Whats the purpose of the UN Conference Against Racism?
It’s the third of its kind, after conferences in the 1970s and 1980s. It’s the first post-apartheid conference. It’s a forum to discuss concrete remedies for transnational problems. What is the charge against India? The charge is that India is censoring any discussion of caste-based discrimination. And that their tactics in the preparatory meeting so far have been aimed at dalit and Indian activists and also to take out of the agenda issues that affect people in many other countries. Caste-based discrimination affects approximately 250 million people worldwide — untouchable castes and their equivalent in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan and several countries in West Africa. It’s far more insidious in the country [India], but the discrimination happens wherever there’s a South Asian diaspora. India’s quota or reservations system for the scheduled castes and tribes is among the most ambitious in the world. What more can they do? It’s true that the affirmative action programme is among
