In the world arena, modern India is a country of astounding economic development and prosperous democracy. The issue of human rights protection has always been complicated in India because of the country’s diversity, its huge size, and its history as a former colony. The traditional caste system has made the situation even more difficult. India’s Constitution of 1950 has initiated the age of human rights promotion in the country. The Constitution guarantees the Fundamental rights and freedoms of speech, religion, and movement. Also, the law protects Indian citizens from discrimination on the basis of place of birth, race, language, gender, social status, or disability. Unfortunately, India’s democracy and human rights protection remains only on paper (U.S. Department of State, 2011).
In 2010, Human Rights Watch reported that India had “significant human rights problems” (Rastogi, 2011). The main problems were: the absence of security forces’ accountability and impunity for violent policing including “police brutality, extrajudicial killings, and torture” (Rastogi, 2011). In 2011, the UN expert expressed deep anxiety about human rights workers who “have been killed, tortured, ill-treated, disappeared, threatened, arbitrarily arrested and detained, falsely charged and under surveillance because of their legitimate work in upholding human rights and fundamental freedoms” (Rastogi, 2011). This is India’s democracy in the view of foreign observers. However, Indians say that their human rights are abused in far more brutal forms.
In fact, Indians struggle for their fundamental rights for about 2 thousand years. This is because a caste system, which divided India’s society into 5 closed professional groups, made this struggle vain. Just like twenty centuries ago, today, every Indian is born as member of a certain caste, which identifies his/her occupation for the entire life. The point is that Indians have neither right nor ability to change their fate. The laws of caste life are recorded in religious texts and are followed until now (Singh, 2009).
Indians have always faced the situation when the upper castes abused the rights of the lower castes. For example, the caste of untouchables (or “achhut” in Hindi) includes those, who are entrusted to the hard physical work, for example, cleaners, tanners, fishermen, butchers, street artisans, etc. Representatives of this caste have always lived in poverty and social isolation, which was their main concern. The law forbade them to eat in regular dining halls, wear fancy clothes, take water from public wells, farm, and get an education. Even nowadays it is believed that untouchables bear the “dirt” of their occupation; and therefore, “defile” a man or food by their touch, and a house or a temple by their presence (Singh, 2009).
Of course, every tradition (no matter whether it is good or not) has its rational explanation. In India, the issues of hygiene are the matters of life and death. Those, who perform a dirty work, are potential carriers of infection. However, over the time, it has gone much further than just a reasonable limitation of contacts. Thus, some southern areas declared that not …