Caste-based Discrimination

Lord Desai Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Desai (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, for persisting with this amendment. It has been explained what the law is and what the Government ought to do. So why do they not do it? Obviously, there is a very strong lobby—let us call it the caste Hindu lobby—which is very powerful, prosperous and persistent. They have abandoned me but I know they would love to get me on their side. A lot of false arguments are made. I was asked by somebody: “Why do the Government want to abolish caste?”. Nobody is abolishing caste; caste is a part of the identity of everybody who comes from the Indian subcontinent, which includes Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and Nepal. One does not mind something that is part of people’s identity and the culture that they have grown up with. As the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, explained, there are issues with ritual purity, eating and so on. That is fine: we are not objecting to caste; we are objecting to discrimination based on it. It is not a caste’s internal behaviour, among themselves, that we are interfering with. We are asking questions about the interaction between two people of different castes. When there is evidence that there is discrimination and we cannot find any other reason, like gender, to establish why the discrimination is there, then it has to be because of caste.

The Conservative Party obviously wants to win votes and seats. I do not blame them for that; who does not? However, they have to explain to the people who are objecting that the Government’s programme is a minimal programme of preventing discrimination and bringing our law into line with our UN obligations. They should also say that that is the law in India. They are not passing a law which is un-Indian. They are passing a law which is entirely in coherence with India’s constitution and law. To the extent that the Government are being reluctant to challenge the lobby, they are playing a vote-bank game. They ought to ask themselves whether it is worth however many seats there are to persist with an injustice for which there is evidence and which will give us a bad name in international law. The law having been passed by Parliament, the Government are definitely in breach of their obligations under the law.

Another argument which is made is that there is no discrimination; it is entirely the perception of non-Indian people who see discrimination everywhere. If there is no discrimination, what is the problem with passing the law? If there is no discrimination that is good, but they should pass the law just in case. Then they should try to find evidence and see a report from the appointed research bodies that they tried hard, dug everywhere but found no discrimination. The Government should then say: “Even so, we will go on monitoring this issue because we have an obligation under the law”. We have to say to the lobby: “We love you, but we cannot allow you to do things which are in violation of the law of the land”. It is not only the law of the land; it is internationally accepted standards of justice. There is no election until 2020—one hopes—so I advise the Government and people who are worried about elections that they have enough time to convince these lobbies that they are wrong and that they should help the Government comply with the law and fulfil their obligations.