Posted on 05/28/2007 9:51:42 PM PDT by TBP
Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Mr. Speaker, this afternoon I introduced a resolution calling for the United States to address the ongoing problem of untouchability in India . Last December Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recognized the similarities between untouchability in his country and Apartheid in South Africa. It is now time for this Congress, Mr. Speaker, to speak out about this ancient and particularly abhorrent form of persecution and segregation, even if it is occurring in a country many consider to be one of America's closest allies. This Congress must urge an end to the social discrimination and injustice faced by the nearly 250 million people known as Dalits and Tribals in India .
Although the Indian constitution guarantees fundamental rights and freedoms for all Indians, the untouchables continue to face widespread social and caste injustices. Article 17 of the Constitution outlaws untouchability. However, despite numerous laws enacted for the protection and betterment of the Dalits and Tribals, they are still considered outcasts in Indian society and are treated as such.
At best, untouchability involves social segregation, including separate educational facilities and drinking water and restaurants. This is a sad and familiar tune to many of us familiar with the history of our own country. At worst, untouchability entails widespread violence against untouchable women, especially in the form of rape with impunity, being targeted for abortions, and comprises the majority of temple prostitute and women trafficked from India .
The untouchables are poor, Mr. Speaker. Their most basic needs are not fulfilled, and they face great difficulties in accessing employment, education, food, and health care. Most are among the poorest people on the face of the Earth, living on less than $1 per day. Moreover, Dalit women are often sold into bondage, prostitution, and there is an increasing religious persecution against the Dalits and untouchables who change their faith. In 2005, USAID stopped funding an organization after it was revealed that they were preventing many of these women from leaving prostitution. In a recent instance, a whole Dalit village was forced to leave their tribal land because they had converted to Christianity in a state that had laws against conversion.
Mr. Speaker, this resolution is a direct statement by the United States Congress that untouchability is an unacceptable practice on the part of America's largest trading partner and close ally. We appreciate that Prime Minister Singh and many others have recognized that this is a serious social problem that needs to be confronted, and we urge the rest of Indian society and American diplomats, aid workers, and businesses working in India to do the same and to work toward the eradication of casted discrimination in India .
This resolution encourages our government to work with India to find new approaches to an age-old problem. Moreover, Mr. Speaker, this resolution will ensure that we as a government and we as an American people in no way encourage or enforce caste discrimination and untouchability through our policies with India or through foreign aid or direct aid in any way.
And I urge my colleagues to join me in calling on the Indian government and the world community to look with compassion upon India's untouchables and reach out to one of the poorest and most oppressed peoples on the face of the Earth.
Of cxourse you don't, for the same reason that the Indian chiefs apparently didn't see Columbus coming. That's not in yourlimited frame of reference, and it contradicts teh disinformation you're spewintg, so you simply can't see it.
The fact is that this kind of repression goes on regularly and teh Indian regime does little in reality to stop it.
In one case, a Christian festival was broken up by police gunfire. It was peacefully promoting the theme that "Jesus Is the Answer." That's all.
Already answered. Do try to keep up.
Not at all. The government at least tacitly encourages it and often actively supports it, which wax not the case with the ban on blacks that you cited.
Specific answers, Einstein. Every time you give one of those meaningless “You must do this..., you must do that...” lines, a Katrina invariable shows up instead.
The Mormons ar ea private organization, while the violations of religious freedom that the Congressman is talking about are acts of government, by law. Taht is a whole different thing. If you can’t see that, you’re no conservative.
It's Not Just Maya
It has taken 60 years for Dalits to gain political power. By crafting a caste-community coalition, Mayawati has forged ahead in Uttar Pradesh, leaving others well behind the BSP. If she is equally successful in other States, the BJP and the Congress could be in trouble
Long years ago BR Ambedkar, who chaired the committee that drafted India’s Constitution, had warned that our democracy would be in peril if it failed to ensure the political empowerment of the downtrodden classes. Summing up the work of the Constituent Assembly during the final reading of the Constitution in November 1949, he said, “There can be no gainsaying that political power in this country has too long been the monopoly of a few and the many are not only beasts of burden, but also beasts of prey. This monopoly has not merely deprived them of their chance of betterment, it has sapped them of what may be called the significance of life.”
Though the Dalits have had reservations in democratic bodies, Government jobs and educational institutions, the reins of political power have never been in their hands. Every political party pays lip sympathy to the cause of Scheduled Castes but the levers of power have invariably been with the Hindu upper castes and dominant middle castes. Therefore, a clear majority in the recent Uttar Pradesh Assembly election for the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which was launched to meet the political aspirations of the Dalits, symbolises the first-ever clear transfer of power from the Hindu upper crust to one of the most oppressed and disadvantaged social groups in the world. However belated this development may seem, it is certainly a significant milestone in India’s democratic journey over the last six decades and will hopefully minimise the bitterness among Dalits over the tardy efforts of the state to equalise opportunities.
Ironically, though Ambedkar made the first attempt to politically mobilise the Dalits, he met with little success, whether it was the Labour Party that he launched in the 1930s or the Republican Party which he founded much later. The idea eventually took off in the mid-1980s, a good 30 years after Ambedkar’s death, when Kanshi Ram decided to try it out. Kanshi Ram, who founded the BSP, prepared the ground for a Dalit political party through the Backward and Minority Communities Employees Federation (BAMCEF) that was established about three decades ago. As this organisation grew in strength, Kanshi Ram took the first step towards formation of a political party when he established the Dalit Shoshit Samaj Sangarsh Samithi (DS-4) in the early-1980s.
The DS-4 became a code for Dalit political empowerment and it made its presence felt for the first time in Uttar Pradesh prior to the Lok Sabha election in 1984. During that election, as the Congress rode a massive sympathy wave consequent to the assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi, Dalit youth painted the walls in eastern and central Uttar Pradesh with this secret code that stood for Dalit political aspirations and bonding. The DS-4 metamorphosed into a full-fledged political party in 1985.
Initially, the party focussed on consolidation of Dalit votes. Once this was achieved, it angled for Muslim support and secured 14 seats and 22.08 per cent of the vote in the State in the 1999 Lok Sabha election. But, while the BSP had a firm grip on the Dalit vote, it found that it had to share the Muslim vote with the Samajwadi Party. This deprived the BSP of the clear lead it was looking for over the other parties. Its share of the popular vote in the state remained in the 22-24 per cent band, which was inadequate for it to gain a clear majority in the Assembly elections.
Over the last two decades, the political scene has got crowded with the emergence of several regional and caste-based parties with vote-banks big enough to take on the Congress and the BJP. This has led to triangular and quadrangular contests and lowered the threshold for a party or coalition to secure a clear majority. Aware of this new relationship between votes and seats, the BSP decided over a year ago to enlarge its social base just enough to cross this threshold.
Though the party was built on a ‘hate-upper castes’ slogan, Ms Mayawati offered the olive branch to Brahmins because she perceived the newly-empowered Other Backward Castes as the bigger evil. The party held several Brahmin Sammelans and laid the ground for the Dalit-Muslim-Brahmin vote base that eventually helped it in Uttar Pradesh. It also took the BSP’s vote share from the 22-24 per cent band to just over 30 per cent - enough in a quadrangular electoral battle to obtain a clear majority.
We are indeed lucky to see the transfer of political power in the country’s largest State to the Dalits with our democratic system and Constitution still intact because Maoists and other radical Left groups have been tempting Dalits for a long time to join them in wrecking the democratic system. Despite this, the commitment of a majority of the Dalits to the democratic process speaks volumes of the patience and resilience among a people who have put up with some of the worst humiliations that man can inflict on man. Their endurance is indeed remarkable because even in 1949 Ambedkar had declared that the downtrodden classes were “tired of being governed” and were, therefore, “impatient to govern themselves”. He had warned: “This urge for self-realisation in the downtrodden classes must not be allowed to devolve into a class struggle or class war.”
It has taken the Dalits 60 years to get the opportunity “to govern themselves”, at least in one State. Fortunately, the Dalit party has come to power riding on a rainbow coalition. It has achieved the impossible by building a political flyover to link communities at two ends of the Hindu caste system. It can now extend this experiment to other States. Apart from Uttar Pradesh, the BSP has been making its presence felt in Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Jammu & Kashmir and Haryana.
As we go along, it could set its sights on other States like Rajasthan, Bihar and Karnataka. If this happens, the BSP could become the first “regional” party to acquire a national footprint and unsettle the Congress and the BJP. These so-called national parties are yet to take stock of the electoral damage that the BSP has inflicted on them. If they underestimate the threat or consider it to be illusory (maya), they will soon have another contender for the pan-Indian vote.
You mean, like the enforcers of the Jim Crow laws?
I was asking for answers, not schadenfreude.
Hey,
Have you ever met or seen any Brahmins till date ? lol..
Not to sound insulting or anything, but Brahmins are typically physically weaker compared to rest of Hindus (since they are vegetarian since birth). I doubt if they could organize a “mob” to stone people.
But there are some other non-Brahmin upper caste communities who have that sort of “muscle power” to organize such lynch mobs.
On the other hand, such actions, even if they take place occasionally do not necessarily quantify an entire community. There have been several lynchings in US - by both black and white people. Doesnt mean all whites and blacks are bad.
If you’re referring to the anti-conversion laws specifically, then yes. If you’re referring to the caste system specifically, that is the fault of Hinduism not Democracy.
Is it too much to ask that Rep. Franks act like a statesman and not an interfering numbnut for Campaign Jubilee?
Yes. They like their privilege.
So you have no rebuttal to the Congressman’s facts? this is all you can do, jsut smear teh Congressman for darign to bring up facts that don’t fit your disinformation?
It is true the Jubilee Campaign USA sponsored his India trip.
The last thing he should be concerned about is India's business.
You would’ve been right if Brahmins indeed were supremacistic and gathered immense political and economic power just for themselves. Factual truth remains not to be that case.
If you visit India and spend some time over there, you would understand that Brahmins are mostly poor and except barring the badlands of Bihar, they are not very supremacistic people (on account of mostly being either poor or middle class). Currently, there is not a single state which is being ruled by Brahmins and the trend of “democracy empowering lower castes” is only bound to increase the chances of people of lower castes always staying in power.
A recent confirmation of this statement has been displayed in the way Brahmin people overwhelmingly voted for the dalit lady -Mayawati- in the local election because she promised to champion the cause of “poor people”.
On the other hand, Sikhs are a very affluent minority, who are in a much better position in India than Brahmins or Christians or Dalits.
wow.. this guy has been running a propaganda against India for a long time. An experienced troll on whom I wasted too much time thinking he was a westerner suffering from misconceptions.
TBP is a small time reporter by the name Tim Barnes Phares. He is also the chairman of a quasi terrorist organisation called “Council of Khalistanâ€. I can give his entire resume if you want to read. He is an old freeper who is allowed to remain here for anti-India propaganda.
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