging economic and social disadvantages, day-to-day humiliation and degradation, denial of justice and violent atrocities in India. By and large the Dalit condition is marked by high incidence of poverty, low education, limited employment opportunities and marginalisation in all spheres of public life. These deprivations are compounded by diverse types of violence that they are subject to.

The Planning Commission document, Development Challenges in Extremist Affected Areas (2008) brought out certain important factors on the present condition of Dalits, Adivasis, women and other marginalised sections in Indian society. The proportion of Scheduled Caste (SCs) below the poverty line is around 38 per cent which is higher than the corresponding poverty ratio for the population as a whole (around 26 per cent). Similarly, the proportion of Scheduled Tribes (STs) below the poverty line was 47.3 per cent in rural and 33.3 per cent in urban areas, which was again much higher than the poverty ratio for the population. The Dalits who were deprived of proper educational facilities for decades still remain educationally backward. This has adversely affected their employment facilities. Moreover, the incidence of landlessness is more among SCs as compared with other caste groups/communities. These facts indicate that the persistently high poverty of SC households is closely associated with low levels of ownership of capital assets like land, low levels of education and considerably lower diversification of avenues of employment.

Another crucial aspect is political marginalisation. Conceptually and constitutionally, the Dalits like other sections have the political right to exercise their franchise. This naturally has contrib-uted much to Dalit empowerment and in improving their status. Ironically, in many states, Dalits have been deprived of this right because of the dominating influence of money and muscle power in elections. The hard reality is that the reins of power have remained with the dominant sections of society, whether it be the upper castes or in recent years the middle castes. A major fallout of this political marginalisation is the social discrimination and human rights violations. In the matters of residence, food, clothing, marriage and employment, Dalits continue to face many kinds of discrimination. Even untouchability, the most blatant form of social discrimination against Dalits, persists in many forms. A recent study of untouchability in 565 villages in 11 states identified no less than 63 types of untouchabilities practiced in many villages of the country. Same is the case with human rights violations. Large-scale human rights violations, crimes and atrocities have been perpetuated against the SCs in the rural areas. These pertain to civil rights (right to vote, right of access to public places, and so on), social rights (freedom of movement, access to education, and so on), economic rights (ownership of property, change in employment-operating businesses, joining labour unions, and so on) and political rights (participation in democratic governance). Dr. Ambedkar, the architect of [the] Indian Constitution had rightly cautioned this contradiction as:

“We are entering into a life of contradictions. In politics, we will have equality. In our social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics, we will be recognising one man, one vote, one value. In our social life, we shall by reasons of our social and economic structure continue to defy the principle of one man, one vote, and one value. If we continue to deny it for long, we shall do so by putting our political democracy at peril. We should remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this assembly has laboriously built up.”

Ironically, even after six decades, these contradictions still persist due to a plethora of socio-economic and political reasons and act as the breeding ground for organised discontentment and struggles by Dalit-tribal groups. The genesis of discontent among Dalits lies in the age-old, caste-based social order that condemns them to a life of deprivation, servility and indignity. The Constitution of India and various legislative and policy measures have created entitlements to undo this structure of oppression. But the traditionally privileged classes have had an undue influence on the process of implementation of these measures as a result of which these safeguards failed to safeguard the genuine interests of Dalits. The all-pervasive bureaucracy, predominantly dominated by the upper- and middle-class elite, remains insensitive to the plight of these sections and, on many occasions, defeats the governmental policies and programmes meant for their upliftment.

The plight of the tribals is also not much different. There are over 84 million tribal people in India. They are present almost in all states/union territories and located mostly in hilly and forest areas. The architects of the Constitution, being conscious of the distinct identity of the tribal communities and their habitat, provided certain articles exclusively devoted to the cause of the tribal people.

Excerpted with permission from

Left-Wing Extremism and Human Rights: The Role of Civil Liberties Groups in Andhra Pradesh

(DEVELOPMENT STUDIES)

By K V Thomas, Formerly at Intelligence Bureau (IB), Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India

SAGE Publications, India

ISBN 978-8132111580

308pp.