There is no need to look for hours to find proof of discrimination against Dalit in India. Daily newspapers deal with the subject everyday through extremely violent crimes : murders and rapes of Dalits are aw fully usual piece of news in South Asia.
Dalits represent about 16% of the Indian total population, that is to say 160 millions of people. They face violence everyday and crime statistics against the ex-untouchables are particularly shocking. According to national figures more than 25 000 crimes against Dalits are commited every year.
Experts and Human Rights organisations estimate that this figure is far away from reality. Even if the caste system was officially abolished in 1950 with the Constitution of India, a large part of population, especially in the rural areas still defend this system, including civil servants, policemen and officials.
Dalits during a buddhism conversion
Thus, more than 60 000 complains are registered each year against police abuse or for complicity in atrocity acts against Dalits. Yet the government has implemented the Prevention of Atrocities Act in 1989 to reduce this phenomenon, but the development of a dalit activism for Human Rights in the country since then has just made the violences rise.
Discriminated on two counts, for their gender and for their caste, dalit women are critically hit by discrimination in their daily life. Many dalit teenage girls are forced into prostitution on religious purpose : they become devadasis, which means female servant of god. As devadasis, they «belong» to a temple and can not get married. They are often forced to have sexual relations with upper-caste men.
But significative improvements have been made since the independance of India, and with affirmative action and activism of trade-unions, non-gouvernemental organisations and dalit organisations, the situation will surely keep on improving in the next years.
