India

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, speaking on this subject gives me no satisfaction whatever because it is a subject that should have been left in the shadows of the history of the 19th century but which we are dealing with only now, in the 21st century.

As the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, said, this affects men, women and children every single minute of every single day. It is easy to run off the figure of 250 million people, but imagine half the population of the 28 member states of the European Union and then you have something approaching the magnitude of the issue with which we are dealing.

I spoke on this on many occasions in my 15 years in the European Parliament, not only on the petitions committee and the justice and home affairs committee but on the international development committee, and that is where we place that focus today. I will not refer to the cases to which the noble and right reverend Lord has referred. The most recent case is of the goat herder. In all these things, as I said in my maiden speech, we always have to use the power of the imagination: “What if that were me? What if that were my daughter, my mother, my father, my family? Would it be okay?”. If not, it cannot be right for another.

Let me refer to what others have said. The Indian National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights gives the following description of who the Dalits are in the context of caste system in south Asia:

“Historically, the caste system has formed the social and economic framework for the life of the people of India. In its essential form, this caste system involves the division of people into a hierarchy of unequal social groups where basic rights and duties are assigned based on birth”—

these are not my words—

“and are not subject to change. Dalits are ‘outcastes’ falling outside the traditional four classes … Dalits are typically considered low, impure and polluting”—

again, the issue of the goat herder demonstrates that forcefully—

“based on their birth and traditional occupation, thus they face multiple forms of discrimination, violence, and exclusion from the rest of society”.

The International Dalit Solidarity Network, with which I had the privilege and pleasure to work in the European Parliament, lists the following key issues affecting Dalits in the modern day. It is a sad list because it is not academic but a list of that which happens every single day. The list includes:

“Bonded labour in which a person is bonded by a loan advance taken against their work, resulting in a loss of control over labour conditions and terms of work … Violence and inhuman treatment, such as sexual assault, rape, and naked parading, against Dalit women serving as a social mechanism to maintain their subordinate position in society … The forced prostitution of Dalit girls. Originally a sacred, religious practice, the dedication of girls to temples has turned into a systematic sexual abuse of young Dalit girls serving as prostitutes for dominant caste community members and subsequent auctioning into brothels … Discrimination against Dalits in the educational system”—

an education system should be a mechanism to lift people up out of poverty, persecution and discrimination, but within that education system we see,

“segregation … in class rooms and harassment by teachers”.

Then there is manual scavenging—and yes, I will go into what that means. It is,

“a term used to describe the job of removing human excrement from dry toilets and sewers using basic tools such as thin boards, buckets and baskets, lined with sacking, carried on the head, which is a caste-based and hereditary occupation for Dalits”.

The list goes on to say that Dalits,

“are often limited from equal and meaningful political participation”,

but I am pleased to see that that is at last changing. Then, of course, there is the,

“non-implementation of constitutional and legislative measures to protect the rights of Dalits”.

It is interesting, as I approach the final canter of this six minutes, to look at what the International Development Committee in the other place proposed. It said:

“India has high levels of inequality—particular castes, tribes, and religious groups do less well than others because of entrenched discriminatory practices and despite laws against such behaviour”—

hence why we need cultural and educational change. They met groups of Dalits,

“including children, who were beginning to challenge social norms”,

but they are not hopeful that these changes will come during the lifetimes of these individuals. The committee encourages DfID to,

“place greater explicit emphasis on tackling inequalities throughout DFID’s programmes”.

That is what I ask the Government to report back on, if they can now. It is vitally important, as the noble and right reverend Lord said, that we deal with capacity building, reforming institutions and the accountability of the police. But at the end of all this, we also have to deal with the tricky notion of religion as an excuse or a reason. No religion can be an excuse or a reason imposed on another—or on 250 million—to diminish them and rob them of their civil liberties and human rights.