People's Democracy

18TH CONGRESS RESOLUTION

THIS 18th congress of Communist Party of India (Marxist) expresses grave concern at the intensification of all forms of social and economic discrimination and violence against dalits in the period of neo-liberal reform. Dalits face multiple forms of social and economic exclusion and discrimination in Indian society, and discrimination also with regard to civic rights. Economic discrimination itself takes various forms: discrimination in access to employment (in terms of exclusion from employment in specific tasks, the rates of wages paid, and unfree work relationships, including bondage); lack of ownership of the means of production (including, most importantly, land); price and non-price discrimination in access to markets; and lack of access to public services. Discrimination also takes the pernicious forms of physical and social segregation of dalit groups and individuals, and of the continuing and criminal practice of untouchability.

About 80 per cent of dalits live in rural India, and 86 per cent of dalit households are landless. In the most recent period for which data are available, over 60 per cent of dalit households in rural areas were dependent primarily on wage labour. Employment statistics show clearly that unemployment is much higher among dalit workers than among non-SC/ST workers.

Even by official statistics, the ratio of income-poverty among dalit households was 14 percentage points higher than the corresponding ratio among non-scheduled-caste and non-scheduled-tribe households. On the basis of National Sample Survey data, it has been estimated that, on average, a dalit worker earned Rs 23 less in a week than a non-SC/ST worker.

Social exclusion and discrimination with respect to public health facilities have had profound consequences. At the Census of 2001, the proportion of literate persons (above the age of 7 years) in the dalit population was 67 per cent for males and 42 per cent for females, while for the population as a whole, the corresponding figures were 75 per cent and 54 per cent. There are wide regional differences here: the literacy rate among Scheduled Caste females in Bihar, for example, was an abysmal 14 per cent. With respect to every significant human development and demographic indicator, dalits fare far worse than the general population.

Oppression and discrimination also take the form of direct atrocities and physical attacks. Although registered cases represent only a fraction of the actual atrocities committed, it is noteworthy that between 1992 and 2000, an average of over 28,041 cases a year were reported. On average, these comprised 539 cases of murder, 945 cases of rape, 251 cases of kidnapping and abduction, 67 cases of dacoity, 187 cases of robbery, 404 cases of arson, 3120 cases of grievous injury, 1489 cases under the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 7631 cases under the Prevention of Atrocities Act, and 13,409 other offences. In other words, these data show that about 77 crimes against dalits were reported every day, and that, on average, three dalit women are raped and six dalit women disabled every day. These figures however are a gross underestimation because a large number of cases of sexual assault do not get registered. Dalit women face the triple burden of caste, class and gender oppression. At the same time, recent reports indicate that only 1 per cent of cases under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act end in convictions. Even the killers in the shocking case of the lynching of five dalits in Duleena in Jhajjar, Haryana, have not been punished.

Dalits are among the sections of society that have been worst affected by neo-liberal reform. The collapse of urban and rural employment, and the curtailment of expenditures on and privatisation of health, educational and other aspects of social infrastructure have especially grave implications for dalits. Expenditure cutbacks have further limited the scope of affirmative action through various government programmes. As a result of privatisation, there has been a decline in the availability of regular salaried jobs to dalits and increasing share of dalit workers has been forced to work as casual labourers. With the abandonment of land reforms in most states, even the prospect of land reform undoing the historical discrimination faced by dalits in access to land has been denied. Increased social discrimination has been accompanied by new levels of reported violence: in 2000 alone, 25,455 cases, including 3,497 cases of grievous injury and 1,083 cases of rape, were reported.

It is a proud tradition of the communist movement that communists have been in the forefront of the struggle against discrimination and atrocities against dalits and for the socio-political rights of the dalits. This struggle is an integral part of the communist struggle for social and economic liberation. Communist-led mass movements and governments in Tripura, Kerala and West Bengal have shown the way in respect of basic change of the condition of rural dalit masses by means of land reform, particularly by means of the distribution of agricultural and house-site land.

This 18th congress warns that, in recent years, certain dalit organisations and NGOs (some of which are foreign-funded) have sought to drive a wedge between the Communist Party and the Left and working class movements on the one side and the dalit masses on the other. Some writers have gone so far as to extol neo-liberal reforms as representing a favourable opportunity for dalits. The 18th congress is also concerned that certain political parties that claim to represent dalits and dalit interests have shown no hesitation in allying with the BJP to form governments. In Uttar Pradesh, this has actually helped spread the influence of the RSS among some sections of dalits.

The core of Hindutva ideology is the defence of chaturvarna; it thus comes as no surprise that wherever the BJP has been in power – in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh – it has withdrawn cases under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

The 18th congress of the CPI(M) calls on the Party and mass organisations actively to integrate the struggles against social discrimination and for the socio-political and economic rights of the dalits with the class struggle, to battle against the perpetrators of atrocities against dalits, and to counter and expose the pernicious efforts of those who attempt to detach the dalit people from the Communist Party and the class struggle.

This congress demands:

• Land reform with priority to dalits, adivasis and women in respect of the distribution of agricultural and house-site land and joint pattas.

• The strengthening of special arrangements such as the Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and OBC Development and Finance Corporations to ensure an adequate flow of institutional credit and finances for loan-cum subsidy schemes at lower rates to these social groups.

• The augmentation and extension of Special Central Assistance to Scheduled Caste Special Component Plans, and of a counterpart of the Tribal Sub-Plan to all sections of dalits.

• Statutory minimum quotas for dalits in all wage and self-employment programmes, social security and welfare schemes, including schemes in the sphere of education and health.

• The extension of reservation in educational institutions and employment to Christian dalits, and the extension of reservation for dalits to employment in the private sector after wide consultation.

• The establishment of a legal mechanism to ensure the enforcement of constitutionally guaranteed reservations for Scheduled Castes and Tribes.

• Stringent implementation of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

(April 10, 2005)