By Matters India Reporter
New York, September 28, 2019: Hereditary and structural oppression must be eliminated from every society, said Suraj Yengde, an award-winning scholar and activist from India.
“The hegemonic system the people who remained at the bottom have remained at the bottom and any effort to fight against that has received a very brutal violent response and that’s what we see in a world, the intellectual, as well as the political discourse, had brutally suppressed this issue,” he told at the gathering of United Nations’ sponsored international congress.
The Sept 23 – 25 event took place on “Discrimination based on Work and Descent, Casteism, Antigypsyism and Contemporary Forms of Slavery (ICDWD), New York.
“The issue of caste has been long overdue 70 years plus that the Indian Government has been brutally suppressing the rights and dignities of Dalits as well as the people oppressed by the caste across not only in India but also in South Asia and see we the remnant of caste now they operate in the system within various hierarchy across the world,” said Yengde, Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School.
Discrimination of people, be it in the form of caste or otherwise is present in Latin America, Africa, Middle East and other parts of the world as the idea of caste has been operating and animating people for so long, he said.
“It is about a good opportune that today we meet to refute and as well as discuss the questions arising people not only oppressed with caste but similar types of oppression. It is an anti-gypsyism as well as the modern forms of slavery that operate,” Yengde said.
And if ones looks at the history of all of these three, they go down to retained in the hereditary oppression the people were born into certain groups, certain ethnicity, certain tribes or a certain caste have remained as such because the system that has been oppressing they have retained in their dominating oppressive structure, he explained.
“And it is about time that this groups today coming especially at the Government and Parliamentary level this collagen is happening and I think this is a new start,” he added.
“I recall it 21st century is a century of us. It is an anti-caste, anti-gypsyism as well as anti-modern forms of slavery. And this includes all the other forms of structural oppression that relate to it and that is what happening here,” said Yengde, author of bestseller “Caste Matters.”
“We are sitting here at the United Nations and we are going to have a deliberation on various forms of discrimination. It is quite exciting because the charter that is going to be passed it is a day that will be marked into the history. The year 2019 where our next generation will admire it for a day that we lived and we fought and sought for certain forms of freedom that does not include only groups of certain minorities but minorities across the world,” he said.
Delegations from several countries (women and men) and parliamentarians from various communities across the globe attended the conference including from India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
Another speaker from India, Ruth Manorama, a Dalit woman social activist from Bangalore, said, “In these three days we have highlighted what are the issues which are common and dissimilar for our unity and building solidarity and taking up actions especially solidarity actions in our national level, regional levels and international levels.”
Instead of looking at caste alone, participants are now bringing other forms of discrimination which is already there in the recommendation that is first the longest hierarchies in the world could be addressed. There are particular kinds of recommendation which is there that can be implemented as well,” said Manorama, who is fighting for Dalit women’s rights, the rights of domestic workers and those in the unorganized labour sector and urban slum dwellers.
Some governments uphold caste-based discrimination and say that they have enough flaws, policies and programs in their countries why others bring those issues into the international forums.
“Now we are bringing the issue in common so our fight will be stronger, our issues will be much focused and not one group is talking about this form of discrimination but several communities in the world is talking about,” she said.
“In it the role of women is essential. It is like the struggle within the struggle as I say. The women in these communities face not just patriarchal attack on them. It is not just between the binaries of male and female but is also addressed caste, race, ethnicity and other forms of discrimination,” Manorama added.
“Today we are not so luxurious only to talk about the issues of patriarchy but other forms of discrimination which becomes stronger. When you say, your children are still doing manual scavenging, begging, they do not have enough job. They are forced into forced slavery, such as bonded labour,” she said.
Various communities, governments and global leaders need to address the various forms of discrimination that exist in society. The international congress gave a common platform to talk about and address it, she said.
“I also want to say how important this conference for women. Some 25 years ago in the Beijing Conference, we have highlighted the issue. People have heard our voices but not included in the document for a plan of action,” she bemoaned.
“I hope that this time we together all the communities will push into so that women suffered different discriminations and their problems can be identified and look for redressal at the international level. When we deliberate this at the international level, governments may accept to do something more for the communities,” Manorama said.