Caste discrimination and minority rights: The case of India's dalits

International Journal on Minority and Group Rights

Volumn 17, Issue 2, 2010, Pages 327-353

  Waughray, Annapurna ^a  

^a MANCHESTER METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Affirmative action; Caste; Categories; Dalits; India; Minorities within minorities; Religion; Scheduled Caste (SC)

Indexed keywords

CASTE SYSTEM; CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM; HUMAN RIGHTS; INDIGENOUS POPULATION; MINORITY GROUP; RACIAL DISPARITY; RELIGION; VIOLENCE;

INDIA;

EID: 77952085764     PISSN: 13854879     EISSN: 15718115     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/157181110X495926     Document Type: Article

References (224)

1. In this article I use the term Untouchable and the constitutional term Scheduled Caste (SC) as well as the term Dalit depending on context, whilst recognising that Dalit is not adopted by all members of former "Untouchable" communities.
2. Census of India 2001, Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes Population, at (visited on 14 November 2009).
3. From the Portuguese casta meaning species, race or pure breed; see S. Bayly, Caste, Society and Politics in Modern India from the Eighteen Th Century to the Modern Age (Cambridge University Press (CUP), Cambridge, 1998) pp. 105-106.
4. See UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2004/31, 5 July 2004, 34-61;
5. A. Waughray, 'Caste Discrimination: A Twenty-first Century Challenge for UK Discrimination Law?', 72:2 Modern Law Review (2009) pp. 182-219. Although not the only feature of South Asian social organisation, caste remains an important mechanism of social classification.
6. See G. Flood, An Introduction to Hinduism (CUP, Cambridge, 1998) pp. 11-12, 48-49, 58-61.
7. The term caste refers boThto the Hindu concept of varna and the South Asian concept of jati. The Dalits are also subdivided into hierarchically-ranked jatis .
8. See L. Dudley Jenkins, Identity and Identification in India: Defining the Disadvantaged (RoutledgeCurzon, London, 2003) pp. 23-40 on "identity adjudication".
9. See O. Mendelsohn and M. Vicziany, The Untouchables: Subordination, Poverty and the State in Modern India (CUP, Cambridge, 1998);
10. G. Shah et al. , Untouchability in Rural India (Sage, New Delhi, 2006);
11. K. B. Saxena, Report on Prevention of Atrocities Against Scheduled Castes: Policy and Performance - Suggested Interventions for NHRC (National Human Rights Commission, New Delhi, 2004).
12. See Articles 14, 15, 16 and 17 Constitution of India 1950 (COI), ; Protection of Civil Rights Act 1955, at ;
13. Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989, at (visited on 14 November 2009).
14. See C. Bob, ' "Dalit Rights are Human Rights" Caste Discrimination, International Activism and the Construction of a New Human Rights Issue', 29 Human Rights Quarterly (2007) pp. 167-193.
15. See , visited on 24 May 2009.
16. See also B. Joshi (ed.), Untouchable! Voices of the Dalit Liberation Movement (Zed Books and Minority Rights Group, London, 1986).
17. J. Castellino and E. Dominguez-Redondo, Minority Rights in Asia: A Comparative Legal Analysis (Oxford University Press (OUP), Oxford, 2006) p. 58.
18. The Scheduled Tribes, numbering around 84 million or 8.2 per cent of India's population, are a distinct social and legal category traditionally distinguished by tribal characteristics and cultural and spatial isolation from the mainstream population; see M. Galanter, Competing Equalities: Law and the Backward Classes in India (University of California Press, Berkeley, 1984) pp. 147-153 and Census of India 2001, supra note 2. Although external to the caste system and not defined by Untouchability or by religion, the STs also suffer severe discrimination and depredations.
19. Other Backward Classes, or simply "backward classes", is a constitutional term denoting a third category of less severely socially and educationally backward groups, roughly corresponding to the Shudras in the varna framework, who do not suffer from the stigma of Untouchability. The term is also used generically to denote the SCs, STs and OBCs combined.
20. "[N]o person who professes a religion different from the Hindu, the Sikh or the Buddhist religion shall be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste"; see Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order 1950 (C.O. para. 3, at , (visited on 3 September 2009).
21. Sikhs and Buddhists were originally excluded from the SC category (although SC status was, exceptionally, extended to Sikh members of four specific castes; see Constituent Assembly Debates of India (CAD) Vol.VIII, 25 May 1949, pp. 272, 311;
22. see also Soosai v Union of India (1985) SCR Suppl. (3) 242, 247). Sikhs were added to the SC category in 1956 and Buddhists in 1990.
23. See S. Deshpande, Dalits in the Muslim and Christian Communities: A Status Report on Current Social Scientific Knowledge (Government of India (GOI), National Commission for Minorities (NCM), New Delhi, 2008).
24. I. Ansari (ed.), Readings on Minorities: Perspectives and Documents , vol.1 (Institute of Objective Studies, New Delhi, 1996) pp. xxi, xviii.
25. See Mendelsohn and Vizciany, supra note 8, p. 118.
26. P. Thornberry, International Law and the Rights of Minorities (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1991) pp. 25-37.
27. GA res. 47/135 (1992).
28. F. Capotorti, Study on the Rights of Persons Belonging to Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities (United Nations, New York, 1981) p. 96.
29. See also G. Pentassuglia, Minorities in International Law (Council of Europe, Strasbourg, 2002) p. 69;
30. Minority Rights Group International (MRGI), Submission to CERD on India with specific attention to Article 5 ICERD, 19 February 2007, fn. ix, (visited on 14 November 2009;
31. W. Kymlicka, Multicultural Odysseys: Navigating the New International Politics of Diversity (OUP, Oxford, 2007) pp. 66-67 on the cultural and geo-political origins of the concept of national minorities; UN Working Group on Minorities, UN Doc. E/CN.4/sub.2/AC.5/2005/2, 4 April 2005.
32. Adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976, 999 UNTS 171; Indian ratification 10 April 1979.
33. HRC General Comment No. 23; UN Doc. CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.5, 8 April 1994, para. 5.1.
34. Ibid , para. 5.2.
35. See also Greco-Bulgarian Communities Case , PCIJ Series B, No.17, 1930.
36. See for example Mendelsohn and Vizciany, supra note 8, p. 9
37. See UN Working Group on Minorities, UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/AC.5/2005/2, 4 April 2005, 21-29.
38. Ansari, supra note 17, p. xviii.
39. See C. Jaffrelot, Dr Ambedkar and Untouchability: Analysing and Fighting Caste (Permanent Black, New Delhi, 2005);
40. see also E. Zelliot, From Untouchable to Dalit: Essays on the Ambedkar Movement (Manohar, New Delhi, 1998).
41. See B. R. Ambedkar, 'The Annihilation of Caste', in V. Moon (ed.), Babasaheb Ambedkar Writings and Speeches (BAWS) , vol.1 (Government of Maharasthra, Bombay, 1989).
42. S. Wiessner, 'Faces of vulnerability: protecting individuals in organic and non-organic groups', in G. Alfredsson and P. Macalister-Smith (eds.), The Living Law of Nations: Essays on Refugees, Minorities, Indigenous Peoples and the Human Rights of Other Vulnerable Groups (Arlington Va., Kehl, 1996) p. 221
43. cited in J. Packer, 'Problems in Defining Minorities', in B. Bowring and D. Fottrell (eds.), Minority and Group Rights in the New Millennium (Kluwer Law International, The Hague, 1999) p. 257.
44. See also Thornberry supra note 20, pp. 9-10.
45. Wiessner, ibid .
46. L. Sunga, 3 International Journal of Group Rights (1995) p. 79
47. cited in Packer, supra note 31 , p. 255.
48. Dudley Jenkins, supra note 7, p. 110.
49. See Packer, supra note 31, p. 285.
50. See also Zelliot, supra note 29.
51. D. Reddy, 'The Ethnicity of Caste', 78 Anthropological Quarterly (2005) pp. 543-573.
52. The conceptualisation of caste as ethnicity has also been raised within CERD; see UN Doc. CERD/C/ SR.1796, 2 March 2007, 38.
53. Ansari, supra note 17, p. xviii.
54. Ambedkar, supra note 30, p. 48.
55. See Bayly, supra note 3, pp. 97-186;
56. D. Keane, Caste-Based Discrimination in International Human Rights Law (Aldershot, Ashgate, 2007) pp. 31-37.
57. "We the Depressed Classes are the original inhabitants of this country. We do not claim to have come to India from outside as conquerors, as do the Caste Hindus and the Muslims"; P. R. Thakur, CAD Vol. 1, 19 December 1946, p. 40
58. cited in H. S. Saksena, Safeguards for Scheduled Castes and Tribes: Founding Father's Views - An Exploration of the Constituent Assembly Debates (Uppal, New Delhi, 1981) p. 6.
59. See P. Thornberry, 'The Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, Indigenous Peoples and Caste/Descent-Based Discrimination', in J. Castellino and N. Walsh (eds.), International Law and Indigenous Peoples (Koninklijke Brill, Leiden, 2005) pp. 17-52, 18.
60. See also V. T. Rajshekar, Dalit: The Black Untouchables of India (Clarity Press, Atlanta Ga., 2003).
61. See B. R. Ambedkar, 'Evidence Before the Simon Commission', in BAWS , vol.2 (The Education Dept., Government of Maharasthra, Bombay, 2005) p. 465.
62. UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 2007, UN Doc. A/Res/61/295.
63. See for example R. Lamb, Rapt in the Name: The Ramnamis, Ramnam, and Untouchable Religion in Central India (State University of New York Press, Berkeley, 2002).
64. Bahujan means majority, referring to the Shudras who are estimated to constitute up to half of India's population.
65. See for example K. Ilaiah, Why I Am Not A Hindu (Samya, Calcutta, 2002).
66. Kymlicka, supra note 22, pp. 286-287
67. Ibid..
68. Thornberry, supra note 41, p. 18.
69. Adopted 21 December 1965, entered into force 4 January 1969, 660 UNTS 195. Indian ratification 3 December 1968 .
70. CERD/C, concluding observations on India's ninThto fourteenThreports, 22 August 1996, UN Doc. CERD A/51/18 (1996), 352.
71. See CERD/C General Recommendation No. 29, 22 August 2002, UN Doc. A/57/18 (2002).
72. See also CERD/C, concluding observations on India's fifteenThto nineteenThreports, 5 May 2007, UN Doc. CERD/C/IND/CO/19, 8;
73. P. Thornberry, 'Confronting Racial Discrimination : A CERD Per spective', 5 Human Rights Law Review (2005) pp. 239-269, p. 264.
74. See CERD/C General Recommendation No. 32, August 2009, 5.
75. See GA Third Committee, 1299Thmeeting, 11 October 1965, UN Doc A/C.3/SR.1299, 29.
76. See D. Keane, 'Descent: A Legal History', 11 International Journal of Minority and Group Rights (2005) pp. 93-116 in which Keane traces the origins of the descent category to its inclusion in Article 16(2) COI following an intervention in the Constituent Assembly in 1948 by Shri Raj Bahadur. In fact the term descent predates the COI by over a century, appearing in the Charter Act 1833 as a prohibited ground of discrimination in employment wiThthe East India Company: "[N]o Native of the said Territories, nor any natural-born Subject of his majesty resident therein, shall, by reason only of his Religion, Place of Birth, Descent, Colour, or any of them, be disabled from holding any Place, Office, or Employment under the said Company"; Charter Act 1833 S. 87. The term reappears in the Government of India Act 1935 Part XII S. 298, and again in Article 366(2) COI which defines an Anglo-Indian as "a person whose father or any of whose other progenitors in the male line is or was of European descent but who is domiciled within the territory of India and is or was born within such territory of parents habitually resident herein and not established there for temporary purposes only".
77. Mr. Saksena, GA Third Committee, 1306Thmeeting, 15 October 1965, UN Doc. A/C.3/ SR.1306, 24-25. See also 1304Thmeeting, 14 October 1965, 20.
78. See UN Doc. CERD/C/SR.33, 56 ; UN Doc. CERD/C/SR.51, 142; FifThPeriodic Report of India: UN Doc. CERD/C/20/Add.34, 8 March 1979, 40, 45-68; NinThPeriodic Report of India: UN Doc. CERD/C/149/Add.11, 4 September 1986, 8.
79. See UN Doc. CERD/C/SR.797, 61. Similarly, India does not recognise its tribal peoples as distinct groups entitled to special protection under ICERD; see UN Doc. CERD/C/IND/CO/19, 5 May 2007, 10.
80. See UN Doc. CERD/C/299/Add. 3, 29 April 1996, 7; UN Doc. CERD/C/IND/19, 29 March 2006, 16.
81. On the genesis of ICERD see Thornberry, supra note 52, p. 241. In 1986 CERD member Mr. Bantom observed that "[c]onsideration of a report from a country such as India showed that the Convention had been drafted to take account of the experience of the peoples of Europe, Africa and NorThAmerica, and that it was therefore not adapted to the examination of inter-group relations in other parts of the world"; see UN Doc. CERD/C/SR.796, 26.
82. Supra note 53.
83. Ibid.. , 15, 20, 21, 27, 34.
84. T. K. Shah, CAD Vol. VIII, 29 November 1948, p. 655.
85. Supra note 53, 17.
86. Ibid.. , 7.
87. Ibid..
88. UN Sub-Commission, Resolution 2000/4, 11 August 2000, UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2000/46, 23 November 2000.
89. UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2001/16, 14 June 2001;
90. UN Doc. E/ CN.4/Sub.2/2003/24, 26 June 2003;
91. UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/2004/31, 5 July 2004.
92. UN Doc. E/CN.4/DEC/2005/109.
93. UN Doc. A/HRC/11/CRP.3, 18 May 2009.
94. Ibid..
95. See CERD, fourteenThperiodic report of India, UN Doc. CERD/C/299/ Add.3, 29 April 1996, 6-7;
96. CERD, nineteenThreport of India, UN Doc. CERD/C/IND/19, 29 March 2006, 16.
97. See CERD/C, concluding observations on India's fifteenThto nineteenThreports, supra note 52.
98. Ibid ., 15, 18, 21.
99. Adopted 18 December 1979, entered into force 3 September 1981, 1249 UNTS 13. Indian ratification 9 July 1993.
100. See UN Doc. CEDAW A/55/38 (2000), 52, 68, 74;
101. UN Doc. CEDAW/C/IND/Co.3, 2 February 2007, 8, 28, 29, 32, 33.
102. See CERD/C concluding observations on India's fifteenThto nineteenThreports, supra note 52.
103. See UN Doc. CRC/C/15/Add.228, 26 February 2004, 22, 25, 28, 59, 65;
104. UN Doc. CCPR A/52/40 (1997), 430;
105. UN Doc. E/C.12/IND/CO/5, 8 August 2008, 13, 14, 19, 25, 53.
106. Preamble, COI 1950. The words "Socialist, Secular" were added after "Sovereign" by the Constitution (Forty-second) Amendment Act 1976, S.2.
107. Article 37 COI.
108. NCMA S.2(iii), , (visited on 25 June 2009).
109. NCMA S.3(i) and S.9.
110. NCM, Annual Conference of State Minorities Commissions, 16 January 2008; see , (visited on 25 June 2009). 189.5 million people or 18.4 per cent of India's total population belong to a minority community. Muslims number 140 million or 13.4 per cent of the total population and 72.8 per cent of the minority population, Christians constitute 2.3 per cent of the total population, Sikhs 1.9 per cent, Buddhists 0.8 per cent and Parsis 0.07 per cent; figures from 2001 Census cited in NCM, Annual Conference of State Minorities Commissions, this footnote.
111. "In sub-clause (b) of clause (2) the reference to Hindus shall be construed as including a reference to persons professing the Sikh, Jaina or Buddhist religions, and the reference to Hindu religious institutions shall be construed accordingly"; Article 25(2)(b) COI, Explanation II.
112. NCMA S.9. The NCM has no power to notify or even to recommend a community as a minority. The unit for determining linguistic or religious minority status is the State, not the whole of India. Numerical minority cannot be the sole criteria; protection as a minority must be based on the community's social, cultural and religious conditions in each State; see Bal Patil v. Union of India (2005) AIR 3172.
113. Mendelsohn and Vizciany, supra note 8, pp. 129-130.
114. Ibid..
115. See also Galanter, supra note 13, p. 25;
116. B. Shiva Rao, The Framing of India's Constitution: A Study (Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi, 1968) p. 3;
117. S. Wolpert, A New History of India , 8Thed. (OUP, Oxford, 2009) pp. 288-289.
118. Articles 330, 332, 243-D(1)(a), and 243-T(1) COI. One-third of SC/ST local council seats are reserved for SC/ST women and one-third of local council seats for women generally; see Articles 243-D(2) and (3) and 243-T(2) and (3). Enabling provisions also exist for the political representation of Anglo-Indians at State and national level; see Articles 331 and 333 COI .
119. Article 15(4) COI was inserted by the Constitution (First Amendment) Act 1951 S.2 following the Supreme Court's decision in State of Madras v. Champakam Dorairajan (AIR 1951 SC 226).
120. See Central Educational Institutions (Reservations in Admissions) Act 2006, enacted pursuant to the Constitution (Ninety-third) Amendment Act 2005.
121. See Article 15(5) COI, inserted by the Constitution (Ninety-third) Amendment Act 2005 S.2.
122. See Articles 335 and 16(4) COI. Article 16(4)A, inserted by the Constitution (Seventy-seventh) Amendment Act1995 S. 2, extends reservations in government posts to promotions for SCs and STs but not OBCs.
123. Prior to the Supreme Court decision in Indra Sawhney v. Union of India (1992) AIR SC 477, States were free to grant State-wide backward class reservations in State sector employment at their discretion, but there were no central OBC reservations.
124. Devadasan v. Union of India , AIR 1964 SC 179.
125. Indra Sawhney, supra note 93, para. 94A.
126. Galanter, supra note 13, p. 86.
127. Indra Sawhney , supra note 95 . Article 16(4)B, inserted by the Constitution (Eighty-first) Amendment Act 2001 S.2, allows for "roll-over" for a maximum of three years of unfilled vacancies under Articles 16(4) and16(4)A and their exclusion from the 50 per cent ceiling on the total number of yearly vacancies.
128. See Mendelsohn and Vicziany, supra note 8, p. 2.
129. See also G. Omvedt, Dalits and the Democratic Revolution: Dr Ambedkar and the Dalit Movement in Colonial India (Sage, New Delhi, 1994);
130. W. Radice (ed.), Swami Vivekananda and the Modernisation of Hinduism (OUP, New Delhi, 1999);
131. Zelliot, supra note 29; Galanter, supra note 13, pp. 29-30.
132. See S. Charsley, 'Untouchable: What is in a Name', 23:1 Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (1996).
133. See Charsley, ibid. , p. 9.
134. While the existence of the Untouchables was not new, nevertheless in the category of Untouchable something new was constructed: see Mendelsohn and Vizciany, supra note 8, p. 21.
135. Charsley, supra note 99.
136. The Government of India (Scheduled Castes) Order 1936.
137. Galanter, supra note 13, p.130. See also Dudley Jenkins, supra note 7, p. 14.
138. See Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order 1950, supra note 15. A caste may be "scheduled" in one State but not in another, resulting in inconsistent access to constitutional and legislative protection.
139. Ibid..
140. A similar mechanism is used to establish ST and OBC status. The Schedule mechanism has given rise to a body of "adjudication jurisprudence"; see Dudley Jenkins, supra note 7.
141. Untouchability has its origins in early India; see V. Jha, 'Candala and the Origin of Untouchability', in A. Parasher-Sen (ed.), Subordinate and Marginal Groups in Early India (OUP, New Delhi, 2004) pp. 157-209;
142. P. V. Kane, History of Dharmasastra (Ancient and Medieval Religious and Civil Law) , vol.I (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1930).
143. Galanter, supra note 13, pp. 122, 135.
144. Ibid.. , p.128.
145. Ibid.. , pp. 127-128.
146. See CAD Vol. III, 29 April 1947;
147. CAD Vol. VII, 29-30 November 1948, pp. 664-669.
148. See Dr. Monomohon Das, CAD Vol. VII, 29 November 1948, p. 666.
149. Mr. Ahmad, CAD Vol. VII, 29 November 1948, p. 669 (emphasis added).
150. See Keane, supra note 39, p. 2.
151. B.R. Ambedkar, 'What Congress and Gandhi Have Done To The Untouchables', in BAWS , vol.9 (The Education Dept., Government of Maharasthra, Bombay, 1991) p. 181. Galanter in a footnote notes that, as late as 1910, Hindu political opinion was still very divided as to whether the Untouchables should "count" as Hindus or not; see Galanter, supra note 13, p. 26, fn 24.
152. Ambedkar, ibid. , p. 54
153. Ibid.. , p. 87 .
154. See also D. Nesiah, Discrimination WiThReason? (OUP, New Delhi, 1989) 44-45;
155. Galanter, supra note 13, pp. 31-32;
156. Zelliot, supra note 29, pp . 166-167.
157. See above .
158. See B. Shiva Rao, The Framing of India's Constitution: Selected Documents , vol.1 (The Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi, 1966) pp. 209-224, p. 214.
159. Ibid.. , p. 216.
160. S. Ajnat (ed.), Letters of Ambedkar (Bheem Patrika Publications, Jalandhar, 1993) pp. 154, 157.
161. See Article 366(2) COI and supra fn. 55.
162. G. Austin, The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation (OUP, New Delhi, 1966) p. 12.
163. In January 1947 the Muslim League announced their withdrawal from the Assembly; see Wolpert, supra note 87, pp. 361-363
164. Shiva Rao, supra note 119, pp. 754-757.
165. CAD Vol. VIII, 25 May 1949, Appendix A, 311.
166. See Z. Hasan, Politics of Inclusion: Castes, Minorities and Affirmative Action (OUP, New Delhi, 2009) p. 24
167. CAD Vol. VIII, 25 May 1949, supra note 125.
168. CAD Vol. VIII, 25 May 1949, pp. 270-272.
169. Ibid.. , p. 277.
170. Separate electorates had been accorded to the Muslims by the British in 1909 on the basis of their identity as a separate religious community; see Galanter, supra note 13, p. 25;
171. Shiva Rao, supra note 87, p. 3;
172. Wolpert, supra note 87, pp. 288-289.
173. CAD Vol. VIII, supra note 123, p. 270. Nehru favoured dropping reservations altogether but accepted arguments in relation to the SCs - who he described as backward groups, not a religious minority - for time-limited reservations; see CAD Vol VIII, 26 May 1949, p. 331. The initial ten-year period has been repeatedly extended, most recently in August 2009, and it is difficult to envisage the circumstances in which any political party could abolish reservations in the foreseeable future.
174. Hasan, supra note 126, p. 21.
175. In 1948 Ambedkar had opposed the principle of reservations for SCs in education, on the grounds that it might result in educational segregation; see CAD Vol. VII, 29 November 1948, p. 661.
176. Reservations for SCs in employment had been rejected by the Minorities Committee in 1948 by one vote: see CAD Vol. VII, 29 November 1948, p. 687.
177. Shiva Rao, supra note 119, p. 777.
178. B.R. Ambedkar, 'States and Minorities - Memorandum to the Constituent Assembly on behalf of the All-India Scheduled Castes Federation', in BAWS , vol.1, supra note 30, p. 383.
179. CAD Vol. V, 27 August 1947, p. 248.
180. A Minorities Sub-Committee member had distinguished political minorities "from permanent national, religious and cultural minorities requiring special safeguards such as Muslims, Sikhs, Indian Christians and Anglo-Indians, these groups being akin to groups in Central and Eastern Europe, the denial of whose rights had led to the Minorities Treaties following World War I"; see I. Ansari (ed.), Readings on Minorities: Perspectives and Documents , vol.2 (Institute of Objective Studies, New Delhi, 1996) pp. 220-221.
181. CAD Vol. V, 27 August 1947, p. 217.
182. Hasan, supra note 126, pp. 5-8.
183. Nesiah, supra note 117, p . 63.
184. Ambedkar himself famously declared in 1935 that he would not die a Hindu. In 1956, shortly before his death, he led a mass conversion of Dalits to Buddhism; see Zelliot, supra note 29, pp . 126-136.
185. See Ansari, supra note 135, pp. xviii-xix.
186. CAD Vol VIII, 25 May 1949, p. 271.
187. See also supra note 15.
188. See UN Doc. CERD/C/299/Add.3, 29 April 1996 ;
189. UN Doc. CERD/C/SR/141, 132, 6;
190. UN Doc. CERD A/9018 (1973), 238.
191. See supra note 15.
192. Ibid..
193. See CERD/C, concluding observations on India's fifteenThto nineteenThreports, supra note 52, 21.
194. Deshpande, supra note 16. The report states that about 1 per cent of Muslims and around 10 percent of Christians are Dalits (although the true proportion of Dalit Christians is thought to be between 50 and 75 per cent) while Dalits constitute over 23 per cent of Hindus, 85 per cent of Buddhists and almost 35 per cent of Sikhs (pp. 22-23, 25).
195. Deshpande, ibid. , pp. 2-5.
196. Deshpande, ibid. , pp. 28-29. Dalit Sikhs were found to be the most affluent of all Dalits. Dalit Muslims have more in the poor and less in the affluent category than Dalit Christians but are broadly comparable to all other Dalits except Sikhs.
197. Ibid.. , p. 78.
198. Ibid.. , pp. 81, 83.
199. See for example Soosai v. Union of India , supra note 15, 248;
200. S. Anbalagan v. B. Devarajan , 1984 SCR (1) 973;
201. K. Sonkar v. Smt. Maya Devi , 1984 SCR (2) 176.
202. Galanter, supra note 13, pp. 190-192, referred to in Deshpande, supra note 15, p. 66.
203. L. Havanur, Specifying the Backward Classes without the "Caste" Basis (Mysore State Backward Classes Welfare Association, Bangalore, 1965) p. 60
204. cited in Galanter, supra note 13, p. 190, fn. 4.
205. Soosai v. Union of India , supra note 15, 250.
206. Ibid . (emphasis added).
207. Deshpande, supra note 16, pp. 65-68.
208. See Report of the First Backward Classes Commission 1953 ('Kalelkar' Report) (New Delhi, GOI, 1955); Report of the Second Backward Classes Commission 1980 ('Mandal' Report) (New Delhi, GOI, 1980). A legal challenge to the proposed implementation in 1990 of the Mandal Report recommendations for national-level OBC reservations in public sector employment and higher education resulted in the 1992 Supreme Court decision in Sawhney in favour of nationallevel OBC reservations in public employment but not education.
209. National Commission for Backward Classes Act (NCBCA) 1993 S.9 and S.9(2), at , (visited on 14 November 2009).
210. See National Commission for Backward Classes, , (visited on 14 November 2009).
211. Ibid .
212. Ibid .
213. GOI, Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community of India (GOI, Cabinet Secretariat, New Delhi, 2006).
214. Ibid.. , 213.
215. The 'Misra Report', yet to be officially published. The relevant paragraphs are 16.3-16.4.
216. See S. Ghildiyal, 'Govt in a fix on quota proposal', Times of India , 14 October 2007
217. and 'Dalit converts not entitled to quota', Times of India , 8 December 2007.
218. See EOC Report 2008, , (visited on 3 September 2009), p. 32.
219. See Diversity Index Report 2008, , (visited on 3 September 2009);
220. see also EOC Report, ibid.
221. Dudley Jenkins, supra note 7, p. 120.
222. Supra note 36.
223. N. Shaw, 'The Definition of Minorities', in Y. Dinstein and M. Yabory (eds.) The Protection of Minorities and Human Rights (Martinus NijhoffPublications, Dordrecht, 1992) p. 22.
224. See B. Crossette, 'Putting Caste on Notice', The Nation , 26 October 2009, , (visited on 14 November 2009).