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National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights Releases Dalit Manifesto

The manifesto demands right to justice, right to accessing justice for Dalit women, access to economic entitlements, reservations in private sectors among others.
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In the run-up to the 2019 general elections, National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) released a ‘Dalit Manifesto’ on December 10. The manifesto presents a set of demands under 12 categories and appeals to all the political parties to “include the raise concerns [regarding Dalit issues] in their manifestos”.

Celebrating 20 years of NCDHR’s work in the field of Dalit rights, the organisation re-elected Professor Vimal Thorat as National Convenor for another term. Speaking to Newsclick, Thorat said: “Atrocities on Dalits have been on rise in the past few years, and the present government under BJP, instead of ensuring protection of the oppressed sections, is further worsening their living conditions, which is reflected in the budget allocations for health and education.”

Thorat added that the young Dalits and Adivasis are facing major issues to even pursue their education, as the post-matric scholarships – Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship for SC and ST students, and Maulana Azad National Fellowship for minority students – are kept on hold for the last three years, affecting thousands of students.

Manifesto

Stating that the Dalit Rights have seldom got any support or recognition from the society at large in the country – as over 201 million people are discriminated against on the basis of their caste – NCDHR demanded the political parties take up the issues like right to access to justice, right to accessing justice for Dalit women, rights of children and youth, access to economic entitlements, access to quality education, access to employment opportunities, reservations in private sector and entrepreneurship, rights to access standards of health schemes, access to and non-discrimination in respect to adequate food, water, sanitation, clothing, housing and during disaster response, entitlement to land and protection against forced eviction, right to protection of human rights defenders, and right to protection of minorities.

The manifesto appealed to the political parties to “adhere to the constitutional rights of SC and ST, particularly women and children, who are discriminated and excluded by caste and patriarchy system which maintains socio economic conditions”.

Raising the issue of rights of children, NCDHR demanded the legislation of “prevention of all forms of discrimination and violence against children in educational institutions Bill” drafted by Campaign towards Zero Discrimination (CZDE) in school education on prevention of discrimination and promotion of equality in school educational institutions foregrounding the principles and targets laid down in Convention on Rights of Child.

On the issue of economic entitlements, the manifesto stated that the spirit of Special Component Plan (SCP) for SCs and STs has been consistently thwarted in its application and implementation by central and concerned state government departments of successive governments. The human rights organisation demanded the enactment of central legislation for Scheduled Caste component and Scheduled Tribe component budgets with monitoring mechanisms for their proper implementation.

On the issue of entitlement to land and protection against forced eviction, the manifesto pointed out that only 38 per cent of SCs compared with 61 per cent of dominant castes operated land holdings in 2004-2005. As a majority of SCs (62 per cent) are landless, it demanded proper implementation of existing land laws and distribution of “5 acres of arable land for cultivation for a family from SC and ST communities”.

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