[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 17]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 22753-22754]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




INDIA'S UNFINISHED AGENDA: EQUALITY AND JUSTICE FOR 200 MILLION VICTIMS 
                          OF THE CASTE SYSTEM

                                 ______
                                 

                       HON. CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                        Friday, October 7, 2005

  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Subcommittee on 
Africa, Global Human Rights and International Operations studied the 
terrible situation facing India's Dalits and tribal peoples. Taken 
together, Dalits and tribal peoples constitute as many as 250 million 
people. The Dalits, whose name means ``the oppressed,'' are much better 
known as ``untouchables,'' although this demeaning name is not the one 
they choose for themselves. They are also often referred to in official 
documents as ``Scheduled Castes, and occasionally as ``Harijans,'' or 
``Children of God,'' a name given them by Gandhi. The tribal peoples 
are often referred to as Scheduled Tribes, or Adivasis, which means 
indigenous or aboriginal inhabitants. The Dalits and tribal peoples are 
treated as virtual non-humans, and suffer pervasive discrimination and 
violation of their human rights.
  This topic has taken on a special relevance. India's reformist 
government has made great strides to open its economy, and improve the 
lot of all its citizens. It has also played a leading role in the 
Community of Democracies and the U.N.'s Democracy Caucus and the U.N. 
Democracy Fund. In June and July of this year the U.S. and India 
announced a series of agreements that represent a quantum leap in 
cooperation between the world's two most populous democracies after 
decades of estrangement during the Cold War. On July 18th, U.S. and 
Indian leaders issued a joint statement resolving to establish a 
``global partnership'' between the two nations through increased 
cooperation on a wide range of issues. We heartily welcome all of these 
actions.
  However, there is still a long road to travel. Most observers have 
focused on the nuclear proliferation implications of our announced 
agreements as potential stumbling blocks to a true strategic 
partnership between the U.S. and India. But as we seek to develop a 
strategic partnership, we must not lose sight of India's serious human 
rights problems. These problems are amply documented in the three 
current State Department reports: the 2004 Human Rights Report on 
India, the 2005 Report on Trafficking in Persons, and the 2004 Report 
on Religious Freedom. All three are massive catalogues of human rights 
violations which the Government of India condones, ignores, and in some 
instances, has even promoted.
  To quote the 2004 Human Rights Report on India:

       Security force officials who committed human rights abuses 
     generally enjoyed de facto legal impunity . . . violations 
     included: torture and rape by police and other government 
     agents; . . . harassment and arrest of human rights monitors; 
     . . . forced prostitution; child prostitution and female 
     infanticide; trafficking in women and children; . . . serious 
     discrimination and violence against indigenous people and 
     scheduled castes and tribes; widespread intercaste and 
     communal violence; religiously motivated violence against 
     Muslims and Christians; and widespread exploitation of 
     indentured, bonded, and child labor.

  Further, the 2005 Report on Trafficking in Persons has this to say. 
Again I quote:

       India is a source, transit, and destination country for 
     women, men, and children trafficked for the purposes of 
     sexual and labor exploitation . . . Internal trafficking . . 
     . for . . . sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, bonded 
     labor, and indentured servitude is widespread . . . the vast 
     majority of females in the Indian commercial sex industry are 
     currently victims of sexual servitude or were originally 
     trafficked into the sex trade. India is also home to millions 
     of victims of forced or bonded labor.

  The Government of India does not fully comply with the minimum 
standards for the elimination of trafficking.
  India was placed on Tier 2 Watch List for human trafficking a second 
consecutive year in 2005. Many of us believe it should be a Tier III 
country.
  The State Department's 2004 Report on Religious Freedom also had many 
harsh words for India's respect for religious freedom. It noted that 
the Indian government, despite India's constitutional commitment to 
religious freedom and secular government, was often lax in protecting 
religious minorities from attack, and in punishing their persecutors. 
Religious extremists have taken such laxity as a signal that they can 
attack with impunity. Missionaries were often harassed, and the right 
to freely choose one's own religion was often violated.
  Finally, there is abortion. In theory, India only allows abortions 
for risk to the life of the mother, or ``grave risks'' to her health, 
or for ``substantial risk'' of fetal impairment. Yet like so many 
countries where the absolute right to life of the unborn child has been 
disregarded

[[Page 22754]]

in a misguided attempt to provide a so-called ``limited'' abortion 
license, the reality is that there is abortion on demand. Estimates of 
abortions run as high as 7 million a year. There are some estimates 
that 17 percent of maternal deaths are due to abortion: so much for 
``safe, legal and rare.''
  And abortion is not just at the demand of the mother, but often at 
the demand of relatives who don't want girl babies. The incidence of 
``sex-selection abortions'' has reached staggering proportions. As many 
as 50 million girls and women are missing from India's population as a 
result of infanticide and abortion. In most countries in the world, 
there are approximately 105 female births for every 100 males. In 
India, there are less than 93 women for every 100 men in the 
population. In one wealthier area of the capital of New Delhi, the sex 
ratio at birth has dropped to 762 girls for every 1,000 boys, one of 
the lowest in the entire country. The problem is getting worse as 
scientific methods of detecting the sex of a baby and of performing 
abortions are improving. These methods are becoming increasing 
available even in rural areas.
  India banned sex-selection abortions in 1996, but the health minister 
recently admitted that not a single person has ever been convicted or 
otherwise punished for having carried out sex selective abortions. 
UNICEF has warned that unless steps are taken to address the problem, 
India will soon face severe social problems, not least increased 
trafficking of women, which is already an enormous problem. As more and 
more girls are aborted or murdered after birth, more and more poor 
women and girls will be trafficked.
  All of this background will provide the context for today's hearing. 
India's Dalits and tribal peoples are victims of all the human rights 
violations prevalent in India, and to a far greater extent than most 
other Indians.
  According to India's caste system, Dalits are impure, and even their 
shadow can pollute. Dalits are discriminated against, denied access to 
land and forced to work in degrading conditions. Dalit men, women, and 
children numbering in the tens of millions work as agricultural 
laborers for a few pounds of rice or less than a dollar a day. Their 
upper-caste employers frequently use caste as a cover for exploitative 
economic arrangements. In India's own version of ``apartheid,'' entire 
villages in many Indian states remain completely segregated by caste. 
Dalits dare not even walk in the part of the village occupied by higher 
castes. They may not use the same wells, visit the same temples, drink 
from the same cups in tea stalls, or lay claim to land that is legally 
theirs. Dalit children are frequently made to sit in the back of 
classrooms.
  Most Dalits continue to live in extreme poverty, without land or 
opportunities for better employment or education. India has a policy of 
quotas in education and government jobs to benefit Dalits and tribal 
peoples. But most cannot afford primary education, so their literacy 
rates remain very low and only a small minority can benefit from these 
quotas.
  Dalits are routinely abused at the hands of the police and of higher 
caste group that enjoys the state's protection. According to India's 
National Crime Records Bureau, in 2000, the last year for which figures 
are available, 25,455 crimes were committed against Dalits. Every hour 
two Dalits were assaulted; every day three Dalit women were raped, two 
Dalits were murdered, and two Dalit homes were torched. And most 
experts believe that these numbers are grossly underreported, since 
Dalits are afraid to report crimes to police, and when they do, police 
often refused to register or investigate their complaints. In 2001 
Amnesty International estimated that only about 5 percent of sexual 
assaults were registered, and that police officers dismissed at least 
30 percent of rape complaints as false.
  Approximately eighty percent of the tribal population lives below the 
poverty level. Despite constitutional safeguards, the rights of 
indigenous groups in the eastern parts of the country are often 
ignored. In recent years, crime against the tribes has risen. 
Indigenous peoples suffer discrimination and harassment, are deprived 
of their land, and subjected to torture and to arbitrary arrest. Mob 
violence, lynching, arson, and police atrocities against tribal persons 
occur in many states.
  Dalits and tribal peoples suffer horribly from human trafficking. 
Dalit girls have been forced to become temple prostitutes as devadasis, 
or ``servants of god,'' a practice where they are ``married'' to a 
deity or temple where they are then forced to have sex with upper caste 
men and are eventually sold into prostitution. In 2001, more than 
40,000 tribal women were forced into situations of economic and sexual 
exploitation. An estimated 40 million people, most of them Dalits, are 
bonded workers, many working to pay off debts that were incurred 
generations ago, according to a 1999 report by Human Rights Watch. 
These people work under slave-like conditions for less than U.S. $1 per 
day. Fifteen million are children, and according to UNICEF, the 
majority are from the lowest castes.
  Dalits and tribal peoples are often the targets of Hindu religious 
extremism as well. Over the years, many Dalits and tribal groups have 
converted from Hinduism to other faiths to escape widespread 
discrimination and achieve higher social status. However, such converts 
often lose benefits conferred by the Government's affirmative action 
programs because these, according to the Constitution, are reserved 
only for those having scheduled caste status. Converts to Christianity 
are particularly targeted.
  Christian missionaries have been operating schools and medical 
clinics for many years in tribal areas and among the very poor, and 
tribal peoples and Dalits have made great strides as a result. Hindu 
extremists resent these gains for disturbing the traditional social 
order, since better educated Dalits and tribals no longer accept their 
disadvantaged status as readily as they once did. Some Hindu groups 
fear that Christians may try to convert large numbers of lower caste 
Hindus, using economic or social welfare incentives. Many acts of 
violence against Christians stem from these fears, and most go 
unpunished. Many states have also adopted anti-conversion laws, in 
violation of India's constitutional protection for religious freedom.
  In many cases, India has very good laws to protect the human rights 
of its citizens, although new and tougher legislation against 
trafficking is clearly necessary. But the best laws in the world are 
useless unless there is vigorous enforcement, and all too often, 
enforcement of laws protecting human rights is weak or non-existent. As 
an American I can easily understand the difficulty in a democratic, 
federal system of confronting deeply ingrained social prejudices 
against a minority, but that difficulty must be faced and overcome in 
any nation which aspires to its rightful place as one of the great 
nations in the world. To keep nearly a quarter of one's population in 
subhuman status is not only a grotesque violation of human rights, but 
it is a formula for economic and political stagnation as well. Once in 
America, we deprived African Americans of the most basic rights and 
opportunities. This was especially true in our Southern states, which 
were once a byword for poverty and backwardness among people of all 
races. For a long time we refused to act at a national level to stop 
lynchings, often arguing that it was a local problem. Yet we all 
suffered the consequences of shutting off a huge segment of our 
population from equality and justice. Now, after the civil rights 
movement ended all legal basis for discrimination, and lynching is only 
a shameful memory, the Southern states are among the most economically 
dynamic in America, and all regions of America enjoy unprecedented 
prosperity. By fulfilling its promises of equality and justice for all, 
India will also benefit in every way imaginable.

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