South Asia: Minority Faith Communities

Lord Harries of Pentregarth Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harries of Pentregarth (CB)]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, for his stalwart work in this area, his deep commitment to religious freedom and what he has achieved. It is very good that he will continue his commitment to this cause. It is also very good to have the Minister in her place, as I know that she will be equally committed to this.

I have a concern for all minority faith communities in south Asia. I also have a concern about freedom in its wider aspect and not just freedom of religion, for there is serious anxiety about academic freedom in India and the pressure being applied to those who do not support the Government.

However, my main concern in this debate will be with the Dalits, the former untouchables, a great number of whom are Christians or Buddhists. These Dalits suffer not just as members of a minority faith community but as those who are regarded as ritually unclean and to be shunned. This remains the ugliest form of discrimination in the world today and continues to blight India’s life. I couple the Dalits with the Adivasi, the ancient tribal people of India, who also suffer badly, not least in the loss of their ancient lands. Dalits suffer all over south Asia but, because of the shortage of time, I will focus on India.

There are multiple ways in which Dalits suffer, and one is their vulnerability to human trafficking. Multiple studies have found that Dalits in India have a significantly increased risk of ending up in modern slavery, including in forced and bonded labour and child labour. This is particularly true in the textile and brick-making industries, in which a large number of Dalits are employed, very many of whom are children.

Multiple studies show that Dalits experience discrimination in the area of employment. There are very few Dalits in senior positions in the professions; the vast majority are employed in servile positions, including manual scavenging, where it still exists.

The Government of India have a policy of positive discrimination for minority groups, but Christian and Muslim minorities are excluded from this. This is a clear example of how being a religious minority and a Dalit reinforces oppression, especially when you realise that some 76% of Christians belong to a disadvantaged group.

The most egregious harm to the Dalit community is in the criminal justice system. In recent years, a number of Christian Dalit villages have been attacked by mobs. There has been a failure by the police to prevent this, and then great difficulty bringing charges against the perpetrators, followed by long delays in bringing them to trial.

As many as 422,799 crimes against Dalits and 81,332 crimes against Adivasis were reported between 2006 and 2016. Over that decade, the crime rate against Dalits rose by 25%. Cases pending police investigation for both marginalised groups rose by 99% and 55% respectively, while the waiting time in courts rose by 50% and 28%. At the same time, conviction rates for crimes against scheduled castes and scheduled tribes fell by two percentage points and seven percentage points.

The recent gruesome report of the beheading of a Dalit minor girl in Tamil Nadu for rejecting the advances of an upper-caste male once again throws the issue of caste discrimination into sharp focus. Women from scheduled castes and scheduled tribes are particularly vulnerable to discrimination and violence due to the intersection of caste and gender.

This violence has become increasingly common across India over the last years and the audacity with which it is conducted suggests a complete absence of fear of consequences. Following on from this, human rights defenders advocating against caste-based discrimination and violence are at risk for defending the rights of Dalits and adivasi communities. They are often charged with a whole series of matters that have nothing to do with breaking the law. They face a diverse range of attacks and harassment from state and non-state actors, and police officials are very often those most at blame and seem to think that they can carry this out with impunity. Will the Government press the Indian Government to overhaul the criminal justice system so that Dalits and religious minorities can have proper access to justice? At the moment, it is failing minority communities very badly.

I will end by referring to something outside India, and that is the blasphemy law in Pakistan—which has already been mentioned. It has been used to terrify totally harmless Christian and Sikh villagers. As a result, some people have been on death row for years. Too often what happens is that there is a village dispute over something, and, as part of this, a perfectly innocent Christian or Sikh is accused of denigrating the Koran; they are charged with blasphemy, locked up and have to wait for years on death row. What steps are the Government taking to persuade the Pakistan Government to abolish this truly abhorrent law?