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Empowerment of Dalits

Empowerment of Dalits

In India there are approximately 16 million Dalit (which means “oppressed people”). They are defined as “untouchables” by the caste system and occupy the lowest level of society. Dalit people’s use of water wells is limited, they face restrictions on entering temples or residences of higher caste people, their ability to own land is limited, and their residences are frequently isolated and sequestered from the rest of the population. In addition to this social discrimination, Dalit people also face physical violence and murder. Dalit live in abject poverty and are forced into such jobs as street cleaning, disposal of excrement and animal carcasses, and leather tanning; sometimes they are also forced to work as indentured servants.

Within the group, Dalit women occupy the lowest caste, class, and gender position, and have long been the object of oppression and violence in all parts of their daily lives.

The Constitution of India formally abolished “untouchability” when it went into effect in 1950 and there have been subsequent laws prohibiting brutality and protecting civil rights, which was to function as a Dalit protection law. However, due to resistance on the part of higher castes these laws do not function as they were intended.

IMADR has focused its activities on the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, and along with its partner organization, the Tamil Nadu Dalit Women’s Movement (TNDWM), has worked to let Dalit women know that a lifetime of oppression and violence need not be their fate, that they can join their voices together and organize.

　

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In order to strengthen and institutionalize the movement to establish the rights of Dalit women, IMADR and TNDWM conduct the following activities: 1. Legal training and support; 2. Surveys of physical violence and discrimination; 3. Cultural festivals; 4. Seminars and meetings to raise consciousness on the state level; and 5. Expressing concerns based on experience resisting human rights violations.

Also, one of IMADR’s directors is a representative to the Society for Rural Education and Development (SRED), which engages in a wide variety of activities, including working to change customs that allow for the sexual exploitation of women and supporting a Dalit women-led project to eliminate violence and human rights violations of Dalit sex workers. In addition to providing continued support to these projects, IMADR has promoted mutual visits between Dalit organizations and the Buraku Liberation League, which has fought against a similar form of discrimination in Japan, in hopes of fostering the exchange of experiences. The establishment of the “Dalit Children’s Day Care Center” has, as an extension of this effort, provided a concrete basis for international networking activities.