Sikh religion is strongly opposed to discrimination based on caste.
UN set to treat caste as human rights violation Nepal Breaks Ranks, Backs Draft Manoj Mitta | TNN
New Delhi: If the recent genome study denying the Aryan-Dravidian divide has established the antiquity of caste segregation in marriage, the ongoing session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva looks set to recognize caste-based discrimination as a human rights violation. This move, despite India’s opposition, follows Nepal’s breaking ranks on the culturally sensitive issue.
Nepal has emerged as the first country from South Asia — the region where untouchability has been traditionally practised — to declare support for the draft principles and guidelines published by UNHRC four months ago for ‘‘effective elimination of discrimination based on work and descent’’ — the UN terminology for caste inequities.
In a side-event to the session on September 16, Nepalese minister Jeet Bahadur Darjee Gautam said his county welcomed the idea mooted by the UNHRC document to involve ‘‘regional and international mechanism, the UN and its organs’’ to complement national efforts to combat caste discrimination. This is radically different from India’s stated aversion to the internationalization of the caste problem.
To India’s embarrassment, Nepal’s statement evoked an immediate endorsement from the office of the UN high commissioner for human rights, Navanethem Pillay, a South African Tamil. Besides calling Nepal’s support ‘‘a significant step by a country grappling with this entrenched problem itself’’, Pillay’s office said it would ‘‘like to encourage other states to follow this commendable example’’.
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/history-of-sikhism/26840-un-set-treat-caste-human-rights.html
The reference to India was unmistakable since Pillay had pressed the issue during a visit here in March.
India Isolated?
UN proposes to equate discrimination on basis of caste — on grounds of work, descent — to rights violation
India has long opposed ‘internationalization’ of the caste issue
Nepal supports draft, first south Asian country to do so
Reference:: Sikh Philosophy Network http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/showthread.php?t=26840
UNHRC calls upon India to follow Nepal’s example
Worldwide, 200m face caste bias: UN
The granddaughter of a labourer taken to South Africa from a village near Madurai, Pillay recalled that in 2006, PM Manmohan Singh had compared untouchability to apartheid.
Adding to India’s discomfiture, Sweden, the president of EU, said, ‘‘Caste-based discrimination and other forms of discrimination based on work and descent is an important priority for EU’’. If this issue continues to gather momentum, UNHRC may adopt the draft principles and guidelines and send them for adoption to the UN General Assembly. It cited caste as one of the grounds on which more than 200 million people in the world suffer bias. ‘‘This type of discrimination is associated with the notion of purity and pollution and practices of untouchability, and is deeply rooted in societies and cultures where this discrimination is practiced,’’ it said.
Though India succeeded in keeping caste out of the resolution adopted by the 2001 Durban conference on racism, the issue has since reemerged in a different guise. TNN
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