Untouchability persists in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Yemen and Nigeria. Nearly 250 million persons are directly affected by this disease. It is time for the world to take note and to eradicate this heinous practice. Calling Victims, Rights Activists, Academics and Governments to contribute to, and to participate in, the First World Conference on Untouchability.

The Leadership Training Camp for Dalits being organised in Suryapet town (Andhra Pradesh, India) with IHEU's support was going at full speed. Mr. Veeraswami the leader of Spoorthi, the local implementing organisation, and Mr. V.B.

IHEU member organization Social Development Foundation (SDF) held a Humanist workshop at Ghazipur, India with the Dalit community on 15 and 16 of August 2007. SDF's project in Ghazipur has provided education and training for over 60 girls who would otherwise have been condemned to a lifetime of demeaning manual scavenging. SDF's director, V B Rawat writes: "The issues we discussed included inculcating the spirit of critical analysis in our life, Humanism, rationalism and how we can use these practices in improving our life. We honoured the girls who were part of our scholarship scheme as well as learning computer skills and sewing at our centre."

In the latest article in his series The Human Angle, Babu Gogineni reports from Suryapet, India on a leadership training camp for Dalits and alarming talk of human sacrifice in rural India. In his illustrated article, he brings news from the front line of the war against superstition and charlatans.

A Day Charged with Humanism
The Leadership Training Camp for Dalits that was being organised in Suryapet town (14 and 15 July ’07, Andhra Pradesh, India) through the International Humanist and Ethical Union's support was going on full-speed. Mr. Veeraswami the leader of Spoorthi, the local implementing organization, and Mr. V.B. Rawat, Director of the Social Development Foundation, the event's sponsor were participating as resource persons along with Hyderabad-based Dalit women's rights campaigner, the sociologist Sujatha. There were a hundred Dalit youth, men and women, eager to learn about modern science, about the situation of Dalits and that of women in the country, about superstitions, and about the plight of untouchables worldwide.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has published two IHEU submissions on Dalit rights and child marriage:

• Dalits, the Caste System and Human Rights: Broken Lives
• Child Marriage: A Violation of Human Rights

Both statements are published here together with the official UN versions.

The Dalits, a caste of around 260 million people in South Asia (accounting for roughly 1/4 of India’s population), are facing systemic and structural discrimination in the region due to their inferior social status. The Dalits are perceived as “untouchable”/inferior beings therefore are subjected to a life of poverty and discrimination by the higher-ranking castes. Women are especially discriminated against, even within their own caste, as there are defined as intrinsically impure beings. Dalit women are forced to perform the most degrading jobs, denied access to education and are subjected to violence, including the “Devadasi system” of forced and ritualized prostitution. Dalit women are basically stripped of all their basic human rights, having no recourse against the men perpetuating these abuses and inequalities.

The Scene of Action

The twin villages of Adavinathunikunta and Bynapalle are situated in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh, South India. It is a region that receives scanty rain fall, despite the pleasant temperatures throughout the year. Punganur is the closest town; Madanapalle, famous as the birth place of the mystic philosopher Jiddu Krishnamurthy, as well as the hill resort of Horsely Hills are nearby. We are just two-and-a-half hours away by road from Bangalore, the hi-tech capital of India, but unfortunately, very far from the social and technological advances that urban India has made since independence nearly 60 years ago.

The emancipation of Dalits started as an essentially Humanist movement, but as the movement grew politically, the Humanist element has been lost. It is high time the Humanist alternative be made available again to the Dalits, writes V.B. Rawat.

Dr. Ambedkar’s Revolution

Through his writings on the Indian social structure, through his analysis and criticism of Hindu thought and mythology, and through the political mobilization of the masses around their problems, Dr. Ambedkar, himself a Dalit and also father of the Indian Constitution, inaugurated a social and political revolution in which the Dalits were active participants. Underlying this approach was Dr. Ambedkar’s realization that political empowerment of the Dalits was possible only on the basis of a social revolution.

To mark the 50th anniversary of Dr. Ambedkar’s conversion to Buddhism, ceremonies were organized all over India in October and November 2006. Nearly 100,000 Dalits converted to Buddhism in these ceremonies. V.B. Rawat participated in a ceremony in Delhi.

Over seventy years ago, on 13 October 1935, Dr. Ambedkar declared in a public speech at Yeola: “I solemnly assure you that I will not die a Hindu. On 31 May 1936, he said to a large gathering of Mahars – people belonging to the untouchable caste of cultivators and labourers that he was born in – “Hinduism does not recognize the importance of the individual, and therefore it is not acceptable to me. The religion which, with an intention to educate a few, keeps the rest in darkness, is not a religion but a conspiracy to keep the people in mental slavery.

Killing for land

It is beyond belief. Four members of the Bhotmange’s family were butchered to death by the upper caste villagers of Khairlanji, a village in Maharashtra state, India. The community wanted to grab this Dalit family’s land – two 2 acres of land had already been taken in the name of common passage; and the upper caste villagers were pressurizing the family to give up their remaining 3 acres as well. The Bhotmanges family of Khairlanji was a Buddhist Dalit family, and they were trying to live with dignity and resisted all attempts to deprive them of their property. It seems that the immediate provocation for the killings was that Surekha and Priyanka had testified against 15 of the upper caste people beating up of one Siddharth Gajbhiye (also a Dalit) earlier that month.