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Subject:
Casteism is the Mother of Racism
Zeus
10/30/2002 5:51:43 PM
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Human Rights Commission
30 March, 2001
Casteism is the Mother of Racism
A Further Reply to Mr. Sorabjee, Indian Attorney-General
by Basil Fernando, Executive Director, Asian Human Rights Commission
India's Attorney General Soli J. Sorabjee, who earlier wrote about his interest in keeping his toilet the way he wants has come out with some more surprises. In a subsequent piece he says a UN Sub-Commission's resolution is not valid or binding since he could not attend it; "Unfortunately during the final stage when the resolution was passed I was absent owing to compelling professional engagements in the Supreme Court.... I am afraid I cannot accept Ms Smita Narula's gratuitous advice that as Attorney General of India I should encourage the government to implement the resolution which I did not help to create."
This is a strange approach to resolutions, agreements and law making in general: `I did not help to create it and so I am not bound by it.' If every one takes that approach, there will be no binding resolutions. Take for example Iraq. It can say it did not help to make most of these resolutions and in fact opposed them. According to the Attorney General's own admission he opposed the resolution. Says he, "At the meeting of the UN Sub-Commission on Promotion and Protection of Human Rights held in last August in Geneva I had during the deliberations expressed my firm view that caste based discrimination is different from the discrimination on the basis of race." Having heard him, the Sub-Commission decided otherwise. In short, the sub-commission was quite well aware of the Attorney General's point of view, considered it to be wrong and decided to the contrary.
Thus, the Attorney General has reason to advise himself that world opinion is different to his and that he must now play the game according to the rule. There must be many Indian cases where the courts have overruled the Attorney General. Would it not be contempt of court to not to obey the ruling once the matter is settled. (It is just beside the point that if Attorney General could not be present he could have delegated some one else to be present. Or is it that he finds it difficult to identify anyone who agrees with him?)
As for the argument on race and caste, caste is a much older form of discrimination than race and, as it exists in India, much more comprehensive and cruel. Caste discrimination is the mother; racism is only the child. The source of discrimination in both forms does not arise from colour or blood but from the conceptions on which it is based, which are social and political constructs. Caste discrimination in India is a social construct in which people belonging to various castes are segregated even more than in some instances of severe racial discrimination. Whatever the biological foundations are, caste discrimination in India contains all the aspects of racial discrimination in a much more complete form. To discuss racism and related intolerance and exclude caste is like discussing physical hurt and excluding murder. There are multiple forms of racial discrimination and caste is one. The two can be separated only artificially. If the Attorney General is honest in saying of caste discrimination: "it is undeniable that despite constitutional and legal provisions caste based discrimination in our country persists and is pervasive and strong effective measures are needed to stamp out this evil", what is his objection to a discussion of it? Are his preoccupations about the toilet more important than all such inhumane treatment of at least 160 million of his compatriots? Or does he really consider them to be his compatriots at all?
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