Church leaders see hope for Dalits in UN official's anti-caste stand

Tuesday, 27 Oct 2009
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By Maurice Malanes

A sense of despair caused weeping among delegates during a Bangkok global conference earlier in 2009 about the plight of Dalits and other caste-discriminated people sometimes viewed as "untouchable" in several Asian communities.  

"When I left Bangkok, I spent quiet times praying and crying. I said to myself, 'how will the dear Dalits stand up and resist?'" said Bishop Owdenburg Mdegella of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania. However, he said, "It was very encouraging to hear that at least something has happened."

The bishop was reacting to an 8 October statement from U.N. human rights high commissioner, Navi Pillay, who denounced caste as "the very negation of the human rights principles of equality and non-discrimination". She pledged to help end it.

Pillay urged the Human Rights Council and encouraged all States to rally around the 2009 U.N. Draft Principles and Guidelines for the Effective Elimination of Discrimination based on Work and Descent, which complement existing international standards of non-discrimination. These were published in May 2009.

"The time has come to eradicate the shameful concept of caste. Other seemingly insurmountable walls, such as slavery and apartheid, have been dismantled in the past. We can and must tear down the barriers of caste too," stressed Pillay, who said she also experienced discrimination while growing up in apartheid South Africa.

Caste discrimination that affects Dalits, who were once called "untouchables", has been likened to the former apartheid system of rigid racial segregation that was enforced in South Africa before the 1990s.

Human rights' groups had earlier criticised the United Nations for ignoring Dalits.

In September groups fighting for the rights of Dalits praised Nepal for signing up to the draft principles and guidelines. Non-governmental organizations backed by church groups fighting against caste discrimination in South Asia said they hope its stand will spur similar action from neighbours such as India.

"The government of Nepal is setting an international example in addressing one of the world's most serious human rights issues," a spokesperson for the Tokyo-based International Movement Against All Forms of Discrimination and Racism told Ecumenical News International on 17 September.

The International Dalit Solidarity Network, an independent group advocating for Dalit rights, sent Pillay's statement to the Lutheran World Federation on 10 October. The LWF, in turn, distributed it to almost 100 church leaders and representatives.

Deenabandhu Manchala, the WCC programme executive for just and inclusive communities, told ENI, "We need to support one another in all struggles against injustice and oppression wherever these happen". He said, "This is our way of celebrating our faith and hope in one Lord."

Caste-based discrimination affects 260 million Dalits worldwide, most of them in South Asia.

Source: Ecumenical News International