The National Campaign on Dalit Human Rights (NCDHR) was initiated in December 1998 by human rights activists working among Dalits and studying the effectiveness and implementation of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities Act), 1989. 

The campaign was launched by Dalit Ezhumalai, minister for health and family welfare on December 9, 1998; three days later, a delegation met President KR Narayanan with the documents that detailed the focus of the campaign. 
Support was assured to the campaign from the then leader of the Opposition, Sharad Pawar and Ram Vilas Paswan (union minister for communications). 

On December 13, and 14, 1998 an NCDHR delegation consisting of PL Mimroth (national convenor), Rajini Tilak, Attam Singh Bhatti and MP Chaudhary met Prime Minister AB Vajpayee, Lok Sabha speaker Balayogi,  and leader of the Opposition, Sonia Gandhi.

A ‘Black Paper’ was released from 15 states and Union Territories on December 8, 1999 in New Delhi; at the release function, Paswan gave the inaugural address and Ramdas Athavale, MP and secretary of the SC/ST Parliament’s Forum, gave the keynote address.

On December 8, 1999 the National Dalit Women’s Conference was held at which 300 delegates countrywide attended. Ms Veena Nayyar, member of the National Commission for SCs/STs gave the keynote address. The outcome was a Dalit women’s charter of demands.
December 9, 1999: Submission of 25 lakh signatures collected from all over the country in support of Dalit human rights.

The cross–party delegation consisted of Paswan, Athavale, Bhandaru Dattatheya, deputy minister for urban development and Bangaru Laxman (both Dalit representatives).
The demand was for the tabling of a White Paper in Parliament and declaration of the next decade as ‘Ambedkar Decade’.

The culmination of one set of the NCDHR’s activities was the National Public Hearing organised at Chennai in April 2000. A representative jury, consisting among others of former judge of the Bombay high court, justice Suresh, former judge, AP high court, justice Punnaiah, former judge, Patna high court, justice Amir Das heard 57 cases from 10 states highlighting 17 major forms of human rights violations. These included untouchability practices, denial of access to  cultivation, grazing and ownership of land, rights of Dalit women, manual scavenging and continued state violence against Dalits. 

Internationally, the Dalit rights campaign has included the formation and activities of International Dalit Solidarity Networks (IDSN), programmes undertaken by international human rights activists, advocacy and lobbying efforts at the UN level and in different countries. 

Box2
Caste in the United Nations

The United Nations’ Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 referred to race, colour gender and religion but not caste as a basis or source of discrimination.

For many years, UN bodies and international covenants, conventions such as ICCPR, ICESR, ECERD and CEDAW and ILO omitted any reference to caste. As a result, Dalits could only make little use of the space offered by human rights bodies to raise the issue of caste-based discrimination.

It was the ECERD committee in 1996 (whose convention has been ratified by India in 1969) that for the first time made explicit reference to caste discrimination, untouchability and the scheduled castes. 

On September 17, 1996, the concluding observation of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ECERD) was “that the situation of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes falls within the scope of the convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination,” and that the term “descent” contained in Article 1 of the convention does not refer solely to race, and encompasses the situation of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. (Document ECERD/C/304/Add.13). The present demand emanating from the Dalit movement for human rights that is being strongly resisted by the Indian government is an echo of the progress already made within international covenants and the law.

In 1996 and ‘97, the UN Special Rapporteur on Racism and Racial discrimination had requested a visit to India to “evaluate the situation (of untouchables) in co-operation with the government and the community concerned.” The Indian government has, to date, refused the request for a visit.

The CEDAW committee, in its final report, 2000 had mentioned, “The committee considers (that) such social practices as the caste system present major obstacles to the implementation of the convention.”
The 52nd UN sub–commission in Geneva in August 2000 unanimously passed a resolution commissioning expert member Rajendere K Goonasekere to prepare a working paper on ‘discrimination based on descent’. The objectives of the report were to a) Identify communities who continue to experience discrimination based on occupation and descent; b) Examine existing constitutional, legislative and administrative measures for the abolition of such discrimination c) Make any further concrete recommendations and proposals for the elimination of such discrimination. The Indian government has opposed all these resolutions.