Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Dalits complain against discrimination
KARACHI: Pakistan's scheduled caste minorities or Dalits have
expressed serious concern over social and economic discrimination
against them, including organised attempts to reduce their share in
the overall population of Pakistan in the house counting and
forthcoming census.
As well as in forced labour, abduction of Dalit girls and then their
forced conversion to Islam and illegal occupation of religious places
of the minorities. Representatives of the scheduled caste were
speaking at a meeting of the Pakistan Dalit Solidarity Network held at
the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research Centre
(PILER).
The participants expressed their concern over the exclusion policies
against the Dalit population everywhere in Pakistan and demanded the
government to provide protection to them and allot government land to
the landless peasants of the low-caste monitories' communities. A
large number of Dalit families are working at the lands of big
landlords, where they face torture and bonded labour. The
representatives of the scheduled cast communities demanded that the
share of Dalits in employment, educational scholarships, national
resources, development schemes and in parliament is inadequate, which
should be enhanced according to their proportion in the overall
population.
The primary schools in many areas in Tharparkar district are either
closed or not functioning and there are no health facilities in the
localities of Dalits, they said. They decried that political parties
are providing assembly tickets for the reserved seats of minorities to
only the upper caste Hindus, whereas actually the scheduled caste
population is much more than the upper caste Hindus in Pakistan, but
in practice it is ignored.
They feared that in the forthcoming census, the population ratio of
Dalits in the overall minorities would further be reduced, as many
scheduled caste people could include themselves in the category of
Hindus, where a separate category of "Scheduled Caste" is also
included in the religion column. They underlined the need to create
awareness among Dalit families for getting themselves registered in
the census as a "Scheduled Caste." pr
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